BY JACK CRISS DBJ Executive Editor

With the recent purchase of the 12,000-circulation Delta Democrat Times in Greenville, MS, Emmerich Newspapers owner Wyatt Emmerich has added another publication to an already impressive regional roster. More importantly, the 42-year old entrepreneur has continued a tradition started in the 1920’s by his grandfather. The story of Wyatt Emmerich, and his grandfather and father, is truly one of the inspiration in the annals of Mississippi business history.
“My grandfather started in the newspaper business in McComb in the Twenties,” Emmerich recalls. “At the time, the industry was a very fragmented one, and technology was quite crude, totally different from how it is today. The cost of printing was enormously high, and type had to be set by hand.” Oliver Emmerich had been a county agent prior to his entering the newspaper business. When asked to write a column about his job, Mr. Emmerich found he was better at writing about the job than doing it, as Wyatt Emmerich tells it, and subsequently purchased the McComb Enterprise.
“My grandfather worked very hard at the Enterprise for many decades,” Emmerich says, “even prevailing through the Depression. He eventually turned the publication into a daily from a weekly.” Wyatt’s father, John, and Wyatt himself were both born in McComb, hence the younger Emmerich’s exposure to the business he would come to love.
“My dad had been bitten by the paper bug at an early age,” Emmerich says, “and ended up working for some major papers, such as The Baltimore Sun, where he was News Editor, and The Houston Chronicle, where he was Editorial Page Director. My grandfather had never really wanted to expanded the family business outside of McComb. But when my father moved back to Mississippi after these stints in other markets, he convinced my grandfather to help him purchase The Greenwood Commonwealth in 1973.” That paper was sold to John Emmerich for the price of $1 million, and this purchase brought Wyatt to the Delta for the first time.
“I remember us driving down Highway 82 from Winona and seeing that long, slow decline down the hill, watching the Delta spread out before my eyes,” Emmerich remembers. “My parents said to me, ‘This is the Delta’, and I thought it was fascinating.”
Soon, young Wyatt was entering Greenwood High School, and helping his father around the newspaper offices whenever he could. “I used to work in the darkrooms after school,” he chuckles, “and would occasionally write stories. I even went so far one summer as to sell subscriptions door to door. My father used to say that paid subscriptions were at their highest during the time I did that! I think I sold about a thousand,” Emmerich says.
After being voted Most Likely to Succeed in his graduating class of 1976 (“and playing cornerback on the State championship football team,” Emmerich adds), Wyatt left Greenwood High to hit the Ivy League. Harvard University was beckoning this ambitious young man. And obviously had been for some time.
“My father used to tell the story about how I decided to go to Harvard,” Emmerich says. “As he related it, we were all sitting around the breakfast table one morning, and he asked me where I wanted to go to college. I then asked him what the best college to go to was. He told me Harvard, and I responded, ‘Well, then, that’s where I’m going!’” Emmerich says today he’s not sure that’s exactly how it went, but, indeed, he did start Harvard in the Fall of 1976, eventually earning a degree in economics. It was an eye, and mind, opening experience.
“Oh, I loved attending Harvard,” Emmerich enthuses. “I didn’t care much for the bitter cold, but academically and socially I thrived there.” Emmerich also says that his time at Harvard taught him one especially profound lesson: “I learned to not believe anybody who called themself an expert—-check it out yourself. Question authority. I’ve always carried that with me.” While at Harvard, Emmerich also was editor of the prestigious Harvard Crimson.
While at Harvard, Emmerich spent summers interning at The Philadelphia Inquirer. Upon graduation, he worked as a reporter for the Cocoa, Florida Today newspaper, before going to The Dallas Times Herald. Emmerich also attended business school at UCLA. “My father has always wanted me to go to business school,” he says. “That was very important to him.”
After leaving UCLA, Emmerich returned to Mississippi, to McComb, in order to start a low-power television station. At the moment, it seemed like the cutting-edge thing to do, Emmerich says. “It was the hot technology at that time,” he recalls. “We broke even on the project, but ended up selling out. I can say, though, that for the year I ran the station, I learned a great deal.” About the time Emmerich got out of television, his father had purchased the weekly Northside Sun in Jackson, and in 1985, Wyatt was named publisher.
