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This news page will be updated regularly so stop
back often to see the new developments! For older articles see our Newsline Archives.
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- January 26, 1999 -- An Elkins West Virginia high school teacher who
would not enforce a rule requiring students to wear an ID badge with a bar code has been
suspended without pay for insubordination. Philip Hudok, who also was accused of willful
neglect of duty Friday, faces a hearing on February 4 before the Randolph County Board of
Education.
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- Earlier this month, the school board allowed him to wear a badge without a bar code
after he complained that it violated his religious beliefs. Hudok likens the bar code to
"the mark of the beast," described in the Bible's book of Revelation. There it
warns that the numbering people, signals the arrival of the Antichrist.
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- Hudok agreed to the compromise but refused to require his students to wear the bar
codes, which school officials had developed as part of a safety program.
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- Superintendent Glen Karlen has said that students who share Hudok's concerns with the
identification system may raise their complaints individually. An employee's rights under
the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act
of 1964 relate only to that individual and not to others, Karlen said.
- January 25, 1999 -- Kodak Professional has initiated a
photographer survey on their web site. It is primarly to give them an idea of our
professional photographic capture needs. We would encourage each member of the
School Portrait Network to take a few minutes now to complete this surrvey. All you
need to do is Click Here! Your input will help Kodak deliver the products we
will need in the future.
- January 23, 1999 -- Ekdahl &
Associates recently launched its new web site at www.photoimagingjobs.com This educational and beneficial
site gives information about Ekdahl & Associates, their new fee schedule and how they
can help with your staffing needs. There are helpful interviewing questions and tips
that you can use for qualifying candidates.
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- You can also review
actual candidate profiles (title, background experience, skills, achievements,
location and compensation etc..) and see current candidates they are working with.
- January 21, 1999 -- A federal
judge in Texas has overturned a jury verdict that could have cost Jostens $25.3 million
over alleged monopolization of the school yearbook market.
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- In his ruling, U.S. District Court Judge Paul Brown said "there was no evidence
that any conduct by Jostens caused Taylor to exit any markets or product lines, lay off
any employees, sell assets, or do anything to place its business in peril." The
judge also ordered Taylor Publishing Company to pay for Jostens court costs.
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- David Kauer, chief financial officer of Insilco the parent company of Taylor Publishing
said they plan to "appeal vigorously and make all efforts we can to have the judge's
decision reversed upon appeal."
- January 5, 1999 -- Olan Mills, Inc. of Chattanooga,
Tennessee announced today that it has reached an agreement to sell its wholly-owned
subsidiary, Olan Mills School Portraits, Inc., to Lifetouch National School Studios, Inc.
(LNSS) of Minneapolis, Minnesota. CLICK HERE to read the complete
company press release.
- January 3, 1999 -- Look for the best event in school
portrait imaging to bring you even more information to use in your business every day.
"Building Value In School Photography", the 49th annual PSPA
Convention is to be held at the Las Vegas Convention Center February 15 through 17, just
prior to the opening of the PMA Convention. Topics covered will include best
practices in our industry on Managing, Marketing, Technology and Techniques. If
you're in the school or sports photography market you need to attend this event.
Make your plans now by calling 800-248-8804 today.
- December 30, 1998 -- Lifetouch National School Studios
continues to consolidate the school portrait industry with a steady stream of school
photography company purchases. The year 1998 proves that Lifetouch has no intention
of slowing down the deal making. On top of several large purchases in the past few
years Lifetouch has reportable increased their buying spree with the recent purchases of
T.D. Brown, Richard Zielke Portraits and Portraits by Bob Wiliford.
- December 2, 1998 -- Photo retailers named Eastman Kodak
Company's Picture Maker kiosk "Top Product Of The Year." The selection
came in a survey run by Photo Trade News (PTN), a leading publication reaching 18,000
photo retailers in the U.S. Retailers also placed Kodak Films at the top of both Advanced
Photo System and 35 mm category voting.
- The Kodak Picture Maker kiosk is found in more than 10,000 retail photo stores
nationwide. It lets consumers make enlargements in minutes. It can remove red-eye, does
quick and easy color correction, and can zoom or crop to select and print the best part of
a photo.
