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Who is Cy Stapleton?

First of all, I would like to explain the shield that appears at the top of each of each page on this site. That is my printer's mark and it was designed by the art historian, Richard Hicks of Alburquerque, New Mexico. Inside the shield is my first name, "Cy" and an "S" for Stapleton - my last name. The mark was carved into the head of the wooden common presses Dick made for me. The press scene shown on the home page is an original sketch created for me in 1983 by the world reknown fantasy artist, Real Musgrave. It is titled "The House of Gutenberg."

The photo above is one of my bride, Libby, and myself.

Above is the family, less Michelle and her crew and Jen's husband, Greg. Lib & I are in back, Hap left and Jen on the right. Missing is Michelle.

The picture above is my baby - now medically retired from the USAF and a homemaker working on her medical degree.

The almost newest member of our family, Jennifer's husband, SSG Greg Van Horn, above, left with his commanding general,  Major General Charilli, next,  Jen and Greg at a military ball. Next is moments before Greg boarded the plane for Iraq (2nd in line). Right is the newest member of our family,  grandbaby, Sam.

Background...

I am 72+ years old, have been happily married for over 35 years to Libby Love Stapleton and we have two daughters - Happy, 30 and Jennifer 25. Libby is journalism professor at Angelina College in Lufkin, Texas. She completed her Masters degree in Journalism at Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches, Texas (maintaining a 4/0 GPA). After we sold our printing company in 1995, Lib decided to start a second career in teaching and she loves it. Apparently she is quite good at it. She began teaching at the high school level, teaching advance placement English. Those students who had no interest in learning do everything in their power to get transferred to another class, while those who were really interested in learning attempted to get in her class. She took 34 of her students to England in 2001 and in 2002 she took a group to France. For about 6 years she was the head Girl Scout in East Texas (District Coordinator) and was on the Texas Girl Scout Board of Directors. She was also active in the local Junior League. While teaching high school she was the Sponsor for the Rotary Interact Club and is a Rotary Paul Harris Fellow. She is a member of our Church's "Session," the ruling body in the Presbyterian Church. She is also very active in the local "Pilot Club" and is that Club's past president. She was recently recruited as a journalism professor at a local college and she loves that job.  

Happy (her "real" name is Elisabeth, but her late grandfather gave her the name "Happy" because she was - and is - always smiling) graduated from Stephen F. Austin State University with a degree in Business/Human Resources. She started working part-time in high school at Chic-Fil-A and was named employee of the month several times. She then left Chic-Fil-A to work as a salesperson with a local department store and was named employee of the month there three times. After graduation from college she joined a national auto rental company and was a recognized employee in her region. A head hunter convinced her to go with Travelers Insurance, and in her first three months she was selected as the company's outstanding employee of the year one and won a second award for closing the most number of claims. She satisfactorily closed 101 claims during this competition. Her closest competitor closed 85 and every other adjuster closed less than 50. Her fourth month with the company she was given a promotion with a generous raise and an even more generous bonus. On her first annual review she "smoked" everyone else. An excellent review is all 3's with a couple of 2's (scaled 1-5). Hap got all 4's and a couple of 5's. A 5 is almost unheard of. For months an executive recruiter had been trying to recruit her away from Travelers and in January 2001 she left Travelers and she started the learning curve to be an executive recruiter. It did not take her long to figure out that was not for her. Hap is impiccably honest has incredibly high ethics. To be successful in that field she found that one must be less than straight forward. So, for a short time she went back into the insurance business as the "total loss queen." She loves Lufkin and being close to home. When an opportunity for a management trainee position with Berry Direct (now Effective Teleservices) in our area came up she jumped on the opportunity. I really envy her and am tickled that she returned to "God's Country" with her cat, Isabella.  I've been somewhat of a leader in my industry and have had prospective employers attempt to recruit me less than a half dozen times in some 40 years. Happy at any point in time always has 3-4 trying to recruit her. Happy is engaged to a wonderful young man, Scott Grimes. The wedding date is set for July 28, 2007. Scott is a successful investor and he treats Hap like a queen. Everyone in the family loves him. They are pictured above.

