LINDON — In mid-August 1984, teacher Paul Thompson had an incoming throng of fourth-grade students on his mind and no idea how he was going to teach them an introductory course on Utah history.
In what has become a textbook case of necessity being the mother of invention, Thompson decided to invoke the tried and true methods of his course subjects, who a century earlier had managed to irrigate a high mountain desert — ingenuity and self-reliance.
Facing a dearth of course material, he began plowing through all the historical accounts he could find in libraries, laid out and furrowed it into an outline and by the next fall was growing a whole new crop of Utah history and social studies for kids.
"He knew enough to know that not having a fourth-grade textbook was an opportunity, not a setback," Ed Rickers said Thursday during a 25th anniversary celebration of the little weekly studies reader Thompson began that today is found in every state, each tailored to its own area's unique history and local curriculum.
Rickers, who is both personally and professionally in Thompson's family as a son-in-law and as the top executive of Studies Weekly, chatted with hundreds of Utah County residents who came to Thursday's open house.
"It's nice to know that people showed up to let us know that they're glad we're here," Rickers said. "I think we're a lot more well-known in other parts of the country than we are here, but this is the home office and where it all started."
The company has more than 70 state history, science and social studies illustrated periodicals that are found in 15 percent of schools nationwide and are stacking up well against the big scholastic publishing houses that continue to regard the publications as nothing more than a supplement to their textbooks.
Studies Weekly still fights that stereotype, Rickers said. But as school district budgets and government budgets in general continue to be whipped by the economic crosswinds, the company is teaching the big boys a lesson.
Instead of being written by a collective of Ph.D.s with no more connection to local state education standards than Thompson had to disco standards at Studio 54, Studies Weekly is written by teachers with actual classroom experience.
"It's not the letters after the author's name that count," Rickers said. "It's the frontline people in front of the classes who write to their own particular state's education requirements."
Nationwide news accounts are brimming with stories of government and teacher cutbacks. Mississippi, for example, has parsed its lack of revenue down to a decision between buying textbooks and firing teachers to help pay for them.
Studies Weekly has just struck a deal with the state and is helping the state keep teachers teaching.
"It's happening just about everywhere," Rickers said, noting that business has increased by 30 percent in the past year.
An online version of the magazine, which is free with a subscription, is the current main focus of expansion. As ink-on-paper enterprises like newspapers and magazines continue to fall around him, Rickers said E-Studies Weekly is getting a lot more attention and a lot more company profits, which traditionally have been plowed back into the business.
"Things are changing very rapidly, so it's difficult to see very far into the future," Rickers said. "But with the paradigm shifting to more locally based orientation in a lot of businesses and with computers moving to laptops to phones, there's probably 25 more years of change we've been through coming in the next three or four. Thankfully, adapting to change rather than being run over by it has been our standard from day one."
For more information, visit www.studiesweekly.com/aboutsw.php or www.estudiesweekly.com/.
e-mail: jthalman@desnews.com