The Zephyrhills News

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Zephyrhills News logo c.2004

The Zephyrhills News, located in Zephyrhills, Florida, is a weekly broadsheet newspaper located in Pasco County just north of Tampa. It is the second oldest business still in operation in the city, founded in 1911 as the Zephyrhills Colonist. It publishes every Thursday.

Its current general manager is Linda Wood, and is between editors as of March 19, 2007 when editor Gary S. Hatrick was dismissed over a disagreement about publishing styles with the current owner. It is published by Scripps Zephyrhills News LLC. Its circulation is under 5,000 paid subscribers. Its current marketing campaign tells potential readers that it is the "voice of the Pure Water City." Its main weekly competitor was the Pasco News in Dade City, which published the Zephyrhills Sun. Daily papers in the market include the Pasco Tribune published by the Tampa Tribune, and the Pasco Times published by the St. Petersburg Times.

1 History
2 Office Locations
3 Community Impact
4 Editors
5 External links
6 References

[edit] History

The birth of the newspaper can be attributed to the efforts of Civil War Capt. H.B. Jefferies, who started the Colony Co. to help create a retirement community in Florida for retiring former Confederate soldiers. After finding land in Pasco County, Jefferies named the rolling land "Zephyrhills" and began to sell parcels. Needing an avenue to advertise real estate, Jefferies looked to a soldier who once saved his life, G.H. Gibson, to start a newspaper. Gibson, who was the publisher of a newspaper in Loup City, Nebraska called The Standard Gauge, accepted what was considered a "lucrative" offer from Jefferies to move to the new Zephyrhills and start the Zephyrhills Colonist a year later.

Gibson had his entire plant shipped by rail to Zephyrhills, but the equipment arrived before the press plant itselt was completed. So, for the first several months of its existence, the Colonist was written, composed and printed outside. The equipment would be covered each night while staff members would stand guard until the roof and walls were completed.

A decade later, Sam Lovett would take over the paper and rename it the Zephyrhills News. He, in turn, sold the paper to a group of Zephyrhills businessmen in 1930 led by Dr. Bernard A. Thomas, a dentist. Following Thomas' death, the paper was purchased by Walter Gall who sold the newspaper to Howard Berg in 1948. In 1950, the paper was sold again, this time to George Johnson, who owned newspapers in Kentucky, Tennessee and Florida. However, Johnson himself died soon after the purchase was complete, and his widow sold the publication back to the Gibson family, with Floyd Gibson -- G.H.'s son -- taking over.

After Floyd became mayor of Zephyrhills, he sold the paper to a Rock Island, Illinois journalist named George Wickstrom in 1955. His son, Bernie Wickstrom, would become editor-in-chief. The younger Wickstrom would later inherit the paper from his father, and would remain its editor until his death on September 10, 1987.

Although he remained the editor, Wickstrom sold the paper to The New York Times Company on December 15, 1978. In the 1980s, the paper would change hands twice, first to Asterisk Publishing Company in 1984 and later Republic Newspapers in 1988. The paper's current owner, Barry Scripps, purchased the paper in January 2003 with his Scripps Zephyrhills News LLC company. ^[1]

[edit] Office Locations

The original offices of the paper were once located on Fifth Avenue where the current First Baptist Church of Zephyrhills now stands.

In 1947, the paper moved to Sixth Street. Eight years later, it had moved back to Fifth Avenue where a consignment shop currently sits. It would move into its current facility at 38333 Fifth Avenue on February 22, 1959.

[edit] Community Impact

Alice Hall, a longtime reporter for the paper during the Bernie Wickstrom era, has a recreation center named after her in the city.
Longtime editor Bernie Wickstrom has a bandstand named after him near the Alice Hall center on the shores of Lake Zephyr.
In the late 1970s, when the city's longtime police chief, Bill Eiland, was fired, intensive coverage from the paper led a community outcry that ended with Florida's first successful recall election. Two city council members were removed, and their replacements rehired Eiland. The city has since named a gazebo after him while Pasco County officials have named a boulevard in his memory.
Floyd Gibson, a former publisher of the paper and son of the newspaper's founder, was elected mayor in the 1950s, but ran into some trouble when he didn't like what his former newspaper was printing about the city's administration. According to stories of that time period, Gibson -- who as mayor ran the police department -- had a reporter for the paper arrested and jailed without food or water for three days. The jailing came apparently after the reporter punched Gibson in the face.
Gary Hatrick, who riled many feathers with his commentaries and strong opinions while editor of the paper, was reportedly fired in March 2007 soon after comparing a 20-year-old city councilman to Adolf Hitler. ^[2] Hatrick clarified his position in a letter to the editor of The Laker saying that he did not compare the coucilman to Hitler, but that he rightfully called one of the councilman's proposed policies Hitleresque. He also said that the ownership did not fire him for that commentary, but for refusing to allow his work to be censored. Hatrick also claimed that the paper's ownership was not very pleased with his vast collection of Superman figurines. His position was not refilled, and an associate editor currently operates the editorial side.