A parent does not normally have "favorites" among their children, but I've always been closer to Jen - she's so much like me, except smarter. Jennifer entered the US Air Force on March 30, 1999. She is by far the most intelligent member of the family, and also the one with the hardest head. At 25 years of age, she has already learned everything there is to learn. Her basic training commanding officer told me that the only problem he saw for Jennifer is how she would handle basic training when she would have drill instructors, who are nothing like as intelligent as is she, in her face for eight weeks, pelting her with verbal abuse. She called home on April 4 almost in tears - saying it was "hard." She wanted us to tell everyone she was in "Alcatraz." She was made the trainee in charge of her barracks and learned quickly that responsibility has its price. She was where the buck stops in her barracks and she the one was who suffered for the indisgressions of her fellow trainees. She successfully completed basic at the top of her class and completed her Medical Tech school August 27. She also did quite well in tech school. I understand this school has an atrition rate of about 87% and she graduated the top of her class. Her ultimate goal was to become a cardiac surgeon, possibly entering private practice after a 20-year stint in the military. In early September of 1999 she arrived at her permanent station - Travis AFB in California. After about 8 weeks of getting familiar with each department, she was given her permanent assignment. She completed her medical clinicals as first in her class. She was regularly being recognized for some accomplishment - named the patient's favorite med tech with many asking for by name; recognized as having the "room of the month," received numerous letters of commendation, and having the nurses and physicians she worked under constantly complementing her on her superior knowledge of her job and the dedication to which she does that job. No! I'm not proud of her<g>. Jen contracted allergies at Travis and that triggered a temporary asthema - which made her "undeployable" and resulted in a physical discharge Feb 7, 2001. Later we found that she did not actually have asthma, but rather she simply had severe allergies to something in the area. That put a glitch in her career plans, but she's always made lemonade out of a lemon and will complete her plans to be a surgeon in civilian life. She was accepted into the pre-med program at Texas Tech University and in 7-8 years she hopes to get her MD. However, shortly after buying a home in Lubbock she found that Texas Tech is not a Class 1 medical school and she is transferred to a school in the University of Texas system. Jen is a Rotary Paul Harris fellow and was the President of Lubbock's Rotary Rotaract Club. She, like her sister, was also President of her high school Rotary Interact Club. Jen recently brought home a "grunt" - a Staff Sgt. stationed at Ft. Hood, Texas (S/Sgt Greg Van Horn). Jen had been dating a West Point graduate at Ft. Hood. The officer made the mistake of introducing Jen to his master gunner. It was love at first sight. I never thought she could find anyone I would approve of, but everyone in the family fell in love with Greg and his family. They intended to tie the knot early in 2004 before Greg was deployed to Iraq but the military had other plans. They moved up his deployment to the day before they were to get married, so the "real" wedding had to be postponed until Greg returns in mid 2005. Please keep him and the other troops in your prayers. If I were to be given the opportunity to pick a son-in-law, I could not have done a better job. They blessed us with a beautiful granddaughter, Samantha (Sam). After Greg returned from Iraq, his commander convinced him that he should apply for helicopter school. He did, and was accepted to the Warrant Officer School at Ft. Rucker, Alabama. He completed that school and as of January 2007 he is well into learning to be an attack helicopter pilot.

I have an older daughter by a previous marriage - Michelle. Michelle is married to an executive with the Dallas office of an air freight company and has given us three amazing grandchildren - two beautiful girls and a boy pictured below. Like Jen, Michelle found a Rolls Royce in a man. Left to right are Madeline, Peyton, and our own "Dennis the Menace," Morgan. They live in Keller, a suburb of Dallas. Michelle is a household executive and both she and her husband are devout Christians. Our faith has been important to all in our family, but none are as devoted to their faith as are Michelle and Rick.

The photo below is the entire family (less Greg, Scott, and Sam): Left to right, Rick holding Peyton, Mattie, Michelle holding Morgan, Jennifer (with the cast on her arm), Libby, Happy, and me, the Old Man. This photo was taken in the summer of 1998 while we were on vacation at Gulf Shores, Alabama. Jennifer was recovering from a near fatal auto accident.

Libby worked with me in the initial layout of this site. She also is the one who did the tweaking of the HTML code. I do the easy part using Microsoft's FrontPage. I have absolutely no understanding of HTML and leave all of that to Lib when I have any questions and when she has time.

I became involved in the graphic arts industry in 1959 after three years in the U.S. Army and about three years at the United States Military Academy, West Point, New York. After receiving a discharge from USMA due to the combination of an unfortunate sports parachuting accident and a constant battle with physics and Military Psychology, my military career plans came to a screeching halt. A friend, Medal of Honor recipient Charles "Commando" Kelly, invited me to come to Pennsylvania and stay with him until I decided what to do. I pulled out my trusty thumb and hitch hiked from Highland Falls, NY to his home. I stayed with Chuck for a couple of weeks, bought a nifty 1937 Ford coupe from a friend of his and headed west. I had no idea where I was going, but I took Horace Greeley's advice, "Go West, young man." I was not in any hurry and leisurly traveled the "blue lines" (as Rush Limbaugh would say - "That's the back roads to you in Miami Dade.") and a week or so later stopped in Dallas. I got a room at the YMCA, bought a local newspaper and a Wall Street Journal and went to my room to read myself to sleep. A front page article in the Wall Street Journal reported on the fastest growing cities in the U.S. The top two cities on the list were Baltimore, Maryland and Houston, Texas. Baltimore was history on my trip but Houston was only 200 miles south. The next morning I headed for Houston.

When I arrived in Houston I got a room at the YMCA, bought a local newspaper and checked out the help wanted ads. I was running a little low on cash and wages for the jobs that interested me left a lot to be desired. I still had my Merchant Seaman's papers that I obtained the summer I graduated from high school, and those papers, along with my West Point "Security Clearance" qualified me to work "security docks" as a longshoreman at the Houston Port. Without seniority and without being a union member, those papers were the only way a newcomer could get called for work. The union often could not fill the slots needed with people who had security clearances because not many of the union members had them. I worked 2 shifts per day, 7 days a week for about six weeks loading 50# bags of carbon black and boxes of ammunition on cargo ships. That gave me enough of a bankroll so that I could take my time looking for a job. I quickly found a job that paid pretty well, but only a fraction of what the fithly longshoreman's job paid - $375 per month as an inside salesman at a brass and copper warehouse. I hated it.

