Sometimes, age just doesn’t matter.
Josh Lurie has been in the newspaper business 29 years, starting part-time with The Jones County News when he was 14.
Lurie, 43, has stayed in the business. He is now Managing Editor and Production and Technology Manager of the News and three other Middle Georgia weekly newspapers.
“I oversee the production of four weekly newspapers,” Lurie said recently, “and we put out about 40 magazines a year as a company. It doesn’t mean I do all that by myself, but I have to make sure the trains run on time.”
Lurie moved to Georgia in 1995 with his mother, Debbie Lurie-Smith, from Louisville, Kentucky, where they were both born.
“I remember I started at Califf (Middle Grades) in the seventh grade in the cottages,” Lurie recalled. Cottages? “Their learning cottages, the little trailers they had,” he explained with a smile.
Lurie’s mom had started working with The Jones County News by the time he turned 14. The high school freshman joined her and began a journalism career that has continued to this day.
“I remember I was 14 because we had to fill out some sort of paperwork saying it wasn’t child labor,” Lurie said. “(Then co-owner and managing editor) Tasi (Moore) didn’t want me anywhere near the work. She just wanted me out of the way, just typing stuff. Next thing I knew, we were printing out sections of the paper and sort of on our way to pagination.”
Lurie graduated from Jones County High School in 2001 and, having already earned some college credits through dual enrollment, earned his Associate’s Degree at Macon State College.
“I just lived at home and commuted back and forth. And I think usually I would get my classes kind of blocked off so I could work when I needed to work.”
Lurie was then ready to leave town.
“Then I had the bug that everybody has where you think you want to leave your hometown and never go back, so I did that in 2003.”
He moved to Spartanburg, S.C., where he worked for the Herald-Journal while attending USC-Spartanburg.
“Iwent to work at the daily paper building ads, and — most people didn’t want to work in the evenings — but I did because I’d go to class from nine to 12, and then I could go to work from one to nine or whatever. And, I enjoyed that because at five o’clock everybody clears out.”
Working together for their own business
About the time he was graduating, Lurie and his mother had the opportunity to get into the weekly newspaper business. The owners at the time “offered us a year that we’d just pay a lease payment,” Lurie explained, “own the business, and see how it worked. That was in 2006. And,” he added, “2006 turned out to be turned out to be one of our better years.”
At the end of a year, Lurie and Lurie-Smith became the outright owners.
“Iwas Publisher, and she was Editor,” he said. “She’s always written a ton (of stories) as well. And she handled a lot of the bookkeeping side of it. I tried to keep managing the sales people part, and then obviously doing layout and design.”
Mother and son working together could be problematic. Not so here, however. For most of the past 29 years, they have shared the workplace a majority of the time … with no issues.
“Mom and I have always had a strong relationship because my dad passed away when I was four, so that would have been ’86. She did get remarried after that, but we were single mom and son for a long time.”
Lurie recalled the days when they lived in Louisville.
“I’d ride the school bus and go home and lock the door —the true definition of a latchkey kid. And, I can tell you to this day her phone number at work because I’d go home every day and call her number and let her know I was home.”
The son shared household chores with his mom. “I can cook and clean and do whatever you need to do around the house because it was always a joint effort,” he pointed out.
‘’Going into business was sort of the same way. Like, there is so much stuff that needs to be done in the business, just like a household, and we split it up and get it done. I don’t know that we’ve ever even had a real disagreement.”
Romance, Football, Family
That personal division of household chores changed long ago, however. Around 2009, Lurie joined the Chamber of Commerce. He met an intern there, Natalie Smith, who became good friends with his mother. The two women stayed in touch when Natalie went to work at GEICO.
“Sometimes if they were having dinner I would tag along or something,” Lurie smiled. “Anyway, I would say, mom calls it her best — I don’t want to say scheme — but she put the whole thing together, and she’s very proud of it.”
The young couple eventually began dating, got engaged, and started making wedding plans. ‘Complications’ arose, however.
“She wanted to get married in the Fall of 2015,” Lurie noted. “And her dad said, ‘There are 15 weekends a year you cannot get married, and they run from August to December.’ So we got married in February of ‘16.”
Was that per chance football season? “Oh yeah,” Lurie smiled. “Georgia football.”
That was new to Lurie. “I’ve never cared anything about football. And when Natalie and I started dating in the summer and then, her dad, Jim, invited the two of us to go with him and his wife toa game … After being there in that environment, it really made a difference. I just fell in love with it.”
The story doesn’t end there.
“The next year we lost to South Carolina and Florida. Then we went to the Georgia Tech game and went to overtime. The guy threw an interception in overtime, lost the game.
“That was the year that I went and talked to Jim about marrying Natalie,” Lurie continued. “He got all serious and said, ‘You came over, we watched the Carolina game and they lost. We invited you over for the Florida game; they lost. Then we took you to the Georgia Tech game and we lost.’ And he said, ‘So I don’t think this is going to work out.’” It did work out, of course. The Luries have been married 10 years and have a four-year old daughter, Lola. With technological advances in the industry, Lurie is able to work from home more, and that has been a plus with Lola, though her age has changed that routine somewhat.
“It was not a big deal to work from home with her when all you had to do was feed her a bottle, change her, and put her back down for a nap. But boy, at three years old, that was a different story. Because anytime it got too quiet, I’d be nervous. But yeah, it was a great experience. I wouldn’t trade it for anything.”
Technology: Able to do more with less
Lurie explained that the production of The Jones County News changed significantly, even while he was still in high school.
“When I started at the paper, the process of turning ads and news into the finished product required special waxed paper,” he pointed out. “One side was basically laser printer paper while the other picked up wax as it went through a wax machine. Those pieces of pages were pasted up on grid sheets the size of the finished page.
“As software was developed for page layout, we started using a program called PageMaker to place ads and stories on digital pages. Then parts of those pages could be printed and waxed for the paste-up process. That was a big step toward pagination, where we could design pages completely digitally.
“As technology professed, we’ve moved to what we do today,” Lurie continued. “Pages are built in InDesign, the much-improved software that was originally based on PageMaker. From there, we create digital pages, export PDFs, and upload to a cloud share. Faster computers and better software have allowed us to do more with less.”
Off the job, Lurie himself has tried to do more. He has been on the Jones County Development Authority since 2010, longer than any members except Greg Mullis and Mickey Parker. The county purchased land for an industrial park off Highway 57 in 2006, but only one company is located there.
“I think,” Lurie reflected, “our biggest accomplishment over the last 15 years has been making a full-time director position. And she’s full-time busy. I think in ’25 we had about 20 prospects.”
Lurie also in 2010 made a run at public service. He qualified for the seat on the Board of Education being vacated by long-time Chairman Ted Stone. He lost to Ginger Bailey, who is still in office.
“I didn’t get out and talk to people as much as I should have because that’s just my nature,” Lurie acknowledged. “But I talked to a lot of teachers and a lot of people one on one. It was eye opening and interesting. But at the same time, the school system was in really good shape. It wasn’t like anyone was running to right the ship or anything like that.”
