From Ladue News to a New Town & Style

Dorothy Weiner and Lauren Rechan aren't letting any grass grow under their feet. They've bounced back after their abrupt resignations from Ladue News to start up Town & Style, slated for a Feb. 9 debut.

Also intended as a vehicle for the well-heeled, the tony new publication will compete directly with LN. Weiner intends to increase coverage of the affluent central corridor to concentrate on the Central West End, as well as "from Wildwood to Washington Avenue."

Weiner served as Editor-in-Chief of Ladue News for 20 years, until her resignation Dec. 3. Rechan, the publisher who left in November, had taken the reins nearly two decades ago from her mother, the iconic newsmagazine's co-founder Charlene Bry.

The ad sales manager left in October. Three reps left about the same time as Rechan. Loath to go into detail, Weiner said the departures of the reps resulted from a "flap in the sales department."

Trish Muyco-Tobin, promoted Dec. 9 to Weiner's position at LN, referred inquiries to Dave Bundy, interim publisher. Bundy also is publisher of the Suburban Journals, which --along with LN and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch-- are owned by Lee Enterprises of Davenport, Iowa.

"I don't have too much constructive to say about that right now," Bundy told Ladue-Frontenac Patch. "Listen, I appreciate your trying to keep me on the phone, but I just rushed in from Ladue and I have a lot of things to take care of."

At the time this report was filed, former sales rep Julie Ferie, now with the Saint Louis Symphony, had not returned voice mail requesting comment. Kim Chulick, now with Groupon, could not be reached. Former ad sales manager Norm Frain, who took a job on the East Coast, was unavailable.

Weiner held forth Tuesday at a small table in a Clayton coffee shop with a jam-packed calendar's to-do list, crossing off a meeting after her previous visitor left. She and Rechan are on the hunt in Clayton and Ladue for space suitable to accommodate their fledgling staff of 15.

Weiner apologized that Rechan could not be present for the interview because she had to be at another appointment; Rechan's voice mailbox was full and not accepting additional messages.

For her part, Weiner said: "I didn't leave something. I'm going toward something."

Town & Style's executive team seems most occupied with things to come. Reflecting on the day she resigned, Weiner expressed no ill will.

"My heart's just elsewhere now," she said she told Bundy, who said she could handle her departure any way she wished. She gathered her remaining troops to make the announcement. Shock was mixed with melancholy.

"People are sad when they're left," she recalled, "as I was when Lauren left."

Weiner's replacement, Muyco-Tobin, who started in 2007 as senior writer and was promoted to managing editor earlier this year. Her background is mostly in broadcasting, but she occasionally contributes to the website BustedHalo.com.

Readers may be just as likely to have heard her work: Her career in radio began at KMOX in 1994, and she was on the air until 1996, when she left for KTRS  until leaving in 2005.  Also, from 1999 to 2005, Muyco-Tobin worked at Contact Radio as an executive producer, and head editor and writer of the award-winning radio program that aired on more than 425 radio stations across the country and worldwide.

Half of LN's weekly run of 45,000 is delivered to homes; the rest goes to numerous drop spots in the city and westernmost well-to-do suburbs, according to Muyco-Tobin in her website introduction, reemphasizing the intention of the publication and its website: "To be St. Louis's 'good news' paper."

Long since retired, Charlene Bry said that was her goal when, after a dozen years at the St. Louis Globe-Democrat, she joined forces with her friend Almira "Mydie" Sant to start the publication in the mid-1980s.

"I felt very, very lucky. I hired the most talented people along the way, and most were energetic young women," Bry recalled. "Today they'd be the heads of corporations."

Town & Style will print about 38,000 copies of the first issue, publish 30 times a year in 2011, then increase to a weekly. The editorial department will include four journalists formerly of LN, and the ad department will include at least three reps who also defected.

Compared to Bry's early days, this is a quantum leap for a startup. Bry's LN started as a black-and-white publication on newspaper stock published about eight times a year. It eventually evolved to a glossy black and white cover, then to the full color ad on the covers of today. She said she just floated that idea past her creative director, who came back in an hour with a mockup. The rest is local St. Louis publishing history.

At the coffee shop, a few minutes before creative director Julie Streiler arrived at the table with a hopeful photographer for the next meeting, Weiner threw down the gauntlet, very politely.

"Let each of us stand on our own merits," she said. "I can't speak for any other publication in town. But competition is good."

Editor's Note: Stay with us for an interview with Muyco-Tobin in the not-too-distant future. She told us in an email: "As you can imagine, the paper needs my full attention these days. Hope to catch up with you when it's not so crazy."