It's a good thing that the union did not check my Merchant Seaman records. That summer after I graduated from high school, I got a job on a fruit shuttle between Galveston and New Orleans. I hate spiders and our ship had thousands of them in the shipment of bananas. I jumped ship in New Orleans and that ended my career as a merchant seaman.

My introduction to and early years in the Graphic Arts Industry...

A few weeks after I started with the brass and copper company the sales manager from a St. Louis manufacturer of loose leaf binders and index tabs made a cold call on the company I was working for and I was the only one in the office. Joe Mitchell of the InterCity Manufacturing company had come to Houston to try to find a salesperson for that market area and Joe was never one to let grass grow under his feet. Between interviews he made sales calls. We visited for a while, Joe left, and later in the day he called me to see if I might be interested in the position. Was I ever!!! I gave 2 weeks notice to the brass and copper company and they told me I could pack up and leave immediately. I did - two weeks before Christmas. My ex-wife was furious.

That cold call Joe Mitchell made in Houston was probably one of the most important things to happen to me in my life other than my marriage to Libby and my three beautiful daughters. It was the beginning of a friendship that has lasted over 40 years and introduced me to this incredible industry. The one thing that sold me on going with InterCity was that they would finance me in my own business. They paid me an outstanding draw against commission ($1,000 per month) until I got on my feet, and then my compensation would be based solely upon how much I produced. You can't get better than that, I thought. Loose leaf binders or "notebooks" aren't something you think about as being sold. But, every place of business you go into has many of them. Someone sold those binders to someone and I was determined to be the best "notebook engineer" in my market area. My ex didn't see it that way. She wanted me to keep the "secure" job where the "boss" determined how much I was worth rather than my being paid for what I produced.

I was with InterCity for several years and did very well financially. I was an aggressive salesperson, making 10-15 calls daily (I did not "prospect" but rather would pick a block to start working and call on every business in that block - regardless of how large or small), and the only thing that kept me from doing even better was InterCity's turnaround time - 4-6 weeks when a couple of local binder and tab companies were turning around jobs in 7-14 days. I left InterCity on friendly terms and joined another incredible company - A.V. Emmott & Sons, Bookbinders in Houston. We had been friendly competitors so I went to owner, Army Emmott, and asked if he might have a place for me. He hired me immediately as their "sales manager." That was just a title, because I was the only sales person. But, it made me feel "important." The only problem was compensation. Army wanted to pay a salary and expenses and I wanted to be on a straight commission. He said he would try and work something out, so I started with an obscenely high salary for that time ($1,100 per month, as I recall) plus expenses. For over a year Army and I fought over the straight commission deal. Now, when I say "fought," it was done so in a gentlemanly and professional manner. Of all the people I have met since I have been in this industry, none have had the ethics, professionalism, honesty, and knowledge as did Army Emmott. If it is possible for one hetrosexual male to actually "love" another hetrosexual male, I "loved" Army Emmott. To the day he passed away in early 2000, he was one of my dearest friends and there is no one in the industry I respected more. But, we couldn't get together, so I left and started my own bindery with a partner, Sonny Nesloney. I like to think I was an ethical competitor, and apparently I was because Army and I loved our regular visits, right up to a couple of weeks before his death at about age 90.

Sonny Nesloney was another wonderful person - a little rough around the edges, but a true craftsperson. About this time my first marriage had fallen apart and the divorce cost me a bundle financially and a great deal emotionally. I couldn't carry my part of the load financially in the fledgling bindery and my head was not screwed on right because of the recent divorce, so I sold out to Sonny. Bad mistake. That bindery became incredibly profitable. At one time Sonny had four sales gals and all drove company cars - Cadillac Sedan deVilles. Sonny and I remained dear friends until his death in the summer of 2001.

This was a really low point in my life. I ended up blowing the proceeds from the sale of the bindery and in general, felt sorry for myself and made all kinds of excuses as to why I was having the problems I was having - not recognizing that the problem was "me." Finally I looked myself in the mirror and said, "Self, you can do better than this." I was broke, sleeping on a friend's couch and doing odd jobs to exist on (mostly coming in to bars and clubs after 1am and cleaning up)- if you can call that existing.

While they are probably not aware of it, I owe a great deal of my future success to that fine Texas trade shop, West Texas Printing in Brownwood, Texas. After I committed to putting my life back together, I borrowed a West Texas Printing catalog from a printer friend (Bud Hadfield, the founder and CEO of the Kwik Kopy printing franchise and then the struggling owner of Hadfield Printing and Office Supply) and every morning I would get a ride to the downtown area. I would start at the top floor of an office building and work my way down - selling business cards and socials. Again, I did not make "selective" calls. I would start on one block, call on every business and office in that block, then move on to the next one. I would get a deposit (my cost for the job) - which I sent to West Tex - and when the job came in I would deliver it and pick up the balance. Within a couple of months I was back on my feet, had saved enough money to rent a little efficiency apartment, buy an old car and still was able to put a little aside each day. I'll never forget West Texas Printing for giving me the tools I needed to help me pick up the pieces of my life. I became known as "Mr. Business Card" in Houston and many of those business card customers later became customers of my printing company.

