1974 - The Echoes
In August of 1974 - fifty years after publication began - the Woodland Board voted to discontinue the printing of the Echoes in favor of producing the newsletter in the church office on a mimeograph machine. This move sacrificed visual quality in favor the mimeo’s economy. The savings to the church budget was considerable. Soon the editorship of the Echoes was taken up by the husband-and-wife team of Frank and Willie Hughes “Smitty” Adams.
As Jackie Diachun recalls, Frank Adams, a retired City Editor for the Herald-Leader, would “report” on various church meetings. Then, he would type the Echoes on a stencil using a manual typewriter. The stencil was then carefully placed on the drum of the mimeograph, which contained a fluid that made the dye transfer process work, and it could affordably produce a few hundred copies. In the early days, the mimeo would be cranked by hand, page by page. School children of the 50s, 60s, and 70s will recall the heady smells of Magic Markers, airplane glue, a new car… And perhaps most memorable of all was the cool wet smell of a fresh “ditto,” sometimes handed out by a teacher with a smudge of purple on her cheek.
The Echoes would continue to be printed on the mimeograph until the 1990s when the capacity of photocopiers improved and became more affordable. By that time, Diachun was helping produce the Echoes, which was typed on a computer word processor before photocopying.
Besides being an active member of Woodland and preparing the Echoes, Frank Adams also served as a crossing guard for Cassidy Elementary School at the corner of Tates Creek and Hart Roads. Following his death, Adams’s son left an urn containing Frank’s ashes with the church. Before an Elder’s meeting, a brief service was held in his memory and he was interred. Jackie Diachun reported that the urn containing his ashes is buried in the garden on the Kentucky Avenue side of the church, roughly where the bird bath presently rests (2021). (56" from the wall by the church entrance and 56" from the wall of the building.)
There were said to be two or three other urns buried beneath a tree in the side yard of the church, but the tree is long gone.
As Jackie Diachun recalls, Frank Adams, a retired City Editor for the Herald-Leader, would “report” on various church meetings. Then, he would type the Echoes on a stencil using a manual typewriter. The stencil was then carefully placed on the drum of the mimeograph, which contained a fluid that made the dye transfer process work, and it could affordably produce a few hundred copies. In the early days, the mimeo would be cranked by hand, page by page. School children of the 50s, 60s, and 70s will recall the heady smells of Magic Markers, airplane glue, a new car… And perhaps most memorable of all was the cool wet smell of a fresh “ditto,” sometimes handed out by a teacher with a smudge of purple on her cheek.
The Echoes would continue to be printed on the mimeograph until the 1990s when the capacity of photocopiers improved and became more affordable. By that time, Diachun was helping produce the Echoes, which was typed on a computer word processor before photocopying.
Besides being an active member of Woodland and preparing the Echoes, Frank Adams also served as a crossing guard for Cassidy Elementary School at the corner of Tates Creek and Hart Roads. Following his death, Adams’s son left an urn containing Frank’s ashes with the church. Before an Elder’s meeting, a brief service was held in his memory and he was interred. Jackie Diachun reported that the urn containing his ashes is buried in the garden on the Kentucky Avenue side of the church, roughly where the bird bath presently rests (2021). (56" from the wall by the church entrance and 56" from the wall of the building.)
There were said to be two or three other urns buried beneath a tree in the side yard of the church, but the tree is long gone.
- Trader, 151