The Mini Page

Last updated

The Mini Page is a syndicated newspaper supplement for children, created by Betty Debnam in 1969 and authored by her and two other writers. [1]

Contents

History

The Mini Page began in August 1969 and appears weekly in hundreds of newspapers in the United States as an offering of Andrews McMeel Syndication. [1] Its regular features include short articles, puzzles, jokes, and recipes. Andrews McMeel has also published several Mini Page spinoff books covering subjects such as the U.S. military, science, the states, history, geography and the environment. [1]

The supplement was conceived as a cross between the Weekly Reader and a newspaper comics section, with an underlying mission of encouraging family-centered reading and literacy. [1] It was the first supplement of its kind when it debuted in August 1969 in the Raleigh, North Carolina News & Observer . [1] The Mini Page's first issue had a "Back to School" theme and included a mini-profile of Los Angeles Rams quarterback Roman Gabriel and a "Faces in the News" section asking readers to identify a picture of Spiro Agnew. [1]

When Debnam created the Mini Page, she had been an elementary school teacher for twelve years and had never drawn before. [1] Initially, she handled all tasks involved in the Mini Page's production, including researching, producing, laying out and editing all the content. [1] She was also responsible for selling advertising, which is no longer included in the supplement. Debnam sold The Mini Page to Andrews McMeel in 2007 but continues to consult on the feature.

Awards

In 1999, as the Mini Page celebrated its thirtieth anniversary, Debnam was inducted into the North Carolina Journalism Hall of Fame and received the first-ever Lifetime Achievement Award from the Newspaper Association of America. [2] Debnam was inducted into the Association of Educational Publishers' hall of fame in 2001, [3] and the Raleigh Hall of Fame in 2013. [4] She won a 2007 Distinguished Achievement Award from the AEP for The Mini Page Guide to the Constitution, a nine-part series that was released as a book by Andrews McMeel after appearing in newspapers. [5]

Betty Debnam

Debnam credits her inspiration for the Mini Page to her family, especially her grandmother, who ran a small weekly newspaper in Snow Hill, North Carolina. [1] Her grandfather was a school superintendent and edited the newspaper; her father was a newspaper reporter in Norfolk, Virginia. [1] Debnam was married to Richard Hunt, a former Associated Press reporter and military adviser to Hubert Humphrey [1] and died on November 1, 2020. [6]

Related Research Articles

<i>Calvin and Hobbes</i> Comic strip by Bill Watterson

Calvin and Hobbes is a daily American comic strip created by cartoonist Bill Watterson that was syndicated from November 18, 1985, to December 31, 1995. Commonly cited as "the last great newspaper comic", Calvin and Hobbes has enjoyed broad and enduring popularity, influence, and academic and philosophical interest.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lynn Johnston</span> Canadian cartoonist

Lynn Johnston is a Canadian cartoonist and author, best known for her newspaper comic strip For Better or For Worse. She was the first woman and first Canadian to win the National Cartoonist Society's Reuben Award.

<i>The Observer</i> British weekly newspaper

The Observer is a British newspaper published on Sundays. It is a sister paper to The Guardian and The Guardian Weekly, whose parent company Guardian Media Group Limited acquired it in 1993. First published in 1791, it is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper.

Patrick Bruce "Pat" Oliphant is an Australian-born American artist whose career spanned more than sixty years. His body of work as a whole focuses mostly on American and global politics, culture, and corruption; he is particularly known for his caricatures of American presidents and other powerful leaders. Over the course of his long career, Oliphant produced thousands of daily editorial cartoons, dozens of bronze sculptures, as well as a large oeuvre of drawings and paintings. He retired in 2015.

<i>The News & Observer</i> American newspaper

The News & Observer is an American regional daily newspaper that serves the greater Triangle area based in Raleigh, North Carolina. The paper is the largest in circulation in the state. The paper has been awarded three Pulitzer Prizes; the most recent of which was in 1996 for a series on the health and environmental impact of North Carolina's booming hog industry. The paper was one of the first in the world to launch an online version of the publication, Nando.net in 1994.

Samuel Talmadge Ragan was an American journalist, author, poet, and arts advocate from North Carolina.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Creative Loafing</span> Publisher in Atlanta, Georgia, US

Creative Loafing is an Atlanta-based publisher of a monthly arts and culture newspaper/magazine. The company publishes a 60,000 circulation monthly publication which is distributed to in-town locations and neighborhoods on the first Thursday of each month. The company has historically been a part of the alternative weekly newspapers association in the United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">United Media</span> Defunct print syndication service

United Media was a large editorial column and comic strip newspaper syndication service based in the United States, owned by the E. W. Scripps Company, that operated from 1978 to 2011. It syndicated 150 comics and editorial columns worldwide. Its core businesses were the United Feature Syndicate and the Newspaper Enterprise Association.

