Eastern North Carolina Press Association

For about one quarter century I have been associated with and attended most of the meetings of a small newspaper group named the Eastern North Carolina Press Association. As one of the members of this loosely organized group I once served as President as all of us took turns getting the annual meeting put together. The group is not only small in number, but almost every newspaper represented has a circulation less than 10000 per week. Most of these publications are owned by individuals and not large corporate chains. All are intimately connected to their communities and do much of the grunt work to get their publications to the subscribers.

What does this have to do with Small Town Investor? Plenty. I worked for over three decades at several of those publications. If there ever was a small town investor these guys are it. Many of these entrepreneurs bought or started their publications with saved or borrowed capital and today are struggling to keep their businesses going in a tough economy. They deal with ever evolving technology, staff problems, doing bookkeeping, being an editor, dealing with customers both advertising and subscribers, covering local sporting events, attending almost every possible community event from birthdays to local celebrations, and the list just goes on and on.

I attend the annual meeting now to visit with people who I have known for years and to keep up with current trends in the industry. (Ok, I admit it I do go for the excellent seafood dinner too.) I also go to admire these people and what they do to continue to work in a business that has seen declining prospects of late. Remember these people are not the big corporate types, they are working to pay their bills for the business and personal living. Most times a large portion of their life savings is tied up in the value of their publications.

This weekend I attended the 64th annual meeting of the group. As usual I came away impressed with their efforts and convinced as long as their are small towns that have local boards that need covering, local high schools that needs pictures of marching bands and football teams, brides wanting wedding pictures in local newspapers, someone wanting to sell their used car, local grocers needing to advertise specials, local auto dealers wanting to sell vehicles, and the list goes on, the need for local newspapers will always be there. Therefore there will always be people who want to do the hard work of putting out a small local newspaper.

The individuals who operate small newspapers are some of the world's great optimists and we as citizens and the towns we live in are made better because they exist. I am blessed to have worked with many of these people, to visit with them this weekend, and remain convinced they are truly small town investors. I look forward to next year's meeting where I will again get a dose of real world investing.