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Outline of Need:
A fast growing area of Alaska needs reliable information. The community needed a local newspaper providing reliable coverage of events and meetings. An advertising director with 30 years of newspaper experience moved to the area and started a newspaper but was unable to marshal the financial resources necessary to convert her start-up once-a-month publication to a twice-a-month publication.
How Rural Development Helped:
When Judy Marie moved to Alaska from the "lower 48" states a decade ago, the last thing she expected to be was a newspaper publisher. She brought with her a long career in the newspaper business, but her main objective was to help out an adult son who was stationed at the Coast Guard base at Kodiak and was running his own business. When she was done with that, she decided to stay in Alaska and moved with a companion to his property and helped build a homestead in a roadless area north of the Susitna Valley community of Talkeetna. Talkeetna is a rustic, unincorporated town about 115 miles north of Anchorage. The homestead was accessible by rail service: once a week in the winter, and four times a week in the summer.
In the spring, Judy went to "town" and rented a two-room Talkeetna cabin with few amenities except electricity. Modern conveniences weren't the only thing in short supply. The community had no newspaper. The nearest regional paper was located 70 miles to the south. Her original intention was to publish a yearly tourist publication carrying advertising and travel information of interest to summer visitors, and return to the homestead in the fall. She named it "The Talkeetna Good Times." The paper was such a hit with the community and with advertisers that she soon found herself publishing a monthly newspaper with a combination of news stories and light articles. With winter closing in, she was suddenly too busy to return to the homestead, except for visits. She called a local realtor who found her a cabin with electricity and a small out building which housed her business. Later she connected the two with a rambling building doubling the office space.
Eventually, Ms. Marie hired two additional staff members. By now, her newspaper was very popular. One reason for the popularity was that it was "free," and another reason was that it was well designed. The business community and local residents asked her to publish the paper more often and provide additional service to surrounding communities including Sunshine, Trapper Creek and Willow, but to do that she needed more staff. She also needed a loan. In the spring of 2003, Public Information Officer Wayne Maloney dropped by for a visit and Ms. Marie talked to him about her business goals. She told him she was convinced the advertising dollars were there to support more frequent publication of her paper. He put her in contact with Rural Development staff who worked with her and a local credit union.
Six months later, the credit union made Ms. Marie and The Talkeetna Good Times a $135,000 loan with a Rural Development Business and Industrial Guaranteed Loan Program guarantee (learn more about this program). "Rural Development talked to me, looked at my business plan and decided we could make it happen, she said. In the spring of 2004, she changed the name of the paper to "The Talkeetna Times" and began publishing twice a month. Additionally, she publishes "The Talkeetna Good Times" as a once-yearly 100,000 copy publication aimed at tourists and visitors.
"The 'Good Times' is the yearly paper I planned to start ten years ago. I now publish that and the ‘Talkeetna Times,' which is an actual community newspaper. It's a growing paper in a growing area. The response has been overwhelming. We get so many calls, so much response. We do a better job providing information to our region in a timely manner," said Ms. Marie. Not only did the loan guarantee improve the business, it also allowed her to add staff. "We have four new employees, all from this area. We now have an office manager, another staff writer, a sales person and a production person. My staff now totals 7." With the additional staff, she says, she is better able to cover local events in Talkeetna and the surrounding area. It was a tough winter leading up to approval of the loan but "Now we're good. It's a growing business with a business plan," said Ms. Marie. She says eventually she hopes to set up a profit sharing plan and make the business employee-owned.
The Results:
The 2000 residents of the upper Susitna Valley are better served by a newspaper that is published with greater frequency by a larger staff than was in place before Rural Development made its loan guarantee. The advertisers are able to reach local residents with greater frequency, and additional area residents have year-round jobs.
(May 2004)
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