<i>Ask Shagg</i>

Ask Shagg was a syndicated daily comic strip drawn by cartoonist Peter Guren from 1980 to 2020. It was distributed by Creators Syndicate; it had been distributed by United Feature Syndicate from 1980 until 1995. The strip has run in dozens of newspapers including The Boston Globe, The Columbus Dispatch, and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. In each strip Guren, through his Shagg E. Dawg character, answered questions from readers about the animal kingdom. The strip retired on the 5th of January, 2020.

Universal Press Syndicate (UPS), a subsidiary of Andrews McMeel Universal, was an independent press syndicate. It distributed lifestyle and opinion columns, comic strips and other content. Popular columns include Dear Abby, Ann Coulter, Roger Ebert and News of the Weird. Founded in 1970, it was merged in July 2009 with Uclick to form Universal Uclick.

Jan Eliot is an American cartoonist.

The Duplex is a comic strip by Glenn McCoy and now his brother Gary McCoy, syndicated by Universal Press Syndicate/Universal Uclick/Andrews McMeel Syndication since April 1993.

Jack Betts was a journalist and columnist for the Charlotte Observer, where he retired as the Associate Editor in 2011. Based in Raleigh, North Carolina and wrote primarily on topics related to North Carolina government and politics. Betts and his wife Martha live near Dan, Virginia.

A comic strip syndicate functions as an agent for cartoonists and comic strip creators, placing the cartoons and strips in as many newspapers as possible on behalf of the artist. A syndicate can annually receive thousands of submissions, from which only two or three might be selected for representation. In some cases, the work will be owned by the syndicate as opposed to the creator. The Guinness World Record for the world's most syndicated strip belongs to Jim Davis' Garfield, which at that point (2002) appeared in 2,570 newspapers, with 263 million readers worldwide.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Elizabeth MacRae</span> American actress

Elizabeth Hendon MacRae is an American actress who performed in dozens of television series and in nine feature films, working predominantly in productions released between 1958 and the late 1980s. Among her more widely recognized roles is her recurring character as Lou-Ann Poovie on the sitcom Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C., which was originally broadcast from 1964 to 1969.

Betty is a Canadian comic strip written by Gary Delainey and drawn by Gerry Rasmussen. The comic was originally distributed by United Features Syndicate, and is now distributed via Andrews McMeel Syndication.

Uclick LLC was an American corporation selling "digital entertainment content" for the desktop, the web and mobile phones. Uclick operated several consumer websites, including the comic strip and editorial cartoon site GoComics and the puzzle and casual game sites ThePuzzleSociety.com and UclickGames.com.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Andrews McMeel Syndication</span> American content syndicate

Andrews McMeel Syndication is an American content syndicate which provides syndication in print, online and on mobile devices for a number of lifestyle and opinion columns, comic strips and cartoons and various other content. Some of its best-known products include Dear Abby, Doonesbury, Ziggy, Garfield, Ann Coulter, Richard Roeper and News of the Weird. A subsidiary of Andrews McMeel Universal, it is headquartered in Kansas City, Missouri. It was formed in 2009 and renamed in January 2017.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Julia Collier Harris</span> American writer and journalist

Julia Collier Harris was an American writer and journalist. She wrote the earliest biography of Joel Chandler Harris, her husband's father. As owners and publishers of the Columbus Enquirer Sun she and her husband won the 1926 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service. She has been inducted into three Georgia halls of fame: Georgia Newspaper Hall of Fame, Georgia Writers Hall of Fame, and Georgia Women of Achievement.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Betty Ray McCain</span> American politician (1931–2022)

Betty Landon Ray McCain was an American politician and political strategist. She was the North Carolina Secretary of Cultural Resources during Governor Jim Hunt's administration and was the first woman to chair the North Carolina Democratic Party. She was also the first woman named to the state's Advisory Budget Committee. As Secretary of Cultural Resources, McCain opened the North Carolina Museum of History, rededicated USS North Carolina (BB-55), and secured funding for the excavation of the Queen Anne's Revenge. She received the North Carolina Award in 2009 and was inducted into the North Carolina Women's Hall of Fame in 2010.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 Oldenburg, Don (August 30, 1994). "The littlest readers' champion: The Mini Page is 25, but its editor keeps it young". The Washington Post . p. C5.
  2. Astor, David (September 4, 1999). "Et cetera". Editor & Publisher . p. 42.
  3. Astor, David (December 17, 2001). "Et cetera". Editor & Publisher. p. 19.
  4. "Eight people, two organizations to be inducted into Raleigh Hall of Fame". The News & Observer. Raleigh, North Carolina. April 16, 2013. Retrieved September 1, 2013.
  5. "Award for 'Mini Page' series on the Constitution". Editor & Publisher. June 14, 1997.
  6. Lacy, Bridgette A. (November 3, 2020). "Betty Debnam Hunt, pioneering creator of The Mini Page for kids, has died". The News & Observer. Raleigh, North Carolina. Retrieved June 26, 2021.

Further reading