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Love, Loyalty, Dedication: East Texas couple celebrating their decades as newspaper carriers

Don and Debbie Neal became newspaper carriers for M. Roberts Media in November 1997.

LONGVIEW, Texas — September 4 marks National Newspaper Carrier Appreciation Day. 

An East Texas couple has served as carriers for more than two decades, dedicating their time, lives and families to the newspaper industry. 

“We started because when we moved back from North Carolina after retiring, we had a subscription to the Longview News Journal here in Longview," Debbie Neal said. 

Debbie and her husband Don Neal have been married for 44 years. For half of their marriage, they have shared another role. 

"We moved out to where we’re living now, and we weren’t getting our paper," Debbie remembered. "So, the district manager would call daily to check to see if we got our newspaper."

The daily conversations led to the couple signing up for a job they previously held before in North Carolina and would come to hold for 22 years in East Texas.

"He said, 'Ma'am, you just don't understand how hard it is. It sounds like it's easy, but it's not,' he said. 'I bet you couldn't do this right.' And I said, 'I bet I could.' And we've been doing it ever since."

The Neals are two of 125 newspaper carriers signed as independent contractors for the East Texas publications operated by M. Roberts Media, which owns papers like the Longview News Journal and the Tyler Morning Telegraph. 

The company's longest employed carrier has been in the job for 26 years, while the oldest carrier is 75 years old. 

"When it's all said and done, the success of our business revolves around the efficiency and dedication from all of our carriers," Steven Briggs, M. Roberts Media Regional Director of Circulation, said. "Much thanks to each of you."

"You sign a contract with the News Journal saying that you will deliver them papers and you will deliver them on a timely manner and make sure they are where they’re supposed to be," Don said.

Between its East Texas properties, carrier with M. Roberts Media delivers 35,000 papers nightly. Of those, Don and Debbie deliver nearly 2,000. 

"We’re here about 12:25," Don said. "We wait on our papers. You get them anywhere from one to two o'clock. I leave with the first route, go to Hallsville, throw 120 Longview, about 40 Marshall, come back to Longview, pick up another route here in Longview, which is 360 papers."

Newspaper carriers work seven days a week, 365 days a year, no matter the weather. Their days start around midnight and last until sunrise. 

"If there's a glitch or something and they [customers] don't get their paper to have with their coffee or their breakfast, that throws their whole day off.  It just ruins their day," Debbie said.

They say the job seems easy. However, remembering the requests of hundreds of customers, plus the demanding hours, have proven to be too much for the revolving door of carriers --- often in their younger years ---they've seen come and go in what some would call, 'a dying industry'. 

"You've got to love newspapers," said Don. "You just have to. It's not something that you can come up here and get them and you get a break. You've got to be loyal and dedicated to the Longview News Journal or whatever paper it might be."

When you love something as much as the Neals love their job, it is not surprising they have turned the newspaper business into a family affair. 

"Me and her have been doing it for 22 years. Our youngest daughter has been 21. Our oldest daughter have been doing it for 20, and the middle daughter have been doing it for 15."

Even the younger generations have taking a liking to the job. 

“Our grandsons, the 14 year old, if he could drive, he could actually take the car and he knows my route," Debbie said. "He could actually do my route. He loves the home delivery. He hates doing the single copies that goes to the stores and so forth."

If you ask either she or her husband, this family affair is not ending anytime soon. 

"People ask me when we're going to retire," Don said. "I say, when they put me in that pine box or my health won't let me do it anymore."

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