ST. ALBANS — The very best photo albums chronicle family history, bring up old memories and return to us faces we’ve lost.
Even in the age of camera phones and the Cloud, photo albums get pulled from the shelf on holidays and on anniversaries. Outfits and haircuts get laughed at and family vacations and birthday parties are remembered.
That’s what the Messenger’s annual Franklin County Business Community supplement has become for the region: a photo album showcasing the people and businesses that make up the community’s family tree.
The supplement has now existed for two full generations and is marking its 42nd edition this May. Over the last four decades, it has probably touched the majority of Franklin County’s 23,000 households.
“At one time or another,” former Messenger editor and co-publisher Emerson Lynn said, “Someone in each house has been in a picture, or they know someone who has. It’s become the employment album of a very vibrant Franklin County.”
Lynn started the Franklin County Business Community supplement 40 years ago because he saw a need to showcase the energy, the creativity and the commerce that fuels the Franklin County economy.
When the first edition was published in 1983, the response was immediate and extremely positive. Readers enjoyed seeing the pictures of their friends and of the businesses they frequented. The supplement became the Messenger’s premier product, and something other newspapers in the state picked up for their own communities.
Jim O’Rourke purchased the Messenger in 2018 and continued the tradition of publishing the Franklin County Business Community supplement. In 2020, the format was changed from newsprint to the high quality, all color magazine format that readers see today.
“This is a very unique product and sort of like an event each year at the Messenger,” O’Rourke said. “The opportunity to help recognize local businesses and their employees throughout Franklin County is truly special and for 42 years is quite impressive.”
In 2024, the supplement is still relevant — despite the possibility of a quick business search on Google or Yelp — because there’s something special about holding this album in both your hands.
