Teamwork
“Teamwork” is the theme of our annual Back to School issue, being sent to both subscribers and non-subscribers alike this week. As Senator Hillary Clinton once said, “It takes a village” to educate a child. We are all in it together, parents, teachers, staff, the students themselves, indeed the entire community.
It also takes teamwork to produce your community newspaper. In the coming months, we will mark the 50th anniversary of the Laursen family owning L&M Publications. Faith and Johannes Laursen, two professional journalists in their early 40s, with time enough left in their working years to build something, really felt like part of a team working with Advertising Manager Frank Nausbaum and Office Manager Florence Spencer and Bill Meyer, who faithfully to this day takes care of the addressing and newsstands.
But their team also included community members such as Grace Anton, whose husband Karl founded Merrick Life back in 1938, the chamber of commerce and many other local groups and loyal advertisers such as Meadow Brook National Bank, Garfield Pharmacy, Concord Furriers, Savall Drugs, Merrick Chemist, N. F Walker Funeral Home, Wantagh Funeral Home, Frank Sette, Martin Oil, New York Telephone Company, Addy Oldsmobile, Freeport Taxi and the Gables Theatre showing “Indiscreet” with Ingrid Bergman and “The Key” with Sophia Loren.
Also in October 1958, St. John’s Lutheran’s new church building was dedicated. Nassau County supervisor candidate Joseph Suozzi promised “you could have sound, modern over-all planning, instead of patchwork spot zoning. You should have county help with your school tax burdens. You deserve expanded, state-aided youth facilities.”
Despite a recent gang incident, the Laursens termed the town a fine location in which to raise their children and “a community with the broad cultural advantages of a large city and the natural advantages and friendliness of a small town.”
Over the years, L&M Publications quadrupled to four newspapers and a website covering six communities, and the staff and team of community supporters did too. A second and even third generation of Laursens and Toscanos stand at end of the present looking towards the future and wonder what role you, our readers, see for the community newspaper in your lives.
The conventional wisdom is that people are too busy to read newspapers any more, except for the local news of their neighbors. Only when a hot issue, such as a zoning change, affects them personally, are they likely to turn to their newspaper for aid in rallying the troops.
It seems the more involved in the community a family is, the more likely they are to read the local newspaper, to vote and to shop in local stores. But what about those who do not feel involved?
That is, those who are receiving this newspaper as a sample this week in order to entice you to subscribe. We hope you like what you see and are also interested in hearing what you would like to see that we may have overlooked.
We welcome anyone who would like to be part of our advisory board as we create our business plan for the future. Contact Lindatoscano12@yahoo.com
If you do not now subscribe, fill out the form in this issue or e-mail us at lmsubs@optonline.net, or call us at 378-5320. Signing up subscribers is a great fundraiser for local organizations, who get $6 for each subscription.
If you are celebrating an anniversary too in the coming months, whether of your business, your organization or your marriage, contact us so we can all celebrate together – in print and online!