John Bell stands in front of the newest press at Ovid Bell Press in Fulton. The firm prints more than 400 color specialty magazines from around the nation. (Justin Kelley / Fulton Sun photo)

August 31, 2009, By DON NORFLEET, Fulton Sun:

This year the city of Fulton is celebrating the 150th anniversary of the city’s incorporation. A local business, the Ovid Bell Press, traces its roots deep into the city’s history.John Peter Bell owned the Fulton Telegraph newspaper when his son Ovid Bell decided to go into politics. The Telegraph later evolved into the Fulton Sun newspaper.

Ovid was the chief of staff for Richard Parks Bland, who served as a Missouri Congressman from 1873 until 1899. Bland was known around the nation as “Silver Dick” Bland because as a Missouri congressman from Lebanon he attempted to help the common man as well as silver miners. He spent 25 years in Congress trying to place the nation on a bimetallic standard, making him a friend and advocate for western silver miners.

The wide-spread support from around the nation eventually allowed him to mount a race for president of the United States.

Bland eventually lost his race for the 1896 Democratic presidential nomination to William Jennings Bryan, who was defeated by William McKinley. Bland died only three years after losing to Bryan.

As Bland’s former chief of staff, Bell was looking for a job in Washington. His father called his former commanding officer in the Confederate Army during Civil War who at the time was serving in the U.S. Senate. The senator arranged to secure Senate press credentials for Ovid Bell, who then became employed as a correspondent for the Philadelphia Eagle newspaper.

Bell continued in that position until he was contacted by representatives of the Callaway Bank about a newspaper business opportunity in Fulton.

It seems the owner of the Fulton Gazette had fallen ill and had a large debt with the bank.

Ovid Bell decided to come back to Fulton. He assumed the debt of the newspaper’s ill owner and took over as the new owner of the Fulton Gazette newspaper in 1901.

Bell converted the Gazette from a weekly to a daily newspaper. In 1911 Bell constructed the building that now houses the Fulton Sun newspaper.

But eventually Bell reached the conclusion that Fulton was not large enough of a city to support two newspapers. He then sold the Fulton Gazette in 1927 to the owners of the Fulton Sun, creating the Fulton Sun-Gazette, which later evolved into the Fulton Sun.

Bell had already been doing some commercial printing in Fulton and decided to open a commercial printing plant after leaving the newspaper business.

His first magazine customer was the Missouri State Medical Association’s publication, Missouri Medicine in 1924.

“We still print that magazine 85 years later. We treasure our relationship,” says John Bell, the current owner of Ovid Bell Press.

The Ovid Bell Press began operations in a 10,000 square foot building at 1201 Bluff St. The business took off rapidly and now ranks as the 274th largest printing plant in the United States. The current 86,000-square-foot building at the same site now sprawls over a city block. The firm about 20 years ago purchased the Ferrugia Produce Co. building to be used as another warehouse at 9th Street and Westminster Avenue, pushing total square footage of the Fulton firm to more than 100,000 square feet.

Ovid Bell Press now prints more than 400 color specialty magazines from around the nation.

Many of them are national publications. “Located in the center of the nation, we are ideal for many national publications as a place to print, bind and mail magazines throughout the United States,” Bell says.

“Our largest concentration of customers are located along the Eastern Seaboard. We are also building a following in the Chicago area and on the West Coast as well,” Bell says.

“We have three roll-fed web presses and three sheet-fed presses. But the bulk of our work is on web presses. We compete with the largest color magazine printers in the nation for business. We compete with RR Donnelley, which did $11.6 billion in business last year. We had sales last year of $21.5 million,” Bell says.

Bell’s father, Ovid H. Bell, operated the business before he died in 1998.

“My grandfather’s name was Ovid K. Bell, but he didn’t use his middle name because he didn’t like the O.K. initials. That wasn’t ‘OK’ with him,” John Bell chuckled.

Since John Bell has been involved starting in 1973, the Ovid Bell Press business has expanded rapidly. That’s mainly because of his interest in using the latest technology for every aspect of the business. Cutting edge technology has enabled the firm to compete in price successfully with much larger firms.

“We have dedicated employees with a great work ethic who are the key to everything,” Bell says.

“In 1973 we had 40 employees and that grew to 180. Now we have 137 employees but they are more than twice as productive as we were when we had 180 employees. Technology has enabled us to become much more efficient and competitive with fewer people,” Bell says.

A few years ago Bell’s son Daniel joined the firm along with a daughter, Mrs. Jordan Raymond, and a son-in-law, Zach Harrison.

“We are now into the fourth and fifth generation of the business now,” Bell says.

To keep the publications printed by Ovid Bell Press on the cutting edge, the firm also offers O-Mag, which gives publications printed by Ovid Bell the option of also being on the Internet.

All of the publications are e-mailed on the Internet from around the nation to Ovid Bell. The electronic version is then converted electronically into a color magazine on slick paper. Since the content is prepared and e-mailed on computers, it is much easier to create an electronic version of the printed product for access on the Internet.

Customers who want this service can use it to expand their coverage and provide a useful archive of each publication.

Technology also exists to allow customers to learn how many people around the nation click on a page, what portions of the page are attracting attention and which advertisements are viewed the most.

The electronic version of a magazine also can be linked to various Web sites, including advertising.

Ovid Bell press production employees now work three 12-hour shifts each for a 36-hour work week.

“At first many employees didn’t like it but now they love it because of their time off. They also get an extra week off every six weeks,” Bell says.

To deal with a recent 20 percent drop in business because of the current nationwide economic downturn, Bell has decided to keep everyone employed but to reduce their hours about 20 percent. “But it appears we now are attracting some more business and we are trying to increase the hours when we can,” Bell says.

In addition to using technology to cut costs and attract more business, Bell has found that operating a green plant not only can help the environment but also can pay off at the bottom line.

The plant ships more than 88,000 pounds of paper each week to recycling companies that use the paper to create a variety of paper products, from paper plates to toilet paper.

“Previously, we filled five dumpsters with trash each day. Now it’s down to only one,” Bell says.

“We work with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Missouri Department of Natural Resources to look for green practices in every phase of our business,” Bell says.

He says the ink used in the plant is no longer considered a hazardous waste because of changes in product choices.