Inspired Woman: From the Beginning
July 01, 2016
By : Inspired Woman Magazine

“We are not makers of history. We are made by history.”

– Martin Luther King, Jr.

What happens in the past, shapes us today, and in the future. It’s true in our lives, and in the life of this magazine. As we celebrate a new begin
ning for Inspired Woman magazine, we feel it is important to remember the origins of Inspired Woman as well. Af

Larry Berget, The Printers

Larry Berget, The Printers

terall, without that past, we wouldn’t be where we are today.

So, we sat down with Larry Berget, owner of The Printers, and former publisher of Inspired Woman magazine and Dan Hildebrand, former sales manager. For Larry, the decision to start Inspired Woman magazine was an easy one.

“A gal stopped in here [the Printers] with a magazine she had picked up in another city. She said ‘Larry, you should publish a women’s magazine.’ I said ‘That’s not a bad idea. I think we will.’ And so we did.”

Finding a name for this magazine wasn’t as easy. The staff at the Printers as well as a newly formed advisory board submitted ideas. But nothing on their list of more than 30 possible names felt right.

“I was on my way to the library. I told them I needed to go find some inspiration. As soon as I said that, I was done searching for a name for this magazine,” remembers Hildebrand. “I never made it to the library.”

“The name made sense for what we wanted to do,” says Berget. “We wanted to be an inspiration and to feature people who were inspirational.”

CoverThe new Inspire magazine was published six times a year. It replaced a senior lifestyle magazine the Printers had been publishing. When Inspire debuted in 2002, Bismarck Chief of Police Deb Ness was the first cover girl. A lot of thought was put into each issue’s cover girl.

“We debated whether the cover girl should be a celebrity or regular person,” Berget recalls. “It was easier to sell a celebrity, but maybe regular person’s story was better. We tended to lean more toward cover girls who did a lot of work but didn’t get a lot of recognition. We liked featuring women who are just good people doing good things.”

Kim Jondahl was the editor of the magazine from 2002 until 2008. Deb Seminary took over in 2008 and that’s when the name was changed to Inspired Woman.

Over the years, the magazine had many different looks and styles. Advances in technology changed the way the magazine was put together and printed, but one thing always remained the same: the dedication to bringing inspiring stories to the people of Bismarck and Mandan.

And while Inspired Woman now has a whole new look, that original mission still hasn’t changed. We hope you continue to find inspiration on each page of Inspired Woman magazine.

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