Meet The Founder – Carole Marsh Longmeyer of Gallopade

Meet Carole Marsh Longmeyer, Mom to Michele Yother and Michael Longmeyer, and the Founder of Gallopade International. Carole was a longtime resident of Peachtree City and is currently residing in Beaufort, South Carolina. Her Company, Gallopade, offers Social Studies School curriculum for Georgia, Virginia, Ohio, Florida, and Louisiana among others! Carole also is the Author to her latest series, The Mystery of The Haunted Library, a wonderful chapter book mystery for kids, plus much more. Gallopade will be turning 45 this Halloween and to help celebrate, Carole will be signing books at the Library on October 31st with a Disco Themed Party at 2pm! Read below to learn how Carole was inspired to start her company and of course, her favorite Mom Hack! 

 

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I always say I was a writer before I was born! I have been writing all my life. When in doubt, I always wrote, including short stories instead of term papers and a short story for my college essay. No one ever complained! My first published works were in newspapers, which I really enjoyed. Later, I started my own corporate communications/public relations firm in Rocky Mount, NC. It was called Marsh Media Methods. I had no idea what I was doing, but I learned because my clients had even less of an idea of how to write! So, I learned writing, printing, photography, event planning, and so much more. I found many good mentors and got to do what I wanted to since they thought I was a professional!

I was born three months premature and weighed 1 lb and 8 oz. The doctor performed a procedure on my eyes (common at that time), which destroyed my eyesight. I did not get eyeglasses or contact lenses until I was 16! So I lived in a world of blur, which, I think, affected me a lot; it was all a magical fairytale. It was not convenient for learning to read or see the blackboard, but I made do. As a quiet, shy girl, writing was my getaway and my confidence. I loved reading juvenile and adult books… which I’d recommend every parent let their kids do! So many books helped and inspired me, and I felt the authors had written them just for me. I wanted to grow up and do the same thing for young readers, and I did!

I started Gallopade after I wrote my first mystery book, The Mystery of Blackbeard the Pirate. I went to New York to see about getting published, but a wise publisher advised me to go home and handle my own work so I would have control over it and keep my copyrights forever. So I did! It was an era when about 25,000 small presses popped up across America; I was one of them! It was perfect since I was a divorced young mom with two small children, so I could work at home. It was probably the best decision I ever made! That is, except for marrying my second husband, Bob Longmeyer, who came to work for my tiny company, and that allowed us to work and travel together until he died from Parkinson’s Disease in 2017.

 

Our kids grew up in the company and later returned to work at Gallopade, which was a real blessing for us and them. My granddaughter is expecting the first in the fourth generation of Gallopade on Halloween!

For a long time, we only did juvenile fiction and non-fiction. Then, one day, the state of Virginia called and begged us to do fourth-grade social studies curriculum for them. We thought that was crazy! Virginia is a big, well-heeled state with lots of resources; we could not figure out why they wanted us. But they assured us they did, so we wrote a full curriculum, and they bought it for all their schools, and all their kids “passed the test.” That took us on to writing curriculum for Georgia, Florida, Ohio, Louisiana, and other states. It is a hard job! But we often beat out even big competitors because, I think, we write to and for the kids in a way that makes them love to learn about their state, and we show no bias…we let them learn and draw their own conclusions. This helped Gallopade grow a lot. We will be 45 years old on Halloween!

I wrote The Mystery of the Haunted Library series to entice kids into all kinds of libraries where they can discover magical things to read! Also, librarians asked me to write a chapter book mystery that was also a graphic novel and had narrated non-fiction. I never turn down a challenge, so I did, and then I wrote five more. They are being turned into audiobooks right now. I learned to write graphic novels by writing the James Bone series about a young paleontologist and his friends. It’s like writing a movie! Now, I am working on Embassy Sweets, a series where the mom is the diplomat, the dad is a pastry chef, and the kids, well, they have to solve world problems! Parts of these books are dialogue scripts. I love doing new things, and I love my artist, Lee Barrow, who really brings things to life. I say he can read my mind!

 

There’s nothing better than a family business! My kids learned more there than they probably did in college! They have so much integrity and are such hard workers, and we enjoy each other’s company and point of view. We hope to make 50 years, not something many small presses achieve! Not that we are so small anymore! Plus, it was great to automatically have kids, then grandkids, and their friends to serve as real-life book characters!

We loved the 12 years we lived in PTC since we got to be here when each grandchild was born.  We also built a family room and a swimming pool and put a pirate ship in the backyard, so all the grandkids learned to swim there and loved to come and play at “Mimi and Papa’s!” There are wonderful memories, good schools, and a great community. However, I’m a water baby, so we moved to the South Carolina coast when they all got bigger and were too busy to spend much time with us!

 

I love to read inspiring real-life stories! I love to write bios for kids and tell what the “famous, successful” person did as a child or teen—not always so pretty or lucky, plus how failure is the path to success! Right now, I’m watching The Mentalist and The Resident on Netflix, the body and the mind! I’m reading a great book on the Civil War that compares its start to some things today. And I just watched The Fastest Indian, a charming movie about a real man who overcame and stuck with his dream. I love movies like True Spirit that show how even young people can have big dreams and not let anything hold them back. And, my dog, Coconut, a friend, Helen, and I just got back from a three-week road trip in my red Jeep up and down the entire length of the Outer Banks of North Carolina. There’s lots of history and beauty.  

Moms, it’s all been said before: Don’t sweat the small stuff; have faith, trust God, enjoy it all…it goes too fast. One of my favorite things I did was talk about things with my kids that they were interested in: pirates, sharks, whatever. As the years went by, we shared lots of articles, photos, and other stories that kept us close even as they grew up and moved away. Last summer, I took them all to Cody, Wyoming, for a family vacation “out West,” and it was just wonderful. I always say, “I’m a fourth grader forever,” and having that energy and enthusiasm makes each decade a joy!

Thanks for your interest, have a great autumn and school year, and Carole and Coconut love you!

 

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Click on any of the links below to find out more about Gallopade!