[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 70 (Tuesday, May 18, 2004)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E890-E891]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




             150TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE SALEM TIMES-REGISTER

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. BOB GOODLATTE

                              of virginia

                    in the house of representatives

                         Tuesday, May 18, 2004

  Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, it is with great honor that I recognize 
the Salem Times-Register, the community newspaper that has served the 
good people of Salem, Virginia, for the past 150 years.

[[Page E891]]

  While big city daily newspapers and television stations jostle to see 
how many stories they can cover about war, murder, mayhem and people 
who have done things they shouldn't, community newspapers such as the 
Salem Times-Register put on their front pages articles about a hometown 
student who scored a perfect 1600 on the Scholastic Aptitude Test; what 
the family of an autistic child is doing at home to help him be as much 
of a regular kid as possible and Air Force Capt. Matt Stephens' visit 
while home from Iraq to West Salem Elementary School where he was a 
fourth-grader and met his future wife.
  And so it has been since The Salem Weekly Register was founded in 
1854.
  Today there are eight papers in the chain, all printed on the 
company's press in the plant at 1633 W. Main Street in Salem.
  Wilson Koeppel and Jeff Stumb purchased the Salem Times-Register and 
its then-three sister papers in March 2001. The two men had already 
bought the Christiansburg News Messenger and the Radford News Journal 
in November 2000. Koeppel's son, Lawson Koeppel, is the bright young 
general manager of the Salem paper and the five others in Main Street 
Newspapers that serve communities in the Roanoke Valley.
  Today the Salem Times-Register continues as ``The only paper that 
puts Salem first,'' concentrating on news of Salem and Salem people. In 
addition, in 2004 the Times Register went online, along with its sister 
papers, giving former Salem residents across the world a way to keep up 
with their hometown news.
  In 2003 the Times-Register distinguished itself by winning the 
Virginia Press Association's Sweepstakes Award as the best newspaper 
out of all the newspapers its circulation size in the state.
  The staff continues to bring the people of the Salem area the best in 
local news, sports coverage, photographs, items about accomplishments 
by Salem students and adults, business news and advertisements.
  Koeppel and Stumb purchased the Salem paper, The Fincastle Herald, 
The Vinton Messenger and The New Castle Record from Ray and Jeanne 
Robinson.
  For more than 30 years, Ray Robinson, who remains as publisher 
emeritus, never missed being there when the newspaper rolled off the 
presses each Wednesday. Because there were only five people in the 
early years, everybody had to do a little bit of everything.

  ``The delivery boy was me. The photographer was me. The design and 
makeup of the papers was me. The assistant pressman was me,'' Robinson 
recalled.
  Shortly after the Times-Register was founded, like many others it was 
a casualty of the Civil War and quit publishing in 1861. It was 
reincarnated as the Roanoke Times, a weekly, in 1866. The paper's name 
changed with subsequent owners, with more than 14 different publishers 
and editors over the next few years.
  The Register officially merged with the Roanoke Times weekly in 1883. 
Salem wasn't a one-newspaper town, though. The Salem Sentinel was 
founded the following year, and according to author Woody Middleton, 
the two were intensely competitive. ``The Times-Register was published 
each Friday in a two-story frame building on College Avenue adjacent to 
the Town Hall. The Sentinel came off the press each Tuesday.''
  Like most small newspapers in the early 1900s, front pages of both 
papers were filled with national and international news. Readers had to 
look inside, where coverage of social events and who visited whom got 
equal space with community developments.
  Subscribers paid $1 a year for their papers.
  The Sentinel merged with the Times-Register in 1903 after about six 
months of the respective editors sniping at each other through their 
columns.
  For 33 years the name of the paper was The Salem Times-Register and 
Sentinel. Sentinel was dropped from the masthead in 1936 and since 
then, it has been the Salem Times-Register.
  It is with great pride that I congratulate the talented staff that 
puts out the Salem Times-Register on reaching this milestone and I wish 
them continued success.

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