Sustaining Success: Star & Enterprise pushes forward

Each year, for just about as long as anyone can remember, the Marion Star & Mullins Enterprise has created a special section to showcase industries, businesses and organizations and the progress they've made during the past year.

Initially, I thought this year's special section would be a difficult one, given the county's high unemployment, the overall gloomy economic forecast and the current recession's toll on discretionary spending.

It could have been difficult to write about progress, opportunity or success, and many who have been featured in this section in the past are not in it this year, but the few who have been interviewed and who have chosen to be featured in this section have proven track records of longitivity.

These businesses and their owners have sustained their service to the community despite hard times and are continuing to do whatever they can to remain competitive. Adapt, change, three steps forward, one back, they all have been working hard to sustain their success.

For instance, once local owners sold their newspapers to larger publishing groups, owners moved from black and white only issues to using spot color, and then, by 1993 were producing full color photographs.
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n 2000, Media General, Inc., based in Richmond, Va. and owner of WBTW TV13, purchased the Star & Enterprise, the Lake City News & Post, the Johnsonville-Hemingway Weekly Observer and the daily Morning News in Florence.

In 2007 the Star & Enterprise ventured into the world wide web when its page of the SCNow.com site was created. Then, this past March, Media General added to its Carolina Publishing Group the Hartsville Messenger, continuing its move into the region with a converged market approach to news, information and entertainment. Media General also owns a television station in Charleston and one in Spartanburg.

It has been the privilege of this newspaper to have served the Marion County, and its principle municipalities, since 1846 (Marion) and 1898 (Mullins).
We are the county's only newspaper of record and one of the oldest continuinually operating newspapers in the state.
We continue to strive to accurately report the business, education, sports, government and daily lives of the county's people.

As one of the county’s oldest continuing businesses, we understand business cycles, good times, bad times, ownership changes, history, heritage and the importance of staying competitive and sustaining success. We have faced many challenges, including layoffs and furloughs, like other businesses in the county, and are still here.
Whatever the future holds for any of us, thanks for sharing your stories with us every day, online at the Star & Enterprise's page on the www.SCNow.com Web site, and with our weekly Wednesday readers in the newspaper.

The staff at the Star & Enterprise and our counterparts in Florence worked hard to create this this year's progess section. We hope you enjoy it and the articles about a few of the businesses in the county.

Newspaper History:

Founded in Marion 1846
Founded in Mullins 1898
Combined in March 1990