Dear Readers:
This issue marks our fourth anniversary publishing the Metro Spirit under my ownership.
As many of our readers know, the paper was founded in 1989, then sold to an out-of-town concern in the mid 2000s. I was promoted from sales slug to publisher by the new owners, where I stayed for a couple of years before moving on to Beasley Broadcasting. In 2011 I was fortunate enough to be in a position to buy the paper back from the Virginia-based company that had purchased it and here we are today.
The Metro Spirit is in its 26th year of publishing, with a one-month hiatus thrown in for the ownership change in ‘11. Interestingly, five of our seven full-time employees have been at the Spirit since we were in a little house on the Hill, fighting for space in closets and hallways. We’ve all worked here, left and returned, seemingly unfit for honest labor elsewhere.
Our current staff (just the old timers) and their original hire dates are:
Joe White, publisher 1993
Stacey Eidson, writer 1997
Gayle Bryan, sales 2000
Amy Christian, quarterback 2003
Molly Swift, writer 2004
Then of course we have young sportsman Joshua Bailey behind the big Mac screen and Bonnie Sloane as our newest salesperson. Add all of our great columnists, photographer Michael Johnson, delivery staff and numerous business support teams and you realize there are a lot of local people very involved in the running of this paper.
So thanks to everyone, readers and advertisers alike. Thanks to you, the Metro Spirit is thriving and looking ahead to many more years of journalistic excellence and good times.
Cheers,
Joe