The ad stood out in Saturday's Carthage Press as half-page ads usually do.
"PUBLIC AUCTION," it screamed in large, bold letters. In slightly smaller print were the details of this public auction. It will take place 10 a.m. Thursday, Nov. 18, at the former Carthage Press building at 527 S. Main.
At first glance, I wondered why The Press would give detailed directions to the site. "Central Street to Main Street, turn right, go five blocks to 527 S. Main." After all, anybody who reads the newspaper most likely knows where it used to be before Liberty Group Publishing officials decided to abandon the site and move to the land of the fast-food joints on Central Avenue.
Then it occurred to me that it was probably the same ad being placed all over the area and some people who saw those other incarnations might know where that fabled three-story building could be found.
According to the ad, the items to be auctioned off include: "office furniture and supplies, antique production items, computer equipment, wooden work benches, over 20 desks and bookcases, 15 plus filing cabinets, clip art books, Adbuilder Art CDs and books, art room and composing room supplies, filing baskets and trays, too many items to list, inventory still being taken."
Many of those items have been outdated for years, but most of them are no longer needed because the Press work force, as I have noted over the past few months in The Turner Report, has been whittled away over the past several years.
First, it was the press room people as a perfectly good working press that had handled such publications as The Chart, the Greenfield Vedette, the Miller Press, the Webb City Sentinel, the Wise Buyer in Webb City, high school newspapers for Carthage, Joplin, Webb City, Carl Junction, and Lamar, and of course, The Press and its shopper, Southwest Missouri Scope, was sold for parts and the business was sent down the road to the regional manager's site at Neosho.
Of course, that was the dark era for the daily in which its publisher was Valerie Praytor, who promply lost all of those high school newspaper contracts because they were "too small" and didn't "bring in enough money." Of course, she didn't replace that source of revenue with anything else, another of the reasons why her departure wasn't exactly mourned by anyone in the company at that time.
After the press workers, came the composing room people, including the invaluable Jennifer Martin, who had worked at The Press for more than 30 years. That business, too, was shipped to Neosho. The ad inserters also became a thing of the past as that is also done at Neosho.
I could go on and on about why this auction became necessary. I am sure it will put a few more dollars in the coffers for The Press, or at least for Liberty Group Publishing.
Obviously, there was no way all of the items that were stored in that majestic building, which had been the home for the Press for more than half a century, could be fit into a little, cookie-cutter building on Central.
Now, the officials at The Press and at Liberty can get back to their efforts to bring business back to downtown Carthage.
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In its Oct. 30 edition, the Northwest Arkansas Times of Fayetteville, Ark., featured a story on Webb City High School junior Brad Mathewson, who has been the center of controversy after protesting high school officials' decision to keep him from wearing a gay pride t-shirt.
In the article, which was written by former Pittsburg Morning Sun reporter Trish Hollenbeck, the Webb City situation was rehashed, but there wasn't any new information about Mathewson's time at Fayetteville, his most recent school before he transferred to Webb City. I am curious as to whether he had problems in that school. Hopefully, the Times reporters will follow up on the story at some later date.
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O'Sullivan Industries issued its quarterly report Monday and it didn't reveal anything much more than what has been in the company's most recent public filings.
"We anticipate the second quarter of fiscal 2005 will be challenging," million-dollar CEO Robert Parker said in the filing with Securities and Exchange Commission. That appears to be Parker's way of saying things aren't going to be getting better anytime soon.
The company also filed an amendment to its bylaws, officially changing the corporate headquarters from Lamar to 10 Mansell Court East, Suite 100, Roswell, Georgia, 30076.
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Liberty Group Publishing also posted its quarterly report Monday. Again, there was not much new information on it, but the company is loaded down with debt, according to published sources.
According to those sources, Liberty is paying out $60 million a year just to cover the debt it has incurred the last six years while expanding its collection of daily and weekly newspapers.
Liberty Group Publishing owns The Neosho Daily News, The Carthage Press, Neosho Post, Big Nickel, Miller Press, and Greenfield Vedette in this area, as well as more than 300 newspapers in the United States.
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The manslaughter trial of Edward Meerwald, 51, Noel, is scheduled to take three days, beginning Wednesday, Feb. 23, 2005, in Jasper County Circuit Court, where it is being held on a change of venue from Newton County.
Meerwald was allegedly driving drunk when he killed James Dodson, Neosho, and Dodson's seven-year-old granddaughter on July 31.