Fronia's Folly

When 62-year-old Fronia Sexton started the Ironton (Ohio) Courier a year ago, almost everyone thereabouts--including Fronia herself--expected the daily to be the crowning glory of a successful business career. In the Ohio River towns of Ironton and Ashland. Ky., where even competitors called her a "business genius," Mrs. Sexton had started her climb in the '20s with a small restaurant, nursed her assets until she was able to buy a movie chain, assorted real estate, and controlling interest in the Citizens National Bank, of which she became president.

Fronia plunged into publishing with her usual gusto, dividing her time between bank and paper. She brightened up Ironton's Center Street by converting one of her buildings into a Courier plant, with a shiny new chrome-and-glass fac,ade. Circulation of the paper grew to 7,576, not far behind its afternoon rival, the 28-year-old Ironton Tribune (circ. 9,280). But Publisher Sexton proved to be an erratic newswoman. She ran through a series of editors, handed down unpredictable edicts that made the Courier an erratic paper, e.g., no local news on Page One in the first edition, and nothing but local news on Page One in the last edition.

Two months ago, the Courier had a local story that really rated Page One play in every edition. Understandably, Fronia Sexton passed it up and let the rival Tribune get a clean beat. The story: bank examiners found a shortage of $114,000 in the funds of Publisher Sexton's own Citizens National Bank. The deficit, said the examiners, had been used to cover Fronia Sexton's checks, and had not been deducted from her account. Mrs. Sexton admitted that she had ordered the "overdrafts." used largely to finance the Courier. She promptly resigned as president of the bank and was arrested on a charge of embezzlement.

Last week, out on $5,000 bail. ex-Banker Sexton became an ex-publisher too. She turned over the Courier's presses and equipment to the American Surety Company to cover bank losses, and closed down the 13-month-old paper that she had started. Facing trial for embezzlement (maximum penalty: five years in prison and a $5,000 fine), Fronia Sexton said sadly: "The paper was just too much for me to handle."

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