What do Matthew McConaughey, Cate Blanchett, Jennifer Aniston and Jennifer Lopez have in common with The Ponte Vedra Recorder?
They all celebrate their 53rd birthdays this year.
The news in 1969 was full of soaring victories and painful defeats. Big names in media told us about the ongoing war in Southeast Asia, civil unrest in America and man’s first step on the Lunar Surface.
But news on a local scale for residents of Ponte Vedra Beach and the surrounding area was going untold.
That is, until Gretchen Carpenter and Peg Bradford launched The Ponte Vedra Recorder on Nov. 7. In a now-famous declaration printed in that first issue, the pair wrote:
“We’ll never make the professional golf circuit! We’ll never paint the great American masterpiece! We’ll never write the great American novel! But maybe, just maybe, with everybody’s help, we can do something really worthwhile. So this announces the Inevitable Happening in our life … the birth of the first Ponte Vedra newspaper, dedicated to the accurate coverage of events taking place in our Community that often pass unnoticed.”
The paper grew from that humble beginning and continues to grow today.
Ownership has changed over the years. Carpenter passed away in 1980 and Bradford followed four years later. The reins passed to Bradford’s son, Tim, who served as publisher, editor, writer and photographer for many years until his death in 1997. His widow, Pamela Bradford, kept the paper going until 1999, when she sold it to Journal Community Publishing Group of Wisconsin.
In 2011, the paper was sold to the Osteen family of Sumter, South Carolina. Today, it is a product of the Osteen Media Group.
Movie stars may be big news on the big screen, but in Northeast St. Johns County the big news involves our community, our friends, our neighbors.
It’s the news the Recorder has delivered for 53 years and continues to delivery every week.
