The Salado Village Voice newspaper was founded by the late Dayton Kelly with the first edition on February 17, 1979.
The newspaper has seen four decades of service to the Village of Salado.
For more than three of those decades, Tim and Marilyn Fleischer have been at the helm of the Salado Village Voice.
Salado Village Voice newspaper has always been a family affair, since its founding by Dayton Kelly in 1979. After Dayton’s death, his sons Dennis and Bill operated the newspaper until the Fleischer family purchased the newspaper in 1988.
Salado Village Voice is locally owned and operated. “We are vested in Salado and invested in Salado,” says publisher and editor-in-chief Tim Fleischer.
As we begin 2024, Salado Village Voice staffers would like to re-introduce themselves to the community they serve.
Salado Village Voice has a staff of three full time family members, including publishers Tim and Marilyn Fleischer and their son Royce Wiggin, staff photographer and office assistant.
In addition to individual awards by staff members, Salado Village Voice has been honored by the community and state. The newspaper was the first-ever Business of the Year, awarded in January 2003 by the Salado Chamber of Commerce.
For 30 years, Salado Village Voice has published Salado: A Jewel in the Crown of Texas, a quarterly magazine. The Jewel magazine has been accepted for distribution at the Texas travel centers at each of the entrances into the state after meeting the strict standards to do so.
The newspaper also maintains an active website at www.saladovillagevoice.com and has electronic editions of the newspaper available for subscribers.
The newspaper joined the Texas Press Association in 2010.
Tim Fleischer
Tim Fleischer has been a newspaperman since he was 16, working for both weeklies and daily newspapers. “I got the Devil’s Ink at an early age and haven’t been able to get rid of it,” he said of his 39 years in the newspaper industry.
For 34 years, he has been the editor of the Salado Village Voice.
But his love for Salado has been for more than three decades. “I came to Salado with my parents for the Art Fair and Gathering of the Clans when I was growing up in Coryell County,” he said. “I drove through it every day on my way to run a small newspaper in Florence.”
Tim and Marilyn Fleischer have published the newspaper since 1988. During that time, the newspaper has grown from an eight-page tabloid to a full-size broadsheet newspaper with four sections.
“We have grown with the community and are a reflection of it,” he said.
In those years, the newspaper has won several awards from the Texas Community Newspaper Association, where Salado Village Voice competed against newspapers from San Antonio, Dallas, Houston, Austin and around the state.
Tim has won several TCNA awards: advertising design (third in state for large ad format and third in state for advertising series); editorial work (first in state for editorial writing, third in state for editorial writing, third in state for column writing) and second in state for community service (for articles during the incorporation election).
In 2019, he and Royce Wiggin won a Texas Press Association award for Feature Photography in 2019.
Fleischer has been named to the Texas Association of School Boards Media Honor Roll several times during his tenure at the helm of the newspaper, Media are recommended and nominated for the Honor Roll by local school boards for their coverage of schools.
He has also served the community in a variety of capacities, including four different terms on the board of directors of the Salado Chamber of Commerce and six years on the board of directors of the Institute for Humanities at Salado.
He was president of the Salado Chamber of Commerce in 1998 and treasurer for two years of the Institute for Humanities at Salado.
Fleischer was Chairman of the Salado Chamber of Commerce in 2015.
He served a term on the inaugural board of the Salado Community Foundation.
He was also on the first board that established the Mentoring program in Salado.
Tim is a Mason and twice Past Master of the Salado Masonic Lodge #296. He served as District Deputy Grand Master for Masonic District #48 in 2011-12 and is the current Secretary for the Salado Lodge. He was presented the Golden Trowel award in 2011. As one of the highest honors any Texas freemason can receive, the Golden Trowel Award was established by the Grand Lodge of Texas for the purpose of recognizing any mason who has consistently demonstrated outstanding and exemplary service to in the community. He is the Lodge Flag Committee chairman.
