Fred Smith | Download this photo
Kansas Profile – Now That’s Rural: Fred Smith, Tipton Times
Nov. 15, 2023
By Ron Wilson, director of the Huck Boyd National Institute for Rural Development at Kansas State University
The newspaper is being sent to its subscribers. For one particular copy of the paper, we might say, ‘Bon Voyage,’ because this paper is going to a subscriber in Paris, France.
Today we’ll learn about a homegrown rural Kansas newspaper that is connecting with people across the nation and beyond.
Last week, we met Fred and Vali Smith, the longtime owners of Tipton Grocery in Tipton. Fred Smith is also publisher of the Tipton Times. In 1991, the Smiths moved back to Tipton from west Chicago to provide a safe, secure, small-town family environment for their kids.
They bought the Tipton Grocery and expanded it through the years. In fall 2023, they sold the grocery store to a local woman’s grandson and his wife. “I probably could have sold it sooner but I really wanted to keep it local,” Smith said. The new owners will be the fifth owners of the store in 117 years.
The family atmosphere of Tipton greatly appealed to the Smiths and attracted them back from Chicago. The Smiths’ four children are now grown.
Daughter Sarah is with the diplomatic corps of the U.S. State Department and is stationed in Islamabad. Theresia is a banker in Colorado where she lives with her husband. Jake is a writer and owner of a fence building company in Manhattan where his wife Ashley is principal of Theodore Roosevelt Elementary School. Joe, a social worker, also lives in Manhattan with his wife Natalie and their daughter.
Fred and Vali are active in their church and community. He noted that the annual Tipton Picnic and Alumni Celebration has been going for 77 years as a fundraiser for the local Catholic high school.
Smith was chair of the school board years ago when the district consolidated schools. The Tipton elementary school was scheduled to close. Local citizens, including Smith, rose up to support their local school.
With support from lots of private donations, they transitioned their school to the Tipton Christian School. Eventually that school would transition again to become the Tipton Community School as it is now, essentially a charter school under the local school district.
When the school was in danger of closing, donations came in from far and wide to help keep the school open. “We need to be responsible and tell these people what we’re doing with their money,” Smith said. He started sending a simple newsletter to the donors.
“One day a local girl came home from Bethany College and showed me her school newspaper,” Smith said. He also had a copy of a local newspaper that had been produced in Tipton in 1923. It was called the Tipton Times.
“What if we were to resurrect the old name and follow the format of the college newspaper?” Smith asked. In December 2003, Smith produced the first edition of the non-profit Tipton Times. He has published the newspaper ever since.
The newspaper reports quarterly on the Tipton school and other community news. It is printed by Main Street Media in Russell.
“I love to write,” Smith said. He earned a master’s degree in writing from the University of Nebraska. He now has a part-time position teaching writing for the Creighton Medical School.
Tipton is a rural community of 193 people. Now, that’s rural. Yet the Tipton Times has a circulation of around 1700 subscribers.
“We have subscribers in eight countries,” Smith said. Many of these are family members or former students who have traveled far afield but welcome the chance to read news from home.
One of those international subscribers is Smith’s daughter. Another is a former student from Tipton who now lives in Paris.
Smith is retired from the grocery store but continues to publish the Tipton Times. “They tell me I can’t quit the newspaper,” he said.
The newspaper is on its way, to local subscribers and those around the globe. We salute Fred Smith and all those involved in producing the Tipton Times for making a difference by maintaining this communication for the community.
To the newspaper going to France, we say: Au revoir, and merci.
Audio and text files of Kansas Profiles are available at http://www.kansasprofile.com. For more information about the Huck Boyd Institute, interested persons can visit http://www.huckboydinstitute.org.
***
