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From The Observer News
(www.observernews.net) Top Stories By Melody Jameson
At the time, two publications were serving area communities. The Ruskin Sun City News, formerly owned by the publisher of the Palmetto News, was in the hands of Clay Codrington, then also publisher of Plant City’s The Courier, and The Sun Coast News, a small shopper, which soon would be acquired by the late Evan Mixon, father of Mickey Mixon, current custodian of the three sister publications serving Ruskin, Sun City Center and Riverview, as well as M&M Printing. Under Mixon control, the shopper ultimately would blend with the newspaper evolving from the Ruskin Sun City publication. Between the Codrington and the Mixon ownerships, however, there flourished for a few years the Observer and Ruskin Sun City News, with Bryce Reno running the printing side, Ethel Reno, his wife, handling the linotype machine spitting out the hot type that would be locked into page forms of metal letters, sentences and paragraphs before being made into plates for the press, and their daughters, Rene, aided by little sister, Denise, folding the tabloid newspaper one evening a week. Ethel and Bryce Reno, with their two grammar school daughters, had arrived in Ruskin in 1961. He was newly retired from his first career in the U.S. Air Force, coming from his last postings – three years in Alaska and a tour in Waco, Texas. Discharged with the rank of major, Bryce had supervised printing operations for the military, had keen mechanical sense and an affinity for the water. The Renos had purchased, sight unseen, a house on five acres abutting the south shore of the Little Manatee, quickly settled in and enrolled the girls in Ruskin Elementary. In short order, Bryce and Ethel established ” Reno Marino” on U.S. 41, south of the railroad overpass, where he serviced marine engines while she assisted customers with marine supplies and managed the bookkeeping. Within a year, Renos were building a new home adjacent to the business operation and integrating their lives with the rhythms of the quiet community on the Tampa Bay shoreline they considered a haven. They joined “The Ruskin Yacht Club,” the girls learned to swim in the Cedar Grove pool, Bryce conducted community speed boat races on the pond immediately west of what now is the Joyce Ely Clinic. As president of the Ruskin Merchants Association, an active Rotarian and equipped with wide experience in letterpress printing as well as photo-lithographic work, Bryce was a natural choice to join the group of local businessmen interested in establishing a new newspaper company and commercial printing operation. He became the corporate president and assumed production management responsibilities for Ruskin Press, Inc., headquartered in the mission-style building which architecturally matched the Ruskin Vegetable Cooperative offices a short distance to the north on U.S. 41. The building formerly had served as Paul Dickman’s farm office as well as housing his real estate business. From her quarters in the Sun City Center Retirement Center, Ethel Reno, now 91, recalled this week the newspaper for some of the family “was a labor of love.” With a grin, she added “We didn’t get paid” in currency. Nonetheless, Rene and Denise, who attended East Bay High School, look back with fondness on those days when they would catch a different school bus and go directly to the printing plant to fold hundreds of the publications coming off the press under their father’s expert guidance. “Our fingers would be black with ink,” Rene remembered, “we’d all go home together and Mom still would fix supper.” According to the inaugural issue the Observer and Ruskin Sun City News, dated December 10, 1964, Ed Stuntz was the editor. Stuntz, a graduate of Cornell University, had worked for several prominent news organizations in Miami, Tampa and Havana before becoming an Associated Press correspondent in Havana, Washington, New York, Madrid, Paris and Geneva. His editorial staff included Clarence Harding, columnist at large, as well as correspondents such ad Edna Johns from Apollo Beach, Vera Camp from Gibsonton and Edna Gillet from the Parrish-Gillette area. In addition, Ethel Reno would write an article from time to time, she said, and specifically remembers a tribute to her husband in rhyme which was published.
The newspaper, in a large tabloid format, was priced at ten cents per issue or $4 for an annual subscription and was circulated throughout the South County from the recently planned Apollo Beach to rural Wimauma, from old Sun City to Del Webb’s freshly platted Sun City Center. In his opening editorial, Stuntz referred to the dream of professional journalists since Benjamin Franklin wrote “Poor Richard’s Almanac” and launched the Saturday Evening Post that involves “owning a small weekly in some ‘quiet’ town; then editing it so that it will become an enduring monument to American journalism.” Stuntz apparently was able to live the dream for a couple of years before awakening to a starker reality. Bryce Reno died in 1995 after recovering from a massive stroke and then battling cancer, but Rene and Denise remain in the area, living in Sundance to be near their mother. By 1967, the company was in receivership and “its assets were acquired by my Dad,” Mickey Mixon noted. During the ensuing years, The Observer News has undergone several changes, including switching from a large tabloid to a broadsheet format and then to the smaller, current tabloid size, hosting several editors as well as multiple staff reporters, and providing employment for untold numbers of printing crew plus delivery personnel. In addition, the publications have expanded to three – the SCC Observer and the Riverview Current, along with the Observer News, with Brenda Knowles as their publisher/editor – and relocated twice to the present location on Woodland Estates Drive, adjacent to the M&M Printing plant. Some aspects of the historic publications, however, have not changed. They continue to focus on local news from Gibsonton to Sun City, Ruskin to Balm. “And despite the turmoil evident among the nation’s large daily newspapers, many smaller dailies and community newspapers remain fiscally healthy,” Mixon pointed out. “The Observer publications are among those that are financially sound,” he added. Similarly, commercial printing operations continue as part of company operations, just as when the Reno family was maintaining its interests. Since installing a larger, more efficient and versatile press in 2007, a publishing system involving full-color copying and capable of producing booklets of up to 250 pages, collated and stapled, was added in 2008. “Even in these uncertain economic times,” said Wes Mullins, the company’s managing executive officer, “our outlook for 2009 is very positive.” “We continue to build on the foundations laid four decades ago by people like the Renos and Ed Stuntz and my Dad,” Mixon added, “and we want to continue to evolve” with the needs of our readers and customers. ©2008 Melody Jameson © Copyright 2008 by The Observer News Publications and M&M Printing |
