About Your Newspaper

By the Greene County Record Staff
Published: February 29, 2008

This is an excerpt from an internship report written by Robert C. Black, then a student at Boston University School of Public Relations and Communications, who worked as a Linotype operator at the Eagle during his summer vacation of 1956. The text below concerns the history of the Greene County Record.

The predecessor of the Greene County Record, the Greene County Register, was started in 1903 by Dr. E. W. Sims, a Stanardsville physician, who was designated on the masthead as editor, and Dulaney Ott of Harrisonburg, who was designated as treasurer. The paper was edited by Dr. Sims until 1911, when it was sold to B. M. Bushong, a veteran newspaperman, who had worked on several papers in the Shenandoah Valley.

Soon after buying the Register, Mr. Bushong changed the name of the paper to the Greene County Record.

Mr. Bushong married Mrs. Bertie Caldwell of Harrisonburg in 1912, and they printed and published the Record in Stanardsville until 1917 or 1918, when he bought the Exponent and moved to Madison. Mr. Bushong believed in giving the people of Greene County local news coverage, and he hired Mr. E. M. Gibson, and later Mr. Henry W. Moyers, to manage the Record and send the news and advertising copy to Madison, where both papers were printed. Mr. Bushong set the type for the two papers on an old model 5 Linotype, with a gasoline-fired pot and a gasoline engine.

Mr. Bushong had a very capable advertising salesman, Robert L. Cooper, working for both papers. Mr. Cooper visited the merchants in Culpeper, Orange and Charlottesville, and solicited advertising from them. Mr. William Schultz worked for him as a Linotype operator, and Mr. Bushong set some of the type for the two papers. Casey Spotswood, a Negro pressman still living in Madison, helped run the press, and performed other mechanical duties.

Mr. Bushong bought the Madison Exponent in 1917, and had the building which now houses the T. L. Berry Furniture Store in Madison built as a printing plant for the paper. He moved his plant to Madison, and printed both papers there.

A few years after Mr. Bushong bought the Madison Exponent, someone in Madison showed him a copy of the first paper published in Madison County, the American Eagle. Mr. Bushong then changed the name of his paper from the Exponent to the Eagle. It should be pointed out that at that time, a paper known as the Culpeper Exponent, now the Culpeper Star-Exponent, was being published 17 miles to the north of Madison.

Mr. Bushong’s papers were usually eight-page, seven-column papers, very well printed, even by present-day standards. He occasionally ran advertising to appear at the top of the columns with news matter at the bottom of the page.

Mr. Bushong died suddenly on Oct. 15, 1936, the day the two papers were printed. Various newspapermen and printers helped publish the paper until Dec. 1, 1936, when the paper was bought by James Bushong, a distant cousin of Mr. Bushong, who had been working on a New Orleans newspaper.

Mr. Bushong traded in the old machine for a new model 8 Linotype, and continued to publish the two papers. The size of the Greene County Record was reduced to four pages.

In 1946, James Bushong bought the building across the driveway from the Madison Courthouse, and moved the office and plant to its present location, in the basement of that building.

Mr. Henry W. Moyer, who was manager of the Record in Stanardsville, died in 1946 and his daughter, Mrs. Ella M. Bickers, succeeded him as manager.

In May, 1955, Mr. Bushong decided to sell the Eagle and Record to Basil C. Burke, Jr., who named William F. Earls as editor and manger under a partnership arrangement. Dustin G. Reyer was hired as Linotype operator, and Harry Weaver and Lawrence Beasley, who had worked for Mr. Bushong, rounded out the mechanical staff.

The present management continues to publish an eight-page paper for Madison County, and a four-page paper for Greene County. Standards of accuracy in proofreading have been raised, and the papers plan to increase news and advertising lineage when the new plant, now under construction just a few feet to the west of the present plant, is completed. Under the new management advertising lineage has nearly doubled during the past year.

Editor’s Note: In September 1995, the Record was acquired by Richmond-based Media General Inc. and became part of its Virginia Newspapers Inc. division. Today, the Greene County Record is part of the Media General’s Central Virginia Weekly Group, which also includes the Culpeper News, the Madison County Eagle, and the Orange County Review.