Thirty-two years later, still publishing

By John Toth

The Bulletin

Thirty-two years ago this week, Sharon and I published the first Bulletin. It was eight tabloid pages, black and white.

We didn’t know how long we’d last in the then-crowded Brazoria County newspaper market.

Before we took on this endeavor, I worked 12 years for the Houston Chronicle covering Brazoria County and adjacent areas. I lived in the county and reported on events happening here.

Sharon, the Bulletin’s co-publisher, was free-lancing for the Chronicle and other publications while we raised our family. She was a full-time mom with a desk and a typewriter always nearby.

Yes, in the 1980s, we still used a typewriter, although I wrote my stories on a word processor that connected by phone to computers at the Chronicle. Sharon had to use an electric typewriter to send out inquiries and articles before progressing to more-modern technology.

We had a pretty good setup at the house. Sharon, for the most part, took care of the kids during the day while they were young, and I took over at night while she did her work. We both worked from the house. The Chronicle provided me with a car, but not office space down here, which was fine, because I really enjoyed my daily commute from the bedroom to the kitchen to the office.

Then Sharon came up with the idea that we should start a weekly newspaper, and we realized that we had the experience between the two of us in different skills to be able to do it.

About a year and a half later, we printed our first issue and distributed it. The paper was dated July 4, 1994. It was a date we could both remember, me being the one who doesn’t remember dates too well. Also, what would be a better way to commemorate the birth of our nation than by starting the paper on the same day that our country’s founding leaders declared independence from British rule?

The paper was actually printed a few days earlier, just like the vote to separate from Great Britain was cast on July 2, 1776. Then the document was adopted and dated on July 4. What a great example to follow, although there was a good chance that The Bulletin would last only a fraction of the time the Constitution had been in place - maybe just a few months, should we run out of money.

Just to make sure with three children and a mortgage that we would not be putting all our eggs in one basket, I kept my job at The Chronicle for a few more months until The Bulletin somewhat stabilized financially.

During the day, I worked for the Chronicle, and at night, I worked on The Bulletin's production. Sleep became a valuable commodity of which I could never get enough.

Back in those days, production was a lot more difficult. We’re doing it digitally now, but in 1994, we had to secure the entire paper onto layout sheets with a waxer and take it to the printer, where they would photograph it and put it on the press.

The first printer we used in Rosenberg had a safe system of not losing any money on print jobs. They required a cashier’s check. A company check was not good enough. I didn’t blame them. I would not have taken checks from start-up weeklies, either.

We printed like that for a few months until The Bay City Tribune solicited our business and said they would gladly accept our company checks. That was a lot less driving and more convenient, so we made the switch there. Then we changed printers a couple of more times.

We went from delivering the layout sheets in a folder made just for it, to delivering a compact disk, to sending the paper to the printer via the Internet. Each step made the job a lot easier.

But technology also made surviving in the newspaper market a lot harder. One by one, the other weeklies in the county closed.

To the best of my knowledge, we are now the only locally owned weekly newspaper in Brazoria County. We survived everything thrown at us - the siphoning of advertising by the Internet, hurricanes, freezes, a couple of recessions, Covid and probably a few more obstacles I can’t recall right now.

Once again, I cannot express how blessed we both are to be able to make a living doing exactly what we want and for all the support we have received from the Brazoria County community. Again, thank you readers and advertisers for all these wonderful years of publishing.

As we start our 32nd year, Sharon and I look forward to continuing to publish The Bulletin and serving our community the best way we can.