‘New look’ Bulletin to arrive Monday
As The Baxter Bulletin prepares to celebrate its 120th birthday in December, Phillips Media is proud to announce it is bringing its post-acquisition transition period to a close.
Beginning with the Monday, Nov. 15, print edition, The Bulletin will be produced in its entirety by Phillips Media personnel.
The offices located at 16 W. 6th Street will be open Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Installation of new phones is ongoing with numbers to be announced soon. Our main number will remain the same at 870-508-8000, but that line is still in the set-up stage.
To reach the office, call 870-508-8012. This call will bring you to a live person in the Mountain Home office, no call centers will be a part of this system. We ask for your patience as call volume may necessitate the leaving of a voicemail message.
Changes announced
The Bulletin will undergo some redesigns, so readers may notice subtle changes to fonts in headlines, articles and possibly other areas. Papers will also be designed to be in one section on most publication days, with some larger papers to be designated as two sections.
The paper will also have its pages re-ordered, with the return to a daily Opinion Page on 4A and a Community Page on 5A. Obituaries will return to Page 3A, with additional obits to be featured on Page 2A.
For our opinion page, longtime columnist Thomas A. “Sonny” Garrett has returned to grace our pages with his humor, wit and observations, via his “Odds & Ends” column. Sonny’s work will be featured each Saturday morning. He will also contribute to our editorial board.
Letters to the Editor will return as well, the days of the week will be determined by the amount of letters received. We plan on at least two days per week, but if more letters are received, will print them more often. Email your letters to letters@baxterbulletin.com, or mail them to 16 W. 6th St, Mountain Home, AR 72653.
Community news will be in great hands, as Linda Masters had returned to serve as a Lifestyles/Community coordinator. Linda will work directly with the public to schedule some great features like our community briefs, local briefs, support group directories and more. Just email your information to newsroom@baxterbulletin.com.
She’s also bringing back her wonderful food features to our pages.
Changes to come
More changes are in the works for the newspaper’s pages. Many of the details are still being determined.
One that we can tell you about will be to our obits policy and pricing. Funeral homes will be given updated information soon.
There will be a return of a free obit, which will be brief in nature, but will feature birthdate, death date, location and time of services. We feel people deserve more than just a line of agate in the newspaper mentioning their passing.
Not every change will be considered positive by readers, but they are necessary for to allow us to concentrate our resources on bringing you the best local product possible.
After today’s issue, the expanded, color weekend comics in the Saturday edition will cease publication.
We will continue to provide our black-and-white, daily comics and puzzles in the Saturday edition.
Changes will also be made to our website, www.baxerbulletin.com, effective Monday.
The site will receive a complete redesign. We hope you find the new website to be more user friendly and less cluttered.
Our current Baxter Bulletin apps for iPhone and other devices will cease to update as of Monday. We ask that you simply access the website on your smartphone or other device through your favorite web browser.
For a limited time, all readers can enjoy a free preview of the new website. This will give non-subscribers an opportunity to make a decision to begin or renew a subscription before the preview ends.
New personnel
Along with the aforementioned return of Sonny Garrett and Linda Masters to our newsroom staff, The Bulletin has added Sonny Elliott as general manager and managing editor; Scott Liles, as government and business reporter; and Helen Mansfield as an education, health and veteran’s affairs reporter. Both reporters will accept general assignment stories as well.
The Bulletin is proud to announce the promotion of Neal Denton to the position of Sports Editor. Denton has been with the paper since 2007 and has essentially served as the sports editor since 2015, with out the proper recognition he deserves.
Deyette Looney serves as our office manager and oversees circulation locally. She will continue to wear many hats, as she has since joining the paper in 2013. Terese Porter will join The Bulletin family on Tuesday as our customer service representative at the front desk to assist all our great customers. We welcome Ms. Porter to our newspaper family.
In our advertising department, Suzanne Sampson and Brandon McIntare have joined the paper as outside sales reps. They are the faces you will see dropping into your businesses to address you advertising needs and inform you of great new opportunities for advertising in The Bulletin and its related products.
Michelle Bradley is currently serving as advertising supervisor in an interim basis. Mr. Jim Holland, President of Phillips Media, Inc., is serving as the interim publisher of the papers in Mountain Home, Harrison and West Plains, after the recent retirement of Mr. Jim Perry.
Contact Us
Newsroom – newsroom@baxerbulletin.com
Letters to the Editor – letters@baxterbulletin.com
Legal notices – legals@baxterbulletin.com
Obituaries – obits@baxterbulletin.com
Classified advertising – classads@baxterbulletin.com
Circulation – homedel@baxterbulletin.com
Sonny Elliott – sonnye@baxterbulletin.com
Scott Liles – sliles@baxterbulletin.com
Helen Mansfield – hmansfield@baxerbulletin.com
Linda Masters – lmasters@baxterbulletin.com
Deyette Looney – dlooney@baxterbulletin.com
Brandon McIntare – brandonm@baxterbulletin.com
Suzanne Sampson – ssampson@baxterbulletin.com
Terese Porter – tporter@baxterbulletin.com
This article originally appeared on Baxter Bulletin: ‘New look’ Bulletin to arrive Monday
