The National Society Daughters of the American Revolution has published a member magazine in several different forms since July 1892. At that time, DAR had only recently started its work as a patriotic women’s organization, dedicated to its three guiding tenets of education, historic preservation and patriotism. As an internal publication, the magazine was sufficient for the membership, but generally did not reach out to communities not yet touched by the DAR.
In 2001, some 109 years after its inception, the DAR magazine underwent a radical transformation. The magazine was split into two separate publications: Daughters newsletter, which focused on NSDAR news and notices; and American Spirit, a 52-page glossy, bimonthly full-color publication.
Hammock Inc. was hired to produce American Spirit in July 2002. One of the first things Hammock’s editorial and design team did was try to define the audience and the mission for the magazine. One thing we all agreed on—American Spirit should be the kind of magazine you’d want to leave out on your coffee table. The design should rival any commercial magazine, the articles should be intriguing and informative, and the writing should be fresh and vibrant.
Since the revamped American Spirit was intended to reach out to potential new members, we had to make some assumptions there—concluding that this group would likely be younger, with careers or families or both, and were probably accustomed to brightly designed magazines with a variety of topics.
Originally, American Spirit’s editorial lineup called for articles on women’s health and financial affairs. The more we talked with members, the more we felt readers could, and should, go elsewhere for that information, to magazines that exist to focus on those topics. American Spirit should focus instead on the National Society’s core concerns: history—especially women in history—genealogy, education, patriotism and preservation.
More than focusing on the details of long-ago battles, the magazine strives to tell the American story through the women and men who lived this history. Beyond Revolutionary history, American Spirit shows the human side of American life from Colonial times to the present, with articles ranging from features on historic homes, collectibles and Americana to regular articles on historic travel, timeless crafts and preserving family history.
In the past few years, we have changed the editorial mix in response to reader feedback. Under the current DAR National Magazine Chair, Denise Doring VanBuren, we have increased the focus on DAR goals of education, patriotism and preservation. We have also added more articles about individual members and the DAR itself, including departments such as:
And Hammock is always searching for even more creative ways to reach the dedicated members of the DAR, and spotlight the myriad ways they enhance their communities and their country.
Lena came to Hammock in 2003 from, well, right down the street at Vanderbilt University, where she graduated with a degree in Human and Organizational Development. We don’t really know what that means, but it probably taught her how to juggle multiple tasks and different kinds of assignments, because that’s one of her strengths.
On a typical day, Lena’s managing MyBusiness, proofing an NFIB state publication for the umpteenth time and figuring out what historically significant dates to highlight in the next issue of American Spirit. She also manages the production process for Pharmaceutical Commerce, a monthly newsletter that covers the commercial side of the pharmaceutical industry.
Lena hails from the small eastern Kentucky town of Paintsville (the birthplace of country greats Loretta Lynn and Crystal Gayle!), so it’s no wonder that she ended up in Music City USA. When she’s not at her desk, Lena enjoys honky-tonkying, training for half-marathons, reading People magazine and watching reality TV (what writer’s strike?).
She also aspires to be a hip-hop dancer, but let’s face it: Hip-hop dancing is inconsistent with writing about small business and early American history.
Editor Bill Hudgins never met a pun he didn’t like—or try to top. We long since gave up trying to fight his wordplay and instead have channeled it into headline and caption writing. Besides double-entendres, his brain is crammed with arcane facts, aphorisms, song lyrics and anecdotes, bolstered by a reporter’s and avid crossword addict’s skills in using online search engines to supplement the gaps.
Bill graduated from Columbia University with an English degree in 1972, a tumultuous time to be in college (that he now ruefully admits is studied as “history”). He attended The College of Communications Graduate School at UT-Knoxville and reported and edited on newspapers in Alabama and Tennessee until 1987, when he jumped to public relations at a firm then headed by Hammock Inc.’s founder, Rex Hammock.
The PR firm offered what is now known as custom publishing, and Bill worked on several projects there, including magazines about hunting and fishing, trucking and senior citizens. He segued from there to Hammock in late 1993, he has edited magazines about long-haul trucking, American history, personal watercraft and the Marine Corps. He also serves as the office curmudgeon, figuring Andy Rooney’s job will open up someday, and part-time Luddite, preferring power tools over PowerBooks.
