The Whichards considered The Daily Reflector "a private entity but a public service," and they adhered to rules and guidelines set down by their predecessors: "Everybody must be completely straightforward. Treat everyone like family. Show no favoritism."

At about the time the Whichard brothers became active in the management of the paper, the Greenville area started to grow, fueled in large part by the growth of East Carolina College.

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NEW OFFICES at 209 Cotanche St. opened in 1956, when the paper added a printing press with a 32-page capacity and color printing capability. The building was later expanded and renovated. East Carolina University now owns the facility.

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STAFF MEMBERS relied on typewriters until 1980, when the first word processors were installed.

"In fact, the strongest influence on how we thought about shaping the paper was the university. The university was growing by leaps and bounds and was a great advantage for this area in attracting industry," David J. Whichard II recalled.

The brothers ran the newspaper over the next four decades, closely overseeing the news and business sides of the operation, including substantial increases in staff size, the addition of modern equipment and the acquisition of other community newspapers.

In 1956, for instance, The Daily Reflector moved into its fourth building at 209 Cotanche St. and added a printing press acquired from The Raleigh Times with a 32-page capacity and color printing capability.

One of The Daily Reflector's most significant changes in modern times came Sept. 11, 1966, when the paper undertook its first publication schedule change since 1894.

The paper ended its Saturday afternoon edition and initiated a Sunday morning edition.

D. Jordan Whichard III, current publisher and president, says the move made sense — readers were interested in a Sunday edition, because they had more time to spend with the paper, and advertisers saw this as a way to attract customers. But it would have been "redundant" to publish a Saturday afternoon edition and then come out with a Sunday morning edition a few hours later.

Three years later, The Daily Reflector building expanded to accommodate new pieces of production machinery, including phototypesetting equipment. This marked the end of the so-called "hot type" era, with Linotype typesetting machinery giving way to offset printing equipment, the so-called "cold type" machinery.

While their father and grandfather might have acquired nearby newspapers mainly to secure printing equipment, the Whichard brothers looked on the acquisition of nondaily newspapers in the region as a way to broaden the company's customer and advertising base.

"We felt a lot of small newspapers had potential, and we could develop them," David Whichard said.

"In some cases, we started out doing the printing for the smaller papers, then we acquired them," Jack Whichard said.

Beginning in the mid-1960s, the Whichards acquired the Duplin Times, a weekly newspaper in Kenansville (1968), and weeklies in Ayden (The Ayden News Leader) and Grifton (The Grifton Times). They bought, then later sold, The Standard Laconic, a paper in Snow Hill, and they acquired the Farmville Enterprise and the Beaufort-Hyde News in Belhaven (1971).

By the late 1970s and early 1980s, they embarked on more significant acquisitions: The Enterprise a twice-weekly in Williamston and The Weekly Herald in Robersonville (1983), and the Chowan Herald in Edenton. They also re-acquired the Snow Hill newspaper. They owned the Pamlico County News for a while and also bought the Bertie Ledger-Advance in Windsor (1983).

The purchases were not made by The Daily Reflector, however. Instead, they were brought about through the formation of partnerships involving David Whichard II, John S. Whichard and other investors and newspaper executives. For example, David Whichard and Ashley Futrell of Washington acquired the Ayden Dispatch in 1955, through the formation of Ayden Printing Co.

In 1973, their mother, Virginia Whichard, died, and David J. Whichard II and John S. Whichard become owners of The Daily Reflector Inc. Their father, David Julian Whichard, became chairman of the company.

The newspaper building on Cotanche Street expanded a second time in 1978, and two years later, the newsroom converted to computer-assisted word processing, typesetting and page design.