A half-century: long enough to be distinctive, but short enough to fit within the span of retrievable human memory. In compiling this 50th-anniversary edition, we consulted with several past leaders of our publication. Each past editor left his or her impression on our pages, and we are grateful to them for carrying Memphis Magazine forward. Like most human endeavors that endure, this one has been a relay race, with each editor carrying the baton for a few miles, a few laps around the sun, before handing it over to the person waiting around the bend. Here, then, are reflections from a few of the relay-runners from years gone by — presented with our thanks to all those involved in creating and maintaining this enterprise. — Anna Traverse
AUGUST 1979
By age 12, I was operating a hot-metal press for my family’s weekly newspaper in Whitehaven. Once a week, I descended into deadline purgatory, the air thick with ink and molten lead. I swore I would never submit to the rigors of journalism.
Never say never.
After graduating from Rhodes College with a degree in English and the vague notion that I was destined to write about what I imagined would be my sports-car-racing career, I detoured into the culture wars of the late Sixties. A stint on a commune in northwest Arkansas preceded my reluctant return to Memphis. My father’s health was failing. The family enterprise needed tending.
That enterprise was more than a small weekly. We published the Whitehaven Press, the Whitehaven Press Shopper, and the Southaven Press. We were also a commercial printer and one of the few owners of a newspaper printing press in the Mid-South, printing more than a dozen weekly newspapers for publishers across Arkansas, Mississippi, and West Tennessee.
Shortly before I was called home, my father purchased a new Goss Community press. A large one. I took over as it was being delivered in early 1973, the building still raw steel and concrete. My first challenge was constructing a temporary wall, hammer in hand, to protect the press during installation.
By fall, the Arab oil embargo triggered a gas crisis that rippled through the economy. Newsprint became nearly impossible to obtain. I scrambled to secure enough paper to keep our client newspapers alive. We managed to stretch supply to meet the need — barely — carving deeply into already-thin margins.
For reasons that still defy tidy explanation — equal parts optimism, audacity, and ignorance — I doubled down. I purchased a magazine printing press. The paper it required was at least obtainable, if hardly affordable.
Not yet 30 and nowhere near ready for prime time, I began preparing to launch City of Memphis magazine. My private expectations were restrained; my public expressions were not.
Today, the magazine endures. Its current formula appears commercially sound — a goal that eluded me — and its continued relevance is no small achievement.
Fortune intervened in the form of Ken DeCell and his luminous wife, Florri. Without their ambition and editorial clarity, the blueprint would have been far less daring. In the fall of 1975, they were attempting to launch a weekly newspaper called The Pinch. I printed an early prototype for them. In the process, we discovered shared instincts about what a city magazine might aspire to be.
We printed the first issue of City of Memphis in April 1976. Ken did the heavy lifting, shaping the editorial voice and direction. I focused on commercial support and the mechanics of publishing. Two years later, Ken and Florri moved on to pursue other goals, but their imprint endured. Over its first decade, the magazine won more illustration and journalism awards than any other city magazine in the country.
After Ken’s departure, I assumed the role of editor, though most day-to-day responsibility rested with a remarkable team.
Ed Weathers became our chief wordsmith and resident guardian of common sense. Fred Woodward, our art director, was primarily responsible for the cascade of Society of Illustrators Awards that followed. And my wife, Patty, as managing editor, kept the entire contraption in motion, ensuring deadlines were met and spirits high.
After a few years, I persuaded our ace reporter, Kenneth Neill, to assume full responsibility for the editorship.
Creatively, we thrived. Financially, we hemorrhaged money faster than a dog can swallow bacon.
By 1986, with the help of my teenage mentor, Lucius Burch, we assembled a balanced group of civic-minded investors who formed a new corporate vehicle to carry the enterprise forward.
My own ambitions made me ill-suited to run the new, board-directed entity. I left that capable ensemble after a year to launch another venture.
The magazine, of course, evolved. Some changes I welcomed; others I accepted less enthusiastically. In the early years, we embraced long-form journalism — stories exceeding 10,000 words that wrestled with the city’s most complex questions.
More than any stylistic shift, I regret the gradual disappearance of those ambitious explorations. They demanded patience — from writers and readers alike — but they rewarded it with gravitas.
Today, the magazine endures. Its current formula appears commercially sound — a goal that eluded me — and its continued relevance is no small achievement.
I once swore I would never submit to the rigors of journalism.
Fifty years later, here we are. Another 50 years? Experience has taught me not to make predictions.
Never say never.
