by Paul L. Hayden

A 30-year Love Affair with a Lake
Launching a Sturdy Vessel of Regional Pride

There is more potential today than there was when we started; it keeps growing.”

Our company President Cindy Hayden (and, yes, my wife) is fond of saying this about our business, Lake Superior Port Cities Inc.

Our former chairman and Cindy’s father, the late Jim Marshall, had another appropriate, oft-used phrase, that still applies to our business and our staff:

“It’s fun being proud of you!”

With this issue - our 168th - we commemorate 30 years of bringing Lake Superior to the world. With your indulgence, I’d like to use the occasion to puff out our proverbial chest and tell you a bit about how we got here.

It’s been a love affair from the start because we all love this Lake, we love this region and we love producing a publication of which we can be so proud.

Touting reasons for regional pride and showcasing beautiful photography were “missions” of this magazine since it was born in 1979 as Lake Superior Port Cities, the creative brainchild of photographer Tom Jesperson and his neighbor Patricia Campbell.

The Spring 1979 issue - meant to print in April - came out in June, produced by an enthusiastic and delightfully inexperienced staff. Tom listed himself as “editor and chief” rather than “editor-in-chief” because that’s what he thought the position was, as he explains it.

As for the energetic Pat Campbell, a 1982 Duluth News-Tribune & Herald article by Bob Aschenmacher amusingly describes her drive to support the magazine: “Local merchants, it turned out, were intrigued by this short, gray-haired woman who bedeviled them about buying space until they either forcefully declined or gave in and signed on.”

Those early years included some wild 4 a.m. sessions to get to press followed by marathon labeling and mailing hours. The magazine was financed through subscriptions, advertising and some donated time, content and money.

Sprinkled through this Journal, by the way, are a few “circa 1979” ads pulled from the first year as well as “historic” photos. It’s fun to see old friends, relish businesses still here and reflect on those that are gone.

Jim Marshall

Jim, “J.R.,” became involved by 1981, first writing for the magazine and then investing in it and taking ownership.

Jim had ample business experience, including creation of Chippewa Camping Outfitters and the distinction of being the first U.S. dealer of Bombardier Ski-Doo snowmobiles. He worked 35 years until retirement for Columbia Steel Castings.

Like Tom and Pat, Jim saw the magazine’s role as a reminder of our beautiful surroundings and a celebration of positive community forces.

“We have a philosophy of striving for the ‘win-win,’” Jim wrote in our 20th anniversary issue.

Cindy Crawford and Paul Hayden’s 1985 wedding.

In 1984, Jim asked Cindy, who had recently left a management job with US West, to return to Duluth to help. After reviewing assets and challenges, Cindy agreed to spend “a few months” evaluating the business for him. She told her dad she had one condition: “I get to live on the boat.” As our longtime readers know, the boat was J.R.’s Skipper Sam II. From Sam, he launched many an adventure that later appeared in this Lake Superior Journal. Technically, from Sam, Cindy launched significant changes to better float this business through three decades (and beyond).

What started as a few-months task soon became Cindy’s full-time passion. She moved into permanent lodgings - her floating “apartment” had to be dry docked for winter - and tackled the publishing job.

My tenure as the first full-time, long-term editor with Lake Superior Magazine started in 1985, about a year before it evolved from Lake Superior Port Cities. The early years benefitted from many editors, some rotating, among them: David Knutson, Nancy Berini, Barbara Landfield, Mary Morse and Ann Crooks.

I came with experience and education in media. I had worked in television, radio and with the advertising agency of Jeno Paulucci, doing commercial account work, public relations and anything else that came up. But I had never edited a print publication. When I arrived in the office, Cindy handed me a red pen and said I was editor. So I tell folks, “If you have a red pen, you can be the editor.”

That same year, we brought the first state-of-the-art digital typesetting equipment to town to use on the magazine and created Lake Superior Typesetters, which also did outside work.

