Building Products Digest's Long Southern Heritage

Although Building Products Digest is a new trade publication, its heritage extends deeply into the South.

Informing building supply retailers and wholesalers in l3 Southern states about important Southern business developments, Building Products Digest under the leadership of publisher David Cutler will carry on the tradition of journalistic excellence begun by the late Jack Dionne, longtime Southern publisher.

Dionne, after spending over half a decade working on two leading Texas lumber magazines, started his own Houston-based lumber journal in 1913. He edited this magazine, the Gulf Coast Lumberman, for more than 50 years before selling it.

During these years his publishing enterprise extended to the West where he started what is now called The Merchant Magozine in Los

Angeles, Ca., in 192. Cutlerlearned the Dionne philosophy of practical editing combined with active in-field reporting as an editor on this staff. Later Cutler purchased The Merchant and, developed it into the leading publication for the retailer and wholesaler of lumber, building materials and home improvement in the 13 Western states.

As an editor-publisher, Dionne was a familiar visitor at Southern sawmills and lumber operations. He was an organizer of the Texas Forestry Association and secretary of the Lumberman's Association of Texas for nearly 30 years. He is well remembered as a marvelous story teller, after dinner speaker and witty philosopher.

His theory of editing a magazine "from a practical standpoint by a practical man who specializes in knowing" lives on in both Building Products Digest and its sister publication, The Merchant.