Little Rock native David Lide holds a Little River Post hot off the press.

Posted on February 5, 2020

Article by David Lide

Ashdown, Arkansas–I am so excited to bring a printed newspaper to Little River County. It is my goal to provide a printed newspaper and online news that matters to the residents of Little River County and to involve the community in many ways.

In fact, we have already involved the community! We appreciate that students from Ashdown and Foreman schools submitted names for the newspaper for us to consider, and they came up with many wonderful options! We chose to use the name Little River Post, which was suggested by two students, Angelina McGinn and Emma Isham.

We already feel very welcomed by some of the community leaders who have worked with us to develop a new, printed newspaper for you. It has been hard to keep quiet. We are so happy to celebrate together with a big, formal announcement at the Little River Chamber of Commerce Banquet.

What you are holding is a “concept paper.” This concept paper is not supposed to be a full edition. We printed it so you can see the quality and type of information we plan to publish for Little River Post. We want to hear from you.

If you like what you see or have any ideas, please let us know. We expect future papers will be larger in order to cover even more news and events in Little River County.

As long as the advertisements support it, we also plan to print in all color because we think you deserve it.

We plan to publish our first real edition of Little River Post beginning sometime around early spring. During the meantime, we will be offering business owners the opportunity to purchase ads. Contact us if you want to be included!

You may be wondering who I am. It has been said of me that “media is in my blood.” Elmer Inglin, a great grandfather on my father’s side of the family, co-owned Lonoke Democrat. In addition, my mother and several extended family members have either owned or worked for newspapers around the state. It is also family lore that William E. Woodruff, founder of Arkansas Gazette, was a family member. While this is my business, my mother is working with me on Little River Post, so it is really a family-run business.

A native of Little Rock, I have worked in media since I graduated from high school in 2010. I am an award-winning photographer who worked for Arkansas Democrat-Gazette as a contract photographer right out of high school. Since then, I have started and owned several online media sources. We cover breaking news, sports, fund-raising events–whatever we find that we think will interest our readers.

Little River Post is about you and for you. The following local people contributed stories, photos and ad designs to this concept paper: Jana Smith, Ronda Pounds, Carolyn Myers, Shanna Andrade, Ben Renfrow, Mark Myers and Amy Jones.

Because the main focus is on Little River County, we want to employ as many local, talented people as possible. We are currently looking for additional writers, photographers, graphics artists, layout designers, delivery people, ad sales representatives and subscription coordinators. Let us know if you are interested in being considered for any of these positions.

I want to acknowledge Arkansas Press Association: select publishers and editors of other newspapers in the state and Arkansas Democrat-Gazette prepress employees, who all offered advice; as well Arkansas Democrat-Gazette staff who printed this Little River Post concept paper for us to share with you.