100 Years of County Unity
A look back: CountyLines

The evolution of County News ... ahem, CountyLines
Above, from left to right: The final issue of the letter-size Countylines, Volume VI, No. 1, was published in February 1975. It was to be replaced by Jerry Elliott’s vision of a tabloid-size newspaper, The County Informer, shown in its original “dummy” form created in December 1974. The Informer was published as North Carolina County News for one issue before undergoing its final name change – CountyLines.

When Patrice Crawford (now Roesler) first interviewed with the Association in December 1974, Jerry Elliott, the Association’s long-time director of information, presented her with a mock-up of The County Informer, a tabloid-style newspaper proposal that had recently been approved by the Board of Directors.

Now in its 34th year, CountyLines, the monthly publication of the NCACC, is still going strong.

Roesler has been around for every issue. She became the Association’s ninth staffer on Jan. 5, 1975, as managing editor of the paper.

“Jerry had had a heart attack and was not in the best of health,” Roesler said, “and felt he couldn’t do something like this without some help.”

Roesler handled the writing and layout for the twice-a-month paper, which for one issue went by the name of North Carolina County News before assuming its current moniker. The tabloid-size paper replaced a monthly 8½-by-11 bi-fold mailing titled Countylines, which was published for five years.

The World Wide Web and e-mail have made it easy for CountyLines’ current editors to gather information from and about counties, but the process was more laborious for Roesler in the 1970s.

“The news didn’t come to us,” she said. “We had to go get it.

“We subscribed to the major dailies, and Frank Lewis (then field administrator) would bring newspapers from other areas of the state as he traveled.”

Roesler went about building relationships with other public information officers in state and federal agencies, as well as establishing a contact in each county from which to gather news that was fit for print in CountyLines.

“What they really loved was seeing their county in the paper,” she said. “This was a world where the printed page could be your only source of news on a county.

“They were very proud when their county got something printed in the paper. They wanted to see their name in CountyLines.”