While this 11,000 Is fresh in everyone’s mind, we might as well put in our own two bits before we start rambling, maybe as far back as 193G and then some, we would like to dedicate these remarks to the Circulation Department in general, and the big wheels of some in particular, namely Miss Mae and Mister Mae (for Louise and Charles McDonald.)
When the two McDonalds came here from Muskogee, Oklahoma In October 1953, the Delta Democrat-Times paid subscribers totaled 10,200. So, they have seen circulation figures climb from there to 14,000, or an increase of 3600 subscriptions. In twenty-seven months.
The Circulation Department has grown too. The office staff, besides Mr. and Mrs. Mae, includes M. K. Davis Jr. back in the press-room are Bobby Morris and Charles Price, who speed the carriers and the mail-sacks on their way. On the outside Is Lloyd Irwin, the district man who sees to deliveries beyond the corporate limits and in neighboring counties. And D. L. Gibson is in charge of the sub-station, on Gloster Street.
Nor let us forget Bobby Hipps, the hatchet man and whipping-boy combined, who stays on duty at the circulation desk after everyone else has departed for the day. Bobby stands by the telephone until 7:30 P.M., taking complaints, and sees to It that folks get a paper where they were skipped by that afternoon's delivery.
Who remembers that first attempt to build circulation in the days (circa early 1937) of the Delia Star? Ruby Ely will because she rode in her first Lincoln automobile on the strength of same. She sold more subscriptions the everybody else put together, and may thereby have tapped hitherto hidden potentials of salesmanship.
Who remembers the name of the party who promoted the contest? It was Bentrod. Even if we couldn't recall names, that one will always ring the bell, for the promoter's little wife really bent ears back one day In East End Piggly Wiggly.
We didn’t know her at the time. Afterward, we thought she may have thought we were an employee of the store. For she said she would like to be shown the vegetables, and we merely figured to be helpful when we pointed to the bins along the west wall and sau, wuote, “There they are.”
“Smart guy,” she said. “I can see without your telling me, but I want someone to help me select them.”
So checker Robert Minton stopped checking to leave us and our purchases quite alone with the cash register while he vetted cabbages, beets, onions, carrots and whathaveyou for appraisal by his other customer. And why not, since she was a petite brunette and quite a button.
A few days afterward we were formally introduced to the Bentrods in the Delta Star building on Walnut Street. They were busy with subscription campaign strategy and, if Mrs. B recognized us, she didn’t let on. We certainly made no attempt to refresh her memory.
A few nights ago, the subscribers along Arnold Avenue were really keeping the wires hot. In fact, things got so bad that our Bobby took off for that sector and left Old Stuff in charge of the switchboard. No one out there apparently, had gotten that afternoon's paper.
Which reminded us of the interim, when Misses Beatrice and Inez Fulwiller failed to get their Democrat-Times for several days straight running. They filed complaints through customary circulation channels, and finally took the mailer up with Hodding himself. And all the while the boy who had the route insisted he was tossing a paper into the Fulwiller yard, daily, without fail.
One morning, someone starting into Miss Beatrice’s yard happened to glance up and saw folded papers all over the porch roof. The paper boy had been tossing them alright, but some quirk of air current was causing them to turn upward in flight.
This wouldn’t have happened if the old reliable had been rolled instead of folded byt, with fourteen thousand papers awaiting distribution, you have to fold them flat to conserve space.
