By: E&P Staff Lee Enterprises bought eight weeklies, two shoppers, and a monthly gambling publication located in the Black Hills of South Dakota and northwest Nebraska, the seller, Country Media, Inc., of Scottsbluff, Neb., announced Tuesday.
No terms of the transaction were disclosed.
Included in the sale were the following eight weeklies with a combined paid circulation of 12,300: The Meade County (S.D.) Times-Tribune; Black Hills (S.D.) Press; Butte County (S.D.) Valley Irrigator; Belle Fourche (S.D.) Post; Belle Fourche (S.D.) Bee; Lawrence County (S.D.), Hot Springs (S.D.) Star, and Chadron (Neb.) Record. The two shoppers are the Star Extra in South Dakota, and in Your Neighbor in Nebraska. The remaining publication, Deadwood Gaming, has monthly distribution of 9,640 throughout South Dakota.
The publications will make a cluster with Lee's daily newspaper in the region, the Rapid City (S.D.) Journal. Bill Masterson Jr., publisher of the Journal, said all of the 26 employees of the papers, including managers and editors, have been invited to stay.
"This is a win-win situation for everyone," Masterson said in a statement. "The resources of the Rapid City Journal can help the weeklies produce top-notch newspapers while providing the Journal with a daily portal into every hills community, which will improve the Journal's coverage of important events. At the same time, we are committed to making sure that each community has its own local voice, independent of any neighboring newspaper or the Rapid City Journal."
Iowa-based Lee owns 38 daily newspapers and a joint interest in six others, as well as 200 non-daily publications.
Country Media, headed by Steve Hungerford, continues to operate eight other community newspapers in South Dakota, North Dakota, and Montana, plus two agricultural publications.
Dirks, Van Essen & Murray, a newspaper merger-and-acquisition firm in Santa Fe, N.M., represented Country Media, Inc., in the transaction.
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