CRESTVIEW — Our beginnings were modest. On July 3, 1975, the Okaloosa Consumer Bulletin's first edition landed in home mailboxes throughout the area.
News content was a bit light. Some pithy thoughts from Editor Roger Robinson and the first installment of a history series by his dad — former Playground Daily News writer N. Allen Robinson — were highlights.
See ads and recipes from the July 10, 1975, Crestview Consumer Bulletin>>
Roger Robinson introduced a regular column, “Let’s Talk About It,” that delved into topical issues, but even better received was “Maw’s Meanderings,” a popular social column by Ellen Broderick, the Okaloosa News-Journal's former co-owner.
Topics included who was visiting whom, nice folks Broderick encountered, discussion with forester John McMahon about trees, and, “Hey! I got proof I was born and now I have a passport. Hot dog!”
The free tabloid-size weekly didn’t exactly give the bigger, more-established News-Journal a run for its money, but tenaciously hung on, garnering advertisers and readership.
When the 77-year-old News-Journal ceased publication in December 1992, the Consumer Bulletin was ready to fill the void, reappearing as the full-sized North Okaloosa Bulletin early in 1993.
We became the Okaloosa News Leader — which many readers still call us, local traditions dying hard — a couple of years later, and in the early 2000s, publisher Jim Knudsen renamed us again.
Now, three owners and five editors later, we’re the Crestview News Bulletin, with coverage both in print and online, a vast resource the Robinsons never dreamed of in 1975.
But some things never change, and the main one is our dedication to our North Okaloosa County readers and our efforts to bring you relevant, fascinating news about the place we call home.
WHAT IT COST IN '75
Leafing through the Okaloosa Consumer Bulletin's second issue — we can’t find the first issue. If you have one, we’d love to make a copy of it — is like poking through a time capsule of what was on people's minds and how much stuff cost in the summer of 1975.
You could buy a new house “as low as $57 per month"; a Broyhill sofa for $399.95; small eggs were three dozen for $1 at Thrifty Foods; T-bone steaks were $1.49 a pound at the Tom Thumb Superette; and the new Opel Mantas had fuel injection.
Warren Oates and Peter Fonda starred in “Race With the Devil” and Steve McQueen and Paul Newman battled “The Towering Inferno” at the Fox Theatre when the Crestview News Bulletin, under its first name, began publication. The Dixie Drive-In’s Saturday double feature was “Sugar Hill” and “Creatures the World Forgot.”
Email News Bulletin Staff Writer Brian Hughes, follow him on Twitter or call 850-682-6524.
This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: Crestview News Bulletin celebrates 40 years of service (PHOTOS)