When not juggling magazine projects, Bill “relaxes” by writing columns for several trucking magazines—his experience at Hammock left a lifelong passion for chrome, steel and diesel. At the other end of the spectrum, he anticipated the craze over “Dancing With the Stars” by taking up ballroom dancing just before the show began airing in the United States. He’s been on the DL list after some foot surgery, but considering a comeback
He and his wife Wilda like to travel, and not having kids, it’s easy for them to do so. After a trip to the Soviet Union in 1987, he learned to speak Russian so they could get around better on two later trips. They live on what he calls a micro-mini-farm in Gallatin, a town near Nashville, where they board abused horses and donkeys rescued by a local organization. He also is one of three members of the town’s Beer Licensing Board, and was involved in a successful effort to raise funds to build a new library in Gallatin.
Jamie Roberts is a member of Hammock’s powerful Alabama mafia, and she still loyally cheers for the Crimson Tide. She loves planes, trains and automobiles—actually any mode of transportation (including fire trucks, but that’s another story) that gets her somewhere fun and exotic. If she weren’t Hammock’s editorial director, she’d want to be a professional travel and tour operator based somewhere like London or Paris or a Greek island … the future locations of Hammock International.
Until those locations open, however, she has a great time in Nashville editing American Spirit for the DAR, MyBusiness for NFIB and special
publications for the National Guard. She previously served as executive editor for the Professional Convention Management Association and Convene, a magazine for the hospitality and meetings industry.
She earned her bachelor’s degree from Birmingham-Southern College and her master’s from Florida State University (Go Seminoles!), where she taught writing and English literature at campuses in Tallahassee and London. She lived in New York for three years, enough time to grow addicted to Zabar’s coffee and pizza from Grimaldi’s.
In her free time, she enjoys talking snobbishly about film and making her way through the AFI Top 100, reading the latest fiction for her book club and volunteering with St. Luke’s Community House and Hands on Nashville. Oh, and either dreaming about a trip, stamping her passport or obnoxiously dropping names of her favorite travel destinations.
Megan’s dreams of being a professional video-game tester were dashed after developing a severe case of Nintendo Thumb at age 12, leaving her no choice but to focus on another talent: writing. She likes to believe that besides a way with words, her passion for technology (and an obsession with Apple computers) helped her land her gig at Hammock Inc., where she focuses primarily on digital media endeavors.
Growing up in the Chicago suburbs, Megan’s way of rebelling was listening to country music, though this came to a quick halt once she actually moved to the Nashville area for college. Never one to put all her eggs in one basket, Megan received a bachelor’s degree in both Journalism and Spanish from Middle Tennessee State University. After working in health-care marketing and as a Spanish interpreter, Megan joined the Hammock team as a writer in December 2005.
When she’s not getting her colleagues hopped up on candy, Megan can be found keeping her inner geek alive by challenging friends to a game of Trivial Pursuit, researching the latest Apple rumors or playing video games on one of her six gaming systems. And no, she has never called in sick because of a Super Mario-related injury.
Until 2003, the American Watercraft Association published a magazine known as Jet Sports. Professional watercraft racing enjoyed a boom in the early 1990s, and racing provided much of the content. By the end of the 1990s and early into the 21st century, racing had considerably diminished. PWC had come under attack from environmentalists, and the downturn in the national economy exacerbated a drop in sales.
AWA asked Hammock Inc. to redesign and relaunch the magazine from stem to stern. The design was dated, the photography and production values mediocre, and the magazine said little about recreational riding.
This sport is about fun, Hammock’s writers and designers said, so let’s make it look like that. Also, PWC can be used for touring, fishing, snorkeling and diving, even scientific research (and delivering pizzas, we learned later), so let’s talk about that. And let’s give it a new name that embraces all these things—why not just call it Ride PWC Magazine? It’s a noun and a verb, and a command as well—go out and Ride!
Drawing upon surfing and boating magazines for inspiration, yet recognizing that our readers ranged from 20-somethings to 80-plus, we designed a publication that looks like it’s at full throttle there on the coffee table, with clean lines and a shipshape distinction between departments, features and association news.
