It's always sad when a newspaper publishes its last edition. The Wheaton Journal recently joined that list with subscribers now receiving the Cassville Democrat in its place.
I was editor of three newspapers that went out of business (one after I left and two while I was still editor) so I know the sadness that goes with it. I was the last editor of the Lockwood Luminary-Golden City Herald when it went out of business in October 1979. Doug Davis briefly ran a Jasper County News paper from August 1989 to December 1990. I helped get it started with the help of Cherie Thomas, Mindy Atnip, Holly Sundy, and David Hopkins. When I left to go to Carthage in March 1990, Cherie ended up doing most of the work, but she was barely out of high school at the time, there was no advertising for the newspaper and it did not last long.
The last newspaper I worked for that no longer exists was The Lamar Press, which I still say is the best weekly this area has seen in recent years. Again, advertising, plus the theft of many of our newspapers as we delivered them free in Lamar the first couple of issues cut us off before we could get any momentum and the paper was gone after 49 weeks.
Except for the paltry advertising, the weekly had a strong combination of local news, local sports, local photos, and best of all local columns. After a year of reading columns by Nancy Hughes, Marvin VanGilder, Kim Earl, Katie Jeffries, Cait Purinton, Doug Oakes, Amy Lamb and me, as well as sports writing from John Jungmann and occasional contributions from Carthage Press reporters Ron Graber and Brian Webster, I imagine it took a while for the locals to get used to the newspaper that still remained.
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