T E X A R K A N A M A G A Z I N E
recalled. “She was the District Manager for all of us young boys, and I was given 35 papers (houses per month for daily delivery). But they also needed someone to take an additional route in the Spring Lake Park area because this other young kid didn’t want it anymore. I took that job on, giving me 70 papers, and eventually worked it up to 90 papers. My route was from Texas Boulevard to Summerhill Road to College Drive to I-30. I threw the Sunday morning paper and the afternoon daily route. As a paper boy, you’re a self-contractor. I would buy the papers from the Gazette each month. Every day, they dropped the papers off at my front porch. When I got home from school, I would roll them up, put them in bags, get on my bicycle and then I’d have a 20-mile route to ride.” “At the end of each month, I’d have to collect the money they owed for the paper that month. So instead of going to every house and knocking on the door, I decided to make a little invoice and put it in an envelope and wrap it in the paper. Then they would just mail me a check. It taught me a lot about business, inventory management , accounts payable and accounts receivable. I was in the eighth grade, making $90 a month, which was a lot of money back then. It’s one of the best jobs I’ve ever had. It taught me so much about business that I still apply today at Farmers Bank taking care of customers. It taught me about life and people and interacting with
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C OMM U N I T Y & C U L T U R E
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