Francis is newsagent of the year
7 May 1997
Turlough, Castlebar native Francis McDonnell (24) has been selected as the national Newsagent of the Year.
Manager of Headlines in the Castlebar Shopping Centre, Francis won the ShelfLife 1997 title from over 6,000 newsagents nationwide. And for his efforts Francis received a brand new £8,000 Suzuki Super Carry Van as well as national and provincial trophies.
Initially Francis had to fill out a questionnaire and eventually the numbers were reduced to fifteen or twenty from each of Ulster, Munster, Connaught, Leinster and the Dublin regions.
Again this was whittled down to ten finalists.
Francis said: "All of the shops were then checked by ShelfLife about three weeks ago. What they looked for was hygiene, presentation of product, displays of newspapers and magazines and confectionary."
The final proper was held in the Burlington Hotel, Dublin before an audience of 600 people and Francis was the choice of the adjudicators as the overall winner.
For the past five years Francis, a member of the Mayo branch of the Newsagents association, has been the manager of Headlines which is run by Noel Kavanaugh from Westport .
Francis added: "It is a great honour to have been selected as the Newsagent of the year. I would sincerely like to thank my staff at Headlines and my colleagues on the Mayo Newsagents branch for their support."
