Local newspaper is the oldest business in Ozark County: Times celebrates 10 years of local ownership and 142 years in business

For 142 years, folks in Ozark County have been picking up the Times to catch up on the news of their neighbors: who got married, who had a baby, whose boy made the honor roll or which youngster brought home the biggest buck or the best turkey. The pages have also reported deadly tornados, homes consumed by fire, a devoted community spirit and the tales of many of the interesting people who call this place home. 

Through good years and hard ones, the Ozark County Times has been the place where the story of our home is written down and saved for generations to come. There’s a saying at the newspaper office that the dedicated people working at the Times have been keeping Ozark County’s scrapbook alive since 1883, and the small-but-mighty staff working today is honored to carry on that tradition. 

This year, we’re marking not only 142 years in business but also a decade of again being locally-owned and operated. In a world where so many small-town papers have been scooped up by big-city corporations, the Times is still right here on the Gainesville square, owned and run by people who live, work and raise their families in these same hills. It’s your stories we tell, because they’re our stories too.

“We’ve always felt like the Times belongs to the community more than it belongs to us,” said owner Norene Prososki, who, along with her husband Tim, purchased the paper in 2015. “We just have the privilege of keeping it going, but it’s really the people of Ozark County who make the news worth printing.”

The Times has three full-time employees who work in the office and a handful of others who work part-time or contribute in other ways. 

The full-time staff includes Editor Jessi Dreckman, Advertising Manager Jenny Yarger and Office Manager and Graphic Designer Regina Mozingo. 

Dreckman has been with the Times since 2012. She is a 2005 graduate of Gainesville High School who graduated summa cum laude from Drury University in 2010 with a degree in writing and design arts. She is married to ‘03 GHS graduate Drew Dreckman and they have a 7-year-old daughter, Delilah. She was employed as a grant writer with Missouri State University prior to accepting the position at the Times. She worked under the leadership of former Editor Sue Ann Jones until her retirement in 2021, when Dreckman stepped into the editor’s role. 

Yarger is also a GHS grad, graduating in 2003. She is Norene and Tim’s daughter and has been with the Times since 2006. She began as the office manager and quickly worked her way into the role of advertising manager, serving as the upbeat and friendly point of contact that many local business owners work with each week. She also lives in Protem with husband Zack and 11-year-old daughter Ezra and 17-year-old son Zeke. 

Mozingo, the office manager and graphic artist, has been with the Times on and off for the last 33 years and has worked in newspapers since 1992, when she began her career at The Baxter Bulletin in Mountain Home, Arkansas. She joined the Ozark County Times as a graphic artist in 1999 and then began her role as a writer and photographer in the early 2000s. She was promoted to the editor’s job in 2008 and continued in that role until 2011, when she married Brian Mozingo and moved to his home in Monett, where she was a stay-at-home mom to his daughter, Hannah. In fall 2013, the Mozingos moved back to Gainesville, and Regina rejoined the Times in August 2015, working part-time while also homeschooling her stepdaughter. Two years later, in August 2017, Mozingo left the Times to become the news editor at the West Plains Daily Quill. She worked at the Quill until May 2019 then took a few months off to focus on her family before “returning home” to the Times. Mozingo lives in Gainesville with her husband, Brian. 

Other staff members include:

Owner Norene Prososki, who “semi-retired” a few years ago, still helps out plenty, handling the accounting side of the business, billing advertising accounts, compiling the school page in most editions, as well as driving to the print shop in Springfield each Tuesday to pick up the newspapers and drive them back to the office to be delivered the next day. She began her career in newspaper when Times general manager Walt Sanders hired her to sell ads. In 1995, Prososki went to work at The Baxter Bulletin in Mountain Home, Arkansas, where she spent three years as advertising manager. She found working at a daily paper owned by a large corporation not quite as satisfying as being involved in the kind of community journalism the Ozark County Times offered, so in January 1999, Prososki returned to the Times as general manager. Later, then owner Dalton Wright later named her publisher of the newspaper. She signed the closing paperwork to purchase the newspaper on Aug. 27, 2015. 

Former Editor Sue Ann Jones works remotely putting together the Times Past section each week, as well as contributing heartfelt feature stories on varying topics. Sue Ann began working at the Times as a teenager while her mentor, the late Ruby Robins owned the newspaper and served as editor and publisher. She earned a master’s degree in journalism in 1975 from the University of Missouri and began a long career in the newspaper industry, working for newspapers and magazines in Missouri, New Jersey, Ohio and Texas. In 1987, she also began doing freelance writing and editing for book publishers. She returned to the Times in 2007 and was named the features editor. She then stepped into the editor’s role in May 2011 and served in that capacity for 10 years before retiring from the role in 2021.

Norene’s mother, Lorene Loftis, rounds out the staff, delivering newspapers each Wednesday to post offices and store locations in Bakersfield, Tecumseh, Mountain Home, Arkansas, and other locations. 

The Times office has always been run with a “family first” spirit, fitting for such a small, close-knit staff that feels like family itself. Norene has long put her employees ahead of the business, encouraging balance and understanding when life calls. Babies have been welcomed into the office in their earliest weeks, and staff are given the freedom to step out for school events, doctor’s appointments or whatever else life throws their way. That spirit of care has helped the team not just work together, but truly look out for one another, just as neighbors do across Ozark County.

So when you buy a subscription or place an ad in the Ozark County Times, you’re doing more than purchasing paper and ink, you’re supporting a locally-owned small business with hometown employees and a tradition of telling Ozark County’s story for 142 years. Your support keeps community news alive, right here at home, where it belongs.