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- "We are gratified by this important honor and view it as a strong endorsement of
Kodak's digitization strategy," said David Hardie, Kodak general manager and vice
president, U.S. Marketing. "Picture Maker kiosks are central to the company's
strategy to help consumers take their film-based photos into the digital
environment." PTN editor Mike McEnaney was impressed by the appropriateness of
the Picture Maker selection. "With all of the talk of digital in the industry, it is
fitting that the Kodak Picture Maker won the top product award," McEnaney said.
"It's great that the product is one that can be enjoyed by anyone who takes pictures.
Picture Maker brings the unwired of the world into the fun of digital imaging."
November 30, 1998 -- Lucht has announced it entered into a
distribution agreement with Pixel Photographics. Pixel is based in Australia and is
a developer of film drives and software for the professional photographic market.
The agreement makes Lucht the exclusive distributor of Pixel Photographics composite
software and scanner drives in the United States. Lucht is also the exclusive North
American sales and service organization for Refrema film processors, GPE leaderbelt
processors and the distributor of Cymbolic Sciences digital printers.
November 17, 1998 -- A majority of small and medium-sized businesses
have failed to take advantage of the Internet as a business tool, market research firm
Yankee Group reported. More than two thirds of the companies surveyed are not using
the Net to connect with new or existing customers, the study found. "Promoting
the Internet as a tool to transform the way these businesses buy and sell will not connect
with this market, "Yankee senior analyst Chris Gwynn said. "Their needs
today are focused on improving communications, with e-commerce coming much later."
Only 30 percent of small and medium-sized businesses (less than 500 employees) told
Yankee they consider the Internet important to achieving their company's goals.
November 1, 1998 -- Sienna Imaging Inc., is said to be acquiring Lucht
Inc., from Northwestern Public Service Company. With this transaction the Englewood,
Colorado based manufacture of digital photo printing equipment will aquifer one of the
most established names in the professional photo lab industry. Lucht should remain
in Minneapolis under the direction of John Brenan the President and CEO of Sienna Imaging.
September 15, 1998 -- Today Kodak Professional, a division of the
Eastman Kodak Company, proudly announced the Portra family of Kodak professional color
negative films at Photokina in Cologne, Germany. These films will be available
November 2nd in two ISO's (160 and 400) and a choice of two color saturation levels
(Natural Color and Vivid Color). Some of the benefits of these new films include...
- Unified emulsion technology
- Increased exposure latitude
- True to speed in all lighting conditions
- Better color saturation
- Improved scanning
- Better performance in mixed lighting
- Excellent flesh tone reproduction for the world's flesh tones
- More accurate color reproductions
- For additional instantaneous updates visit the Kodak web site http://www.kodak.com/go/portra/ today.
August 20, 1998 -- T.D. Brown the Rhode Island based school
photography company since 1929 has been sold to Lifetouch, Inc. it's largest competitor.
While the ownership has changed hands, its operations will remain intact.
T.D. Brown which takes about 400,000 underclass and 50,000 senior portraits each year
will become part of Lifetouch, Inc. which has an estimated 55% of the national school
portrait market. Craig Brown, formerly a vice president of the company will now be
the Cranston, Rhode Island plant manager and the territory manager for Lifetouch.
August 12, 1998 -- Advanced Photographic Solutions of Cleveland, TN
announced today that Gene Harrell, President and Rick Israel, Executive Vice
President have acquired all of the stock in the company from River Associates of
Chattanooga, TN.
River Associates has owned the Company since October 1995. The entire management
staff of the Company will remain in place.
August 11, 1998 -- Maybe it's the hot weather outside, and air
conditioning inside, but something is keeping people online longer. Web traffic researcher
Relevant Knowledge reports it's seen an increase in session times in July, up from June,
and even up from the winter. The average time that Web users 12 and older in the U.S.
spent on the Web during July was 8.8 hours, the researchers said. That compares to seven
hours in February and 8.1 hours in June. Users also visited the Web an average of 9.4 days
during July, versus 8.6 days in February and 9.1 days in June. "This is a very
interesting phenomenon and goes against what most people would suppose is 'normal' usage
during summer months," said Jill Frankle, a senior analyst at the research firm IDC.
"This increased frequency and duration is being driven by the growth in the work
segment and the fact that teens are out of school," she explained
June 10, 1998 -- Royal Photographics Professional Portrait Services
announced today a major redesign of their corporate web site. Royal first launched
their web site in August of 1997 and now they completely overhauled it to help provide a
better "PICTURE" of our company.
