The Times Dispatch of Walnut Ridge, a weekly newspaper owned by the local Bland family since 1921, is being sold to Paxton Media Group, its publisher said Thursday.
Terms of the sale weren't disclosed.
"I'm too young to retire, so now I'm going to look for a job for the first time in my life," said John Bland, 62, the newspaper's publisher and third generation of the Bland family to run a paper that was founded in 1910. Bland's wife, Renee, also worked at the newspaper.
The sale doesn't include the building that houses The Times Dispatch. Formerly the city's post office, it is owned by the Bland family. Whether the newspaper's operations remain in the building is still being discussed by both sides, Bland said. The sale, which was announced on the front page of the Wednesday edition, will close on Monday.
Based in Paducah, Ky., family-owned Paxton holds more than 30 daily newspapers and numerous weeklies, mostly in the southern U.S. In Arkansas, it owns daily newspapers in Jonesboro, Paragould, Batesville, Russellville, Searcy and Conway and weekly newspapers in Clinton, Heber Springs and Newport.
Paxton's long interest in northeast Arkansas will help the company be a good fit for The Times Dispatch, its readers and communities across Lawrence County, Bland said.
In this week's goodbye edition, Bland noted his newspaper's long connection with the Jonesboro Sun. The Sun's publisher made a loan to the Bland family in 1921, enabling the Blands to buy a Linotype machine. The Times Dispatch was the first weekly paper in Arkansas to use the technology.
Bland said the sale of the paper has been considered before but ultimately rejected. The death of his mother, Virginia McNabb Bland, in May 2018 precipitated the sale as much as anything else, he said.
Bland's grandfather, James L. Bland, began his newspaper career in Perry County before moving to Newport and then, in 1921, to Walnut Ridge to buy The Times Dispatch. Bland also was a key figure in the administration of former Gov. Orval Faubus and a former director of the state Employment Security Division.
James L. Bland Jr. began working at the newspaper in 1946. He was editor of The Times Dispatch for 26 years, from 1951 to 1977, and served as publisher of the paper from early 1970s until his retirement in 1994. John Bland succeeded his father as publisher.
"It's bittersweet," John Bland said. "We knew it eventually would be sold because no one else in the family was wanting to operate it."
Business on 09/27/2019