Speaking Personally: An iron anniversary

   The traditional wedding gift for six years of marriage should be made of iron. Each passing year, the gifts are supposed to be made of progressively stronger material  -- paper, cotton, leather, wood. Having recently celebrated our 15-year wedding anniversary, it makes sense to me. Every passing year strengthens the bond. At a certain point, the bond lasts because of the everyday choices that build it up.

   If a long-lived marriage is a triumph of the will, then a successful six years in the newspaper business is the triumph of a will of iron. As we celebrate the iron anniversary of the newspaper, I want to acknowledge certain particular wills of iron – without which you would not be holding this newspaper in your hands.

 

Ours

   It's safe to say I’ve become known for my will of iron. Ron’s will of iron is no less unbending than mine, and his has been just as crucial to our success. In all the chaos of our inexperience, new babies, toddlers, computer disasters, and our office building literally falling down around us, we have never failed to put out a paper. Ron builds these pages (and most of the ads) every week  and has never given up once – though I admit he’s done a fair bit of cussing on deadline days.

 

   Some days, when this business is tough, and I’ve spent the day being disrespected, dismissed, and defied, I think about the person I was before we bought the newspaper. I was a work-from-home mom, a freelance writer. 

 

   We were happy, blissfully unaware of the power struggles, politics, villains, or heroes of Howell County. I had no fangs (or horns & tail) in those days. I had no looming shadow. My will of iron was known only to my family.

 

Wendell Bailey

   Yes, we were happy, but we were out of place. Just as our neighbors and their cares were unknown to us in those days – we were unknown too. We were a decent and friendly little family, but we struggled to find a niche. 

 

   That changed the first time I spoke to Wendell Bailey on the phone. Howell County News went out of print in June 2019, and as he is wont to do, Wendell made it his mission to save it. Wendell has a vision for Willow Springs. Willow Springs, in his vision, is a town with a newspaper.

 

   He did so much legwork – he contacted the Missouri Press Association. He did research on preserving the publication’s legal status. He made a list of potential buyers for the paper and started calling. I’ve never been brave enough to ask how far down that list my name was, but I do know one thing. 

 

   Ron and I were the ones who said yes. Wendell, and his will of iron, invited us into his vision for Willow Springs. We would try to revive the paper. With a financial boost from Wendell, Ron and I started talking with the possessor of the most important will of iron in this whole story. 

 

Kim Rich

   I had known Howell County News founder Kim Rich for about a year when we sat down to talk about buying her business. Our relationship up to that point was not one of peers.   

 

   Honestly, I was always a little awestruck by her. We met when I answered an ad in the paper for freelance reporters. In preparing for the interview, I learned she not only owned the newspaper, but was also a US Army veteran and the former mayor of Willow Springs.

 

I walked into her beautiful historic downtown building toting an eight-month-old baby boy and walked out with a side gig – I would populate content on the website every week and submit a monthly fish-out-of-water column. I wrote and worked for Kim in this capacity until the Tuesday I received her email announcing her last edition of the paper had gone to press. It was the end of the story for Howell County News. 

   I often regret the loss of Kim’s Howell County News. I used to love to read it. 

 

   The announcement did feel sudden to me, but I know now it was anything but. Today, I understand the will of iron it took to run this business through the rise of the internet, through babies, through the Great Recession, through smartphones, and through all the other workaday cares of eighteen years of newspapering.

 

For every day in this industry that I have made an enemy, been the subject of gossip, or generally been a nit to pick, she has seen it threefold. 

 

   If I get to celebrate my iron will this week, it’s thanks to her. 

 

   Six years ago, Kim Rich trusted us with her legacy, her reputation, and her building. It was her idea for our first issue to feature a photo of our family standing with her outside her office. She wanted us to succeed and gave us the tools to do so. 

 

   What we have made of the paper in the intervening six years has given us a place in this community. This work has given me a seat at tables where I never dreamed of sitting. It has opened doors to rooms I never knew I wanted to enter. 

 

   At the heart of it all, has been you. 

   I do not know the names of everyone who will read this column, but I know I owe each one of you a debt of gratitude. For six years, thousands of loyal readers have sustained us -- both financially and morally. If you have ever attached a nice note to a subscription renewal or sent me a kind email, I kept it. Sometimes, after a particularly nice conversation I write down a quote from a reader and add it to my collection. 

 

   It's a ballast against the hard days. 

 

   Happy six years to us, Howell County. Stay fascinating, and we’ll keep telling your stories.