Los Angeles Times Circulation Magazine

(The following is from "Circulation News" Published by the Los Angeles Times for the Times home Delivery and Street Sale Dealers. p. 3, about 1973.)

Mojave Dealer
Vic Smyth---50 years of Selling The Times
For a youngster in 1922, selling The Times on a downtown street corner was like being at the circus.
There were the big gray horse hauling wagon loads of newsprint to the Times Building at First and Broadway. Each morning city policemen , with the police band leading the way, paraded to their posts. And there was the intense, vocal, and sometimes physical, rivalry between newsboys for competing papers.
Vic Smyth, Times dealer in Mojave remembers it al well. He lived right next door to the Times Building and at age 9 began selling The Times at First and Broadway.
Kiddie Program
"I remember that back in those days The Times used to own KHJ, the radio station", Vic Said. "We used to go up to the third floor and see Uncle John, who had a kiddie program. sometimes we'd sing or whistle for him on his show."
"Vic continued to deliver The Times all through his school days at John Adams Junior High and Manual Arts High School and beyond. Then in 1936 he moved out to Mojave to start a business with a friend. He began his Times dealership, the first in the desert area, at the same time as a sideline.
The area grew, and so did his Times dealership, especially with the construction of Edwards Air Force Base during the war. By the 1960', among Vic's customers were U.S. astronauts attending the Air Force Research and Test Pilots' School at Edwards.
Bright Future
Today, Vic is anticipating even more growth in his territory, which includes Mojave, Rosamond and the air base. "There's a lot of research and development connected with the space shuttle project going on at Edwards, so the future looks good," he said. His routes now stretch 150 miles, and he as five carriers , three who are Air Force master sergeants.
Vic and his wife, Norma, who helps him with the bookwork of the dealership, are rarely idle. Both have been active in the Mormon church and countless community activities.
Active in Church
For example, Vic has been bishop in the church and currently is a high councilman of the Antelope Valley Stake. From 1952 to 1960 he was a member of the Mojave Unified School Board. When he have up his seat on the board, Norma ran for the position and won, serving for six years.
Vic has also been a director of the Kern County Board of Trade, past president of the Lions Club, and while his sons were growing up he was active in scouting.
Norma is a past president of the Parent Teacher Assn. and holds a PTA life membership. She also helped begin the area's first Cub Scouting program, and to top it off she paints lands landscapes and shows her paintings at many local shows.
Their five children are all grown now and living away from the home, but the Smyths try to see them whenever possible. Last September they traveled to Chicago where their son, Chester, is in his third year of dental school at Northwestern. They stopped in Utah on the way back home to visit their daughter, Norma, who attended Brigham Young University and is now married and living in Salt Lake City.

North to Alaska
This year they hope to vacation in Alaska, where their eldest son, Herb, has just taken a job as a high lineman for a power company. Their second son, Vic, Jr., lives a little closer--in San Diego--where he was just promoted to captain in the city fire department, and their other daughter, Frankie, lives in Torrance with her husband and four children.