We did it! 

Our second “Through the Years: The Magazine” is published, officially making it an annual offering. 

I remember how anxious I was to start it last year, but once it came out, I had so many people compliment it and support the hard work it took to put together. 

For a couple of weeks after the inaugural 2023 issue, we were on the hunt for the cover photo’s caption, but ultimately had no luck. But, not this year! I successfully located the caption for this year’s cover photo so we all know who is in the picture.

This was such a special project for me. As I have said many times, the bound issues are one of my favorite things in the office. 

If any of you have been in the office this year, you would have noticed some major changes. 

In early April, Kyle and I decided to renovate the front office and Kyle’s office. A friend of mine helped with the labor, and she and I learned how to put in flooring — it’s not as easy as it looks on YouTube.

On a Friday in late May, my friend called me to tell me that the flooring was officially done, and on Monday, we could start moving furniture. I daydreamed and fantasized about where I would put everything and what new furniture I would buy to fill up the space and make it cozy. 

However, on Sunday at about 3 a.m. we were awoken by the sounds of hail slamming into the side of our house and wind gusts that took down a tree in our front yard. We were fortunate to be impacted so little. 

There wasn’t a single house in our neighborhood that was untouched. As I write this, there are still crews in our neighborhood fixing damage. 

With everything going on at home, I didn’t even think about the damage the office could have suffered. Kyle was out taking photos of the damage when he decided to stop by the office. He called me and said the windows were all intact, and he thinks we may have gotten lucky, but he was going to go in to check. He called me less than 5 minutes later and said he was wrong. 

The wind ripped a gash in the roof, which allowed for an amazing amount of rain to make it into the second story, where it eventually crashed through a number of ceiling tiles and flooded part of our office. In the end, we had to get a new roof, replace the ceiling tiles, replace most of the floor that was just finished, and replace a large portion of carpet in the back of the office. 

It was devastating, but still nothing compared to what others were facing. 

After Kyle described the damage, my first question was, “How are the books?”

Fortunately, they were mostly unaffected. Only a handful of books were wet, and how the water didn’t reach the stacks of them in the back end of the building, I’ll never know. 

For a few weeks, we dried out my beloved bound issues with fans. Kyle came in every couple of days to check on them and flip the pages open to the parts that were still damp, as I had a hard time coming in and facing the damage. 

I am strangely thankful for many things regarding that storm. I am thankful the tree fell into the road instead of on our house where our family slept. I am thankful we got power back so quickly. I am even thankful that we ended up with a new roof on the office. It wasn’t the way I would have chosen to get one, but we needed it desperately.

And, I am unbelievably thankful that my almost 100 years of bound issues made it through — mostly unscathed. 

Those books allow me to bring our readers a little bit of history every week in the Cassville Democrat and allow me to fill this magazine with content looking back 80 years.  

I am so thankful to my husband, and co-owner of the Cassville Democrat, Kyle, for supporting me on this project. I am thankful to Sheila Harris, who both sold ads and wrote for this magazine. Jessica Breger, our newest team member, also sold advertising, and Heidi Lowe designed the ads and magazine, her fourth Troutman Media LLC publication. 

This year, Through the Years Magazine has content from 1944, 1964, 1984, 2004, as well as history driven feature stories written specifically for this publication. 

I hope you enjoy the journey as much as we have enjoyed bringing it to life for you.