12
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COVER
6 Bridges to Local
- Kayla Byrum | Photography by C. Neumann
It’s not every day the public gets to learn
about the history and passion behind their
spirit of the amazing people behind it. That is,
unless they’re reading an issue of Local. This
magazine was founded by Rich Niemeyer and
Kaitlin Schmidt in 2014 with the purpose of
from the people who help make this great city
grow, your local business owners.
For Niemeyer and Schmidt, everything
printed in this Publication since the inception
of Local Magazine to today, has been for the
purpose of enhancing the Central Arkansas
community by helping to bring money into
locally-owned businesses. Connecting Local
readers with Arkansas’ businesses, its business
owners, artists and community was, and still is,
their devotion.
“Encouraging everyone to stay connected
with their local community was just the
beginning,” Niemeyer explained, “We strive
for a magazine that also helps others build
themselves, every single issue.” Since 2014,
Local has worked endlessly to help inspire the
public to shop, eat and drink locally, to spread
solutions and connect local pioneers and
leaders, so to regenerate the vital ecosystems
upon which the community depends. Rich
expressed his love of Little Rock,
adding, “The secret to generating
a publication that people want to
read, is the people in it. It’s all for
them; it’s never about us.”
With Kaitlin’s Graphic Arts
degree from Savannah College of
Art & Design and Rich’s marketing
experience and expertise, the two
felt compelled to collaborate and
produce something that would
spark positive change and create
a sense of community within
the Central Arkansas region.
“We wanted to bring more to
the community in the most cost
effective way and get people’s
stories out to the masses. To
do that, we needed to create
- something that the people of our
community actually wanted to look
at,” Niemeyer added. As a team,
Local accomplished this goal but
there was still something missing, a
little bit of extra sauce that no other publication
was able to provide.
Flash forward to 2019: Local. Magazine’s
print publication circulates throughout central
Arkansas, in hundreds of restaurants, hotels,
grocery stores, hospitals and clinics. “We offer
monthly subscriptions, branding, logo design, a
mobile app and social media services,” Schmidt
said, “The magazine is also available in a digital
format for those who like to read on their iPad or
Kindle, and now we’re going LIVE on our new
radio show, called Six Bridges to Local, which
needed to pull even more people together.
“The passion we have behind this radio show
is to produce yet another avenue for locals to
share their stories. Throughout the whole time
that we’ve worked with Local, we’ve heard some
really cool stories and were able to help countless
others in the community get their stories out to
the masses. This is just one more way for us to
help them do that,” Rich disclosed.
While most publications only offer one to
two channels for clients to reach their target
audiences, Local now offers seven, including
radio. Having had the opportunity to ride along
with Rich to meet with business owners, and to
work as closely as I have with Local Magazine, I
can personally attest to the cool stories he spoke
about, as well as the shared passion behind the
publication and its partners. Over the past nine
months, I have also encountered numerous
accounts of entrepreneurship, dreams, wishes
and inspirations of local business owners, as
well as their passion for what they do and why
they do it.
“Back when we started, telling their story
was only going to be told through a write-up
in the magazine, even though I really wanted to
yell those stories from the rooftops,” Niemeyer
said, “but now we actually can scream some
of these stories to the whole Central Arkansas
community on the radio show as well, and
probably even more effectively than we would
be able to do through print, because it’s in the
client’s own words and it comes straight from
their heart to our listener’s ears.”
Now, with Six Bridges to Local live on
KABF 88.3 every Monday at 5:00pm, our local
business owners and artists can come on the
radio show with us so they can share their heart,
their passion and why they’re doing what they’re
doing with the community. This way, the public
can also get connected to them more directly,
which makes it all worth it for locals to be a part
of something like this.
“Listeners driving home from work can feel
like they are getting to know their local business
owners during their afternoon commute, in
addition to reading the magazine write-ups,”
Rich added, “Not only that, but I also get to
have a little fun and kind of go back to my radio
roots. It’s a win-win.”
Now that they have yet another element that
most other pubs can’t offer, it seems like a nobrainer
to want to work with Local. “We chose
KABF 88.3 because they’re also a locally-owned
us, “it’s another local business to support as well
as an outlet for us to make an impact on the
community. It was never about us.” Local has
certainly made an impact on me since I began
my journey through the publication industry -
I even called them back to make sure I could
keep helping them after accepting another fulltime
career. Experiences on the road with Rich,
this publication and brand truly cares about
around and keep spreading the love.
Combining the radio station provided the
opportunity to do all the things Rich talked
Kayla Byrum & Rich Niemeyer at KABF 88.3