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FROM THE DESK
“Prevail” by Taylor Williams.
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THIS SUMMER MARKS 10 YEARS since Cathy and Adam took over North Beach Sun – a diamond anniversary in relationship parlance – and a milestone that seemed to warrant a bit of reflection on our past decade’s-worth of quarterly issues.
The North Beach Sun had already been around for more than two decades prior to that changeover, of course. Started by Rex Peters and Bob Furr in 1987, Adam initially joined the team as the Sun’s art director in the late ‘90s before starting Access Print & Design in the early 2000s. Not long after, Cathy and Adam got married and welcomed their children, Sam and Charlotte, before they decided to take the leap into publishing by purchasing the Sun in 2012.
But make no mistake: It was a leap. While Cathy had always dreamed of having a magazine as an English graduate student – and later, while bartending around the Outer Banks – actually taking that step was by no means a given. If anything, investing in a print publication at a time when internet advertising was becoming the rage, with two young ones at home no less, made the whole thing feel like a stretch under even the best circumstances.
But they jumped anyway. Their inaugural issue in the spring of 2012 was also, coincidentally, the Sun’s 100th issue, which made it fairly difficult to start out small. Dave Rollins – who had started working at Access only months before in 2011 – took over as the magazine’s art director, and labored on at least 15 different covers for their revamped debut. After settling on the perfect cover with the number “100” stamped on the front, they set out to interview dozens of residents on everything from their favorite Outer Banks foods to where they go for live music – and even what brought them to the beach to begin with.
It was exhilarating but also exhausting, and just as special as it was scary. Tackling the start of a single issue alone can be an intimidating prospect (even now, more than 40 issues later), so taking over the enormity of an entire magazine – and all the responsibility for its future that goes into that – was almost unfathomable during those early days.
But perspective comes with time, and with the hindsight of a decade, it wasn’t all that different than anything else. As with many cases of things that have such great scope, looking too far ahead can be paralyzing – so the only way forward is to move one foot before the other, taking it incrementally, a step at a time.
With so many steps behind us now – and so many yet to come – we’re finally at a place where we can see beyond the issue at hand. That perspective and experience has given us the special opportunity to cement our place in the fabric of the Outer Banks, as a quarterly reminder of who we are as a community, a historical record of our shared past, and a vision of how we’re moving forward collectively.
Thank you for reading right along with us all these years – and, as always, we hope you enjoy this issue!
Publisher Editor staff
PUBLISHERS Adam & Cathy Baldwin
EDITOR Amelia Boldaji
ART DIRECTOR Dave Rollins
WRITERS Cathy Baldwin Amelia Boldaji Steve Hanf Catherine Kozak Katrina Mae Leuzinger Amanda McDanel Arabella Saunders
PHOTOGRAPHERS Cory Godwin Ryan Moser Elizabeth Neal
GRAPHIC DESIGNER Dylan Bush
SALES MANAGER Helen Furr
ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE Faith Turek
DISTRIBUTOR Donna Roark
The North Beach Sun is published quarterly by Access Media Group. All works contained herein are the property of the North Beach Sun. The views expressed in the articles contained herein do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, editor or Access Media Group. The published material, advertisements, editorials and all other content is published in good faith. Access Media Group and North Beach Sun cannot guarantee and accepts no liability for any loss or damage of any kind caused by errors, omissions or the accuracy of claims made by advertisers.
NORTH BEACH SUN 115 West Meadowlark St. Kill Devil Hills, NC 27948 252.449.4444 editor@northbeachsun.com
