Manor’s Ink hits triple digits

IT LITERALLY TAKES a village to produce Manor Ink. The support of local businesses, the library, foundations, individual sponsors, adult volunteers, student staff, the school and one intrepid professional make it possible to get out the paper 11 months a year.

When co-founder Carolyn Bivins retired in 2018 as the paper’s art-and-production editor, she recruited David Dann to fill her shoes. A “newspaper guy,” Dann now makes the magic happen with Manor Ink, including the idea to recognize our 100th issue!

Manor Ink evolves, because it must – its student staff have the darnedest habit of growing older, graduating and moving on.

Our little paper tries to be more and do more for students and for the community, with newspaper roles for student staffers, a school liaison and robust back-office support from the library.

Student leaders set the tone for the paper. Iris Gilligham stepped up to serve as the first formal student editor-in-chief in 2016, followed two years later by Mars Madison, and currently by LMCS senior Osei Helper.

When COVID shut down the school in March 2020, Manor Ink shifted seamlessly to weekly meetings on Zoom, long before the school itself transitioned to virtual. “Whoa!” is what former staffer Edward Lundquist exclaimed when his computer screen first displayed the entire Ink team live on camera.

The current generation of students endure enormous strains. Fears fostered by the pandemic, racial injustice, guns in schools and global warming weigh on them. We mentors empathize, reflecting on the ways our own experiences naturally shaped us indelibly.

Manor Ink helps make our village a community that celebrates its young people, its entrepreneurs, its artists, its natural beauty. A community that has a platform from which to glimpse the forces propelling it into the future.

Amy Hines, President, LMFL Board

A hometown newspaper with a unique history

By Manor Ink Staff

Sometime around January 2012, Livingston Manor Free Library Director Peggy Johansen walked down the hallway in the C-wing at Sullivan County Community College and knocked on the door of the Writing Center & Lounge. She was looking for help.

It was not your garden variety college essay help. Peggy, who in addition to her library job, was an adjunct professor at the college, had a very special assignment in mind. Her community wanted – perhaps needed – a local newspaper. The Writing Center was staffed by the adjunct journalism professor, Barbara Gref.

“You need a newspaper? You’re thinking the town kids will run it out of the library attic? No problem,” said Gref, who had worked in local and regional news for more than 20 years. “I’ll do you one better. I’m working with a nonprofit that is dedicated to preserving local news. I’ll help you and so will the Community Reporting Alliance.”

And while all of that was true, Gref knew her next phone call had to be made to one person. She dialed Carolyn Bivins. Bivins was known widely for her design and production of almost all the local print publications including the Livingston Manor newspaper, The Towne Crier, which she had founded in 1991, but had since changed hands and was now defunct. She and others in town also knew the school newspaper had been cut from the budget. A town with no newspaper sounded like something that should not be allowed.

Urged on by Jamie Helper, the parent of children willing to sign up right away, and by Lee Siegel, a local businessman and trustee of the Kaplan Fund that was willing to provide seed funds, Peggy’s project – a library-based, youth-led local newspaper – was well on its way to being born.

By March, a staff of 12 to 14 young people began meeting in the library attic to create the website and the social media sites that would carry the news. Even though they were kids living and learning in the 21st century, they were not content to have their news solely on the Internet. They wanted a print newspaper. And they wanted to call it Manor Ink.

The teens decided roles. Who would be editor, who would cover sports, who would sell ads. And, hey, maybe there should be a comic strip and horoscope. Peggy, Carolyn, Barbara and a half a dozen other adults signed on as “mentors” to guide and advise the young people.

The kids distributed and sold the newspaper. Local businesses agreed to carry it and advertise in it. The staff also held bake sales, car washes and other events to raise money to pay the printing bill. The mentors applied for grants. A highlight was the day Jim Ottaway, who had once owned more than 30 newspapers in the US and Canada and was a director of the Wall Street Journal, climbed the stairs to the library’s second floor to take part in an editorial meeting of the enterprise he was helping to fund through his foundation. Later, the late veteran journalist Frank Burbank visited with the staff to talk about his coverage of past presidents and candidates in the presidential primaries. He gave key tips on interviewing and asking the hard questions.

Manor Ink was invited to exhibit at the state library association convention. The mentors gave a presentation about the library-based news at a summit of New England newspaper editors. Magazines wrote about Manor Ink. Radio shows interviewed the kid editors. Perhaps the biggest achievement was the award-winning presentation the teens made at the Nonprofit Innovation Conference and competition, after which the staff walked away with the $5,000 first prize.

The early days were not without their challenges. There were times the staff had to rally to cover the flood waters that would converge on town. In one instance, a past school superintendent attempted to censor an article about a school board meeting, and the paper had to fight back. The day that is blazed into everyone’s memory is the afternoon the center of town nearly blew to smithereens in a fiery propane explosion that still leaves a hole at the corner of Pearl and Main streets. But cover these stories the kids of Manor Ink did, and in doing so they learned a lot about their town and, we hope, a little about themselves.

