Tuesday, November 18, 1997

Abilene Bookstore opens downtown

By DOUG WILLIAMSON / Business Editor

Abilene Bookstore, the city's oldest bookstore, has opened a second location in the Cypress Building at North 2nd and Cypress.

The original location in River Oaks Shopping Center will continue to operate.

The Cypress Building, Abilene's oldest commercial structure, was originally constructed in 1890 and has recently undergone a multi-million-dollar renovation. The bookstore occupies more than 2,500 square feet on the ground floor, while the Abilene Chamber of Commerce, Abilene Industrial Foundation and Abilene Education Council reside on the second and third floors.

The bookstore stocks more than 16,000 titles and offers a custom ordering service, gourmet coffee, chocolates from Godiva, and a complete selection of gift items.

Managing owner Deborah McClure said the store is celebrating its 32nd anniversary.

Scripps announces revenues, dividend

The E.W. Scripps Co., owner of the Abilene Reporter-News, announced that consolidated revenues declined 6.6 percent in October, compared to a year ago.

The company also announced a quarterly dividend of 13 cents per share, payable on Dec. 10 to shareholders of record on Nov. 26.

The $8 million decrease in revenues was an anticipated result of the lack of political advertising in the broadcast division, and uneven booking of revenue at the company's programming unit, Scripps Howard Productions.

Television revenues declined 7.1 percent to $32 million. Entertainment division revenues were down 42 percent to $15 million. Newspaper advertising revenues rose 5.4 percent to $52 million, and total newspaper revenues were up 7 percent to $72 million.

ARMC, Hist & Fritz win award

Abilene Regional Medical Center and Hist & Fritz Creative Media Inc. have won a merit award in the National Mature Media Awards Program.

The program, presented by the Mature Market Resource Center, recognizes advertising, marketing and educational materials designed and produced for older adults.

The award for the local groups was a Senior Partners newspaper ad, and won in the area of newspaper advertising in health care.

Harte-Hanks acquires firm

Harte-Hanks Communications Inc., former owner of the Abilene Reporter-News, has acquired Mercantile Software Systems Inc., a leading provider of open architecture software and systems integration solutions for direct marketing and other applications.

Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.

Mercantile, located in Piscataway, N.J., was founded by John Tersigni and Raghu Sugavanam in 1987. It provides high-speed marketing database systems using a flexible and scaleable set of proprietary open-systems software products. The company also provides systems integration, consulting and marketing services to support their clients' marketing and other applications.

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