It was not too long before I had enough to make a down payment on a small letterpress and offset printing company. Up to this point I sold nothing that was not in the WestTex catalog. Once I got the little printing company moved from Austin to Houston and up and running I worked out a trade-out with a huge apartment complex to be their "social director" and publish a monthly newsletter for them in exchange for a fantastic 3-bedroom apartment (Three Fountains).  More on that later.

My printing customers were primarily apartment complexes and multiple level marketing companies. My largest customer was a fairly large multiple level marketing (pyramid marketing) insurance company that started consuming more and more of my capacity. I could have expanded the company, but I've never had the desire to have a large company. 2-3 employees were all I ever needed to make a decent living. Finally it got to the point where Metro Media Marketing (MMM) was consuming 100% of my capacity and my other customers had to go elsewhere. I became MMM's "inplant" shop except that the bank and I owned the shop. MMM continued to grow and rather than hiring more presspersons, I started looking at outsourcing - one of the smartest moves I have ever made. About a year after the last of my commercial customers left, the insurance companies in the Houston area found a loophole in the insurance law which enabled them to approach the State Board of Insurance with the demand that MMM be shut down. MMM was not selling insurance in the traditional manner, but rather they had only one salesperson. That salesperson would talk to an audience of hundreds of prospects at a time from a stage, selling term life insurance. The insurance was good and the carriers were well funded, but if you bought a policy from MMM, you could bring a friend or friends to the meeting and if that friend bought a policy, you received a part of the commission. MMM ran these "meetings 5 nights a week and each evening they would take in tens of thousands of dollars in premiums. Bottom line is that the State Board of Insurance shut down MMM because nowhere in the law did it allow an insurance "salesman" to share his commission with someone else. I was out of business overnight with thousands of dollars of printed stock on the shelf, a note with the bank on the equipment I had purchased, and no customers.

MMM president, Jay Dodd, called me in and told me the bad news. He said there was nothing he could do about the business other than fight it in court and that could take years. But he did pay off the balance I owed on my equipment, paid all of my accounts payables, paid me in full for the printed stock that was on the shelf, and gave me an additional $10,000 in cash (real cash - $100 bills) to carry me over until I could build my business again. Jay took the case to court and several years later won, but as he was returning from Austin after that final victorious day in court to tell his wife and me the news, a drunk driver driving the wrong way on I-10 ran into Jay and both were killed in the collision.

I decided that rather than going back into the commercial printing business, I would purchase some typesetting equipment and go into the publishing business. Smart move. I was already publishing the apartment newsletter and people from surrounding areas would come by to get a copy. I used some of the knowledge I had gained on outsourcing with MMM, converted the apartment publication to an area single's publication, and did quite well with only one employee and scores of volunteers. The single's publication grew and we added a single's travel club, bought a party bus and took weekend trips all over this part of the country. This resulted in a huge influx of advertising from folks who wanted to reach the single's market. Since the publication only took a few days out of the month to produce, I started doing the typesetting and production on other special interest publications plus doing some outsourcing of printing for apartment complexes and advertisers. Then, one of the advertisers in my single's publication suggested that I use the party bus to take a load of fun-lovers once a week around to a half dozen different clubs - "Destination Unknown." The clubs would pay me $100 to $150 each to bring a bus load of young ladies and their chapparones in for a free drink for 30-45 minutes. Our chapparones weren't just 300 pound bouncers. We had 2 uniformed police officers (volunteers, of course) and one notable. Among those notable chapparones were John Wayne (The Duke), Robert Crain (Stalig 17), Medal of Honor recipient Chuck Haigermeister, City Councilmen, World Champion Wrestlers, movie stars, politicians, sports figures, etc. Advertising in my publication soared. As our reputation grew we started having "block" parties. We would block off a fairly large area in the Three Fountains apartment area, bring in a truck with 100 kegs of beer, and the tickets were $10 for the men and $1 for the women. The party was over when the 100 kegs of beer were gone. The largest number of paid we ever had for one of these parties was 7,600. We planned these parties around times when name bands would be in town and we invited the bands to come out and "jam" after their concert. Most turned us down, but enough of these entertainers did accept our invitation to where we got an excellent reputation. People would pay $25 or more to go to the concert. After the concert one could see and hear the group for the $10 ($1 for the ladies), plus get all the beer they wanted and network with the entertainers. We had a couple of dozen of these parties. One interesting and humorous thing happened sometime around the end of the '60's or 1970. I received a call from one of my volunteers saying I had to meet him at a hotel room in downtown Houston. He wouldn't tell me what it was about and I didn't really want to get out of bed at around 2am, but he was persistent. I got dressed, went down and met him. He was proud as a peacock when he introduced me to a half dozen long haired English boys. Keep in mind that I wasn't big on the music of the day and never listened to it. We had a couple of drinks and I sat down next to one of the Englishmen and tried a little small talk. I put pretty much of a dampener on the evening when I asked him what he did for a living. He was one of the members of the "Moody Blues". When they were introduced to me my volunteer told me they were the Moody Blues, but I had never heard of that group.

