The original Insite Group, including Kyle DeWitt, Greg Gammon and Angelique Gammon meet with Mr. Komori at KOMORI Corporation to purchase the new $1 million printing press that Insite Magazine still uses today.
The beginning
In 1984 among the dim lights and rustic decor of the Chicken Oil Co., a group of friends sat together sharing a pitcher of beer. The economy was recovering from a recession and the home market in Bryan/College Station was stagnant after many local home builders closed shop, leaving homes and offices sitting vacant.
They were two- maybe three- glasses in when Ramona Hibbetts, a realtor and co-owner of a small printing company, suggested that the B/CS community needed a way to show off these nice homes, maybe in the form of a magazine.
To a 23-year-old Angelique Gammon with a fresh journalism degree from Texas A&M University and experience as editor-in-chief of The Battalion, this sounded like a wonderful idea. Quickly roping in her husband Greg Gammon along with her in-laws Spec and Arla Gammon, the brand new, locally- owned community magazine known as Insite Magazine would hit racks and mailboxes in April of 1984.
“Well, as my children many years later would say – it was a little more complicated than that,” Angelique says. “[Insite began as a] color representation [with] full- color pictures of why Bryan/College Station was a good place to live because that was the news need when we launched.”
Insite Magazine stepped into the ring with optimistic determination. In the beginning, the team was made up of Angelique and Greg running editorial and design, while Greg’s recently retired parents ran advertising and sales side.
“The upstart kids” was what other printers in town called them, but those upstarts would do anything it took to be successful. Insite traded the back cover ad of the magazine for office space across two different complexes that were vacant and struggling to find tenants. They partnered with OPAS and KAMU to distribute free subscriptions and drove to every doctor's office in town to leave a copy or two in the waiting room.
In the world of pointy-headed academics, this would be called, “market disruption;” to Insite, it was being the “figure-it-out printing company” that could fulfill any request no matter how wild or crazy, Angelique says.
We weren’t your dad's printing company,” Angelique explains. “We were the first Linotronic Service Bureau, and we sold those services to people who used to drive to Austin to process their computer discs to get the Linotronic output. We bought the first color separator scanner, where you could scan images and make digital representations of four colors to put on your press.
“We would process any of your early computer files,” Angelique adds. “Oh my God, it was a nightmare. We did everything we could to take your crappy PC, digital publisher format and we could somehow get it on print.”
The first employee
This make-it-happen mindset of the Insite team accelerated its growth until the magazine became a community staple and could afford to hire employees who weren't named “Gammon.” Allison Seale first started with Insite as a temp telemarketer after returning to the area from Italy.
“I was working as an English teacher in Italy and I only came back for the summer,” Allison explains. “When the [Berlin] Wall fell in Germany, I knew someone who was going to East Germany to reunite with family members. I pitched that story to Angelique and she liked it so they ran [the story]. From then on I was a writer, not a telemarketer.”
Allison enjoyed pitching in to compile and publish the magazine every month. Titles didn’t motivate her but rather the work she loved doing, and that holds true today, she says.
“We were a tight-knit family and we all pitched in to get the magazine out each month,” Allison says. “But they offered me the editorialship and I accepted it.”
When Allison first started Insite was located in a tiny office space in Memorial Forest with only three cubicles and a big filing cabinet that took up most of the main room. The team would prepare and edit the copy and then send it to Adobe Page Maker, the precursor to the modern Adobe InDesign, on an old Mac II.
During these “dark ages” of production, Insite would design the pages of the magazine with holes where the ads would go, Allison says. Then they would take printed versions on thick glossy paper into a closet converted into a dark room to assemble the magazine and shoot negatives of it with a film camera.
“It was a lot of pasting, gluing and shooting of negatives,” Allison says. “Because there was no internet, we would take each one of these big 4 x 6 sheets and drive them to Waco where it would be printed. Then we would drive back to pick up boxes of the magazine. Some would be mailed and some would be delivered to grocery stores and businesses that had agreed to sell the magazine.”
Allison saw Insite move into a new building and purchase its first printing press for over $1 million. The team moved into its current location in Downtown Bryan off of William J. Bryan Parkway and began publishing books for local authors shortly after.
“We worked on caffeine and had a good time,” Allison laughs. “[The editors] listened to your ideas and let you run with things if you had an idea that was helpful or good.”
Since leaving Insite, Allison has moved to Los Angeles and is currently working as a contract writer creating crisis scenarios for companies, while she also finishes a pet investigative story that she has been working on for over 15 years.
The team up
Kyle DeWitt’s relationship with Insite started almost as a rivalry. Both Insite Publishing and his newly acquired company Lang Printing offered printing services to residents of B/CS, so when the opportunity to merge their companies was presented, Kyle was eager to entertain the idea. The Gammons and DeWitts shared a meal before even discussing any business or financials.
“Lang Printing started in 1957 and I purchased it from the Langs in 1994 or 1995,” Kyle says. “[The merger] was two families basically becoming one. Greg and I worked long hours, basically 18-hour days, for easily the first year.”
By February 1, 1998, Insite was under new, yet old management. The parent company resulting from the merger had become The Insite Group and serviced the Brazos Valley as a powerhouse of print and publishing services alongside the magazine it was named after.
“[The business] changed a lot after we merged,” Kyle says. “It was merging two different cultures of people, adding a lot more work and business and then going from a sole proprietorship to a partnership.”
This new era of Insite Magazine co-oped with the advancement of the digital age opened new doors for the Brazos Valley’s favorite community magazine. Insite was growing faster than ever before and that meant the team needed more hands on deck.
