Seniors Today Turns 30!

by Bonnie Schillinger,
President “Seniors Today”
Happy Birthday Seniors Today! This years marks the 30th year of publishing Seniors Today newspaper. What a wonderful, interesting, exciting, and fascinating journey it has been. I’ve made some wonderful lifetime friends… I’ve loved every minute of publishing Seniors Today!

Certainly we, like everyone else, struggled with the pandemic in 2020. For the first time ever, we had to publish two issues digitally only, as we could not de-liver our newspaper to businesses. True to form, our loyal advertiser stuck with us and we never missed a beat!

Even after 30 years not a week goes by that someone doesn’t comment to me “how much they love the paper… and that the see it everywhere!” Those words defintely keep me motivated to continue to publish a paper every other Friday. The best part of all is we have fun while producing it!

Although the dynamics of actually putting the newspaper have changing greatly, the spirit the Schillingers established behind publishing the newspaper have remained the same… to give seniors in our community fun, entertaining, informative articles, and stories they can enjoy.

Thirty years ago, the process for design was quite different. The entire process for laying out and designing the paper was much more complicated and took much longer. Then once completed, it had to be hand delivered to the printer which was two hours away. Today it is simply sent electronically with the click of a computer mouse. As the saying goes… we’ve come a long way baby!

Several of our staff writers, Kitty Maiden, George and Peggy Goldtrap (and some of their family members), Byron Spires, and the Sheriff have been contributing to our paper for many of these years. They continue to inspire, enlighten, inform, and entertain us with their articles today. They are like family to us! We have been able to share in the joy of their children getting married, birthdays, family reunions, and the beautiful gift of ‘grands’ throughout their years of writing for us. Each has contributed to this issue with a celebration article. Be sure to look for them!

Speaking of family… another loyal and dedicated family member of Seniors Today is editor, Bonnie Gragg. We couldn’t ask for a better team member! She has been with the newspaper almost since its inception… only taking time off to give birth to her two daughters, Savannah and Sydney. Now we all are anxiously anticpting her family growing with her first grandchild arriving in June! She states, “Although there have been some challenging times through the years, I have really enjoy my position as editor for the newspaper. Watching it change, grow, and evolve has brought great satisfaction to me. Since I love new technology and ideas, moving forward in production and operations has been very rewarding for me.”

What does this celebration mean to our advertisers? It means that they know they are getting the biggest ‘bang for their buck’ because we have been well read for 30 years in this community. Speaking of dedication, we would be remiss if we did not mention our advertiser, many who have been supporting our newspaper since we began. We thank them for their devotion all these years. I am happy knowing that our 30 years experience is a benefit to them.
In addition to printing the newspaper every other Friday, some new ventures spun off of Seniors Today.

Seniors Today was the first to host a Spring Fling and Fall Festival for all the seniors in our community to enjoy. These events were free, fun-filled days to give our seniors a day that focused on just them.

With new ideas ever evolving, in the last 5 years we began hosting a Pinning Ceremony And Celebration for Veteran’s Day. I felt part of the joy of publishing the newspaper, and one of our goals when my husband and I bought it, was to be able to give back to the seniors in the community who support us in our business and are loyal readers of our newspaper.

We felt the need to acknowledge just how important our veterans are and the sacrifices they made so we decided to move our celebration to focus on them. Of course we feel Veterans should be celebrated every day! Seniors Today website was added years ago and we continue to add to our e-mail database weekly. Yes! You can have the latest issue delivered right to your e-mail each time we publish. Simply go to seniorstodaynewspaper.com and sign up. The website allows readers to go online to read the current issue and any back issues they may have missed. We have many a snowbird tells us they read it year round through our website. Be sure to check it out and sign up.

Of course digital marketing is all the rave now and we intend to keep up with the market. This year you will see Seniors Today move to digital marketing as well. Join our new FaceBook Group too: Seniors Today Grapevine! We intend to share tips, updates, articles, and ideas to help today’s seniors live the fun, free-spirited lifestyle they deserve.

What is in store for the next thirty years? More great issues of Seniors Today, keeping current with new ideas… and more fun!

So here’s to our next THIRTY years of our continued dedication to publishing the best senior newspaper for all our friends to enjoy. Cheers!