Those were the days, but they came to a screeching halt in 1972 when I met Libby at one of my parties. A singles publication, travel club and parties are not conducive to a healthy married life, so I sold "Swingles." Unfortunately for the buyer, this time in history was at its peak and within a year he had lost everything and closed down the operation.

All of this time, many would think of all of this partying as an "extracurricular activity," but to me it was a business - granted, a fun business, but still a business. In my spare time I started jumping out of airplanes again and until one Memorial Day in the late 1960's every weekend I went out to make a few jumps - my USMA injuries having somewhat healed. I broke 1,000 sports parachuting jumps and jump mastered several of the first 7 astronauts. I met and established a friendship with the country's guru of self publishing, Dan Poyner of Para Publishing and successfully used a number of his ideas. One of these ideas was highly beneficial to my printing company. Dan suggested that I look at other potential profit centers related to my areas of interest. I had a number of "Miss Skydiver" and "Swing-gal" beauty pageants where, of course, I did all of the printing. The money in sponsoring beauty pageants was like stealing from a baby.

My favorite jump story is a high-altitude jump we made in the early 1960's. A number of us were going to try and get to 30,000 feet and freefall to about 2,000 feet. A little over 20,000 feet the plane couldn't get any higher so we drew straws to see who would jump to lighten the load. Several jumped and we finally struggled to a little over 28,000 feet. I was the load's jumpmaster and a gal who was the female world champion (don't recall her name) was sitting on the floor in the door and I was kneeling behind her. We were the last two on that load. I was pulling pranks on her all the way up and when we got to altitude I spotted the load and was the first one out. No sooner had I exited and gotten in a stable position when a someone flew under me, reached up and grabbed my reserve ripcord handle - leaving me hanging at about 27,000 feet. It was a long, cold and beautiful ride down, with me landing about 15 miles from the drop zone. It took me several hours to get a ride back to the DZ and when I finally showed up, everyone was laughing about the gal's "pay back."

I finally saw the light that Memorial Day, after having the 5th malfunction out of my last 7 jumps. I figured someone was trying to tell me something. I have never been back to a drop zone since. As recently as a couple of years ago I would be at one event or another and hear some youngster bragging about his skydiving experiences. I would ask him what his license number was and he would proudly tell me that it's something on the order of 278,589. I pull out my "D" license (the highest) and ask them to check the number (#406 or something like that). I would love to see their expression when they go back to their club and tell the members they had met a "D" licensee with a 3-digit number. Had I applied when I was qualified rather than waiting for a friend to catch up, my number would have been in the 30-50 range. That's showing my age.

The good old days.

Really getting into the printing industry...

Since I no longer had Swingles, Libby and I looked for another special interest publication we could produce and thanks to the seed planted by Dave Garrett of Arvey Paper, we started a publication for the printing industry, Printer's News. Like Joe Mitchell and Army Emmott, I will be forever indebted to Dave Garrett. I did not know anything about the printing industry other than the little world around my own shop until we started publishing a publication for printers. Dave put me on the road to really learning about our industry. When you publish a trade journal you receive hundreds of news releases each month and you have to at least scan each of them to determine whether or not to run it. I learned more about our wonderful industry the first six months Lib and I published Printer's News than I had up to that period of time. Our publication's subscriber list grew to a high of 21,000 and was incredibly well supported by both vendors and subscribers in the South Central US.

Sometime in this period I was in Dallas making sales calls and the late J. Ridley Lewis was called out of town and was not able to make our appointment. I had a few hours before my next appointment with the late Toni Ladymon, CEO of The Ladymon Company - a printing equipment and supply company - so I decided to drop by the Bridwell Theological Library at Southern Methodist University to look at some of their pieces that a Houston collector had told me about. I met director Dr. Decherd Turner and we immediately established an outstanding rapport and great friendship. Decherd took me into his stacks and they were wonderful. When I held that first piece in my hands that was actually printed by Johannes Gutenberg over 500 years ago, I was hooked. Decherd gave me the name of an individual in Dallas who sold a few 15th century imprints (unfortunately I've lost his name) and that was my next stop. That day I bought my first 15th century imprint and that one piece was the beginning of an almost 30-year collection. When I finally started breaking up my collection, it had grown to over 100,000 items - starting with a fragment from an 18,000 bc French prehistoric cave painting through the first piece printed using type produced on Alois Mergenthaler's new Linotype (1886). A few years later Decherd was hired as the Director of the University of Texas Humanities Research Center in Austin and his first major acquisitions were one of the most perfect copies of the 1455 Gutenberg Bible and the most perfect copy in existance of the Coverdale Bible. We have maintained this friendship over the years and several of the key pieces in my collection were acquired by trading with Decherd and others from leads he gave me. One of the most exciting things to happen to me during this period was when Decherd asked that I accompany their Gutenberg Bible when it traveled to about 15 cities in Texas. I demonstrated one of my 15th century wooden common press reproductions at the VIP preview of the exhibit and part of my collection was a part of the traveling exhibit - and I got paid well for doing it. I would have happily paid to have the privilege of doing it.

