Newtown Bee
by Nancy Crevier
The Newtown Bee of Newtown, Conn., is western Connecticut’s most respected and reliable source of local news.
In 1880, Reuben H. Smith purchased a foundering publication known as The Bee from Bethel publisher, John Pearce. The Newtown Bee has since flourished under the direction of the Smith family. With his brother, Allison P. Smith, as editor, and himself as business manager, Reuben Smith rolled the paper’s first edition off the press in April 1881 from its Main Street quarters — the beginning of over a century of uninterrupted weekly publications.
Family involvement is the backbone of the paper. When Reuben moved on to other ventures in 1892, another brother, Arthur, stepped into the role of business manger. Allison maintained the editorial position until his death in 1934. He was succeeded by Arthur’s son, Paul, who steered the Newtown Bee until 1973. R. Scudder Smith, Paul’s son, took over as editor at that time, as well as title of publisher upon his father’s death in 1990.
Scudder Smith’s wife, Helen, served as business manager for over 30 years, passing on those duties to daughter, Sherri Smith Baggett. Scott Baggett, the Smith’s son-in-law, is production manager for the Newtown Bee and its sister publication, Antiques and The Arts Weekly (A&A). Grandson, Greg, is web manager/writer and grandson, Benjamin, is photo editor for A&A.
In 2007, managing editor Curtiss Clark became the first editor of the broadsheet paper who was not of the Smith dynasty. Nancy K. Crevier was named editor in May 2016, upon Mr Clark’s retirement. R. Scudder Smith remains the hands-on publisher of both publications.
The clapboard building at 5 Church Hill Road, periodically added onto and topped by a bee weather vane, has been home to the paper since 1903. Printing presses moved to a freestanding building on Commerce Road in Newtown in 1994. From there, the Newtown Bee and townwide The Bee Extra weekly advertising supplement, as well as the annual Back to School, Brides, and biannual Home & Garden supplements go to press.
The Newtown Bee has published a special edition only once, on Monday, December 17, 2012, commemorating the lives of children and educators lost at Sandy Hook Elementary School on December 14, 2012.
The Newtown Bee has always embraced technology to its advantage. It was Connecticut’s first newspaper to provide immediate news to readers via the introduction of www.thebee.com, in 1995. By 2017, www.newtownbee.com was attracting over 30,000 views a month, reaching an audience far beyond its print circulation of 14,000. It has earned numerous journalism awards for excellence in reporting and community service, and editors Paul S. Smith, R. Scudder Smith, and Curtiss Clark have been inducted into the Hall of Fame by the New England Newspaper and Press Association.
Once covering 26 surrounding communities when newspapers were far and few between, the paper now has a hyper-local focus, bringing news to residents in a fair and straightforward manner, and chronicling Newtown’s celebrations and tragedies with integrity and sensitivity.