Opinion: In rearview mirror, promise never looked so good

As we celebrate the completion of Springfield Business Journal’s first 35 years in business, I contemplate my own 35-year career as its president. I also am fond of thinking our work, and I mean all of our staff throughout the years, has made a positive difference to Springfield and southwest Missouri.

If we had not begun in 1980, I’m fairly certain another business journal publisher would have jumped into the marketplace, but perhaps not so soon. In truth, I have been confronted by publishers who thought they could offer more to readers and advertisers. It took no small amount of tenacity on my part, the part of my family, as well as our bankers, to support our efforts during those early years that stretched into more than a decade. We still work with all our might to do our jobs as journalists thoroughly and with excellence.

My gratitude to the hundreds of caring people on our staff and in this community who freely gave me their wisdom, an encouraging word or a hug when I desperately needed them knows no bounds. I owe them the life I treasure now.

SBJ staff members work long and hard every week of the year to produce a newspaper, events, online content and ancillary products we can be proud to present to you and to put our names on. We believe we make a difference and that is what keeps us going.

When you send us a comment in person or online – either critical or complimentary – it changes us. Your words are discussed in our departments and at meetings. Their meanings are examined in our professional consciousness and in our private and collective thoughts.

Springfield and southwest Missouri were very different when I moved to town in 1979. Many were part of a network of connections to prominent individuals and families. This was, and still remains, somewhat of a mystery to me, but I no longer feel like an outsider. We’ve changed as a community, and the community has changed me.

Downtown Springfield is transformed, too. When we opened an office at 209 E. Walnut St. in the mid-1980s, there was trash blowing down the street like tumbleweeds. During the ’90s, there were abandoned buildings wherever I turned. And not so long ago, the buildings on either side of us were empty and deteriorating.

We purchased our own tumbledown building at 313 Park Central West in 1996 and were recognized as the first to completely tear out and renovate entirely. My husband Andis Osis and I are proud of receiving the city’s first facade loan, and we’re thankful that former banker Brian Fogle lent us buckets of money for the project when we (and the location of the building) probably didn’t look so promising. The loan balance is smaller now, and property values have greatly increased.

Yes, I think we’ve played a part in local development. Yes, readers need to know about these developments in all sectors of the community in order to play their own parts. Yes, we are responsible to subscribers, advertisers and each other. Yes, we are grateful for 35 years in business. And yes-yes, we promise to keep on working to be the best we can be.

I’ve sensed this might be a rewriting of “It’s a Wonderful Life.” You remember Jimmy Stewart in the film often aired during the holiday season. I’ve always been enchanted by the production. And I continue to believe each of us makes a difference, and a small group of dedicated people can make a community, and the world, a better place.

Dianne Elizabeth Osis is founder, president and chairwoman of Springfield Business Journal and SBJ Publishing Inc. She may be reached at delizabeth@sbj.net.