Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, January 1, 1993 TAG: 9301010007
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B1 EDITION: HOLIDAY
SOURCE: Ed Shamy (staff)
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
SMALL TOWN NEWSPAPER'S BIG SURPRISE
There wasn't a newspaper in Elon College, N.C., until Jeremy Ireland got fed up.Burlington, N.C., is east of Elon College, Greensboro is west. Neither city's newspaper relies much on Elon College as a major source of its daily smear of gore and mayhem. It is, after all, a small town and a little bit light on news, but that's not to say that inquisitive minds in Elon College don't want to know what goes on near home.
Two years ago, with $65 in the bank and a desktop computer at home, Ireland - a confessed news junkie - printed up the first edition of the Elon College Sun. The big story then, in January of 1991, was the death of a man who'd been run over by a train.
"After they cleaned it up," said Ireland, "I ran out there with a camera and took some pictures."
The newspaper has come out monthly since then. Written by Ireland and two of his neighbors, the paper is printed on 8 1/2-by-11-inch paper, photocopied, stapled together and sold for 20 cents. It usually runs about 14 pages; four or five of them ads.
About 100 copies sell monthly.
The paper is available at a store on the small college campus and at a local gas station. Also, he found an old, discarded Wall Street Journal vending machine. He got permission to refurbish it and it now dispenses copies of his Elon College Sun.
Almost single-handedly, Ireland has willed the modest newspaper into existence. He is news, circulation and advertisement departments all in one body. He covered Clinton and Bush rallies near Elon during the presidential campaign. He boasts that he was among the first reporters to get comments out of Food Lion management after the "Prime Time Live" television expose in November. He lays out pages on his computer, transports the original to the copy center, and distributes new editions.
The overhead is low and the payroll is modest.
"They don't ask for anything," says Ireland of his helper/friends, "but every time the paper comes out I give them $10."
Since he spends a fair bit of time in Roanoke, Ireland bought a $125 mobile phone so his colleagues could reach him wherever he went. He has since upgraded to a cellular unit.
With $1,000 now in the newspaper's bank account, Ireland is thinking of buying a laptop computer, and maybe a fax machine, for a Roanoke office.
He's been busy lining up credit - he applied for and received a pair of credit cards from Belk - a sister retailer to Leggett Department Store - and has other applications pending at Sears, Radio Shack, JC Penney and Brendles.
On the credit-card applications, he lists his occupation as "free-lance journalist."
He didn't list "student," though Jeremy Ireland is a seventh-grader.
He's 12 years old and lives most of the year with his mom, Dominique Ireland. His folks are divorced and he spends part of his summer, his winter break and every other weekend with his dad, Glenn, in Roanoke.
Jeremy Ireland started the Elon College Sun when he was in fifth grade.
Paying bills, buying supplies, researching stories - most of it he can do on his bicycle. Once in a while, he asks his mom for a ride.