“I held that position for a couple of years, but got restless,” Emmerich says. “I was young and single, and decided that I wanted to see more of the world.” So, leaving his post at the Sun, Emmerich backpacked around Australia for a couple of months, submitting his “On The Road, Down Under—Wyatt Emmerich” column to some 25 Mississippi newspapers while doing so. Before long, however, Emmerich returned to the U.S. and to the Big Apple. New York City was calling.
“I became the Senior Analyst for Strategic Planning at the New York Times Company, and also worked at Merrill Lynch as a Newspaper Advisor in their corporate office for four years,” Emmerich says, adding, “I loved it. New York was great. I like to say that, during that time in New York, the world was my oyster.” Before long, though, Emmerich says the crime, dirtiness, and noise of the city became too much, and he was ready to return to his home state.
“My dad had just bought the Clarksdale paper, and was expanding rapidly,” Emmerich says. “I got some sweat equity from him to re-enter the business to help out with some of the new acquisitions.” He was again named publisher of The Northside Sun. At the time, 1990, the paper was suffering through some major problems, and it was Emmerich’s responsibility to turn things around.
“It was a very complex and difficult period,” Emmerich says of this responsibility.” We had major issues dealing with personnel, technology, editorial–you name it. It was one of the hardest jobs I had ever faced.” In keeping with his style, dedication, and sense of preservation, Emmerich did just that...persevere. Eventually, this discipline paid off and the Sun was running smoothly again.
“My father was motivated to expand our business in large part, I think, because of my love of it,” Emmerich says, adding that perhaps it was destiny that he return to Mississippi to work again with the senior Emmerich. Such commitment made John Emmerich’s sudden death from a heart attack in 1995 that much harder for his son to bear.
“When my dad died, not only did I lose my business partner—-I lost my best friend,” Emmerich reflects. “We talked everyday, even when I was on Wall Street. I greatly admired my father and his lifestyle. I wanted to emulate it.”
That Wyatt Emmerich has done, perhaps even going to heights that his father wouldn’t have dreamed of. The recent purchase of the Delta Democrat Times from Freedom Communications has pushed Emmerich Newspapers to total revenue projections of $21 million this year. All total, the company currently owns four dailies and 16 weeklies in Mississippi, two weeklies in Louisiana, and a weekly in Arkansas. Ten of these acquisitions have been made since John Emmerich’s death. The company also boasts of a total paid circulation of over 80,000, half of which is daily.
Emmerich says he is very excited about the acquisition of the Delta Democrat Times. “The paper will improve, of course,” Emmerich says, “but it will also become more community-oriented.That is very important to me. We will be advocates of, and active in, economic and community development.” Emmerich also predicts less turnover at the paper with a concomitant increase in staff stability and continuity. “We’ll definitely be digging deeper roots in the community than the previous owners,” he adds.
Residing in Jackson, with offices at The Northside Sun, Emmerich says he is usually roused every morning around 7 AM by his two sons, John, four, and Lawrence, two. “My wife, Ginny, needs more sleep than I do, so the boys and I get up, make breakfast, and read or watch a little television before I go into work, usually between nine or ten.” A usual workday ends for Emmerich around seven or eight at night, then he returns home to get his sons to bed. “And weekends are almost always totally devoted to my family,” he says. Will his sons follow the family footsteps in the publishing business? “Possibly,” Emmerich chuckles, adding that “I’ve done some aggressive estate planning to make that a reality if that’s what they choose.”
An avid tennis player and fan, as well as an accomplished pilot, Emmerich also is a voracious reader, with several titles being read simultaneously. “I’m currently reading a biography of Einstein, a book about a Mississippi doctor by former Mississippi Economic Council president Bob Pittman, and quite a few others,” he says.
Wyatt Emmerich, and the success he has achieved both professionally and personally, is not only a credit to the great legacy of his family name; he is also a credit to the state of Mississippi. Certainly he has already achieved much in his career. But it is obvious, based on his enthusiasm, creativity, and business smarts, that the best is certainly yet to come.
“I love the newspaper business,” Emmerich sums up. “It’s special to me. When you love something you tend to be more enthusiastic about it and do it better.” Not many people have done it better than Wyatt Emmerich. DBJ