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Recently, “HSJ Online” celebrated our 10th year as a nonprofit digital newspaper for our community at WILLow LeaVes. I read a story by Bud Herron who was instrumental in our start due to his experiences and connections in the newspaper business. Bud has never forgotten his strong roots in this community. There was much laughter while I read that evening, and I asked Bud for permission to post it again on “HSJ” as we did in 2018. Undoubtedly, laughter is good for all of us! Following, you will find the history of the story as well as the story. Enjoy!

“I wrote the story [READ HERE: Cat cleaning requires speed, pain endurance] in 1983 when I was editor of the Franklin Daily Journal I thought no more about it until 93 or 94 when I was visiting a friend in Phoenix, Arizona in the early days of the Internet. He opened his computer and wanted to know if I was the Bud Herron for this article which his brother had sent from Kansas. The whole thing shocked me. From there, the internet piece was picked up and became what you would have to call one of the first viral articles on the net. I have no idea how many sites have posted it over the years. I do know it was posted in about four different languages.

“Then I received a call from a professor at the University of Illinois asking for permission to use it in a book he was writing for English composition classes. He asked how much I wanted to allow him to reprint, and I told him off the top of my head $500. He paid me that along with $500 each time the book was reprinted. From there to other college textbooks at other universities, it was picked up and paid similar amounts.

“Eventually it was in a number of magazines from the Saturday Evening Post to something called Catsumer Digest and was published in several books which were mainly collections of humorous stories. Each time, I got paid.

“All in all, I have earned about $5,000 for the piece. The odd thing was, I never tried to sell it to anyone. It's just caught on! I have written a lot of things I thought were better, even tried to sell a couple of them, but never made much for them. I guess sometimes blind luck works better than hard work.”

Donations toward the continuation of “HSJ” are always greatly appreciated as we continue Hope's incredible story of having a newspaper for well over 100 years, a story that unfortunately is no longer a part of many communities.