Farmers Bank hosting coffee for HPNews Thursday
By submitted, 10/8/19 10:49 AMHOPE – Farmers Bank will host a coffee on Thursday, October 10, from 10am to 11am for the one- year Celebration of the Hope-Prescott News. Please join us at 201 E 3rd Hope, AR 71801.
The “Hope-Prescott News” was the creation of Wendell Hoover and Mark Keith. The pair started discussing a weekly newspaper shortly after the “Hope Star” announced it was going out of business. Hoover is the owner of “HopePrescott.com” and Keith had 36 years experience in the radio business.
They believed they could produce news and sell advertising if they could find someone to layout the paper. Upon engaging Dewayne Holloway to handle layout, the first paper came off the press October 3 with the idea it would hit the street October 4, 2018. Plans called for the paper to be weekly and published on Thursdays. The paper was announced the day before on Facebook and on “HopePrescott.com“. After the first issues were out, Keith announced where the free papers could be found. To his surprise he was contacted by several dozen businesses who asked if he could bring papers to them for distribution.
The initial eight-page paper with a run of 1,000 was quickly exhausted. Demand for the paper has continued to increase and the press run is now 12-pages and more than 2,500 issues per week.
