In late 1984, the family and I returned from a three year tour in the middle east. The desktop computer, in the form of APPLE II’s & III’s had proven worthy and reliable in the unfriendly climes of Riyadh, so when Gean announced she really did not want to go back to teaching (so she could stay at home with the children) we acquired a complete desktop publishing setup and launched our first work – THE BOAZ OUTLET BULLETIN – affectionately known as the BOB! The little yellow book was patterned after the Farmers Almanac and was filled with anecdotes, recipes, folk art, coupons and shopping aids for those who were making pilgrimage to the ever popular OUTLET Center’s in the old mill villages at BOAZ, AL. Before the days of the Internet, the book was circulated by direct mail or over the counter and at one point exceeded 10,000 copies quarterly.
So began our careers in publishing and advertising. Gean handled all the ad sales and layout work, I was the IT guy and contributing editor. The inside cover feature article was usually mine, in a section we called “Our Side”. Lighthearted comments on the way we saw everyday life in the big city of BOAZ.
We had more fun that a barrel of monkeys publishing the book. Never made any money at it, but we made a lot of friends and fans over the years. When we started, we both knew the OUTLET craze could not last for ever but our purpose was to help sustain it as long as we could. We like to think the BOB helped keep the Boaz Outlet Center alive for some additional measure of time … just how much we will never know. A tribute to the businesses in the Outlets, from small independents up to and including the big dogs like Nike and J Crew, we never faced an unpaid invoice for the entire run.
In the mid 1990′s the tax laws changed affecting the disposal of excess and nonstandard inventories in the garment industry. Wal-Mart was propagating like rabbits and the demise of the Outlet Centers began. We closed the final chapter on the BOB in 1993 but continued with other printed advertising & marketing materials for clients and customers around the southeast.
Upon moving to East Tennessee, we formed an LLC called Power of E. The fact that the letter “E” kept surfacing in almost every facet of my business and personal life was intriguing. Education, Engineering, Entrepreneurship, Energy, E=MC, Einstein, Edison, Electron, Environment …and on an on … and so began a new chapter in our business lives. By 2002, I had had enough of the big corporations and they me, so I parted company with Siemens, my last corporate giant of an employer, an struck out on a Real Estate career. All went well until the fall of 2008 when the housing bubble burst.
So now… we have returned to the vocation/avocation we enjoyed the most over the years – publishing – sharing with anyone who will listen the things we find noteworthy, exciting, informative, humorous, or just worth writing about in the Southern Appalachian Region.
With the rise of the Internet, printing presses are passe’, the BLOG or ” Web Log” is clearly the media of choice. With an even faster Web 2.0, text & graphics only publications do not sufice, so we have added both audio (Our Side Internet Radio -www.OurSideOnline.com) and video (Our Side MultiMedia www.OurSideMedia.com). Our multimedia productions are available as part of each post to the Blog, on demand at the media web addresses, and when appropriate streaming live – links also available on the media center web sites.
Unlike the old days, when we got letters in response to the things we wrote in the BOB, the Internet and our blogging software (WordPress) supports reader “comments” – immediate feedback to the Editors and writers. Readers are encouraged to comment on anything and everything seen or heard on this web site. We don’t publish comments and may or may not respond directly to each, but we do READ EVERY ONE.
Also, all of our post and pages are syndicated using the most popular syndicated systems RSS & ATOM. Subscribers are welcomed and encouraged with special offers during the course of the year. If you are not familiar with setting up a syndicated “feed reader” go Google Reader for more information. Most likely your browser includes a feed reader of some description, no software to download and install.
If you are inclined to contribute as an author to the BRPD by writing an article, conductng an interview, or submitting a video, please drop us an email with a brief summary of your post (article). We will respond with our level of interest.
The Blue Ridge Post Dispatch is intended to fill a gap between national and local information sources by covering a regional demographic generally known as Southern Appalachia – from Western Virgina to Birmingham, the mountains, rivers, and valleys in between. The region has a rich history and an exciting future. There are unlimited stories to be told about the region’s people, places and events - past, present, and future.
So here we go again! – The Blue Ridge Post Dispatch.
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