I know how fortunate I am to do what I always wanted to do: write and publish.
I was writing long before I added publishing 43 years ago!
I was writing long before I added publishing 43 years ago!
I love the Hampton Roads area as much as New England, where I grew up and lived until going to George Washington University in D.C.
When graduating, I moved from D.C. to Hampton Roads-a wonderfully friendly and polite area. I have been here much longer than I was in "Louisa Mae Alcott Land." Once my children were old enough, I launched “The Shopper” and have not let go. I am about to begin doing less, but I will be watching it grow again. Stay tuned.
I am still here and turning to my book, which you have heard about and seen excerpts from in these pages for a long time. I must finish it now—three chapters to publishing.
In my fifth decade of business, I have enjoyed meeting so many wonderful entrepreneurs. I am almost as happy for their success as they are. An entrepreneur myself, I can relate to and brag about all our clients' successes!
I brag when saying the wonderful Jerry Harris was one of my early clients in the 1980s and is still with us. Dr. Brian Midgette opened his dental practice with a story I wrote about him in 1989. Barry Hobbs came with us in 1995. Friends, as well as clients, make life wonderful.
Roger and Mardie McKinney operated a beauty salon in Great Bridge, where I went throughout the decades they were there. Their daughter Ronda does my hair now since her mother passed and her dad retired.
Decades later, I found myself sitting next to Arie Korving when his business, Korving & Company, was honored by the Hampton Roads Chamber of Commerce as the Best Small Business of the Year. I've learned so much from columns that this total gentleman has published in our pages over the past decade.
Dr. Lynette Young was with us for years before she moved her dental practice to Virginia Beach. And congratulations to Sherri Miles for being President of her family's roofing business, Miles & Sons—over 100 years old!
Quality Music and Dance, owned by Wayne and Muffy Hoover, has brought so much joy to budding musicians and dancers!
And then there is Elizabeth Goodwin! She is the executive director of the historic site of 1775's Battle of Great Bridge that set the stage for the American Revolutionary War!
This is just a sampling of the advertiser friends that we have made over the decades. We are here for the long term and invite you to find out why we have been so successful. Business Owners like you have trusted us. And we are so grateful.
Jean Loxley-Barnard has been a writer all her life and studied both sociology and psychology at George Washington University where she earned a B.A. Her company, The Shopper, Inc., encompasses all the Loxley-Barnard family publications - The Shopper Magazines and Doctor to Doctor Magazine. She has been in the advertising, consulting and publishing business for 39 years.