The Carmi Rotary club was visited on Thursday by Kathy Sands, editor of the Villager’s Voice newspaper in Norris City.
Kathy started with a little history, as she told the Rotarians that newspapers had almost always been a part of Norris City. In fact, Norris City opened their first post office in 1871, and their first newspaper followed in 1895. Since that time, papers have opened and closed, but the need for a local paper has never gone away.
The Norris City Banner started operation in 1974, and closed its doors in 2011. Not long after that closing, John and Lois Schofield began working to open a new paper, and in August of 2011 they published the first edition of the Villagers Voice.
The paper focuses on Norris City and the surrounding area, but is also becoming more than just a Norris City paper with features from Carmi, and Enfield. In fact, Kathy noted, Enfield’s Mule Day has named the Villagers Voice as the official paper of Mule Day.
The Villagers Voice is put together in Norris City, and then a company in Princeton, Indiana prints the 1000 papers that are distributed each week. The paper also has a website, which is kept up to date. The website: www.thevillagersvoice.com is a free site. Kathy also noted that the advertising rates for the paper and the website are very competitive.
To save money on the weekly rate, half year subscriptions can be picked up for $20.00 per year, and a full year is only $39.00.
In club business, President Tom Logan reminded the club about the upcoming trivia contest, which will be held on Saturday, March 19th at the American Legion in Carmi. More details to follow on this big event.
Kent Armstrong won the 50/50 drawing for the second week in a row, and for the second week in a row pulled the winning ball from the bucket to claim the cash prize.
Randy Adams was named the day’s phantom.
The Carmi Rotary club meets every Thursday at noon at the First United Methodist Church in Carmi. Anyone wishing to learn more about this worldwide civic club is more than welcome to attend a meeting or speak with any Carmi Rotarian.
