Kidsville News! Inc. is a fun, educational resource for children grades kindergarten through sixth grade, parents and teachers. With nationwide circulation nearing one million, Kidsville News! is taking the nation by storm.

Keep reading to learn more about who we are and what we do here at Kidsville News, Inc. and why Kidsville News! is the fastest growing children's newspaper and educational resource in the country.

Bill Bowman, President (bbowman@kidsvillenews.com)

Bill Bowman is the president and founder of Kidsville News!

Bill is a 45-year resident of Fayetteville, N.C., and a former sales and marketing representative for Pitney Bowes, Inc. His education, background and experience is in business, sales and marketing. In 1996, and without any prior experience or training in journalism, publishing or the newspaper industry, he created his community's first weekly community newspaper, Up & Coming Weekly. Two years later, he created the Kidsville News! literacy and education initiative. Today, both publications are award-winning and respected voices of the Fayetteville community and now the nation. Up & Coming Weekly is enjoying its 18th year serving the community and Kidsville News! is in its 16th year.

Bill created Kidsville News! as a local publication in 1998. Then he created a new company, Kidsville News! Inc., to take the publications national in 2005. This allowed other newspaper publishers, educators and business entrepreneurs the opportunity to bring Kidsville News! to their communities. Since then, Kidsville News! has expanded into 11 states boasting an audited monthly readership of more than 1.5 million children, teachers and parents nationwide. Bowman's vision, mission and mandate for Kidsville News! is to provide a quality literacy and education resource to all children locally and nationwide that will impact, enhance and encourage a child to read, study and have fun learning. With a passion for reading, literacy, character development and education, Bill believes that building better and stronger communities for future generations should be everyone's top priority.

Bill is very active in his community and currently serves on several local, state and national boards. He is a past chairman of Cumberland County United Way and has served on the boards of the North Carolina Press Association, Independent Free Papers of America and Southeastern Advertising Publishers Association. He is also a national speaker and member of the Leadership Institute faculty of the Association of Free Community Papers.

Bill and his wife Merrilyn have been married for more than 32 years. They have a 31-year-old son, Grady McLeod Bowman. Grady, a graduate of the North Carolina School of the Arts, now lives and works on Broadway, as does his wife, Kate. A lifelong singer, dancer and actor, Grady opened four Broadway shows: The Pirate Queen, South Pacific, Billy Elliott and Wonderland. He most recently was the assistant dance captain and assistant director to Julie Andrews in a new musical, The Great American Mouseical.

Bill's hobbies are riding his Harley Davidson Road King motorcycle across the country, sampling bottles of good red wines and maintaining his status as a nationally ranked billiard player. Obviously, three traits reflecting his ill-spent childhood!

Philosophy: Children are the future of our nation. Twenty-four percent of our children do not read at their grade level. A child that cannot read does not have a chance to succeed. Anything that promotes and encourages young children to read and learn is worth a community's investment.

 

Merrilyn Bowman, CFO

Merrilyn Bowman was born in Kyoto, Japan and wound up in Fayetteville married to Bill. As CFO for Kidsville News!, Inc., Merrilyn is responsible for financial planning and implementation, and the monumental task of keeping up with Bill's expenses as he travels the country promoting Kidsville News! (and riding his Harley).

Merrilyn recently retired from a 30-year career with the Cumberland County Cooperative Extension Service. She is excited about joining Kidsville News!, Inc., truly making it a "family" publication. She is also extremely proud of her two sons, Leonard and Grady. She has one grandson, Nicholas, who is one of her favorite people!

Merrilyn's favorite color is green, she loves gardening and the outdoors and her favorite thing to do on a sunny Saturday afternoon is to read a good mystery novel! Her favorite thing to do on a not so sunny afternoon is a good crossword puzzle.

 

Janice Burton, National Editor (kvnews@kidsvillenews.com)

Janice Burton has been a member of our company for the past 16 years. She was an integral part of the team that worked to put together the first Kidsville News! we published. As the editor of Up & Coming Weekly (she is now the associate publisher), Janice was known to the children of Cumberland County as the Mermaid Princess. Her love of reading and children was reflected in everything we did in those early editions.

Most recently, she combined those two passions to create a special section in our flagship paper called "Finish the Story." Each month the students in our county followed the exploits of her 12-year-old son, JohnJohn, as he learned about life through sports, trips, friends and family.

Upon being named the National Editor of Kidsville News!, the first project Janice undertook was to name a National Education Adviser — Karen Binns — and to align the Kidsville News! content to the National Common Core Curriculum. As a mother and an advocate for education, she understands the importance of the critical thinking skills that are stressed under the new curriculum and saw the alignment of the Kidsville News! content as paramount to the success of the publication and the children who read it.

Janice studied mass communications and political science at Campbell University and has worked in the newspaper industry since 1990. A military spouse, Janice and her husband, John, a U.S. soldier, spend much of their spare time at athletic events, as their son is an avid athlete who spends time on fields of all shapes and sizes throughout the year.

 

Stephanie Crider, National Associate Editor (kvnews@kidsvillenews.com)

Currently the Editor of Up & Coming Weekly, Stephanie joined Kidsville News! team as the National Associate Editor in 2012 because she believes in the mission and mandates of Kidsville News! A mother of three children, she believes that reading is the most important skill we can teach our children. As associate editor, she works with children, educators and parents to create the content children, teachers and parents look forward to reading every month. Working in concert with the National Editor, Janice Burton, Stephanie helps create the annual editorial calendar to ensure that is in line with the National Common Core Curriculum.

