Roanoke, Virginia-based Leisure Publishing Company is composed of great people with many years of experience and a multitude of talents. Our company's
greatest asset is our employees - all have a positive "can-do" spirit, which is reflected time-and-time-again in their work. This section introduces
you to our mission statement, our company history, and key personnel.
Mission statement
Our mission is the conception, creation and distribution of
upper-end magazine,
custom-publishing and advertorial-format publications and
websites, and the accomplishment of advertising, research and marketing services ancillary to those publications. In both publications and websites,
the company pledges a full-service, more-than-expected relationship with its readers, its advertising
clients
and all other consumers of its
products and services.
Company history
Leisure Publishing Company, one of the Southeast's leading city and regional publishers, specializes in quality magazine and custom publishing and website
design for the travel and real estate markets. Over the past 33-plus years, Leisure Publishing has won countless awards for editorial and design.
In the past 10 years Leisure has totalled 238 awards for both print and web publishing as well as Roanoke's Small Business of the Year and Most Ethical Business.
Launched in 1972 by former newspaperman J. Richard Wells, Leisure’s first publication was the sports-targeted seasonal magazine, Ski South. Two years later,
that periodical was followed by the award-winning
Roanoker, now Virginia’s longest-running city magazine read by approximately 68,000 readers bi-monthly,
and 19 years ago, by
Blue Ridge Country. The latter, honored by the publishing industry from its first year, serves an audience of 425,000 readers in an
eight-state region and tells the story of some of America’s most fascinating people, places, cultures, cuisine and mountain wonderlands. Five years ago,
Leisure launched
Mountain Homes, which focuses on living in the mountains of the South and won the prestigous Best New Magazine in the Nation Award from
the National Federation of Presswomen. Our latest publication, Coastal Homes, is a beautifully designed and richly printed magazine that celebrates the
"Sweet Tea Coast" -- that long slice of heaven winding its way from the Eastern Shore of Virginia to the Palm Coast of Florida.
As a community oriented business, Leisure supports a variety of non-profit causes. FRIENDS of the Blue Ridge Parkway, a 501c-3 non-profit membership organization
receives approximately $72,000 worth of in-kind services from Leisure each year. Most recently Phil Francis, Superintendent of the Blue Ridge Parkway for the
National Park Service, appealed to Leisure to help with a pro-bono project to print the Parkway's main newsletter due to federal cut-backs. Leisure stepped
in and provided a turn-key service to make sure that The Milepost was produced and printed for use all along the Parkway. The value of this pro-bono work
alone was $44,000.
Leisure Publishing has a long established internship program providing an educational outlet to students from colleges and universities in the region. Staff members speak and teach
workshops and classes at schools and writers' conferences to encourage aspriring journalists of every age.
