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UTAH PRESS ASSOCIATION To better equip himself for nationwide selling, he affiliated with state and national advertising and editorial service organizations and as early as 1915 was travelling to New York City, Chicago, San Francisco or wherever else the groups were meeting. He wanted to learn more about being a successful publisher. In 1915 and 1916, he had the opportunity to become a part of a group being organized for the purpose of soliciting national advertising in the farm field. Consisting of the publishers of Western states agricultural publications, it became known as the "Associated Farm Papers." This membership brought about a few changes. The Deseret Farmer became the Utah Farmer. And each publisher agreed not to solicit subscriptions outside his state. This hurt the Utah organization in a way since the Deseret Farmer was at the time covering the Salt Lake wholesale territory. But concentration on Utah had its rewards, for at one time the Utah Farmer had 85% circulation penetration when the number of subscribers was compared with the number of farms in the state. In 1922 the LDS Church and its Deseret News decided to cease publication of the semi-weekly edition of the newspaper. That raised the question of what would take its place. A farm paper was the decision of News management. President Heber J. Grant told Kirkham he could sell out to the News and work with the publishing organization or continue to produce the Utah Farmer in competition with the new Church farm paper. A devout churchman, J.M.K. did not hesitate; his decision was that if his Church wanted the Utah Farmer it could have it. A deal was quickly completed and on June 17, 1922 the first edition of the Utah Farmer published in Salt Lake rolled off the Deseret News presses. In time, J.M.K. and three of his children were on the Deseret News payroll. Charges made by the News for printing the Farmer grew higher and Kirkham realized the picture had changed. When the Farmer left Lehi it was supporting a family of nine, plus a number of employees and still was showing a comfortable profit margin. So he began checking 576 |
