Bladen Online sold to the Bladen Journal

ELIZABETHTOWN – A highly popular and iconic business in Bladen County has been purchased by the Bladen Journal.

Bladen Online – a very successful and beloved media outlet was owned by Bladen’s own, Daine and Charlotte Smith who had decided to dedicate more of their lives at this point to family and enjoying life with a little less stress.

Charlotte Smith was born a small-town North Carolina girl – being raised in Randolph County near Asheboro.

The soft-spoken Smith said that growing up she liked to play with her friends and she liked to go to school. She graduated from Randleman High School in 1998 with a full-slate of activities that made up her legacy including the Junior Officers’ Training Corps (JROTC) and Future Business Leaders of America (FBLA).

“We competed and won awards,” she said. “With both of those.”

Even then her life was being shaped in discipline to excel and to lead. Bladen County has reaped the benefits of her strong call to action and the placing of the bar – very high in everything she has put her hand to.

Although she did not get into the areas of journalism in high school, she remembers taking creative writing. And post-high school she had a strong passion for sales and excelled in selling automobiles until the bottom began to fall out of that industry somewhere into the early part of the new millennium.

She is a Bladen Community College graduate and not only was part of a learning community, but also became a big part of the business community.

“I came to Bladen when I was 19 and my husband Daine (Smith) has lived here all of his life,” she said. “I did not actually get into the newspaper industry until we were married and had children. I sold cars before that – until the car business went south in 2008.”

Daine Smith who is a part of the Smith power team and is integral in all the working parts of Bladen Online as Charlotte is with Daine’s business – Smith & Sons Heating & Cooling.

“I was born in Lumberton and raised in Elizabethtown,” he said. “I graduated from East Bladen High School in 2001. I was not a big fan of school and didn’t care much for it, so I did a lot of work after school and did the program that they had where you could go to school half a day and then go to work (for the work-study program).”

Smith is talented with his mind and his hands – able to figure out the technical aspects of life and then make them practical so that those around him can benefit from his work. He started his business in 2015 and has become an HVAC leader in the Carolinas. His quiet demeanor and his ability to be able to listen is a gift. His ideas to find perfect solutions is a talent that he has that makes his business a popular choice when North Carolina gets too hot, too cold or just right.

“My family owned a heating and air conditioning business from ’88 to ’98,” he said. “They sold it in ’98 and I worked with the company that they sold it to. We started this company in March of 2015. So, this is a new company.”

This year the company that the Smiths incepted is celebrating their 10^th year in service to their community. Smith is proving that trades cannot be overlooked and not only a valuable part of the fiber of America, but can be a very prosperous endeavor.

“Trades are a vital part of everyone’s life,” he said. “They just are. And if you are someone who enjoys working with your hands, putting things together and fixing things, a trade will bring about the satisfaction and certainly something that needs to be entertained.”

The couple has been married for 23 years and it’s surprising what God will bring into your own front yard if you trust Him.

“We met at my house,” he said. “The house I grew up in. It would eventually be the house that Charlotte and I would purchase together. She had just moved here with a friend of hers. Their intent was to be roommates and go to college together. Her friend was dating someone that was a friend of mine who worked for my dad in the heating and air conditioning business.”

“I was already in the room when he walked in,” she said. “He had a great smile.”

Daine walked in and immediately thought and speaks about it openly today, “I saw her and thought she was beautiful. I’m not sure what of all what was going on but… just look at that smile.”

Almost three years later, the couple married in April of 2002 and have raised two boys which better explains the moniker branded on their business.

“Our oldest, A.J., graduated from East Bladen High school and is going to UW Pembroke – and is married,” she said. “They have just found out that they have a baby on the way. Our other son, Paul is a junior at East Bladen and will be a senior in the fall.”

In addition to the heating and air conditioning business, the couple started Cabmarketing in 2013 that is an advertising and marketing venture.

“I was also helping Daine with his marketing and the company that he was with then,” she said. “One of the customers for Cabmarketing was Bladen Online. We helped them with their marketing and sales of their advertising. In 2014, Mr. Robert Hester approached us and asked us if we wanted to purchase Bladen Online from him because he wanted to retire from it. So, we purchased it from Mr. Robert and then in 2015 we started the heating and air conditioning company (Smith & Sons Heating & Cooling).”

At the time the couple purchased Bladen Online it was news oriented.

“Mr. Mike Simmons was Mr. Robert’s neighbor and he used to be an editor at the Bladen Journal and they saw that there was a gap in the need for information online. There was no one providing that service. So, they wanted to start this website. Before it actually launched, Mr. Simmons passed away (July 24, 2015). Mr. Robert went ahead and started Bladen Online. Of course, they needed to sell ads to pay for the work that they were doing. Although there was some advertising on there, it was mostly news and information.”

Since that time, Bladen Online has become an advertising juggernaut due to the talents and passion of Charlotte Smith who had a passion to build not only a customer base, but a top-notch product that included a cutting-edge website that was clear, concise and user friendly.

As for the couple stepping away from Bladen Online after a successful decade, it was evident that both Daine and Charlotte had thought long and hard about the decision to sell their popular venture.

“I have found that it’s impossible for a wife and a mother to also try to manage and work three separate businesses,” she said. “It doesn’t do well and I wouldn’t advise that for anyone. I don’t think that I will miss it and I will be happy to help the Bladen Journal. It’s exciting to see what Champion Media will do with the assets that we’ve given them. It is a vital asset of the community and we want to see it continue to grow.”

She made ads and built the website which will be an integral part of the combining of the two separate sites into one “super website.”

“My mother (Cheryl Thurston) and I, when we first purchased it built the website together,” she said. “She has a graphics arts degree. We have kept it updated and tried to revamp it whenever it needs to be changed so that it can stay trendy.”

Although the media will no longer be called Bladen Online as it is absorbed by Champion Media who will adopt the website and the magazines that have been a successful product of Bladen Online. There will be logistics to address as the transition becomes as seamless as possible.

As for what’s next for this incredibly talented couple, Daine Smith says that they are heading “wherever the Lord leads.”

“God has been so good to us in our life… His presence, His provision, His guidance – and so we trust Him,” he said. “I don’t exactly know what that looks like or where it looks like, necessarily, but He’s good and I look back to when we started Cabmarketing and Bladen Online. I just think of the way He was moving and working and orchestrating… it’s amazing. Charlotte has done a phenomenal job. She always has, at whatever she was doing – it’s just who she is. There’s evidence of that all around us. I am excited for what our future holds together.”

A future that, no doubt, promises to be successful for a couple who has given so much of themselves for the communities of Bladen County.