Includes many images of covers of Missouri Life."To reach the editorial quarters of Missouri Life, a bold venture in quality magazine publishing, one descends the carpeted stairs of Bill Nunn's home in Jefferson City to two small basement rooms. This space also accommodates the publication's business and circulation department. The mailing room is upstairs--in the dining area."--Page 1

Taylor, Jack

English

University of Missouri: MOspace

16 /m1SsouR1 awmnus BIG FALL COLOR ISSUE M istTess of Ravenswood To reach the editorial quarters of Missouri Life, a bold venture in quality magazine publishing, one descends the carpeted stairs of Bill Nunn's home in Jefferson City to two small basement rooms. This space also accommodates the publica-tion's business and circulation depart-ment. The mailing room is upstairs-in the dining area. Emerging from this tiny area six times a year is a slick and attractive magazine portraying Missouri's colorful past and present. How this bi-monthly happening continues to materialize still baffles Bill Nunn's friends, some of whom are sea-soned in publishing and all of whom coun-Crazy Willie's Beautiful Baby seled him against what they considered a foolhardy project. " I give him two, maybe three, issues," was the pronouncement of one of these friendly oracles. Long-time associate Jim Keefe, editor of Missouri Conservationist, promptly dubbed Nunn "Crazy Willie" and has called him that ever since. Just how "crazy" is Willie Nunn, who in manner and appearance is a tall and slender Bob Newhart? Some of the evi-dence is not overwhelming in his favor. To Bill, the demise of Life and Look mag-azines was an excellent argument for the birth of Missouri Life. And when he took the plunge-barely six months after getting the idea-his timing was less than perfect: the clouds of recession were darkening even then. Also, his operating capital was whatever he and his wife could scrape up in a hurry. The sudden venture left in mid-air a nearly-completed redecorating job for the Nunn home. As Bill explains, "The drapes went into the magazine." The notion of starting a state mag-azine to reinforce the pride of Missourians everywhere began to surface in the fall of 1972, when Bill and his wife-he calls her Pete-made a business trip to New England. They kept coming across copies of Yankee and Down East, and were impressed with their healthy volume of advertising. As Bill remembered the pros-perity of other periodicals such as Arizona Highways, Southern Living, and Sunset, he became convinced that regional or special interest magazines enjoyed greater support than those seeking national ap-peal. Not only did the failure of Life and Look leave him undaunted, it bolstered his theory. "That's all we talked about on the way home," Bill recalls. "I also made the stupid statement sev-eral times that I could do it all myself-everything involved in putting out a mag-azine, the writing, the editing, and taking pictures. I soon learned better, of course. But for the rest of the year we thought about starting a state magazine for Mis-souri and finally decided to go ahead in January 1973." At that time Bill, a 1950 graduate of Mizzou's J-School, was public informa-tion director for the Missouri State High-way Commission and editor of Missouri Highways. The magazine, distributed free and becoming quite expensive, was soon to be discontinued. After making his decision, the deter-mined publisher began moonlighting ef-forts to relieve his suddenly-developed birth pains. Within two months he had resigned his job and had introduced his new baby. Since that first issue, March-April 1973, Missouri Life has held to the pattern set for it by Bill Nunn, native Missourian and a reporter-newsman-editor-photographer whose fine sense of the artistic clearly shows in his product. As he wrote at the time: "Missouri is different, and this new magazine is dedicated to showing, in a quality way, that difference. Its scope will be all of Missouri. .. " A tall order, but the strong Missouri flavor remains undiluted throughout the magazine in photographs, paintings and text. There is a mixture of history, nos-talgia, as well as present-day attractions of the state. Bridges, float trips, famous eating places, colorful communities, pio-neer crafts, streams, flowers, trees-all are natural subjects for the magazine, and all are treated affectionately in type and pictures. People, too, are featured in each issue, both the famous and the unknown. Nunn slipped in touching trib-utes to his mother and his father, in sep-arate features, without identifying them as his parents. Six full-time and three part-time em-ployees make up the staff for Missouri Life. In addition to Nunn as editor and publisher, Mrs. Nunn serves as assis-tant publisher and Paul A. Watkins Jr., another alumnus (BJ '67), is associate editor. Today, paid subscriptions are above 11,000. Newsstand and other sales bring total circulation to around 18,000 copies. When renewal notes go out, the response is remarkable-an 80 percent favorable return. On the basis of a survey of read-ers, Nunn believes his publication is seen by nearly 100,000 persons. Back issues of the magazine are be-coming something of a collector's item. Nunn was sufficiently daring, or forward-looking, to print a sizeable overrun each issue, and now he can meet a lively mar-ket for sets of back numbers. One bank in Columbia offered a set to each new customer. Another supporter is a prime mover for a proposed auction of photos and art work that have appeared in the mag-azine. Any profits from this project will go toward securing adequate offices for the publication. No more basements for Missouri Life, and maybe new drapes for the Nunn living room. D m1ssouR1 aLumnus / 17 

Crazy Willie's beautiful baby

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Crazy Willie's beautiful baby

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