He was installed as Eminent Commander of Temple Commandery #41 Knights Templar, an appendant body of Masonry, on Dec. 30. Fleischer is also District Deputy Grand High Priest from the Grand Royal Arch Chapter of Texas for 2024.
He is known to great grandson Nate Timothy Potter as DoDo (like the bird).
He and wife Marilyn share responsibilities at the newspaper. “She runs the office and makes the business decisions and I make editorial decisions,” he said.
The Fleischers are covering their third generation of Salado kids. “We are recognizing the names of the kids of those kids we covered in the late 80s and early 90s,” Tim said. “Not very many newspapermen can say that they are covering multiple generations of families in a community.”
“A community newspaper should be both a cheerleader and a conscience for the town it serves,” he adds. “We celebrate our successes whenever we can.”
“Because we live here, pay taxes here and serve in our community, we feel a responsibility to holding local officials accountable for their actions,” he adds. “This is not always an easy thing to do, but we owe it to the taxpayers, businesses and residents to do this.”
“The one thing I try not to do is to tell my readers what to think,” he adds. “This is why we have not officially endorsed or opposed a candidate for school board or board of aldermen. We try to present, in as fair a manner as I know how, as much information as possible for the residents and voters to make up their own minds.”
Marilyn Fleischer
Marilyn got the Devil’s Ink in her blood after meeting Tim 37 years ago.
She is managing editor and advertising manager of Salado Village Voice.
She worked in the corporate world prior to the purchase of the Salado Village Voice in 1988.
She also owned and operated a business in the Killeen/Copperas Cove area for several years while raising her three children.
During their years in Salado, Marilyn has served the community in many ways.
She was honored by the Salado Chamber of Commerce in 2020 by being named to its Hall of Fame.
“I think I have been most satisfied with my work with the Salado Family Relief Fund,” she said. For her birthday in 2017, Marilyn asked her friends to contribute to the Salado Family Relief Fund, raising more than $1,000.
In addition to her work to establish the Family Relief Fund, Marilyn has also been Art Fair chairperson for multiple years, and served three years as a Chamber of Commerce Director.
She served two three-year terms on the Salado Civic Center board of directors.
She was on the founding board of the Salado Community Foundation and continues to serve on the foundation board.
She has also won awards from the TCNA. She has twice been honored. She won second place for Best Feature Photo and second place for Community Service for her work with the Salado Family Relief Fund.
The Fleischers helped to establish what became known as the Public Arts League of Salado and the Salado Ambassador Program.
The Fleischers’ children — Royce Wiggin and Jenny Potter, both graduates of Salado High School — have grown up in the eye of the community. Royce graduated in 2007, beginning in second grade in Salado schools. Jenny began her school career as a kindergartner at Thomas Arnold Elementary School and graduated in 2009.
Marilyn welcomed her ninth grandchild to the world in 2015. Beren Crow Baggett was born on August 26, 2015.
Great-grandparents to Nate Potter, the Fleischers welcomed twins Kace and Brynn Potter in June 2020 and Ivy Ewell in September 2022.
Royce Wiggin
Royce Wiggin is one of those rare species: a native of Salado, born here on July 5, 1989.
His first home was the historic Levi Tenney House in Salado’s Pace Park.
He has attended school in Salado since second grade graduating in 2007.
While in high school, he was a trumpet player in the Salado Eagle Marching Band.
He began work at the newspaper over the summer of his junior year in high school.
His responsibilities include photography and reporting, distribution, classified advertising, placing and rotating ads on pages, directing phone calls in the office, proof reading, typesetting and a myriad of other duties.
Royce is the staff sports photographer, traveling to games on Tuesdays and Fridays to shoot football, volleyball, basketball, cross country, soccer and in the spring, track, baseball and softball.
He is the son of Tim and Marilyn Fleischer, owners of the newspaper, and is glad to finally get paid for all the hours he spends at the newspaper office.