Many thanks to former Manor Ink advisor and co-founder Barbara Gref for her contribution to this story.

Award Winning Journalism

The New York Press Association awarded this July 2020 story about the Manor’s “Black Lives Matter” march by former Associate Editor Demi Budd first place in the student News Story category in NYPA’s statewide “Better Newspapers” contest.

Towns march for racial justice

Manor, Roscoe join nationwide protests

By Demi Budd | Manor Ink

Livingston Manor, NY – Eight minutes and 46 seconds. That is how long officer Derek Chauvin pinned his knee down on George Floyd’s neck. Within those eight minutes and 46 seconds, Floyd pleaded for his mother and cried that “everything hurts.” In that time, he spoke his final words, a phrase that would sweep the nation, turning America upside down in just a few days.

“I can’t breathe.”

George Floyd’s death was like the match thrown into a puddle of gasoline. Police brutality and racism have both been an unfortunate reality over the years, the latter being a centuries-old problem. The two issues walk hand-in-hand more often than not. Brutally injuring and killing innocent people because of their skin color has been a devastating norm for years.

With this in mind, Floyd’s death was not an isolated incident – it was the breaking point. Though this tragedy took place in Minneapolis, people all over the US (and outside the US) have come together through Black Lives Matter protests for reforms and justice for the lives taken by police brutality, and sometimes those protests lead to rioting. There is a very notable difference between protests and riots, however.

Protests are peaceful. They include sign-holding, marching and chanting. Riots, on the other hand, are violent. They lead to scenes of burning buildings, windows being shattered, property being destroyed, etc. Unfortunately, it’s riots that are most often presented on the news and Internet. Seeing a peaceful protest on TV is far more unlikely than seeing the local Target getting burned down.

Both these actions, despite their different approaches, spread the same message – a desire for change, not just in policing, but in society as a whole. Even here in the Livingston Manor, a peaceful protest was held – entirely organized by Livingston Manor Central School students.

The idea was sparked by freshman Sienna Dutcher, who formed a large group chat on the social media app Snapchat. She laid out her plan and asked who would be willing to participate. Many students were all for it, and thus the planning began.

“We felt that the town needed to voice its support for the Black Lives Matter movement, so we organized the protest through social media,” Dutcher explained.

A march and vigil

One of the students who organized the protest was Manor Ink’s editor-in-chief, Osei Helper.

He was tasked with finding a place to hold a planned vigil after the march. This proved to be a bit more difficult than anticipated, but Osei was persistent. He found areas where there were buildings by usable lots, and he contacted those people. When one was unable to give access to an open area, Osei would then find the next person to ask.

“It was like a big chain of people to contact,” he explained.

Osei got in touch with Meg McNeil, owner of Upstream Wine & Spirits on Main Street. He and McNeil initially thought the event could be held in the parking lot at Renaissance Park, but Supervisor Rob Eggleton expressed concern about the safety of the participants. It was then that the vigil was moved to the Catskill Brewery’s field on Old Rte. 17. By then, the day of the protest – Saturday, June 6 – was fast approaching. Word spread rapidly over social media, and soon, hundreds of people knew about it.

Before the event began, sophomore Willa Schweitzer, who was also heavily involved in its planning, said, “It just got bigger and bigger once we shared the idea for the march on Instagram, Snapchat and Facebook. It looks like we’ll have a great turnout today.”

This is an excerpt from the full story. Click the button to read it and other related articles in full.

With a little help from our friends

By Amy Hines | Manor Ink Mentor

While community newspapers across the country are struggling, Manor Ink’s business model is different. Published by the Livingston Manor Free Library, it receives tax deductible, charitable donations and grants as a nonprofit organization.

The sources of Manor Ink’s funds include individuals, corporations, nonprofit organizations, foundations and even government through Sullivan County Youth Services and the Town of Rockland.

Today, nearly 50 businesses advertise in Manor Ink. There are also several nonprofit organizations that purchase ads, and Manor Ink recognizes as a sponsor any individual, organization or corporation that contributes $250 or more. The number of sponsors has grown to 47 and is a great way for people and organizations to extend their appreciation for having a community newspaper.

Since its founding, Manor Ink has requested and received support from two foundations – the Kaplan Fund and Community Reporting Alliance (CRA). Jeanne Straus, president and CEO of CRA and Straus News, has advised and supported Manor Ink from her professional vantage point as the owner and publisher of 17 for-profit community papers, primarily in New Jersey. More recently, Sullivan County Youth Services has made generous annual grants toward the increasing costs of monthly printing.

The newspaper is grateful to all its financial supporters – without them the Ink would run dry!

What they think about the Ink

A gallery of past Manor Ink covers