Waggener High School - RingBrothersHistory.com

The Voice, July 25, 1974:25th Anniversary Issuebeing forced, but willing, to be a vital part of it. That’s living the good life and the full life.Life began: Life really begin April 1, 1952, when I acquired The Voice of St. Matthews from James K. Van Arsdale III,who had smelled out a newspaper opportunity in St. Matthews in July, 1949. Jimmy did a good advertising selling job inhis three years with the paper, and achieved success in selling it at a good price.The sales contract put me on notice to make a newspaper out of a shopper (with a sometimes front page of local news) intwo years, and with good help we did. Subscription selling started in June with a booth at the Potato Festival, and by October1, The Voice boasted a paid circulation of 2,600, which kept growing. It was well over 4,000 in two years, when Jimmyasserted his right to reenter the newspaper business in St. Matthews with the St. Matthews Pictorial, later combined withThe St. Matthews Sun. In seven months both were out of business.Later, in the purchase of Jefferson County’s oldest weekly, The Jeffersonian, we acquired the rights to publish The Sun, butnever did.Five-year plans: Throughout my 19 years as publisher, The Voice publications were strongly conservative, independentRepublican. It seems a little odd, therefore, that growth seemed to follow the old Russian five-year plans. In the first 15years, we changed locations every five years to get out of cramped quarters, and expanded into more space within eachfive-year period.In 1952 we had two rooms on the second floor of the Colony Way building, expanding into more space there when BillJenny moved his Stone Studio into another Eline Realty Co. building across from Bacon’s.In ‘57 we bought a job printing business and moved to 108 Meridian, back of Plehn’s Bakery. In ‘62 we finally got ShirleyPalmer-Ball to build for us on Chenoweth Square, present location of The Voice Newspapers and Quik Print. In ‘67 thatbuilding was enlarged 50 percent, and we reserved space alongside for further expansion.Through these years we were fighting for our very existence in the field the big city dailies felt they owned. All the whilewe felt the pressures of equally great but less obnoxious competition, radio, television, direct mail, other suburban papers,and other small local competition. Just managing to stay In business, even without growth, was, some years, a major accomplish-ment.And all of that persists today, in even greater measure.We were fortunate from the start to have the good will of the entire community. Ever so many people were a great help, andwe still feel a golden glow of appreciation for their efforts. Those who were of no help, at least were not against us.Way back in 1952 and through most of the 1950s, were it not for Fred Bittner, retired owner of Bittner’s Office Supplies,Clayton Vanetti, now a Jeffersontown Realtor, the late Dean Delaney of the furniture business, and many more dealers in“white goods,” refrigerators, ranges, washers, dryers, and later, televisions, The Voice couldn’t have made it. Those mentionedwere regular and loyal big-space advertisers, due to the coop advertising allowances of the time.Many, many others expressed their friendship toward the newspaper in smaller space contracts and were equally appreciated,but they were too numerous, fortunately, to mention by name.The very fact that the basic philosophy of the CJ & Times advertising department was to “get The Voice,” particularly whenThe Voice first showed signs of growing, resulted in an automatic community desire to help the struggling young paper thatseemed to be making some progress by itself.I can think of no greater pleasure today than to be able to thank each one of the hundreds of people who wrote news andwho sold advertising for The Voice Newspapers through the years.So, to all of you, thanks for everything and reading this . . . and The Voice Newspapers for 25 years.Schansberg now lives in an apartment off Chenoweth Lane, runs a small real estate management company and travels agood deal with his wife Margaret.