had come for the Association to be shut down. But Amandala, he said, would move in the direction of being a "community newspaper" rather than a political one. For the remainder of the 1970s, Amandala tried to avoid controversy. Indeed, editor Hyde ran unsuccessfully for the PUP in City Council elections of 1977, and the paper generally toed the line with government policy, although reserving its usual candor for certain situations. Joining the paper in this period was the "Ros'lin" serial about Belizean adolescents, a special "Jumble" word puzzle, columns by the publisher's father Charles B. Hyde and "The Old Man", a forerunner of today's "Smokey Joe" column. The 1980s: becoming mainstream As Amandala entered the 1980s, it had updated its technology, expanded its scope of writing and was reaching more people. The often impassioned editorials of the UBAD era were replaced by more mainstream content. Amandala became more well known when it covered the 1981 Heads of Agreement uprisings. Toward the end of 1981, it published an article linking Prime Minister Price and Minister Louis Sylvester to a report from Mexico about drugs in Belize. For the second time in its publishing life, Amandala went to court because it was accused of libel in a lawsuit. Judgements of BZ $10,000 and BZ $7,500 were imposed against the paper in 1982 and 1983. The newspaper went into debt but continued publishing. Relief arrived briefly with the ascension of the UDP to power in 1984, but the UDP and Amandala soon found themselves at loggerheads. Popular columns during this period included "Far and Near" (before it moved to the Belize Times), "Bill Williamson" (before it moved to The Reporter as "Roving Eye") and "Smokey Joe" (the first appearance). The 1990s: maintaining dominance The 1990s for Amandala really began on November 17, 1989, with the establishment of Belize's first commercial radio station, KREM FM, on the compound at Partridge Street. Amandala dedicated much of the next three years to weaning the young radio station and protecting it from its rivals, the now defunct Radio Belize and LOVE FM. UBAD celebrated what would have been its twenty-second anniversary in 1991, and Amandala publisher and former UBAD president Hyde wrote a reminisce of the UBAD glory days in the "From the Publisher" column of February 8, 1991. In addition, Amandala became the chief sponsor for local semi-professional team "The Raiders", which would win five