FAYETTE — Frank Stewart is grateful.

In his home office in Fayette, notes litter the area around the word processor he has used since the 1980s. On the walls are framed copies of his first published pieces. Sitting at his desk, the 72-year-old remembers how little victories felt big early in his career, like the time he was paid $40 for his first article in The Bridge World magazine in 1978.

"We danced around the house like we had just won the lottery," the syndicated columnist said.

Before then, Stewart did not know what he was meant to do, but he knew that bridge had to be part of it. It’s a game he has obsessed over since 1967, when he played his first hand at the University Club at the University of Alabama.

"It’s the type of game that will totally take over your life," he said.

After a couple of years in the Army, Stewart decided to make bridge a part of his life, starting off playing in amateur tournaments and then going off as a professional player. In 1977, the first year he and his wife, Charlotte, were married, Stewart made a little less than $4,000. During their time living in Birmingham, Stewart would give lessons, normally $20 per lesson. Charlotte supported them through her work as a pediatric speech pathologist.

"There was a while he wasn’t sure what he wanted to do, but none of that mattered because I just thought our love would sustain us," Charlotte said. "It was so strong, I knew we were going to make it."

Eventually, Stewart’s reputation in the bridge community and his writing about the game led to the couple moving to Memphis, Tennessee, where he worked as co-editor of the American Contract Bridge League’s magazine. Soon after, Stewart met Alfred Sheinwold, a contributor to the magazine who is now considered by many as one of the most influential people to be part of the game. In the bridge community, Sheinwold was known for writing a daily syndicated newspaper column on the sport, one that he had maintained since 1961 and, at its height, ran in more than 150 newspapers across the country.

Because of poor health, Sheinwold began collaborating on the column with Stewart in 1986, an offer Stewart said was "like being offered to play golf with Jack Nicklaus." After Sheinwold died in 1997, Stewart took over the column full-time.

On Friday, Stewart’s 10,000th bylined column will be published in The Tuscaloosa News, as well as the more than 100 newspapers across the country that carry it, such as The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times and The Boston Globe. In addition to his column, Stewart has also written 24 books about bridge.

"I’m just such a lucky man," Stewart said. "I feel like I’ve been doing something I was meant to do, and I’ve been lucky enough to maybe give some people a little pleasure each day through my column."

Eddie Kantar has known Stewart for 40 years. Kantar, a world-renowned bridge player, won 15 North American Bridge Championships, was part of two Bermuda Bowl wins for the United States, was declared a Grand Life Master by the World Bridge Federation and American Contract Bridge League, and was inducted into the American Contract Bridge League’s Hall of Fame in 1996.

Kantar starts every morning reading Stewart’s column and considers him the best writer when it comes to problems developing in the game.

"I always look forward to his columns every morning because they’re very challenging and always well-written," Kantar said. "He’s the nicest guy you’d ever want to meet; he’s a very good writer and a very good friend."

Phillip Alder, a syndicated bridge columnist best known for The New York Times column he wrote between 2005 and 2015, said Stewart’s column remains one of the most successful syndicated columns on the game today.

"It’s certainly a popular element in papers," Alder said.

For Stewart, being an entertaining writer is just as important to him as educating people on how to play bridge. That is one reason he incorporates many fictional characters into his 160-word columns over the years, many of whom continue to reappear.

"I have this guy, Cy the Cynic," he said. "He’s impulsive, he plays with haste and makes mistakes because he plays too fast."

Stewart said his characters are not based on any one person, but are composites of people he has known who have displayed the same bad tendencies he sees in different bridge players.

"I would try to show why his thought processes were flawed and how the deal should have been played correctly," he said.

Writing 10,000 columns on a single game is not hard, Stewart said, mainly because in bridge there are unlimited opportunities with the hands that are dealt.

"Sometimes, I can use the same deal more than once because it will have multiple points of interest," he said. "I can write about it from another perspective."

Stewart remains one of a handful of syndicated newspaper columnists in the United States who writes exclusively about bridge. With many newspapers facing financial challenges, lots of bridge columns have been cut. In 2015, NYT decided to discontinue Alder’s column, one he had inherited from longtime columnist Alan Truscott, who himself carried on the column from Albert Moorehead in 1964. Moorehead first started The Times’ bridge column in 1935.

However, the bridge community has often fought back against such changes. In January 2011, the Los Angeles Times decided to discontinue Stewart’s column after a subscriber survey stated that only 3 percent of those polled read it on a regular basis and that 89 percent had never looked at it. Regular readers of Stewart responded to the change by leaving 400 phone calls and 600 emails with editors.

Ultimately, the LA Times brought the column back, where it has remained ever since.

"The outcry from our readers compelled us to reconsider our decision," former assistant managing editor of arts and entertainment Sallie Hofmeister said in a statement released at the time. "While readership surveys showed that Bridge was the least popular of our offerings of puzzles and games, we discovered from this outpouring of response that its fans are engaged readers and some of our most loyal subscribers."

Despite his success, Stewart realizes he is writing about a card game that seems to be slowly fading away in the United States, a game that was once played everywhere from grocery stores to house parties. As of 2005, the American Contract Bridge League stated that 25 million Americans over the age of 18 knew how to play bridge. Today, Smith estimates that number is closer to 10 million now.

However, Smith still holds hope that the game will catch on with a new generation, citing the internet as a likely way to reach more players.

"It’s too good of a game to die out," he said.

Like Stewart, Alder also hopes more people find the sport.

"I wish we could get more children playing," Alder said. "It’s very frustrating."

These days, Stewart does not think about his legacy as a writer, mainly because he has no plans of quitting.

"I am never going to retire as long as I can write to an acceptable standard and I can sit in front of a keyboard and do it," he said. "I enjoy what I do too much."

Reach Drew Taylor at drew.taylor@tuscaloosanews.com or 205-722-0204.