The Cleveland American is a community newspaper that has served the Cleveland, Oklahoma area since 1919. The American has been published by the Ferguson family since 1931, and the family has literally seen the advancement in publishing technology go from “quill to computer!” The American’s publishing methods have gone from wood type and hot metal to the earliest computers that transferred punched Teletype tape to film and the advancement of offset printing to Apple’s first pint-size desktop Macs to today’s mutli-gig desktop publishing systems that are part of the digital revolution.Jo O. Ferguson, originally in partnership with Bob Breeden, turned the paper over to his son, Larry R. Ferguson in 1962. When Larry was elected to the Oklahoma House of representatives in 1985, he turned the keys over to his son, L. Rustin “Rusty” Ferguson, who continues to operate the paper today. Rusty has four children and expects one of his three sons will want to continue the family tradition of providing their hometown a newspaper that not only reports the news, but promotes Cleveland as a good choice to live and conduct business. The Cleveland American is a member of the Oklahoma Press Association and the National Newspaper Association. The American is consistently judged as one of the top weekly newspaper in Oklahoma through OPA’s Better Newspaper Contest, most recently taking first place in the divisions of News Content, Advertising, Sports and Layout & Design. Prizes were also won in feature writing, news writing, personal columns and photography.