By Charity Bishop, Editor
One day while working in a small newspaper office in 1991, inspiration struck Jerry Bishop. What about a magazine that only featured positive and uplifting content? To find backers, he took his idea to several large newspaper editors, who laughed in his face and said, “Positivity doesn’t sell. A magazine like that won’t last a year!”
Well. Here we are in 2025. And some of their papers are no longer in business!
The world has changed a lot since he started our magazine. My mother had to design each page on a desktop computer, print it out, and paste it up on four-page sheets, which they drove to the press two hours away. Dad waited around all day while they printed us. Eventually, Publisher came along and made it easier to format text, include graphics, and Mom retired her jar of clip-art paste. By the time I started reading and accepting manuscripts for her at sixteen, the job had gotten less labor-intensive, but still involved manually delivering our paste-up sheets.
When the internet took over print publications and put a lot of them out of business, we survived. Why? Because we are not a newspaper. Our brand is “stories that feed the soul.” Articles that inspire you. A reminder that goodness, virtue, and heroism still exist in our fast-track world. Our magazine invites you to sit a spell on the porch with a cup of tea and return to a simpler, sweeter time.
Joy, inspiration, nostalgia, and positivity never go out of style.
If you’re a small business owner wondering why people connect more with ads in our paper than the ones they scroll past online, here’s the reason in plain words:
Nostalgia and inspiration sell.
1. People Buy with Their Hearts, Not Just Their Heads
Most of us like to think we’re logical buyers. But we make choices based on how something feels.
- A handmade quilt reminds us of Grandma.
- A whiff of horses smells like holidays on the farm.
- A saddle shop ad calls up dusty memories of 4-H and our first pony.
- A photo of a front porch swing reminds us why we moved out here.
Your ad isn’t just a promotion, but a little window into the hopes, dreams, and aspirations of our readers. When you tap into that, folks remember you, because you’re helping them build the dream.
2. Nostalgia Builds Trust and Comfort
In uncertain times, people cling to what’s familiar. That’s why they like stories from our writers that focus on the past. I want tales of a childhood dog, the summer you spent on a farm, and good old harvest time. We reuse our stories from authors no longer with us—tales of the Great Depression, the Dust Bowl, and traveling cross-country in a Model-A, so their voices never go unheard.
Even if a reader never had that upbringing, it invokes a sense of what is real, lasting, and romantic about the past. That’s why nostalgic branding in makes people stop and smile. It’s a reminder of innocence.
When your business honors old-fashioned values, family traditions, patriotism, or veterans, it resonates with our readership. They didn’t move to Elbert County for rush-hour traffic. They came here for the wide-open sky, the local county fair, for rodeos, and the chance to build something real.
And they notice when your ad reflects that.
3. Inspiration Is a Powerful Magnet
People don’t just want to remember; they want to feel hopeful.
It’s easy to feel overwhelmed and stressed by the news, which is all bad. Wars, shortages, financial crisis, and the intense polarization between political parties has us all under pressure. The Prairie Times is a break from negativity. We include inspirational stories, faith-filled messages, history, the Prairie Parson, comedic misadventures, tales of beloved pets, and uplifting western fiction.
Our readers crave content that lifts them up, and your ad can do the same. A business with a mission, a story, or a quiet sense of purpose is part of the community. When your ad carries that tone, it doesn’t feel like an ad. It feels like a friend.
4. Our Readers Don’t Just Glance. They Linger.
In publishing, you don’t get phone calls unless people are mad at you. Most of the calls we get are because someone read something in our paper and loved it so much, they had to tell us. I get e-mails in which a reader wants me to tell an author their story was wonderful. It touched their heart and made them reach out. Some of our readers who live in the area and receive their copy for free call up and purchase a subscription anyway, because they want to support what we’re doing.
We’ve heard it repeatedly:
- “I save every issue.”
- “I just love your paper!”
- “We just moved into the community and wanted to tell you how much we enjoyed the Prairie Times! Do I need a subscription to continue receiving it?”
- “That story by [one of our writers] was fantastic. Can I get another copy to send to my mother?”
Unlike online ads that disappear in a second, your print ad stays in the home. On the table. In the hands of someone who’s choosing to slow down and read. It becomes part of the experience.
Final Thoughts: This Isn’t Just a Magazine. It’s a Keepsake.
People don’t save catalogs. They don’t hold on to junk mail.
But they save our issues. They tuck them into bookshelves. Share them with their grand kids. We feel very proud to be a magazine anyone of any age can read. I print stories from children whenever they send them to me! People like us, because in these pages, they find a piece of themselves.
