Lamar Democrat becomes a weekly

My old newspaper, the Lamar Democrat, which has been a twice-weekly newspaper since 1983, is now a once-a-week publication, according to a page-one announcement in the most recent edition.

I first worked for the Lamar Democrat as its sports editor in 1978, back when it was a daily newspaper, printing on weekdays. I was a victim of budget cuts in December of that year, but the company brought me back a month later to become editor of its weekly newspaper, the Lockwood Luminary-Golden City Herald. Ten months later, the Luminary-Herald went out of business.

Between March of 1979 and 1981, the Democrat went through a ruinous period in which Publisher Tommy Wilson and Editor Dave Farnham ran it into the ground, alienating the community so much that business owners helped in the creation of XChanger 2, a weekly shopper that immediately took the advertising of Lamar Supermarket and many other businesses that had long been staples in the Democrat.

Wilson and Farnham left, just ahead of the Boone Newspapers posse in early 1981 and Boone Newspapers sent in a troubleshooter, Doug Davis, to take over the newspaper. Davis was forced to cut the publication from a daily to a weekly, and faced an even bigger challenge- making sure it continued to exist.

He implemented immediate changes, including one stroke of genius, a page one column called Today in Barton County which featured different writers from the community. The local touch not only added a more positive bent to the newspaper that had been sorely lacking during the Wilson-Farnham era, but it also launched a superstar in octogenarian historian Reba Young, who quickly grabbed readers' attention with her articles on Barton County at the turn of the century.

Doug Davis hired me as the newspaper's managing editor in November 1982 with the idea of increasing all news coverage, but especially school and sports. The approach worked and a few months into 1983, the frequency of the newspaper was changed from once to twice a week, which it remained for the next 30 years.

Davis bought the Democrat from Boone Newspapers in 1985. Though the paper was doing far better than it had before Davis' arrival, we were still facing problems due to the continued existence of XChanger 2, the entry into the community of Wal-Mart, which quickly shuttered some of the Democrat's advertisers, and the demise of Lamar IGA, the grocery store which had remained loyal to the Democrat.

Davis came up with another bold stroke- he doubled the subscription price for the newspaper and increased our news coverage. He let me know quickly that this was not going to be accomplished by pouring money into full-time reporters so he left it to me to come up with the method.

That was the beginning of the Democrat's use of high school and college age reporters. Davis had successfully used this approach from time to time with Russell Viers and Tim Bodine, but those high schoolers had primarily covered school and sports news.

For my last four years at the Democrat, until I took a job with the Carthage Press in April 1990, I was fortunate enough to find a series of talented young people who covered not only school and sports, but also covered community news. I hate to list those young people since I am certain to leave someone out, but among those whose work graced the Democrat during those days were Kari Wegener, Peggy Brinkhoff, Jason Stansberry, Amy Lamb, Holly Sundy, Cherie Thomas, Randee Kaiser, Mindy Atnip, and Mary Lou Newman.

During that time, I was also fortunate to have a wonderful part-time feature writer in Judy Probert of Golden City, who at one-time had been an editor at the Luminary-Herald.

After I left, the Democrat continued to successfully use young reporters, including Cait Purinton, John Jungmann, and Chris Morrow.

Davis' 30 plus years as Lamar Democrat publisher ended a couple of weeks ago when he sold the newspaper.

And while the news of the Democrat becoming a weekly newspaper once again, is disappointing, it is important to remember that without the contributions of Doug Davis, the Lamar Democrat would probably exist just in yellowed copies and microfilm.