As I learned more and more about the history of printing I heard about an art historian, Dick Hicks of Cedar Hill, New Mexico, and had Dick build me a facsimile of a 15th century printing press. I used that to do the demonstrations at libraries, museums, schools, conventions, etc. like the ones I did for Decherd. In 1979 a friend, Bill Palmer (Merlin the Magician) said I needed to be a part of the Texas Renaissance Festival (TRF). I had never heard of it, but Lib and I met Merlin there in October of 1979 and I was hooked. The next year I opened the 15th century print shop at TRF and started an 20-year stint. Dick built the full size press I used there, and ultimately built me two 1/4 size presses, the full size one and two half size ones. A couple of years later we started publishing the souvenir magazine, Ye Olde Newes, and it was incredibly successful (and profitable). A couple of years later we did the same thing at Scarborough Faire, another renaissance festival in Waxahachie, Texas. What a blast. Baby Jennifer worked with me for some 10 years and was my hawker manager from age 9, handling $8,000 to $10,000 cash daily and always had her receipts to balance. I am convinced that the reason she has no concept of the value of the dollar is because she handled so much money at such an early age and to her it didn't seem like it took too much to earn. She gets upset whenever I tell someone she has her PhD in "Spending!" She astounded me when at 10 or 11 she would see something she wanted and really got upset when I told her "no!" Her response would be something like, "Why not Dad? It's only $500.00."

I tried for quite some time to get the executive director of our trade association to use my collection as a traveling exhibit to loan to printers for open houses, etc. or to start a museum. Finally he gave in and I donated a few of my pieces and got a number of other truly significant items donated - the first one of these significant outside contributions was put together by a dear friend of mine, Harry Benson, at that time an executive with Tenneco. As the little museum grew into a significant property, I was slowly pushed further and further away from having anything to do with it until I was finally gone and the executive director took all of the credit for the museum.. Didn't bother me. I've never been one looking for the credit. I feel good just knowing myself I was instrumental in many of the things I have been involved with. If someone else wants the credit, I have absolutely no problem with that. An interesting sidebar is that I'm still around and have my credibility intact while the executive director is not and has not.

In 1980 my family and I moved to the beautiful piney woods of East Texas and continued publishing Printer's News and a year later we started a small printing company in our garage with one 1250LW Multi and the darkroom and typesetting equipment that we used to do our publication. The original idea was to use the press to print our own requirements, but that didn't last long. We quickly outgrew the garage and moved into a large retail space and the company prospered. In the late 1980's our trade association went into direct competition with us using our mailing list (which we had provided for them to use for new member solicitation) and our advertising sales plumetted. We could not compete against a publication which had its production and printing costs subsidized by other members, so we decided to shut the publication down and concentrate on the printing company.

Upon hearing of our plans, another long-time friend and friendly competitor, Rob Schweiger of Coast Publishing, offered us a more than fair price for the publication, and in a weak moment asked me to continue writing for it. It was Rob's intention of merging Printer's News into his Southern Graphics and Quick Printing. It was an offer I could not refuse.

How I became "Helene" of Helene's Hotline

One of the occasional features I had in Printer's News really hit Rob's hot button. Old Printer's News subscribers may recall the "Ask Cy" column. Every few months, when I had enough questions, I would do this question and answer column. On a good month I would get a half dozen questions. When I had 20-30 I would do a column.

Rob asked me if I were interested in doing it and I told him I didn't have the time. So, he assigned the column to his mother, Helene Schweiger. Helene was an incredible person and I worked with her initially on the new column, "Helene's Hotline." She was also occasionally the person who first answered any calls and she was a classified ad salesperson. Helene solicited questions from anyone who called. Within a couple of months, she was getting 10-15-or even 20 questions per week. And it continued to grow. She was a master at finding things because at one time she was a skip-trace expert or something like that for the Florida Banking Association. We became the best of friends and Helene was another of those who were very important in my life and my climb up that ladder of success.

When Helene died, Rob asked if I would like to take over the column and rename it the original name, "Ask Cy." I was thinking about selling the printing company, so the idea was attractive. My answer was that I would love to take over the column but only under the condition that I could have the name "Helene's Hotline." It was not me that made this column one of the industry's best read columns, but rather Helene. That's how I became "Helene." Rob gave me the name and I've been doing the column ever since.

What I do now...

In 1995 Lib and I sold our printing company and moved to a really nice home office behind my garage. Until my final retirement in September 2004 I would spend several  hours each day responding to Hotline fax and e-mail inquiries, updating the Hotline database, writing three columns each month - and occasionally an extra column or two. I guess my biggest accomplishment since retirement was getting my PhD in the history of communications.

