EAKLY, Okla. (KFOR) – The type is set.

“This is where it happens,” sighs Joyce Carney.

Wednesday’s issue might still be in progress, but this publisher, editor, and writer knows the template of her Country Connection weekly. It’s been pretty much the same since her first issue in 1982.

“Our slogan has always been, ‘if it’s news to you, it’s news to us’.”

She quit the old Hydro Review when it sold to start up the Country Connection with some friends in Eakly. Some of the first advice she considered had to do with her advertisers.

“‘Dance with who brung ya,'” she echoes. “Loyalty is the key to keeping any business alive.”

That old crew drifted off and dwindled in number. Joyce now writes her column and a few articles mostly alone. Her husband Rusty does the books, the mail, and compiled pictures from a desk out front.

“Rusty does the hard stuff,” Joyce laughs.

If there is any single theme to this newspaper, it’s loyalty to her readers and the communities she serves.

The Connection never charges for obituaries or birth announcements. Joyce considers a much higher purpose as she compiles her issues.

She insists, “What we’re doing here is writing history.”

A tour of her offices doesn’t take long but the stories stack up like old issues.

“It’s so much fun,” she says.

One of Joyce’s favorite memories includes a traffic mishap. An elderly woman smashed her car through the front door.

Carney recalls, “The first thing she said when we ran to get her out of the car was, ‘I hope this won’t be in the paper.”

“Then Brenda responded, ‘Honey, you’re already in the paper.”

It’s a two-person office now, but the Country Connection isn’t shrinking and circulation is up.

Joyce has people sending in columns and articles as her advertisers are still faithful.

The Country Connection is still compiling history, every word that people here want to see in print.

“I just see good people,” she smiles.

Joyce and Rusty put out their paper each Wednesday.

To see an issue, go to their Facebook page here.