We are proud to announce Imaging Specialists’ association with The Stratford Oaks Tales. It is the first in a series of children’s books by local educator- and now author, Dr. Suzanne Mellow-Irwin about the life of the animals on her family’s mountain farm. Illustrated by Alleghany native, Zach Hamm, the first book, the “Tale of Gretchen,” tells about a pygmy goat, born at Stratford Oaks and her adventures there.
Just one of the many happy animals at Stratford Oaks Farm. (You can almost see Nya's tale wag!)
It is an honor to be allowed to help with the book. As we took Zach’s delicate, pencil and crayon drawings and placed them into story pages, laid out by his mother, Donna, our challenge was to showcase the artwork and story without interfering. We wanted to preserve the light, pastel colors without losing saturation.
We will let the reader be the judge, but we are very pleased with the result. Zach’s images are the perfect complement to Dr. Mellow-Irwin’s positive message and both are sure to appeal to children and parents.
The Tale of Gretchen will be available at The Sparta Store. Look for new installments, coming soon.
We’ve just completed a great collection of Alleghany Methodist Episcopal Church Quarterly Conference Records. The records span the years from 1883 to 1940 and were originally compiled by Thelma Davis from Sparta United Methodist Church. Duane Davis brought the records to us to archive and format so that they could be easily accessed by researchers.
ISI's new disk of Alleghany Methodist Conference records from 1883 through 1940
ISI’s intern, Beth Triplett, scanned the pages, and saved each as a separate file. We then grouped the files by year, built “books” in Adobe InDesign and exported them as PDFs. The PDFs are named for each year, so a user can easily navigate the collection. We chose to make the files PDFs, (Portable Document Format) a format originally developed for the printing industry that embeds fonts and images so that the document will print consistently on any system or printer configuration.
At the beginning, the set includes data from Mt. Zion, Bethany, Coxes School House (crossed out) Coxes Chapel, Shilo (sic) Sparta and Antioch and by 1940: Sparta, Shiloh, Piney Creek, Cox’s Chapel, Potato Creek, Gentry Chapel, Edwards Crossroads, Mouth of Wilson and Stratford Churches.
We appreciate being able to help with this important resource. Thank you Thelma and Duane for a project that is sure to aid historians for years to come.
October 23, 2010 members of the Alleghany Historical-Genealogical Society traveled to Mooresville to receive a Joe M. McLaurin Newsletter Award from the North Carolina Society of Historians at their annual awards banquet.
This marks the second consecutive year AHGS has won the award. This year NCSH received over 700 nominations and awarded 95 winners.
Third consecutive Joe M. McLaurin Newsletter Award for AHGS and Imaging Specialists.
Members representing Alleghany included President Roy Hunt, Board Member Pauline Jolly, and Jeff and Claire Halsey of Imaging Specialists, who produce the quarterly newsletter.
NCSH Judges’ Collective Comments of the newsletter:
“This newsletter was interesting from cover to cover. It contains eye-catching vintage and current photographs that draw the reader toward the text; has a fantastic layout and design; is nicely published; and serves its membership well. We could find no fault with this publication which is slated to receive recognition via the unanimous decision of this panel. We found it to be both professional and informative. Editor Halsey is doing a tremendous job in every avenue of the craft and should be highly commended for his work.”
For information about how Imaging Specialists can help make your award winning newsletter, call Jeff or Claire at 1-336-372-3002 or go to imagingspecialists.net/marketing
Recently, Roy Ackland and David Weatherly from Roy’s Folks at WGHP FOX8 in the Piedmont-Triad honored us with a visit. We had sent out a press release on our book Family Photos- Eli Hamilton Halsey and Lillian Blanche Smith and they were looking for a day trip to escape the hot weather, so they came to Sparta.
Kingsport Press
We were able to talk about the book, and our history in the printing industry. My dad told about his career in printing- in Roanoke, Bristol and in the photographic department at Kingsport Press. He eventually went to work for Opti-Copy, Inc. in Kansas City, traveling all over the world installing equipment and working with dealers. I went to work with Opti after school and traveled extensively in installation and service of the step-and-repeat cameras we built.
Opti-Copy, Inc. in Lenexa, Kansas in the eighties.
When the Japanese company, Polychrome, bought the company, Dad and I moved to Greensboro where he co-founded Imaging Specialists, Inc. with partner, Gerry Foss. ISI was a prepress trade shop supplying printers with one piece, plate-ready film. We produced film for books, publications, ads, and labels and worked with offset, roto-gravure, flexo and even silk screeners.
Since we had contacts at printing companies across the country, we were well positioned for farm-out and overflow work. My brother, Alan, (also an ex Opti-Copy employee) and I redesigned the drive systems on our cameras and successfully marketed that idea and imposition software to other Opti owners. Eventually, we were able to buy out Mr. Foss’ half of the business and the company was truly then a “Mom & Pop” organization. My mother, Eloise, had been working with us since we started in Greensboro and my wife, Sharon, had joined us in 1994.
Ron Halsey with one-piece, plate-ready, final film, Imaging Specialists’ main output for years.
Desktop publishing and the digital revolution finally killed our part of the prepress work flow and Dad decided to retire in 2000. We knew we had to reinvent ourselves, so Sharon and I also moved the business to the mountains in 2003.
Our experience in graphics and printing has helped us in the digital age. We run Adobe Creative Suite on Mac and PC platforms. We have expanded into the internet and now build and host websites. Our daughter, Claire, has joined us, now, and handles the web work.
We think our prepress experience coupled with on-demand printing makes a perfect fit. We offer services that include page layout and design, photo optimization, illustration, and e-commerce and marketing websites.
These turn-key book assembly services we perform are much like the days when we would accept a stack of pages (literally, a basket-case) correct and assemble them into what the printer needed to produce a book. And with on-demand, self-publishing is very reasonable. Contact us if you have an idea or a book that you want to discuss.
And check out our story on television, next week. Thanks Roy and David. I can’t think of a better way to wrap up Dad’s birthday present.
Recently, we’ve been working on a (surprise) family history book for my dad, Ron Halsey, for his birthday in August.
We compiled a photographic family history of Eli Hamilton Halsey and Lillian Blanche Smith, Dad’s grandparents. It is 102 pages hardcover, 8.25″ x 10.75″ and can be ordered print-on-demand. It takes about two weeks for delivery.
We think this will be a great, affordable service we can offer writers for small runs or print-on-demand type books (like family histories!)
Using family photographs, tintypes, genealogies, stories, and some recent images, we have made a chronological photo history of the lives of our Alleghany ancestors.
We also drew a map of the northwest section Alleghany County where Eli & Lillian lived and marked important family homes, churches, and schools.
