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Christmas, as everyone knows, falls on a Thursday this
year.
While the holiday's day of the week may not be of any special importance
to most of Jackson County, it's crucial when organizing a newspaper
with a Thursday publication date.
We're handling it by pretending that Wednesday is Thursday this week.
Our local subscribers, who count on their Herald arriving in their mailboxes
each Thursday, will receive (we hope) their copies on Wednesday, Dec.
24, though the newspaper will be dated Thursday, just as we did in 1997,
the last time Christmas Day fell on a Thursday.
It crossed my mind to wonder just how many times in Sylva Herald history
(which began in 1926 with the first issue of our forerunner, The Ruralite)
Christmas Day has coincided with paper day.
Turns out that 2003 marks the 11th time the days have collided. The
other years Christmas was a Thursday during the newspaper's 77-year
lifespan are 1930, 1941, 1947, 1952, 1958, 1969, 1975, 1980 and 1986.
With my curiosity piqued, I headed to the microfilm reader for a little
historical detective work to determine if the modern practice of dating
the paper on the proper Thursday regardless of when it's actually printed
has always been the case.
Searching the film for December 1930 we find The Ruralite was dated
Tuesday, Dec. 23. Publisher E.E. Brown printed that paper on a Tuesday,
just as is the case with this current edition, but he recorded the actual
publication date to reflect the change.
Headlines from that issue reveal a more agrarian-based community as
two front-page stories deal with farming.
One told of a series of farm meetings planned across the state to discuss
the need to replace tobacco and cotton with other crops. Another described
the benefits of pruning apple trees.
Also on the front page was a notice that William McKee, who was a primary
source three weeks ago for a column about his mother, was home from
Riverside Military Institute to spend the holidays in Sylva with his
parents, Mr. and Mrs. E.L. (Gertrude) McKee. Obituaries for John Rogers
of Speedwell and Callie Cabe were included on that page, as was a notice
that Mrs. Monteith would entertain the embroidery club.
The 1941 Sylva Herald, which was published two and a half weeks after
the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, is not available on microfilm,
but the next time Christmas fell on a Thursday, in 1947, the holiday
issue is dated Thursday, Dec. 25.
Stories on that week's front page include a feature about "Christmas
of Our Forefathers" and its deep religious meaning; a notice of
an upcoming program at Speedwell Methodist; news of a three-day Boy
Scout outing at Camp Daniel Boone near Pisgah Forest; information about
Mrs. Lewis Norton developing a "thriving" weaving industry
called the Cabin Weavers; a local union (UMWA) donating money to the
community fund and making Christmas cheer baskets; and an article that
described how the firemen had done a good job on Christmas street lights.
When the next Thursday Christmas rolled around (1952), World War II
hero Gen. Dwight Eisenhower had just been elected president, and that
week's paper bore a Wednesday, Dec. 24, dateline.
Headlines included the fact that The Herald staff would take a four-day
holiday (just as we will this year) with the completion of that week's
"big 20-page edition."
Also came the news that "Santa would come to Jackson County"
through several big hydroelectric projects - Cedar Cliff, Bear Creek
and Tanassee Creek - "in order to keep ahead of the increasing
demand for electric power." At that time Cedar Cliff's 7,500 KVA
generator had already been online for three months.
Those same hydro projects have been in the news during the past year
as Duke Power, which bought the dams and power plants from Nantahala
Power and Light almost a decade ago, seeks to acquire federal licenses
to continue to operate the half-century-old facilities.
Elsewhere on that 1952 front page, we learn that Robert Kelly had joined
Mead as personnel director, and that Mead foremen, wives and guests
had enjoyed their annual Christmas party.
Six years later, in 1958, the issue closest to Christmas was again dated
on the Wednesday before Christmas.
In the news were warrants issued for three men in connection with an
oil and dynamite theft. Sheriff Frank Allen indicated in the story that
three suspects had been apprehended in Anderson, S.C.
Also that week, downtown merchants had to pay out $400 instead of the
$300 they'd planned when duplicate numbers were found on winning tickets
during a Friday night promotional event. Savannah seventh-graders gave
a party for residents at Brown's Boarding Home, and local Cub Scouts
took a hayride from Sylva Presbyterian Church to Troy's Drive-in, which
was located close to the intersection of Skyland Drive and Chipper Curve
Road.
Somewhere along the way, Herald editors made the decision to stick with
a Thursday date for the paper regardless of holiday-induced early printings,
and we know that's the case for the 1986, 1997 and 2003 editions.
Christmas will next fall on a Thursday five years from now. While we
may not know what The Sylva Herald's headlines for that issue will be,
we can predict with certainty that they will represent the staff's best
effort at bringing the local news home to its subscribers.
What is certain is that back issues of both The Ruralite and The Sylva
Herald offer amazing stockpiles of information about Jackson County
and its people. Scanning through the pages, I've found stories that
describe the political triumphs of Gertrude Dills McKee, North Carolina's
first woman state senator, as well as one that announces the date she
gave the program at Women's Missionary Society.
Early editions of The Ruralite and The Sylva Herald are available on
microfilm at the Jackson County Public Library, Western Carolina University's
Hunter Library and the Southwestern Community College Library.
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