THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, March 24, 1996 TAG: 9603230094
SECTION: SUFFOLK SUN PAGE: 02 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: Susie Stoughton
LENGTH: Medium: 98 lines
IF YOU'VE EVER worked feverishly on something, then seen it just fall apart in front of your eyes, you could probably sympathize with Virginia ``Jinks'' Babey.
But Babey, founder and creative director of Virginia Graphic Design, barely let disaster faze her last week.
She had spent more than a year producing the first edition of a promotional magazine packed with pictures and information about Suffolk. She beamed with pride when the first shipment was delivered in the middle of the week to the company she started four years ago.
``Discover Suffolk,'' 112 pages dotted with color and black-and-white pictures, lived up to her expectations. She and her two graphic designers - Tom Powell and Tiffany Peacock - had invested time, money and effort into the project, which was Powell's brainstorm.
City officials were anxious to use the magazine as a marketing tool to lure prospective businesses to the community - an ideal rural and urban mix, according to many.
The city had contributed money for the printing of the magazine, which would be distributed free to newcomers and prospective businesses.
The rest of the 10,000 copies were due the next day, but Babey insisted on having some to distribute to the City Council at their Wednesday night meeting.
Mayor S. Chris Jones and City Manager Myles E. Standish were pictured inside - just after the front cover, inviting readers to ``discover Suffolk.''
The city's first magazine tells readers where to find almost everything from tennis courts to soup kitchens, churches to child care facilities, doctors' offices to clothing stores and antique shops.
The slick pages tell of Suffolk's history in capsule form and briefly describes city services provided today.
Television cameras captured Babey as she excitedly introduced the guide to the council members. They smiled, saving their copies to peruse after the meeting.
By midday Thursday - less than 24 hours before a reception for advertisers, Babey learned that some issues were falling apart.
The binding was coming unglued.
That's when others might have become unglued themselves, but not Babey.
A Hollins College graduate, she spent her senior year on the campus of Washington and Lee University in Lexington - one of five co-eds in a trial exchange program that persuaded Washington and Lee to retain its all-male status.
Babey didn't take the decision personally.
She had graduated from the former Suffolk High School and started college as a biology major, planning to go into pre-med. Later, she switched to psychology, then sociology before settling on art. She opted for W&L because they offered computer and architecture courses she couldn't get at Hollins.
She's used to battling odds. She bucked the advice of her father, Edward T. Lemmon Jr., that she'd never make a living as an artist.
She worked for graphic arts companies in Baltimore where she and her husband, Kirk, lived for the first 10 years of their marriage. She got a strong training in the production end of the field, ``focusing on mechanics,'' she said.
Then in 1985, they moved to Suffolk - where she had grown up - and for a while, she stayed home with their three children and did free-lance work.
Eventually, however, she became an entrepreneur, starting the one-person business that has now tripled in size. Even her father is beginning to retract his earlier doubts about her career.
She knows she can handle almost anything. The defective magazines would just have to be redone, she insisted.
She had spent Thursday morning being interrupted by TV and radio reporters who had read in that morning's newspaper that the magazine had hit the streets.
And she had been making last-minute preparations for Friday's reception. More than 150 companies had advertised in ``Discover Suffolk,'' and most would be represented at the gala. They would be ready to discover for themselves how the magazine looked.
She had to make sure the ``guest of honor'' showed up.
She and her co-workers unbundled stacks of copies, spending hours thumbing through them one by one.
She only needed a couple of hundred right away. The rest could be returned to the binding company in Richmond.
``We've checked a bunch of boxes,'' she said Thursday afternoon. ``But if we test them and they are fine, are they?''
The pages might seem tight at first but she was afraid they would loosen after someone flipped through them several times.
Friday morning, Babey smiled as guests enjoyed Danish and fruit while they oohed and aahed over the magazine. Few were aware of the disaster that had been averted.
Printing company employees had disrupted their schedule Thursday afternoon and stapled together the thick spines of magazines being given out to advertisers. Later, they would decide how to deal with the remaining 9,500.
Babey discovered once again that she could beat the odds. ILLUSTRATION: Staff photo by JOHN H. SHEALLY II
``Jinks'' Babey spent more than a year producing Discover Suffolk.
by CNB