Roxanne Bradow, former owner, editor and publisher of The Grand Prairie Herald, discussed her family’s legacy in local news now that she has sold the 125-year old newspaper to new owner Roby Brock. For the last 72 years, a member of her family has steered the local newspaper and guided it through survival when many peers were closing their doors.

Bradow’s father and mother, Bill and Betty Woods, bought the newspaper in 1953 from long-time owner Clyde Bowman. From elementary school through high school, Bradow performed various roles around the newsroom from typesetting to laying out pages to cleaning up the office after every issue was out the door.

Both of her parents led the paper as did Bradow’s husband, Bill. After his death, two of her children – Christian and Nathaniel – took stints at the helm before taking jobs in other parts of the state. Bradow returned to the paper as editor and publisher after retiring from a long career in public education in Hazen.

“I’m just thankful that I could support our community and the communities surrounding us,” she said in an interview on New Year’s Eve. “It’s kind of hard to put into words actually, but I’m thankful for the support that everyone has given us over the years.”

Bradow has seen a lot of contemporaries go by the wayside. The Grand Prairie Herald helped fill the void in many ways by expanding its coverage to Des Arc and Carlisle after those papers closed. She was contemplating the future of her publication with Arkansas Press Association (APA) executive director Ashley Wimberly when the opportunity arose to sell to a new owner.

“I knew it was going to have to happen sooner or later. And I just happened to mention it to somebody at APA that I was thinking about selling,” she said. “I’m just excited that somebody who likes the newspaper business as much as I do is going to take it over. A lot of small-town newspapers were gobbled up by these big companies that ran them for a while and then shut them down. This is, to me, it’s not just a family business… this is a public service. Small town newspapers are public services.”

Bradow noted that people can get a lot of information from Facebook and other online sources in this age of technology, but the local newspaper is still the most consistent and trustworthy news source in a community.

“They’re never going to get news about the quorum court or what went on at the city council meeting or the Chamber of Commerce meeting or that kind of thing from a Facebook post,” said Bradow. “By law, we have to tell the truth. And if you make a mistake, you put in a correction the next week. I mean, that’s the way it’s done.”

In retirement, Bradow plans to continue her service playing the organ and directing the choir at Hazen First United Methodist Church. She also hopes to travel and reconnect with friends.

Over the years, she and her husband hosted foreign exchange students from Germany, Spain and Japan. All of those places sound like wonderful destination trips to her.

Hazen has had a weekly newspaper since 1889. It became the Grand Prairie Herald in 1901. Now, 125 years later, the hope is that the newspaper and its offerings can continue without a Woods or Bradow at the helm.

“Small newspapers are few and far between nowadays. There aren’t very many. I hope that people will get behind you and support you and be thankful that they haven’t lost their paper because it could have happened.”