Ed Rose, Guide Paper Founder Jefferson Parish, Louisiana Submitted by N.O.V.A. - May 2005 Source: Times Picayune 07-11-1995 Submitted to the LAGenWeb Archives ********************************************** Copyright. All rights reserved. http://usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://usgwarchives.net/la/lafiles.htm ********************************************** ************************************************ Rose, Guide Paper Founder, Is Dead Of Leukemia At 77 Ed Rose, who started a small West Bank newspaper and built it into a chain of weekly papers that reached 200,000 homes and businesses in the New Orleans area, died Monday of leukemia. He was 77. Mr. Rose, with two partners, began a free weekly called The West Bank Guide in 1962, just as subdivisions in the area were starting to mushroom. "On the West Bank, it almost immediately took off," Mr. Rose, who lived in Harvey, said in an interview earlier this year. "People were starved for it." The partners branched out with weeklies in East Jefferson, Orleans, St. Bernard and St. Tammany parishes before selling the papers in 1978. Most recently, Mr. Rose wrote a column for The Times-Picayune, a chatty feature full of personal anecdotes that ran twice weekly in the West Bank community news sections. His failing health forced him to discontinue the column this spring. Mr. Rose was born in Indianapolis in 1917. After graduating from Indiana University, he worked briefly at The Indianapolis Star, then enrolled in the Columbia University School of Journalism in New York City, earning a master's degree in 1939. He joined the staff of the Indiana Bureau of the International News Service and eventually became assistant bureau chief. He was drafted into the Army in 1942, and after being honorably discharged as a captain in 1946, he went to work for the East Side Shopper, a weekly paper in suburban Detroit. He served as its editor and also sold ads when the paper's owner, a college fraternity brother, suggested he learn "the business end of newspapers." In 1948, the same year he married Eileen Fonberg, he and two partners started a weekly newspaper, The Gratiot Herald. He later bought the partners out and expanded the newspaper into a chain of six weekly papers in suburban Detroit. In 1962, Mr. Rose sold the newspapers and started looking for another paper to buy. John Makar, a Natchitoches lawyer, and Erbon W. Wise, a Sulphur newspaper publisher, wanted to start a shopper - a free paper - on the West Bank. "I told them, 'I think it sounds like a good idea, but my training is as a journalist. I think we can run a real newspaper, even though we won't charge for it.' " The three partners "started on a shoestring," he said, each putting up $2,500. In July, the first edition went out to 30,000 homes and businesses. It had only six pages, but it grew fast, eventually reaching a West Bank circulation of 70,000 and often running 60 pages. "The late '60s and '70s were our heyday," Mr. Rose said. "The West Bank was booming. The paper grew by leaps and bounds." In 1978, the partners decided to sell The Guide Newspaper Corp. to Cox Newspapers for $5 million. The papers were sold in 1986 to MCP Inc., which eventually discontinued publication of them. Earlier this year, Mr. Rose's career and civic activities received recognition from Jefferson Parish President Michael Yenni, who proclaimed March 14 "Ed Rose Day" in the parish. The proclamation was announced at a meeting of a West Bank Rotary Club, in which Rose had held every office, including president. He also served on the boards of directors of the West Bank Council of the Chamber of Commerce, the West Bank Petroleum Club and the Jefferson Chapter of the American Red Cross. He was a member of the Madonna Manor Advisory Board, the Plimsoll Club and Bacchus. Mr. Rose began writing his column, "Through Rose-Colored Glasses," at The Guides and continued for three years after they were sold. In early February, his column in The Times-Picayune contained a personal announcement: He had leukemia and had decided to forgo the chemotherapy that offered him only a 30 percent chance of improvement. His doctor had given him 10 to 12 weeks to live. "I thank all of you in advance for your prayers," he wrote. "I'm 77, have lived a good and full life, and now I accept the inevitable." Survivors include his wife, Eileen; and a sister, Shirley Morgan of Indianapolis. A memorial will be held Thursday at 10 a.m. at Gretna United Methodist Church. Mothe Funeral Home is in charge of arrangements.