With 2023 coming to a close, I am excited to officially announce a new project that has been in the works for the past year.

“Through the Years: The Magazine,” is a new publication created by yours truly.

When we first bought the paper in January of this year, just about everything we knew and did, changed. I learned bookkeeping, to the best of my abilities. I also took on the role of working up obituaries, legals and the “Through the Years” section of the paper.

One of my first changes was to expand the “Through the Years” section, which the public really seemed to enjoy.

Every week, I watched as our social media page drew consistent comments and likes on our “Through the Years” posts – it is always a big hit!

Kyle and I spent many hours and late nights in the beginning brainstorming projects that we wanted to create or even build on projects that we were already doing. One of those nights I told Kyle, “We should do a ‘Through the Years’ magazine.”

At that time, we were scrambling to get the annual “Trout Times” magazine out, as it was our first year doing it alone and it is always out by March 1. So, the “Through the Years” magazine kind of sat on the back burner for a couple of months.

It came to the forefront of our minds in the early summer, when our advertising Executive Sheila went out to begin selling it. This is a big project, and there is a marked difference between the price of newsprint and the price of magazines, but she went out and pitched a brand-new project that we didn’t have a real reference to show — just an idea.

My job was to start working on gathering content, and I severely underestimated the amount of work that it would take. But, I slowly started thumbing through our bound issues of the Cassville Democrat.

I chose the years 1943, 1963, 1983 and 2003 to highlight this year.

Probably my favorite thing in this office is those bound issues. We have them stacked in order – thank you to former Office Manager Darlene Wierman – from 1927 to current, in the back of the office on shelves and tables.

Sometimes, people come in to try to find old stories, typically a family member’s obituary. And, we have lost a few books over the years from lending them out and not getting them back. I even noticed where some articles had been cut out for one reason or another.

For this project, I started with the 1943 book. It was absolutely fascinating.

The content is completely different from what we see today, and by the time I went through 2003, I could see the changes and advances in news and printing over a 70-year period.

Things like marriage announcements and family reunions were in much greater print demand in 1943, pre-social media era.

Stories were short and concise, and there were hardly any photos at all. Knowing that the Daugherty children visited their parents on Sunday or that Mr. Hayes and Mr. Melton butchered a hog on Thursday were important pieces on information for the people in the area at that time.

I watched the way the community was engaged in the newspaper from the “thank you’s” for sending a pie, to condolences for the loss of a loved one.

Today, we strive to continue that engagement just like it was in 1943; however, technology and specifically social media have changed the information delivery landscape. I am not knocking social media. It can be a wonderful tool, one that I use daily, but it has changed what a community looks like.

It’s the same information, just a new platform to share it.

Another thing I thought of a lot while reading the stories of 1943 and 1963 specifically, was how much the cost of things have changed – or the economy altogether.

In January 1943, a yearly subscription to the Cassville Democrat was $1.50 in county and $2.00 out of county. Accounting for inflation, in 2023, that would be $27.31 in county, which is within a few dollars of our regular rate of $31.23.

Where the price of so many things have gone up so dramatically, we’re proud to say the price of news has remained affordable. And, we now offer senior and military discounts – call me today!

While a copy of the Cassville Democrat today looks completely different from a copy in 1943, the major goals over the last 80 years have not changed.

Advertisers are how we get that information to you, and we have a wonderful community of businesses who support that, as well as the number of special projects we do throughout the year.

The newspaper industry has been struggling throughout the country, and while we have a smaller community to serve, it is because of your engagement we are able to continue to do so.

So, while I hope to check out this week’s “Through the Years” section in the Cassville Democrat, whether in print or on social media, I also hope you pick up a copy of the “Through the Years: The Magazine” when it is available.

Let us take an adventure together from 1943 to today, where we can learn about the lives and the events that brought us from then to now.

TroutMom says, sometimes, taking a look through the years is a wonderful way to reinvigorate the present and reimagine the future.

Jordan Troutman is the Owner and General Manager of the Cassville Democrat, a wife, a mother of two daughters, a graduate of Capella University with a Bachelor’s in General Psychology and is pursuing a Master’s in Marriage and Family Therapy. She may be reached at [email protected].