Now www.schoolportraits.com
will be more useful and user friendly and most of all fun. Included in this redesign
is more detailed information on the company, help for parents and memory book advisors as
well as some real entertaining things for Kids to do.
- May 17, 1998 - Jostens, Inc. will seek to overturn a Texas civil court
verdict. Taylor Corporation was awarded $8 million by the U.S. District Court in
Texas. Under federal antitrust law the $8 million award is automatically trebled.
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- The suit filed by Taylor Corporation claimed Jostens attempted to monopolize the school
yearbook market. Jostens said the claims made by Taylor were without merit and
promised post trial motions and court appeal to overturn the decision.
- May 6, 1998 - Jostens, Inc. announced that they will consolidate their
two photo processing facilities to help maximize efficiency in serving their North
American photo customers. The company will be closing it's Webster, New York
facility and will shift photo production to their Canadian plant in Winnipeg, Manitoba.
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- The current yearbook printing production in the Winnipeg plant will be sent to other
Jostens printing facilities. These changes should be complete by August.
- April 30, 1998 - Eastman Kodak and Intel Corporation announced today, a
series of agreements with the goals of expanding the way people create, use, store and
share photographs. The goal is to remove the boundaries between digital and
traditional imaging.
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- Plans call for the companies to take advantage of Intel's expertise in semiconductor
design and manufacturing and Kodak's leadership in imaging science and photography.
It also includes a broad patent cross-licensing agreement. Upgrading Kodak's Qualex
photofinishing labs with digitizing equipment based on Intel Architecture and new scanning
equipment. Plus the companies plan a collaborative consumer-oriented marketing
efforts which could reach up to $150 million in spending over a three year period.
"Working together, Kodak and Intel will create a path for consumers and
professionals alike to transport their pictures into the digital world, quickly, easily
and at a low cost." said George Fisher, Kodak's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
and Craig Barrett, Intel's President and Chief Operating Officer, in a joint statement.
The two companies will provide more details of this new relationship at an event
planned for this summer.
April 15, 1998 - There is another move to raise
the nation's minimum wage. The increase would be from the current $5.15 to $6.65 by the
year 2000. The hike is proposed by Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass) who is the senior Democrat on
the Senate Labor and Human Resources Committee.
The Clinton White House is backing a smaller increase of $6.15 by September 1999. Both
plans call for a boost this September of $.50 per hour. The minimum wage was raised from
$4.25 to $4.75 in September of 1996.
Any new increase faces an uphill fight on Capitol Hill. Republican leaders say they are
against a wage hike and various business groups are reportedly opposed as well.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and 14 other business associations wrote to the White
House to protest any wage increase, saying a higher minimum wage could hurt efforts to
move welfare recipients onto payrolls. House Speaker Newt Gingrich echoed those sentiments
in a February speech to the Chamber of Commerce.
- Washington analysts say voting against a wage increase during an
election year may be easier said than done. That's been made harder by studies conducted
over the 1996 wage increase that seem split over its effect on the business community.
- March 15, 1998 - Konica USA has unveiled the new Konica Color
Professional Film. The improved 160 speed film was designed to provide improved
granularity, rich gradations and natural tone reproduction. It is especially
suitable for professional portrait and wedding photographers.
- March 1, 1998 - A new X-ray machine being used in some airports to
detect hidden explosives can damage photographic film in checked baggage, the FAA is
warning. Since the FAA will not say where the machines, the CTX-5000, are in use, it
is advising airlines to tell passengers that they should no longer put film in any checked
bag. Instead, they should take it onto their flight in their pockets or carry-on
bags.
- February 2, 1998 - The number of children attending America's schools
will reach a record 52.2 million this year and the largest increase is among teen-agers,
federal officials said. The trend is expected to continue through 2007 when
enrollment in public and private schools is expected to peak at 54.3 million. States
like California, Arizona, Nevada and North Carolina will see the biggest growth.
- March 1, 1998 - Denny ElectraVision has announced a marketing alliance
with Beattie Systems to exclusively sell all Beattie Gemini DF digital preview system and
long roll camera equipment.
- March 24, 1998 - Insilco, the parent company of Taylor Publishing has
agreed to be acquired by DLJ Merchant Banking Partners II in a deal worth $437 million,
Insilco and Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette, Inc. said in a joint statement today.
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- Upon consummation of certain transaction approximately 90 percent of the common stock of
Insilco will be owned by DLJ Merchant Banking Partners II and affiliated funds and
entities.
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