By the end of 1985, we realized that the magazine name - Lake Superior Port Cities - limited its potential expansion. We planned for a change. On August 20, 1986, we gathered reporters and V.I.P.s onto the pilot boat Twin Ports Belle and pulled up a “treasure” from the bottom of the lake. It was an “MZ in a bottle” - that’s magazine in a bottle - with a new name and emphasis: Lake Superior Magazine.

That change got other things rolling. Within five years, we published our first book, put out a comprehensive Lake Superior Travel Guide and created the first to-scale detailed map with the states and province around the lake and major roads. (Follow the progression in the “timeline” within this Journal.) Also in 1985, Cindy and I were married.

Our current editor, Konnie LeMay, came to us “camera ready” (so she said). She had been a newspaper journalist in Minnesota and North Dakota and in France on a Rotary International scholarship. She also worked at Indian Country Today, a Native American weekly newspaper. The day of her job interview, the electricity went out and Konnie climbed the six floors to our offices and interviewed by a window (no lights), on a sweltering July day (no fans). Memorable first impression. She favors a purple pen, but we let her be editor anyway.

We (and the industry) have gone from printing and painstakingly cutting out and gluing down columns of type to designing the magazine on a computer screen … photos in place and all.

The magazine, though, hasn’t been the only ground-breaker here. Though she would prefer that I didn’t mention these things (but you know how husbands are), my wife has set a strong direction for our business’ commitment to community service.

Cindy has been appointed to international, national and state boards, such as the Lake Superior Binational Forum, the Governor’s Highway Beautification Commission, Fond du Lac Economic Development Commission and the Minnesota Round Table on Sustainable Development. She was the first woman to chair the Duluth Area Chamber of Commerce, was board chair of both the Lake Superior Center Authority and the board of the Great Lakes Aquarium (on that board for 20 years) and the founding president of the North Shore Rotary.

She received, along with Jim and me, the “Joel Labovitz Entrepreneurial Success Award - Lifetime Achievement” in 2006 and, on her own, the “Business Person of the Year” award in 2007, both from the Labovitz School of Business and Economics at the University of Minnesota Duluth.

Some of the best honors, though, come from those who help us. Just as family is important in most people’s lives, our magazine “family” has been extremely vital to us. We see our advertisers as our partners and believe that we can help them to grow their businesses as we grow ours. Our generous photographic and writing contributors help each issue shine.

Our staff members, of course, give hours of hard work and great ideas, without which we could not succeed.

And you, our dear readers (as Jim was fond of calling you), are the reason there is a magazine at all.

We would have long folded, turned out the lights and gone home without your encouragement - in your supportive letters, your office visits and subscription renewals. (Several readers boast the entire 30 years on their shelves.) You are our extended crew.

I strongly believe that we live in a Lake Superior neighborhood - albeit a large one - and that what we do here is to acquaint all our neighbors with each other. We have common goals and values. We all contribute to the good of our region.

Our first and greatest magazine “contributor” – the Lake.

Many individuals and businesses have helped us to survive and thrive - too many to name all of them. However, I must acknowledge a special few and my apologies to the many others whose names are not specifically here, but could be.

Donn Larson, Howard Klatzky, Lars Fladmark, Dale App and Davis Helberg are a few of our media and general advisers. Members of the International Regional Magazine Association have often been mentors and lifelines.

Bill and Toni Meierhoff have been very generous and supportive over the years. The magazine offices were in the Meierhoff’s building on Lake Avenue South for 22 years, until the upper floors were made into condominiums in 2006.

We have many contributors, but Dixie Franklin and our regular authors, Fred Stonehouse, Bonnie Dahl and Howard Sivertson, have offered special opportunities for us.

We have also lost some of our dearest magazine friends and family … including Jim, Pat Campbell, Barb Landfield, photographers Tim Slattery and Dan Urbanski and, of course, little Huckleberry “Huck” Finn, our beloved office dog and greeter.

Yes, our lives and business have had ebbs and flows like the lake itself, but we are excited to continue this journey for many years to come.

Jim once told readers, “We hope we are doing everything we can for you and for Lake Superior.”

That is something that we still hope - and strive - for today. Thanks to all of you.

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Feedback: edit@lakesuperior.com

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