Retire? I’ve never had much time to think about it.
Way, way back in 1980 I was on my knees pinning up a new pair of suit pants for Billy Harris, owner of the Starkville (Miss.) Daily News, wondering how in the world I’d spend the rest of my life. Somehow the clothing business just wasn’t a good fit.
We didn’t know it at the time, but Billy had the answer. Journalism.
Harris offered me $25 to cover a high school football game for the local, family-owned paper back when $25 was a lot of money. I didn’t want the assignment – never, ever working for a newspaper or having even written a story – but I wanted and needed the cash.
Short version. The next 15 years of my life were a whirlwind of jet planes and some of the century’s finest athletes as I became a sports columnist/editor. I’d found my niche and worked hard to get good at it.
It was awesome. Oh, the memories.
One of pro football’s finest running backs and gentleman, Walter Payton, seeing me in the lobby of the New Orleans Hilton and inviting me to his Super Bowl party. Charles Barkley asking me to sit with him in an Atlanta hotel lobby and share his pizza because he was trying to lose weight and couldn’t stop himself from eating the whole thing.
Oh, those memories. Of Bear Bryant thanking me for covering his final game. Of all-time NFL great Jerry Rice’s mom Etta B baking me a pie – from scratch – because I put Jerry’s name in the paper when he scored a touchdown for B.L. Moor High School in Oktoc, Mississippi. She was absolutely convinced that the publicity was going to get him a college scholarship.
Of advising baseball player Frank Thomas while he was at Auburn University to stick with that sport instead of football “because you don’t get hit so much or so hard.” Thomas laughed, told me I wasn’t the first person to say that, and went on to a pro baseball hall of fame career.
Will Clark and Rafael Palmeiro. Brett Favre. Joe Montana. Shaquille O’Neal. Bo Jackson, the greatest athlete I’ve ever seen. Emmitt Smith. Peyton Manning. Of Super Bowls and national championships. I have a memory and a story for each one of them – and lots of other sports figures – enough to fill a book.
It was in many ways a life in the fast lane. Like the time I spent a good part of the evening with Sandra Bullock when some of us at the Jackson (Miss.) Clarion-Ledger hosted some of the cast and crew from “A Time to Kill” at The Dock on Ross Barnett Reservoir in Jackson, Mississippi.
Then came you.
In 1995 I gave up on covering kids’ games and spending too little time with my 11-year-old daughter Catherine and moved to Salem to take over the family newspaper business. The Salem News. As good and entertaining as part one of my journalism life was, part two has been just as good, but in a much different way.
Instead of sharing beers and good food with all Americans, governors and hall of fame players and coaches, I’ve done that with you.
Sports continued to be a big part of my life as it was my good fortune to arrive in Salem during one of the most successful eras of high school football the state has ever seen. I’ve become a pretty good sports photographer, too. But sports have most often taken a back seat to making the payroll, holding meetings and being on more committees than a person should.
It’s been almost 29 years, one month since we made the drive on a snow-covered Highway 32/72 from Ridgeland, Mississippi, to Salem, Missouri. I wondered if I’d regret it. I haven’t.
You have been a joy.
The Salem News – which turned 100 a few years ago – was just the start. We added The Licking News then sold it. Loved the people of Licking. We expanded our commercial printing operation and at one time printed 12 local newspapers on our Goss Community five-unit press. We expanded sheetfed printing, too, keeping you stocked with business cards, NCR and Every Door Direct mailings. We bought Action Graphics Sign Company.
In 2017, we did the unthinkable in this day and time. We started a newspaper in Phelps County, named it Phelps County Focus and made it a huge success, eventually buying out the decades-old Rolla Daily News and shuttering it. At the same time we purchased the RDN, we revived the Pulaski County Weekly. What a ride.
Owning and running community newspapers in Salem, Licking, Rolla and the Waynesville-St. Robert area has been challenging and rewarding.
Newspapers in general have been a challenge. That’s no secret. The cash cow has turned into a money pit. I am half serious. I joke with employees that I grew a commercial printing business and bought a sign company so we could continue to put out good newspapers. There is some truth to that.
Anyway, I can’t begin in this bit of space to tell you more about what it has meant to live in a community like this where people – readers and advertisers (most of them) – loved “the paper.” Or to have employees like I’ve had. Or to have family that has been so supporting and so willing to sacrifice, especially my wife Felicia (assistant to publisher) and daughter Catherine (managing editor). Or what a gut-wrenching decision it was to sell it all and retire, made easier by all my friends in Puerto Vallarta who showed me what retirement can be like.
I’m lucky. Luckier than most, thanks to many of you. I traveled the country when my dad was in the Air Force, taking no more than a footlocker of belongings with me from base to base. Until moving to Salem, I’d never lived anywhere more than seven years. But now I have a place I can truly call home, and I can’t imagine a better way to make a living or a better place to do it.
Journalism is my calling. Community journalism is my passion.
There is still a great need for journalism, and I can’t envision what life is like in a community that doesn’t have a newspaper, be it in print or online or a combination of the two. I look at the way we reflect our communities in print and digital, telling stories that make us weep, make us proud and make us angry. We are truly a reflection of our community, a place to go to read all about you.
The results of the good folks with Salem Publishing who work hard to bring you a paper each week and timely websites are impressive. We are still printing 14,300 newspapers per week, and with an industry average of 2.8 readers per issue, that is 40,040 readers per week in Phelps, Dent, Pulaski and adjoining counties. Many of you have heard me groan that the number 2.8 is much higher in the Ozarks, where those up to the age of young Baby Boomers still “read mom and dad’s paper.”
Digital is the future, and we know that. Salem Publishing products have earned over three million pageviews each of the past two years and about 32,000 people follow us on social media.
This all gets me excited. But somebody else is going to have to carry the torch from here on, as Salem Publishing Company – its papers, websites, printing and sign company – will now be known as part of Carpenter Media Group-Heartland Division. We sold out to one of the up-and-coming newspaper groups that plans to reinvent local media. I like their plans, and you will learn more about them as time goes on.
Retire? I guess it’s time. Lots of people have told me when it’s time you’ll know it. Well, it’s time and I know it. I can give you a hundred reasons why I want to and a hundred more why I don’t.
I thank you for what you’ve done to make us so successful, and I urge you to support your local paper no matter what form you read it, because telling your stories is unbelievably important to a community and you don’t want to find out what life would be like without it.
Donald Dodd is president and publisher of Salem Publishing Company. He can be reached at donald@thesalemnewsonline.com or 573-729-4126.
