By: Mark Fitzgerald When William Halbfoerster Jr. created The Home News from his family print shop in 1942, his audience wasn't so much the readers living in the eastern Pennsylvania towns of Bath and Nazareth -- as it was their sons who were off fighting in the European and Pacific theaters of World War II.
"It was started purposely during World War II to give the military servicemen some news from home," Halbfoerster's son David said in a telephone interview Tuesday. In its first year, as many or more copies of the weekly paper were mailed overseas as sold locally, he said.
Sixty-two years later, the paper has been sold. In a deal announced Tuesday, William Halbfoerster Jr., now 72, sold the weekly -- with a sworn paid circulation of 4,500 -- to Robert Carter, a Stamford, Conn.-based graphics business owner with two decades of experience in circulation with The Washington Post and USA Today. Included in the deal was the family commercial printing business, HN Print and Graphics.
John Szefc of the Gaithersburg, Md.-based brokerage firm W.B. Grimes & Co. represented Halbfoerster in the transaction.
William Halbfoerster will remain as editor, and his son David will continue as chief of operations. Carter, who owns RJ Photo, a photo finishing and digital imaging firm with shops in Norwalk and Wilton, Conn., said his son Nython will be a part owner of the newspaper and commercial printing business.
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