COMPANY HISTORY...the little engine that could!
David Spring started out as the the owner of Bounce Back Trampolines. He wanted to place an ad in the local classified paper Ad Beat, which had been the only classified paper in the area for the past 8 years. Ad Beat didn't take classifieds over the phone and when he went to their office they took cash only. David was treated so badly he decided to start his own classified paper (that's a "Spring" for you!). So in 1980, Town Crier was born. David sold ads, his wife Sandy typeset and his sister Debby helped run the office. David created stands out of scrap metal, the paper was 8 pages and they distributed 400-500 papers per week. The three were between 24-25 and were making just enough to pay their babysitters. They typed strips of sentences and pasted them, along with borders cut directly out of the Daily Paper onto layout sheets. Some of our very first customers still advertise with us today.
In 1981, Bob Christensen, the owner of 15 Thrifty Nickels, offered to buy out Ad Beat and they turned him down. He made the offer to David and after making a 50/50 ownership deal, Town Crier became Thrifty Nickel. Bob brought a truckload of stands, a camera and helped build layout tables. They taught the threesome about accounting, how to layout a paper and how to manage their own Thrifty Nickel. They hired 2 salespeople, an office girl and installed 4 new phone lines. The circulation increased to 20,000 and expanded to out of town. Within three months the new Thrifty Nickel took off!
In 1984, David decided to start a telephone directory called The Panhandler. He left Thrifty Nickel to be ran by his sister, Debby. When it was time to put the phone book together David was at a loss and had Debby come over and teach his 15 girls how to typeset and run the office. Debby did so well he wanted her to stay on and run the phone book. The Thrifty Nickel staff was unhappy with management so David asked his mother, Pat Spring to step in and take over. Anita Shelton started in 1985 and her husband Jimmy Shelton followed in 1986. Jimmy remembers the days of taking camera shots in the dark room (instead of scanning photos like today), pasting up individual classifieds on layout paper, drawing what he wanted in color on tissue paper and handwriting his runsheets, statements and own sales reports. We call him our “caveman!.
The Panhandler was an excellent phone book with alot of innovative ideas. David's passion was for his whole family to do well and they all did. The Panhandler expanded too fast, causing the phone book and the whole family all the way down the line to go bankrupt. David moved to Dallas to start another paper, and they called it Ad Beat. Debby later joined David after having a Quick Quarter in College Station put out of business by a Thrifty Nickel. The Dallas market was alot different than Amarillo and it took a while to take off. Once the paper was doing well the office caught on fire, later to be determined arson, and they lost everything. Pat sent computers from Thrifty Nickel and they continued the paper, running it out of David’s house.
Debby trained her daughter, Cristi who was 18 at the time, how to typeset to take over her position at Ad Beat in Dallas. Debby moved back to Amarillo in 1990 to go back to work at Thrifty Nickel to help her mother. Blaine Burnett had been a salesman at The Panhandler and Debby was his boss. They got married and he came back to Amarillo to sell for Thrifty Nickel in 1991. Laura Wertz came from The Panhandler to fill in for a sick typesetter and never left! Today Laura works one day a week and types every classified ad within a few hours! Cristi followed her family back to Amarillo and started at Thrifty Nickel in 1992 as a part-time typesetter and doing a route.
In 1993 to spice things up, Thrifty Nickel went to the magazine format and soon went full color. Candy Davis came back to Amarillo from the Tulsa Thrifty Nickel. There were no positions available at the time so Candy came by the office EVERY week until a job in the front office came open. Candy turned out to be an indispensable asset in the front office. Pat Spring retired in 1996 and Debby took over as Office Manager. Thrifty Nickel moved from 10th Street to our present location in 1996.
Debby's mother Pat passed away and Debby became President of American Classifieds. Cristi was promoted to the Production Manager. In 1998, Cristi got into computer programming and set the salespeople, billing and route sheets up on a computerized database system. So we went from writing each account down by hand and sending handwritten bills to being computerized. We had one little computer in the copier room that the salespeople took turned using to activate their accounts.
We decided to go back to our original tabloid size because we were tired of being called "cute". So January 2000 was a year none of us could forget! When we came back from Christmas break, Cristi had ripped out all of the layout tables, remodeled the Production Department, changed the paper back to tabloid size and set the paper up to be paginated on the computer instead of pasting up. (We were one of the first few Thrifty Nickels in the Nation to paginate). Debby and Cristi were working 24 hours straight trying to work out the pagination kinks. Cristi hallucinated and Debby woke up with Egg McMuffin on her face...the paper came out a day late and everything was black and white! But other papers told us it couldn't be done, especially if we didn't change our ad deadlines, and we proved them wrong.