I had dreams of traveling the world with my bride after retirement, but that did not work. Lib, 15 years my junior, decided she was too young to retire, so she went back to college, got her masters degree, and started a new career as a professional educator. I now do my stuff, but jump to help her whenever I can.

I am also active in Internet auctions and spend some time each week working on this web site. In my "spare time" I create displays out of relics - Civil War, Fossil, Mineral, Stamps, etc. More recently I have been creating displays using the autographs of military heroes and other notables. But that's yet another story.

Rob sold Quick Printing and Southern Graphics a number of years ago to PTN Publishing and then PTN was purchased several years later by Cygnus Publishing. Southern Graphics was spun off to a sister publishing company, Cygnus/Spencer Publishing, and in another weak moment the new publishers decided to let me continue writing my drivel. Unless something has happened recently that I am not aware of, they are still Cygnus. Seems like they change owners as often as you and I change our underwear.

In 1985 I unknowingly got involved in the "Savings and Loan" scam. I invested a little less than $500,000 of my lifelong savings and about the same amount of two local lending company's loans in the real estate business. In 11 months I lost all of my savings and all of the loan money (that's a story in itself). While profitable, my printing company did not generate enough to repay the loans and since I was not a corporation, I had to file a Chapter 7 bankruptcy. Prior to filing, I made my major vendors aware of what I was going to do and what they were going to lose. On the filing date I had a mover come in and move everything in the shop to a large storage unit and took the key - with one day's rent paid - to the bank that held the major part of the loan. The next day, a Saturday, Palmer Paper Company, Southwestern Camera and Olmsted Kirk Paper Company were on my doorstep with trucks loaded with new equipment and paper stock. The deal was that this was on the come and any future purchases would be COD until the interest-free loans on the equipment and stock was paid off in full. It took several  years, but every graphic arts related company (save one) was paid in full. The one who was not paid, Butler Paper Company, got left hanging with a $9,000 bill because they tried to throw every stumbling block in my path that they could. I got some kind of satisfaction when Butler went belly up a couple of years later because of poor management. The banks were not repaid because their failure to follow through with commitments made when I took out the original loans were the reason for my problems.

Bottom line is that if your business ethics are beyond reproach, if you get in need of a situation in need of a solution, you will find that the vast majority of your vendors will bend over backwards to work with you if you are forthright with them.

My areas of expertise, if any, are the history of printing, profit centers for the small printer, and the art of outsourcing. Over the years, I have made hundreds of presentations on these topics. Along the way, for 18 years I operated a 15th century style print shop and type foundry at two different Texas renaissance type theme parks and owned and produced the souvenir programs for both parks. I retired from that in 1997 and now go to an occasional trade show, write my three to four columns each month, perform the Hotline source resource service, and market my Helene's Hotline database - which is now being used by over 6,000 printers across the country. I've also discovered online auctions and am quite active in those - keeping some 100 auctions running on eBay at any one time. That, my friend, is an incredible home business if you have the time to work it.

While I retired from actively soliciting speaking engagements in the early 1990's I still am occasionally invited to speak to a group or present a seminar but most of my speaking now is to middle or high school students, a few trade clubs, and Civil War groups. I also talk to groups on patriotism and my family's involvement in the military. I no longer have a fee for my speaking services. If there is any compensation it is generally a rubber chicken dinner and, occasionally, travel expenses.

Until recently I was very in our local Rotary Club, and have been on a local School Board and Museum Board. While not a dealer in the printed antiquities, I will be continuing to sell them until the last of my collection has been disposed of. as noted above, I also make displays from Fossils, Civil War relics, Indian artifacts, ancient Roman artifacts and autographs.

I consider myself a Christian but am not as active in my church as I should be. It's a day to bookmark for my good friend and pastor if I'm in church and it's not Christmas, Easter, or our Wednesday evening covered dish dinner & social. Happy and Libby are much more active in the church than am I. Libby sings in the choir and is on the "Session" or ruling body of our church (Presbyterian). Happy volunteers for any project her church has. As I noted earlier, Michelle and her husband, Rick, are the most devout Christians in our family. Jennifer is more like me. However, my best friend is our pastor's husband.

I regret few things that I have done over the years. I wouldn't have made that parachute jump at West Point where I was injured. I can't say that knowing what I know now I would not have gone through that first marriage because it produced an incredible daughter that I am very close to. I have worked for several companies and have owned several of my own, but in each case I have met individuals like Joe Mitchell, Army Emmott, Sonny Nesloney, Rob Schweiger, and Bill Lewis, that I would not have established a close relationship otherwise.

There are a lot of things about my "singles period" that I could not condone today nor am I proud of, but were it not for them I would likely not have met Libby and I would not have those two incredible daughters, Happy and Jennifer. Like George W. Bush says, I learned from my mistakes and have a 25-year record to prove it.

More recently there have been people like Jim Weinstein, the recent director of the Texas Graphic Arts Education Foundation and Dr. Terry Montgomery. Both are like brothers. I can contact either to bounce off personal problems and Terry is the most incredible technical resource I have ever met. I feel blessed to have such friends. Everyone needs someone they can go to with problems they do not want to put on the street and Jim and Terry are the ones I use. Jim is probably the finest trade show manager living today and Terry is an egghead with so many inventions under his belt that it's mind boggling.

