Gerhard Munster: From paper boy to publisher

As a kid in Vienna, Austria, I walked every day to the local newspaper office and picked up a bundle of the Kurier, a daily paper, and sold them on a busy street corner. I’d return the next day to pick up more papers and drop off the money. It was a good way for a kid to earn a little pocket change and learn the value of money.

Many years later when I lived in Johannesburg, South Africa, I worked for the Sunday Times as overseas surveys manager. The paper had a paid circulation of 560,000 copies.

After coming to America, I worked for a small shopper in Saint Petersburg and later moved to Orlando selling advertising at the Sentinel. At the next junction in my life, I wanted to learn about community news and became partner in the Outlook in Oviedo. After five successful years, my partner and I saw a different future for the paper. He bought me out and I started my own newspaper.

I remember sitting at my kitchen table, pondering if I could start a weekly community newspaper in Winter Park to better serve our community the way I felt was the right way. I drew an eagle by hand with a No. 2 pencil as my logo above the future name of my newspaper, and went through countless typical newspaper names. The idea of choosing the eagle as a very observant bird overseeing his domain made me choose the name Observer. I ordered a copy machine capable of reducing and enlarging, and a Macintosh II computer with QuarkXPress and Adobe Photoshop. I had to quickly learn to type and design advertising as my first order of business.

My next challenge was to find a suitable location. Yes, God works in mysterious ways. I came across a “For Rent” sign on Executive Drive behind Kmart in Winter Park and met my new, very understanding landlord Ron Black. He was all excited to have a new community newspaper as a tenant and showed me the vacant office. Lo and behold there was a paste up bench, left behind from another monthly senior publication that had moved on.

Then I needed to find a company selling used newspaper vending machines to distribute my papers. The fellow I found had 30 machines of various colors and conditions. With a lot of elbow grease, sandpaper, primer and spray paint, I managed to restore all of these machines and proudly applied the Observer logo.

After acquiring all the necessary licenses, the Observer was now ready for production. Now I had to wear many hats. I was the proud owner, publisher, editor and advertising person as well as the layout artist, the circulation manager and distributor. Time was flying, just a few more weeks before I had to go to print.

Thank goodness for my mom Fern. She volunteered to become office manager. In addition, I asked several local residents to become contributing freelance writers, including the world famous author Sloan Wilson, best known for the novel “The Man in the Grey Flannel Suit.” I then started appointing an editorial advisory board … more people to talk about the new paper and get more subscribers. The more, the merrier! The success of every good “community” newspaper is “community” participation!

With barely $1,000 in advertising and slightly behind schedule, the first copy was published on Thursday, Jan. 26, 1989. The Winter Park Observer was born and 25 years later I am proud to see my baby grow!

Gerhard J.W. Munster

Founding publisher and editor

Winter Park / Maitland Observer