Sarah Kinzbach Williams joined the Insite family in 2012 after graduating from the University of Texas with an English degree. She moved from Austin to B/CS with her partner, who was attending graduate school at Texas A&M where she met Angelique through networking and “professionally stalked” her until she managed to get an interview for an editorial assistant position with Insite.
“I was offered the job before the end of the interview,” Sarah says with a laugh. “Probably because I was professionally stalking her for so long.”
Sarah quickly moved up the ranks of the Insite team, becoming associate editor in just a couple of months and later being promoted
to managing editor. Her talent and freelancing experience were the keys to her success, Sarah says. She attributes a large portion of her growth to Angelique’s skill in teaching and shaping articles.
“Insite 1,000% launched my career,” Sarah says. “[It] gave me the basis to do everything I did after I left Insite. The quality of writing and editing presented in [Insite] is a much higher standard than many other local magazines.”
Insite gave Sarah a strong foot in the door to joining the B/CS community. Despite her nerves about moving to a new place,she pushed on.
“It was intimidating being a longhorn in Aggieland,” Sarah says. “Working for Insite allowed me to get really into the lifestyle of Downtown Bryan. I frequented The Village daily and I could probably walk in there and order the exact same thing and just have flashbacks to my time there.”
Participating in farmers markets, yoga studio lunch visits and watching shows at the Grand Stafford Theater, Sarah was able to completely integrate into the community and become an active participant.
“It gave me a blueprint on how to get involved in any community and find the pieces of culture that are inevitable in every small town across the nation,” Sarah explains.
As time went on, Insite experimented with different print techniques and layout design, until it eventually added a full-time graphic designer. Launch parties became a staple of the modern Insite magazine, along with the newsletter and event calendar that Angelique had started shortly before Sarah joined the team.
Sarah left Insite in 2016 after her husband graduated from his masters at A&M. While working towards her second degree she worked for an advertising agency in Madison, Wisconsin as a marketing manager specializing in editorial relations and a freelance ghostwriter for academic researchers.
Sarah went on to work as editor- in-chief at a start-up company publishing material to educate new parents. Today, she is back to freelance writing and marketing.
The addition of interns
Since its inception in 1984, Insite has always been a place where journalists, editors, publishers and printers could grow and develop in a supportive environment. This went doubly for the editorial interns that Insite brought on, a few of whom would go on to become editors of the magazine themselves.
Shelbi LeMeilleur joined the Insite team as an editorial intern in 2015, taking on the role after hearing about it from Angelique, who began teaching journalism classes at Texas A&M. Shelbi stepped into the office only looking to fulfill college credits she needed to graduate, but as she continued to write for the local magazine her career path began to shift.
“Journalism was actually my minor,” Shelbi says. “My major was English with an emphasis on creative writing. I didn’t think I was going to do anything in Journalism at all. Over the course of that summer I just fell in love with the community. I learned that there was so much more outside of the Texas A&M bubble. I fell in love with a new style of writing and I really loved the team that I got to work with.”
After completing her internship and returning to normal school life to finish her degree, Shelbi continued to write for Insite as a freelance author. It was during this time that Sarah and Angelique approached her with an offer she couldn’t refuse, to become an editorial assistant for Insite and be trained to become the magazine’s next managing editor.
“Shelbi always had this natural talent as an intern,” Sarah says. “She was an avid reader with a natural flair for editing and an eye for how stories needed to lay out editorially. [Becoming an editor] was a natural progression from her intern days.”
Shelbi learned everything she needed to know under the watchful and experienced eyes of Sarah and Angelique for four issues before moving into her new role as managing editor of Insite Magazine.
“The intention was for me to train under Sarah for one semester,” Shelbi adds. “She ended up leaving in April so I took over as managing editor pretty much as I walked the [graduation] stage.”
Shelbi’s growth trajectory mirrored previous editors of Insite closely, learning and mastering one thing before taking on a new responsibility.
“As I learned more, I gained more responsibility and creative license,” Shelbi says. “Insite allowed me to grow quicker than some larger publications would have because it’s so tight-knit and there were more opportunities to have a jane-of-all- trades if you will.”
As managing editor, Shelbi started the transition to steering the magazine towards a sleeker and sharper look.
“We wanted to have a cleaner look,” Shelbi says. “A more professional, literary look with less of the fluid, outdated design it previously had.”
The present
At the end of 2017 Insite was purchased by Integ, a Waco based printing and marketing solutions company. Kyle has now shifted from co-owner to publisher and leads local sales efforts in the digital era.
The resources that Integ brought to the table allowed Insite to become a leader in modern lifestyle magazines with a dedicated social media presence and improved website. The new company still embodies the founding idea.
“[With Integ], what we’ve done with the website has helped us take that next step,” Kyle says. “The magazine has always been about the community and people in the community and that’s been constant. It’s still a magazine about people by people.”
Shelbi continued to lead Insite until 2020 when she began to feel the pull of another calling. Currently, Shelbi serves the Bryan community as girls’ ministry director with Central Student Ministry and is working to earn her teaching certification to one day teach high school English and journalism.
Kyle still champions Insite under its parent company Integ, keeping the office in Downtown Bryan lively and full of smiles.
“I can easily see myself working another 10 or 15 years,” Kyle says. “I want to see us get more and more involved in the community and tell more of the stories that are hard to find.”
The current Insite team is led by Hannah Bradicich as editorial assistant and former editorial intern of the magazine. With further plans for growth at Insite, Hannah and the current team of four editorial interns continue to produce stories that matter to the B/CS community.
Insite would like to thank everyone who has contributed to its legacy of quality, community-driven stories, especially its previous editors: Angelique Gammon, Allison Seal, Dianne Blake Bowen, Kyle Littlefield, Jennifer Jenkins, Megan McCall, Shelbi LeMeilleur, Ellen Ritscher Sackett and Aubrey Vogel.
