Local newspapers sold to Ark. company

by Karen E. Culp

SBJ Staff

Three area newspapers will have a new owner Jan. 28.

The Bolivar Herald-Free Press, Buffalo Reflex and Cedar County Republican have been sold by Sterling Media to an Arkansas-based company, Community Publishers Inc. CPI publishes seven newspapers in northwest Arkansas and is owned by eight families from the region, said Steve Trolinger, president of Community Publishers.

Jim Sterling has owned the three southwest Missouri newspapers since 1979, although he began working for the Bolivar paper in 1967, said Dave Berry, executive vice president of Sterling Media.

Berry will stay on as vice president and will continue as publisher of the Bolivar and Stockton papers. Jim Hamilton is publisher of the Buffalo newspaper. The newspapers employ a total of 33 full-time and 15 part-time personnel, Berry said.

Sterling Media also owns, and will sell to CPI, Missouri Colorweb, a printing company whose original purpose was to print the papers for the three Sterling properties. Missouri Colorweb also prints other area publications, Berry said.

Sterling sold a minority ownership position in the Springfield Business Journal back to its publisher in 1997.

Sterling will sell the stock in the company to Community Publishers, which says it has no immediate plans to alter the operation of the three papers.

"Dave Berry will continue in his position, and the newspapers will continue to run as they have. We hope to update some technology and such, but basically they will continue to operate as they have," Trolinger said.

The decision to sell was based on the market for community newspapers, Berry said.

"The market for community newspapers is high right now. Jim (Sterling) as well as anyone knows that the values go up and down. I think he just made the decision not to wait and risk another downturn," Berry said.

Berry added that CPI is similar to Sterling Media in many ways, and that is one of the reasons the sale is happening now.

"One of the reasons we had veto power over who had the opportunity to own these papers is that it was important for us to identify a company that was as like what we are as possible. I think we found a very good fit with CPI," Berry said.

CPI will allow the newspapers to "continue to be local newspapers," Berry said, and to maintain the community emphasis that was important to Sterling.

"I think they will keep running their Arkansas newspapers and we will keep running ours," Berry said.

All three of the southwest Missouri newspapers are delivered by mail to subscribers and are sold in racks. CPI owns newspapers in Bentonville, Siloam Springs, Bella Vista, Rogers, Gravette, Gentry and Decatur, Ark. All of those papers are weeklies except the Bentonville paper, which is that town's only daily, and the Siloam Springs paper, which is published twice a week, Trolinger said.

CPI was formed in 1982 and is owned by eight families, three of which are employees and five are silent partners. The eight stockholders include Jim Walton, son of Sam Walton, founder of Wal-Mart; Mark Simmons, whose family owns Simmons Foods, a poultry operation in northwest Arkansas; Paul Bynum, David Jackson, Robert Evans, Mike Brown, John Brown III and Trolinger. The group formed to own the Bentonville paper and simply began acquiring other property as it was available, Trolinger said.

"We weren't necessarily looking to expand, but this opportunity in Missouri presented itself, and we thought it was a good fit. The papers already had a great reputation and were good editorially, and we thought they had a lot of the same business philosophy we had," Trolinger said.

Trolinger declined to disclose the purchase price.

Other than some updates in technology, employees at the three papers were not expecting much to change as a result of the change in ownership.

"We're looking at it very positively. I think it will give us a lot of opportunity to do things we wouldn't have been able to before. We're already beginning to expand our technology," said Judy Kallenbach, editor of the Bolivar Herald-Free Press.

Jim Hamilton, editor and publisher of the Buffalo Reflex, said he thought it would be a good change for the newspaper and community.

"We've seen a lot of changes over the years, but we've never lost our focus on local community news. I don't think anything could change that," Hamilton said.

Berry said there was some sadness around the offices as a result of losing Jim Sterling, a man who many employees respect.

"Jim is a man of incredible learning and talent. I've often said that five of us in this office couldn't do the work Jim was doing by himself when I first joined this company," Berry said.

Both Berry and Hamilton have worked alongside Sterling for many years, Berry said. Hamilton said he is grateful that Sterling always trusted him to run the Buffalo newspaper and make it his own responsibility.

"I've been given a great deal of creative license here. I've always been able to make the editorial decisions I thought best, and I've always felt like Jim respected my ideas," Hamilton said.[[In-content Ad]]