Home Page

Contact Us
Place your Classified Ad
Retail Rates and Info
The History of the Spirit
Where to Find Us!
Past Issues - Limited Issues

Thanks for reading The Spirit!

How The Spirit Came About

Allison and I had been talking about the need and opportunity for a “Free Community Newspaper” for the Westside for quite a while.  In May of 2000, in my role as President of the Southeastern Advertising Publishers Association, we attended the Spring Conference of FCPF, the Free Community Papers of Florida.  These associations are both built on freely distributed papers, either shoppers like The Pennysaver, or community newspapers.  In SAPA, the majority of the papers are shoppers.  At FCPF however, there was an even split between free community newspapers and shoppers.  This fact inspired Allison further, and we returned from the conference with her set on starting a Westside community newspaper.
 
One complication to this was my position as General Manager of The Savannah Pennysaver.  I would not be able to keep my job while my wife started a paper that could be perceived as competition.  We began praying that The Lord would let us know what he wanted us to do.  By this time, I too was getting excited about the prospect of owning our own business.  In the last week of May, I joked with Allison that “it would sure be nice if The Lord would give us a sign that we couldn’t miss, like a flashing neon sign on our bedroom wall” to let us know what he would have us do. And, sure enough, he did. 
 
In September of 1998, Mr. Morris, owner of The Pennysaver, let me know he intended to start a free community newspaper in Savannah.  That product debuted in January of 1999 as Connect Savannah.  My role remained that of General Manager, and I was responsible for printing, distribution, advertising sales, ...everything except the editorial content of the new publication.  By the sixth issue, we had published an editorial entitled “Queer Pier”, an expose of gay cruising sites in Chatham County that went overboard in its graphic description of some of the things witnessed during the investigative work of the reporter.  When Allison read the article, she called my circulation department and had delivery of the paper stopped at our home, insisting that the material was inappropriate for being delivered to homes where children could be reading it.  I was very uncomfortable going to church that Sunday.
 
On Friday, June 2nd, Connect Savannah published an editorial from a contributing writer entitled “Jesus is just alright with me,” a decidedly anti-Christian editorial.  I had seen a copy of it Thursday night while working late at the office.  I told Allison about the article Friday morning, and that I was just going to tell them I could no longer represent Connect Savannah in public.  To make a long story short, that’s exactly what I did.  I told them I had stood by the publication during “Queer Pier” and the “Interview with a Satanic Priest” but that when our paper starts taking cheap shots at Jesus, I had to draw the line.  I had no idea that I would be fired for that.  I thought I would probably have my job responsibilities shifted to selling advertising on The Pennysaver’s website.  After all, I had been with The Pennysaver for over 14 years. 
 
My immediate supervisor terminated my employment, and honestly, I’ve never felt better.  I had stood up for what I believed in, and felt confident that this was The Lord at work, opening doors and providing what was as close to a flashing neon sign as you could ask for.  Since then, The Lord has provided a way for our family, and we hope to give him something back with The Spirit of the Westside, as we seek to follow his will, assured that this is what he wants us to be doing with our lives at this time.

 

 

Webmaster@TheSpiritNewspaper.com
Copyright © 2005-2008 WWW.THESPIRITNEWSPAPER.COM.  All rights reserved.
Revised: October 15, 2008