and Mary Lou Rosendale in 1963. The very first edition of the Bay Times in November 1963 was a memorial edition dedicated to President John F. Kennedy, who had been shot and killed the week before. The front page consisted of a single headline – The County Mourns – and a picture of the president. Publishing the Bay Times was truly a family effort for the Rosendales. Their first office was in their
back kitchen in their large, old two-story home at Love Point on Kent Island. Chris did the writing and photography; Mary Lou did all the advertising, addressing and mailing. They took turns delivering the newspaper. As soon as the Rosendale children were old enough to write they helped hand-address and stamp the newspapers before they got a second-class mail classification. The Bay Times cost 5 cents a copy in 1963 and subscriptions ran $1 a year. Ads cost 95 cents an inch. The paper started out as a tabloid then went to broadsheet, averaging 14 pages a week. (The Rosendales included an apology for the inconvenient size in the first broadsheet edition, explaining they were forced to change the size due to cost.) When the Rosendales sold the paper in 1974 to Augustine Publishing it had a paid circulation of 4,600. The Bay Times returned to its original, reader-friendly tabloid size in October 1987. It was owned for many years by Chesapeake Publishing Corp. Today, the Bay Times is owned by Adams Publishing Group. It publishes each Friday now in compilation with the county’s longest running publication, The Record Observer and has a paid circulation of over 6,000. Newsstand cost is $2.25 per issue. The mission of the Bay Times Record Observer is to inform and educate the public, to promote community participation, and to provide a forum for public debate.