We expanded our new location on Washington in 2001, adding a whole new "wing" with individual sales offices, a conference room, a new kitchen and a tanning and workout room! In 2002, we acquired a "Stavenhagen", Becky Stavenhagen to be exact. Becky came on after being the Comptroller at Midway Chevrolet and had never sold before. She did try to quit once...she left on Friday and came back that next Monday. Now Becky is one of our Top Consultants.
In 2003, Cristi was big, fat and pregnant with her first child and her Assistant gave 2 weeks notice right before the baby was due! This is where Uli Tabares comes in. Uli was fresh out of college with a degree in Computer Animation. School training and on-the-job training are two totally different things, but Uli promised that he would do whatever it took to assist Cristi (he even offered to go get her lunch everyday and with her being pregnant, that made him the best candidate). Debby couldn't believe Cristi hired "a boy". Uli is a quiet person who started out "assisting" and continued to grow in his knowledge and creativity. Uli is an excellent artist and an extremely hard worker.
In January 2004, we changed our name to American Classifieds to recognize our national growth. At that time our dining and entertainment glossy magazine The Scene was born from a concept created by her Debby's youngest daughter, which pushed us to a whole new level. The corporate office was so impressed with The Scene they wanted us to market it nationally and train other American Classifieds on how to start their own!
In 2004, Teri Brown joined our team. Teri came to us with a degree in English and many, many jobs under her belt, including our only competition at the time (if you can call them that), AdBeat. She took off full force and quickly moved into Top Sales, which earned her a Rolex watch! At this time, Jennelle Diggs joined our sales team. Jennelle had worked in radio so she was able to bring alot of insight from a different media. Jennelle built an account list from $0 to $3000 a week in three months! Jennelle tried to leave us twice, once to move to Dallas and once to try television, but now she has a passion for American Classifieds and we have our claws in her so she will be here forever.
Debby's youngest son, Ryan (who has a Bachelor's Degree in Psychology) came on from Cellular One in 2006, as our Distribution Manager. Ryan has become a huge asset and takes great pride in his work. He has reorganized and cleaned up our routes, brought in any new stops and deals with the ever changing delivery team with patience and efficiency. Ryan also handles the maintenance of all of the company vehicles and the office building.
In 2005, Cherisa Felder came to work in our front office with Candy. Cherisa was very bright and caught on quickly. Most American Classifieds have up to six girls that work in their front office, but Candy and Cherisa are so good at what they do, they are all we need and more! Cherisa began writing articles for The Scene and putting together the Calendar of Events.
The year 2008 was a year of evolution (or was is revolution?). A "team contest" which was led by the three department heads; Debby, Cristi and the Sales Manager, merged Cristi in with the sales department. During this time The Kidz Digest was created and production and sales began working as a Team. There were some innovative ideas, some crying, some fits thrown, some revelations and ultimately a resignation. Cristi became the Marketing Director and Uli was promoted to Production Manager. The sales department was stripped bare and started from scratch.
Uli is completely self taught and has the Production Department running like a well oiled machine. He designs every display ad in American Classifieds and has the entire paper paginated at lightning speed! Cherisa was made Uli's Graphic Assistant. Most American Classifieds have up to 6 people designing for their paper and we have...Uli.
The economy took a downward turn in 1998 causing the tightening of advertising budgets and potential clients watching how they spent their advertising budgets. This made the community look at American Classifieds as an efficient way to get the best return on their advertising investment. The Globe News no longer was considered competition and American Classifieds moved up to the level of comparison with radio and television! This was an evolution of the marketing needs for our area which we responded with turning our salespeople into complete Media Consultants. In 2009, we created a new division within American Classifieds to be able to further assist our clients with all of their business marketing need by providing printing, website design, internet marketing and mobile marketing...Younique Media.
With the combination of everyone working as a team, Debby's innovative management skills, Cristi constantly forcing us into new technology (sometimes kicking and screaming), Uli and Laura producing the work of several people at amazing speeds, Ryan making our distribution unbelievably strong and efficient, Candy and Cherisa giving excellent customer service and keeping the front office running efficiently and of course the "engine" that drives our business…our Media Consultants, American Classifieds has become a smooth operating force to be reckoned with! We have constantly been complimented by being used as "an exemplary paper" by the Corporate office and other American Classified papers.
We decided to say goodbye to The Scene on it's 5 year anniversary, October 2010. Today American Classifieds distributes 37,000 papers to the Texas & Oklahoma Panhandles and into Liberal, Kansas. We distribute The Kidz Digest once a month and the Christmas Review Shopping Guide once a year. We are no longer Amarillo's "garage sale" paper, we are a Media Consulting firm that can meet the needs of everyone in our community and beyond! We are looking to the future with continued education of our Sales Department, expanding our printing capabilities, moving more toward online and social media and future promotions. As you can see where we are, when we came from the vision of a man that woke up one day and decided to start a business he knew nothing about…we are capable of great things!
