LUCAS — Another 50 subscriptions would help Rita Sharp sustain her small-town newspaper. Sharp has owned the weekly Lucas-Sylvan News since 2012. It covers the towns of Lucas in Russell County and Sylvan Grove, 12 miles away in Lincoln County.
Sharp’s paper has weathered the coronavirus pandemic, the rise of social media as a source for news and advertising, and the aging and shrinking population in Lucas (population 337) and Sylvan Grove (population 285). Without missing an issue even when the pandemic closed schools, city and county businesses, and events, Sharp continued publishing. She mails about 450 copies a week to local residents and readers across the country, a circulation that keeps dropping. Sharp inserts ad flyers and applies address labels by hand every week before mailing.
“I’m here for the kids. They’re our future,” Sharp said about her motivation. “I want them to come back here when they see how great it is, and to bring back what they’ve learned. They say it takes a village, but I say it takes villages. We are many towns working together to raise these kids.”
Why should we care about a tiny paper out on the edge of Western Kansas, or any small newspaper toiling away to keep going against the odds?
On August 11, when the Marion County Record was raided by local police, the strobe light of national attention swung toward Kansas journalism. An outpouring of support for the newspaper and the press’s preservation of First Amendment freedoms brought more than 4,000 new subscriptions, doubling the Marion County Record’s previous reach.
Of course it’s our responsibility to champion publisher Eric Meyer’s determination to cover cops, courts and city and county without fear or favor. I encourage us to remember, once the attention drifts from Marion, that many small and smaller newspapers in Kansas also deserve our support.
Sharp calls it “the power of the printed word” not only to keep us informed, but to preserve local history as it happens.
And as it happens, Sharp is selling more papers each week— from $30 to $44 a year for online, in-state, or out-of-state subscriptions — than there are households in Lucas and Sylvan. This indicates the importance of the news to residents and those who want to stay in touch with their hometowns. If ads and subscriptions stop supporting small newspapers, this community-building record of births, deaths, high school graduations, 4-H activities and library programs also goes away.
In July, the Lucas-Sylvan News – one of 188 weekly papers in Kansas today – celebrated 135 years in Lucas. Before the News, there were the Lucas Advance, Sentinel and Independent, all weekly papers. Sharp reproduced their first front pages full-size in the July 20 edition. An 1889 Chandler and Price offset press still occupies the basement of the Main Street building where Sharp runs her paper. She is proud of the 1909 Chandler and Price guillotine cutter she often uses.
To support the newspaper, Sharp designs business cards and creates banners, wedding invitations, letterhead and other printed material. The Lucas Publishing Co. has kept visionary folk artist S.P. Dinsmoor’s booklet The Cabin Home, a guide to his concrete Garden of Eden, in print since he wrote it in 1927. The Lucas tourist brochure that Sharp designed has been the most-used brochure at the nearest I-70 Kansas Travel Information Center.
Sharp and editor LaRee Bretz, a 20-year employee of the paper, put out digital and print issues on 10-yearold computers. Each issue is an entertaining reading experience from the front page to the advertisements and obituaries, almost always highlighting the activities of children in sports, scholarship, arts, and service.
To spend an hour in the newspaper office is to observe telephone calls and visits by residents needing help with post office regulations or questions about how to find information. Sharp is willing to help.
Always humble, she laughed and called herself a Jill of All Trades. She is a former certified EMT and 6-year, non-career postal worker. She gardens and preserves produce, designs and sews her clothing, and sells her paintings, photography and jewelry at Switchgrass Artist Cooperative, right across Main Street from her office.
“People ought to know having a newspaper is an identity for a town, just like having a school and a post office. The printed word is our richest resource there is,” Sharp said.
Editor’s Note: This editorial was originally published by the Kansas Reflector. Lori Brack is an author who has worked in programs and publications for the Salina Art Center, as a college and community writing instructor and as director of a foundation-funded artist development project in Salina. She lives in Lucas. Through its opinion section, Kansas Reflector works to amplify the voices of people who are affected by public policies or excluded from public debate.
