Rockwood, Tenn. ? Roxie McClendon gets her news from visitors to the retirement home or from phone calls, then passes it along in her column in the weekly Rockwood Times.

She’s been writing her regular society column since she was 75 – not a bad run, considering she turned 103 last month.

McClendon is an institution in this east Tennessee town of about 5,700. Like other small-town columnists, she writes about the social lives of people in her community – their out-of-town guests, family reunions and Sunday dinners.

Society columns still exist, but they appear to be dwindling, along with detailed wedding and birth announcements.

The shift to a faster-paced, online news environment is believed to play a role, as is the passing of a graying generation of society mavens.

“There is no one in the community that people would accept and know like Miss Roxie. She’s just a force out there,” said editor Terri Likens of the Roane County News, which publishes the Rockwood paper.

These columnists have been writing for many years – but probably not as long as Mary Peyton Meyer, who celebrated her 100th birthday Dec. 31. This is her 85th consecutive year covering Frogtown for The Leader-Union in Vandalia, Ill., about 65 miles east of St. Louis.

Meyer started writing for the paper when she was in high school. She even appeared on “The Tonight Show” with Johnny Carson.

Meyer began a recent column by reporting the appointment of an organist at St. Peter Church. She also noted a community fundraiser and the details of a 7-year-old’s birthday party.

Studies have shown readers are still keen on local news such as obituaries, said Brad Dennison, editorial vice president for Community Newspaper Holdings Inc., a newspaper chain based in Birmingham, Ala.

“We sort of lost touch that people really wanted that, and for local community newspapers that’s absolutely our niche,” he said.

Many large daily papers have society columns that run on Sundays, but those usually focus on the upper crust, featuring famous names and high-society events.

Meyer and McClendon focus on the smaller routines of daily life.

Finding news is still easy for McClendon, who once had a friend tell her, “You’ve lived so long, everyone knows you!” Her 103rd birthday was the highlight of a recent column.