We applied nautical terms, such as “Waterfront,” “ShipShape” and “Wavelength,” to departments and gave them a distinctive black frame to set them off from features. Editorially, we mapped out five primary uses for PWC—family togetherness, performance, racing, escape and utility—and through the course of a year, we plot coverage of each of those areas.
Since relaunching the magazine, we have added a section for first responders who use PWC in rescues. We’ve also added profiles of corporate and dealer sponsors of AWA, whose support enables the association to continue its mission.
Over the weekend of 9-11 November, five members of our production team for Semper Fi, The Magazine of the Marine Corps League, went to Washington, DC, to participate in celebrating the U.S. Marine Corps 232 Birthday and also the annual remembrance ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery.
Our group – John Lavey, Patrick Burns, Kerri Davis, Carrie Wakeford and Bill Hudgins – first went to the Marine War Memorial in Arlington, often called the Iwo Jima Memorial because it commemorates the raising of an American flag on Mt. Suribachi during the desperate struggle for the tiny island.
We spent part of Saturday afternoon at the year-old National Museum of the Marine Corps, discovering that the riches it holds take far longer than a couple of hours to see, even for the fleetest footed visitor.
Saturday night, we joined our client, the Marine Corps League, at its 2nd annual Birthday Ball. At both the museum and at the ball, Marine tradition was observed as a Marine sliced the birthday cake with a Marmeluke saber and handed the first piece to the oldest Marine present. That Marine took a bite, then handed to the youngestﾑthe passing of tradition and duty from old to new.
Sunday morning, crisp, clear and mild, we joined thousands at Arlington National Cemetery to honor the 48 million American veterans who, starting with the American Revolution, offered all, including their lives, to protect the nation. More than 310,000 of those veterans are buried at Arlington. The Marine Corps League was this year’s host veterans’ group for the national observance, and its commandant, Jack Ryan, was joined at the dais by Vice President Cheney after the vice president laid a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknowns.
Following our annual Hammock tradition of dressing up for Halloween, we decided to increase the stakes this year and have an official Costume Contest. The field included:
Black cat (Lena), Little Devil (Carrie), G.I. Jane (Emily), Count Chocula (Jamie), Surfer Dude (Patrick B), Orangutan (John), Little Red Riding Hood (Barbara L), Edie Sedgwick (Allison), Nurse Gollum from South Park (Barbara M) and the Crazy Cat Lady (Megan G).
Our special guest judges from Capital Records weighed in and awarded first place to Count Chocula, second place to the Crazy Cat Lady and third place to Nurse Gollum. A special honorable mention was awarded to the Orangutan.
Happy Halloween!
We’ve all been so busy, that Hammock Publishing’s official 16th Birthday on October 1 snuck right by us. Time to fire up 16 candles.
At last, we can legally drive the company car. Next year, we can
do magic.
Revenge could have been the keyword for The 14th Annual Nashville Area Literacy Council’s Spelling Bee on Sept. 27. After a rousing, come-from-behind, catch-the-ball-as-it-caressed-the-grass win in 2005, Hammock’s torrid spelling team got the bird on Kookaburra last year. So the pressure was on the litigious team from Waller Lansden law firm as they came back this year to defend their title. A new challenger, from McNeely Pigott Fox & Atkinson PR had cast a personal challenge at Hammock.
So Team Hammock — Captain Jamie “Depp-adidoo” Roberts, Megan “I wasn’t THAT good!” Goodchild, and Bill “AARPman” Hudgins — had a lot riding on them.
The pirate theme for the evening played into a number of the word choices. Cap’n Jamie saved our soy bacon by knowing that “zucchini” had 2 C’s. Bosun Bill thought it had one C and 2 Ns, which would have squashed us. The field of 10 was quickly whittled to 4 –Hammock, MPF&A, American Legal Services, and Waller. The latter two quickly fell, leaving the one-time champ and the new kids in a spell down.
The first word went to Hammock and nearly scuttled us — pronounced as “key,” the word “quay” meaning a structure in a harbor was familiar to all of us as “cay” from Caribbean forays. A lucky guess turned out right. Then the spinmeisters tripped over annihilate, which Hammock handled with ease, as we did the next word, “braggadocio.” Which we were filled with as it won the contest.
The fallen foes will long remember the event as the day they almost beat Cap’n Jamie and her merry crew!
