The beginning of a new era in the Carolinas!
Noted . Notable . Noteworthy . LGBT News & Views
Special anniversary issue
Vol. 21, Number 01 www.q-notes.com May 20.2006
Q-Notes turns 20 — merges with The Front Page
Two Carolina LGBT papers come
together with more than 46 years of
combined service
by David Moore . Q-Notes staff
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — After decades of
service to readers in both Carolinas, Q-
Notes and The Front Page have become one.
Announced publicly May 12, the merger
has been years in the making and will offer
readers across the two-state area access to
more editorial material tailored to their specif
ic regions.
“We’re very excited about this accomplish
ment,” says Q-Notes publisher Jim Yarbrough.
“We’ve talked about doing it for years and it
finally seemed like the time was right. This is
great for readers across the Carolinas because of
the new content we’ll be carrying and for the
advertisers because of an expanded distribution
base and our subscription service.”
Following the demise of a statewide LGBT
newspaper published out of Charlotte in the
1970s called The Free Press, The Front Page
began publishing in the Raleigh area in 1979.
“When that folded, there was nothing, really’
says Baxter.“Art [Sperry] and 1 talked a lot for
several years about how change might happen
for the gay community in North Carolina. We
agreed that a statewide effort would be needed.
In order for that to happen some dependable
means of statewide communication would be
needed. That’s how The Front Page got started.”
Over the next three decades The Front Page
provided readers in North Carolina stories
about local and national news and arts and
entertainment.
Q-Notes, which started out in 1983 as a
newsletter published by the LGBT umbrella/
fundraising organization Queen City Quor-
dinators, jumped up to official newspaper status
with its first edition published in June of 1986.
Baxter — who will come on board at Q-
Notes as a'contributing writer for each issue —
admits he’s looking forward to putting on the
wordsmith cap and tossing the business duties
wayside.
“I was never particularly good at the busi
ness end of things, as anyone who knows me or
The Front Page will tell you,” Baxter says wryly.
- “When I started the paper, I thought of it as a
community service that would, hopefully, pay its
own way and not take away scarce charitable
dollars that were needed elsewhere. That was
certainly the only possible model for publishing
a newspaper here back when I started.
“But I would much rather write than any
thing else about the business. I look forward to
not
hav
ing to try
to sell advertising, invoice, collect, pay vendors,
upgrade equipment and all the rest. I’ve had a
full-time job elsewhere for most of the years I
published The Front Page, so it was always hard
to find the time and energy to get everything
that needed doing done.”
Yarbrough is enthusiastic about Baxter’s con
tribution to the merger and having another sea
soned writer onboard covering LGBT issues in
the region.
“I’ve followed Jim’s work for many years,”
Yarbrough says. “Jim is a very talented writer
and we’re lucky to get him. I’m looking forward
to a long and successful, mutually beneficial
relationship.”
For some readers in the area, the merger
might be regarded as bittersweet — like saying
goodbye to an old friend.
Baxter insists he’s not going away 'and his
words will now be read more widely than ever
— thanks to the expanded resources from the
merger.
“It’s odd,” says Baxter. “1 thought I would feel
sad, but I don’t really. I’m ready to move on.
There were times in the past when I thought of
quitting, but I didn’t because I still thought that
something like The Front Page was specifically
needed in the Carolinas.
“I think that The Front Page’s era really
ended before this, in the late 1980s or early
1990s. Certainly those were the peak years for
the paper in terms of size and quality of content.
But the internet has changed all that and so
much information sharing and community
building happens there now. Having two news
papers in a market this size is just redundant
and unnecessary.
Lon time readers of The Front Page take
heart — it’s not the end of an era —
it’s the beginning of a new one. >
from a gay soldier returns
page 8
Q-Notes celebrates milestone
anniversary
by Mark Smith
The paper
you’re holding in
your hands marks
Q-Afofes’20th
anniversary. For
this special edi
tion, we’ve not only
beefed up the editori
al content, we’ve acquired
a new look, merged with
another LGBT publication (see
opposite story) and brought on
board a number of new advertisers. You’ll now
be able to find us in more locations than ever.
“It’s been a good 20 years,” says Q-Notes
Publisher Jim Yarbrough.
“We’ve gone through a lot of changes over
the years and I’m pleased with how we continue
to grow. With our new look and expanded
resources from the merger — we hope to con
tinue to reach an ever expanding audience with
quality material and act as a resource for an
even larger readership.”
A look back
Q-Notes actually started out life as a monthly
newsletter published by the LGBT fundraising
organization Queen City Quordinators. The four-
page leaflet debuted in September of 1983 —
with stories on the recently formed Lambda
Political Caucus, Charlotte-area female imperson
ators vying for a title in the Miss Gay America
pageant and tips for men’s make-up. The fledgling
newsletter was distributed through area bars.
For just over two years, Q-Notes was
issued in this format, eventually growing to
encompass 12 pages. Despite its success, it
ceased publication due to lack of volunteer
manpower.
Two more years would pass before Q-
Notes was re-launched to coincide with Pride
month in June of 1986.
In contrast to its first incarnation, the
publication was reborn as a monthly tabloid
newspaper with Charlotte gay activist Don
King hired as editor. On the front page: a story
about the Mr. Drummer ’86 contest.
“That was a memorable time,” says
Yarbrough. “The paper truly was in its infan
cy, but we had a dedicated core of volunteers
who really wanted to see it happen.”
By the fall of’87 changes in staff nearly
shut the paper down, but a quartet of QCQ
members, Jim Yarbrough, Dean Gaskey,
Joel Smith and Robert Sheets kept
Q-Notes up and running despite the challenges.
“It was also during that time that we pub
lished what I think has always been one of our
most important issues for that time. It was
November of’87 and on the cover was a shot of
this massive crowd of gays and lesbians on the
mall in D.C.”
The image, taken at the 1987 March on
Washington, showed a crowd of 650,000 who
had converged on the nation’s capital to demon
strate for LGBT civil rights.
“I think it really surprised some of our read
ers to see what kind of strength we, as a national
community, could actually muster.”
Although QCQ folded not long after, the
paper expanded its distribution during this
period from just Charlotte to all of the
Carolinas.
In December 1989, Yarbrough purchased
all rights to Q-Notes. He published the newspa
per as a side business until 1991. As the
decade progressed even more changes were on
the horizon.
By June ’96, Q-Notes moved to an every-
other-week publishing schedule and added
access to the publication via internet in late
1998. The year 2002 saw a complete redesign of
Q-Notes: full color printing became part of a
standard new look.
As the new century has moved forward, so
has Q-Notes with a stylish and much more use-
friendly redesigned website in late 2004.
For Yarbrough, the experience publishing Q-
Notes and watching it grow over the past 20
years has been like no other.
“I have to say I’m proud of where we are and
proud of where we came from. I’m looking to the
future and thinking about how exciting it’s going
Jim Yarbrough (left) and Jim Baxter seal the
deal to merge Q-Notes and The Front Page
on May 4.
to be to celebrate another 20 years and I’m con
tinually examining how we can grow and be
even better.” ►
Chapel Hill man stru^es to re^in memory
page 18