This is an incredible industry and you get as much out of it as you put into it.

My philosophy has always been that I owed as much or more to my community, industry and friends as took out. I do not believe that a lie - regardless of how small - will work. If you start lying, you have to remember what you told who, and I'm not smart enough to remember all of those scenarios. You don't have to worry about what I'm thinking because I will tell you. You don't have to worry about my telling one person one thing and another something else. It's worked for me for many years and I'm not going to try and fix something that "ain't broke."

My family has always been pretty close. Mom and Dad have always given my sister and me the benefit of their experience - as Moms and Dads do. Unfortunately we don't always take advantage of that experience. Dad passed away at 90 May 16, 2001 and Mom passed away August 31, 2000 with ovarian cancer. Mom pretty much raised us while Dad was off fighting wars or doing other military duties - from being in the OSS to being in charge of Army Aviation. I just wish that I had been smart enough to listen to Dad when he told my sister and myself that we should pay ourselves a small amount of each paycheck we received.  Neither of us did that until we got well along in years. Dad, however, started his savings when he got his first job - back in his high school days. He saved $.10 out of every dollar he ever made. At first it went into a cigar box and when he had enough saved up he would either purchase a $25 savings bond or a share or two of some "blue chip" stock. He did that until the day he died - saving 10% of whatever retirement income or social security that he received. Now 10% doesn't sound like very much - especially when you figure we contribute some 15% of our earnings to our social security account today. But, consider this. Dad retired over 35 years ago after being in the US Army for 33 years. The largest pay check he ever received was $2,800. Over the years, that investment in savings bonds and blue chip stock has grown to around $3 million, excluding his home - which he paid cash for upon retirement. The truly astounding thing about it was that up until the early part of this year (2000) he thought he was worth about $500,000. The last time he looked at what his stock was worth was years ago when the news noted that Western Union stock was declining and he traded it for something else. His $100 savings bonds were each worth between $600 and $900 and most had stopped accumulating interest. He had several credit cards, but paid the balance in full each month. He purchased a new car every few years, but paid cash for it - not out of his investments. He had a little savings account that he makes a "car payment" to every month. When he felt he was ready for a new car, he paid for it out of that account. He was debt free and did not have enough information on his credit report to justify a small bank loan. In his wayning years he was really concerned about the fact that much of what he had accumulated would be confiscated by the government upon his death - even though he had to pay taxes on the growth over the years. But, with an early 1930's investment of $300 in CocaCola his father made and willed to Dad having grown to over 14,000 shares with no additional investment, and the outstanding conservative investments Dad made over the years, I guess he can afford to pay Uncle his pint of blood. That infuriated him, though - even though he had not touched his investments. He always said those investments were to help my sister and me to navigate the rough roads in life - as if either of us needed it. Those investments just sat there and kept growing. Dad lived off his military retirement and Social Security. If we could convince our children to do what Dad did over the years, they would retire much more comfortable than would they if they depend upon their social security check. Unfortunately, of my three daughters, only my middle one, Happy, has decided to do what her grandfather did in the way of saving for the future. Baby Jennifer has her PhD in "spending" and older daughter, Michelle, is much like her Dad - living from month to month with a minimal amount going into savings for the future. While both my sister and I would much rather have Mom and Dad back instead of the estate they left us, we both much appreciate the fact that they have made our retirement much more comfortable than we did for ourselves - even though the IRS confiscated over 50% of their assets.

One of my closest friends today is my sister, Susan. Two years my junior, I try to visit her every couple of months. As kids we fought tooth and nail, but over the years we have become extremely close. I keep hoping she will decide to move to Lufkin so I don't have to make that 800 mile drive.

That's where I came from and that's where I am today. I have no idea where I'm going, but I know it will be another outstanding experience. Some better than others. At age 72, it's questionable how many new experiences I will have. I'll bet there will be a lot of them.

In September of 2004 I finally retired from the graphic arts industry. My last column appeared in the final issue of Southern Graphics. That was appropriate. When Cygnus Publishing decided to stop publishing Southern Graphics I decided it was time for me to hang up my shingle. The industry is moving too fast for me. Most of the "real printers" are gone. The industry is today primarily made up of numbers crunchers and button pushers who would feel as comfortable in the clothing, food, import, or any other business. I can't establish a rapport with my editors and publishers because they change like you change your underwear. To me the industry is no longer interesting.

I'm tired of going to trade shows and see almost no one I know; hearing about too many old friends who are no longer with us; and seeing technology I don't understand and have no interest in learning about.

I'm now doing wonderful things I've never had the time to do in the past. It's great to decide that tomorrow I'm going to drive to Atlanta, Georgia to visit my sister or re-visit Carlsbad Caverns, or work my flowerbeds, or lay in bed all day, or drown a few worms.

One of these days I should probably write a book about my experiences, but who would be interested in reading it?

God bless you and yours...

cy

Cy Stapleton - cy@hotlinecy.com - Box 151107, Lufkin, TX 75915-1107 - (936) 676-6375