Stephanie has been a member of the company since 2006 and loves finding fun and interesting things to share with kids, parents and teachers. Her husband serves in the U.S. Army, and with her three fantastic children, she doesn't have to look far for inspiration and ideas for Kidsville News!

Jack Stultz, National Market Development (jack@kidsvillenews.com)

Jack Stultz joined Kidsville News! in November 2005 as an independent market-development representative for Western North Carolina and the state of South Carolina. On Feb.1, 2006, he accepted the position of National Market Development Manager for Kidsville News! Inc. and now serves as the Vice President of National Development.

Jack attended Appalachian State University where he studied business administration. He worked in sales and marketing in the industrial packaging industry for 15 years and spent 12 years in the furniture industry.

Jack met Bill Bowman in Southern Pines at Sandhills Community College in June 1971. Bill moved to Jack's hometown of Fayetteville, during the '70s, and although Jack moved to the western part of the state, the two managed to stay in touch through family and friends over the next 30 years. Kidsville News! brought Bill and Jack back together in November 2005 and the rest is history. Jack has had a lifetime passion for supporting literacy and education and says that developing Kidsville News! has been a rewarding and incredible experience. Working with newspaper publishers, educators and entrepreneurs from around the country who support Kidsville News! has been a pleasant, rewarding and unique experience for him.

Originally from Terra Haute, Indiana, Jack has a twin sister, Jeannie. He is married to Pam Stultz, who works with the Register of Deeds Office in Cumberland County. They have one son, Terry, and two daughters, Rosalie and Hannah. Jack's hobbies include golf, boating, Kidsville News! and enjoying the beach with his family.

 

Erinn Crider, Staff Writer (kvnews@kidsvillenews.com)

Erinn started as an intern at the company in 2008 and recently joined the staff as a writer. Her vibrant spirit, fresh outlook on life and love of learning help her to deliver top-notch articles that Kidsville News! readers enjoy and look forward to each month.

As a high school student, Erinn spent time peer teaching and working with elementary-aged school children. Her day-to-day contact with our readers gives her fresh insights about what today's young students find both interesting, valuable and important. Erinn brings excitement to Kidsville News! because of her love of children and her dedication to literacy and quality education.

 

Dan Nelson, Artist and Creator of Truman

Dan Nelson is a gifted artist and the creator of Truman, the friendly mascot of Kidsville News! and the covers you see each month. Interested in art from a very early age, Dan earned a bachelor of fine arts degree from a small college in the Midwest. His real education, however, took place during the 15 or 20 years when he sat at his desk drawing whatever the telephone (ad agencies, mostly) told him to draw. Most Americans would have stumbled upon Dan's work at sometime during the ‘80s or ‘90s in restaurants and sporting goods stores, at summer camps and public libraries, from IBM to hospitals and book covers to billboards. "I'm really famous," he used to tell his kids, "just nobody knows it." Dan now divides his time between illustration and fine art. He loves painting large pieces of work and he loves an audience, so doing 8 x 10 foot murals in public is one of his favorite activities. You may see some of his wide ranging work at DanNelsonArt.com

 

Truman, Mascot

Truman has been a part of the Kidsville News! team since the very beginning. As the mascot for Kidsville News!, the nation's fun family newspaper, Truman is the spokesdragon and icon for reading, literacy, character development and education. Truman loves children and he is passionate about spreading the word that reading is fun and essential for successful career development.

Even as a young dragon, Truman enjoyed reading about far off places and new ideas. He shares these ideas with tens of thousands of children each and every month. Truman stays incredibly busy visiting schools, libraries, hospitals and local community events. He never turns down an invitation to visit schools and strut his stuff to his catchy theme song. (http://www.kidsvillenews.com/trumans_song.aspx). When Truman does get a chance to relax, he enjoys visiting his friends and, of course, reading a good book.

For more information about Kidsville News!, and availability in your community, call us at 910-222-6200 or 877-458-6397. Or, send a message to Truman kvnews@kidsvillenews.com. Be our guest and visit our website at www.kidsvillenews.com or to view the latest edition of Kidsville News! go to http://www.epageflip.net/title/5594. Here you can subscribe free to our monthly electronic online edition. Do it today. We would love to here from you.

Interested in publishing Kidsville News! in your community?

Kidsville News! is the fastest growing children's newspaper and educational resource and business in America. For more information about publishing Kidsville News! in your community, please email Bill Bowman directly at bbowman@kidsvillenews.com, or call 910-391-3859. Kidsville News! is not a franchise. The rights to publish Kidsville News! are licensed only to qualified businesses and individuals that meet our standards, qualifications and adhere to our educational mission and mandates. It is a profitable educational publishing business.

If you inquire, the following information is needed:

Territory information

Name of county(s)

General population of county

Number of public elementary schools

Number of students in public schools, K-6 grade

That's it!  From the above information, we do a basic preliminary business pro forma (business plan) of the area you requested. This will indicate the minimum revenue and profit potential Kidsville News! will have in that market. Once the pro forma is completed, you will be notified. Of course, there is no cost or obligation. We invite you to visit our flagship edition at www.kidsvillenews.com/cumberland. Enjoy!