Boone Affiliate acquires LaGrange Daily News

Boone Affiliate acquires LaGrange Daily News

An affiliate of Boone Newspapers Inc. has acquired the LaGrange (Ga.) Daily News from Civitas Media.

Dirks, Van Essen & Murray, a merger and acquisition firm based in Santa Fe, New Mexico, represented Civitas Media in the sale. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Boone owns and/or manages 74 newspapers along with websites, shopping guides and magazines in 74 communities in Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Virginia, North Carolina, Ohio, Tennessee and Texas. Boone’s other Georgia newspapers are in Bainbridge, Americus and Cordele.

Daily News publisher Jeff Parra will continue in his current role with the newspaper.

“We are pleased to have been chosen to succeed Civitas Media in LaGrange,” said Todd Carpenter, president and CEO of Boone Newspapers. “And we are delighted to be working with Jeff Parra. We take our responsibility to do excellent journalism and be good stewards of the newspaper very seriously and we know Jeff does too. We look forward to getting started as we work with Jeff and the newspaper staff to meet every obligation to readers, advertisers and the community as a whole.”

Parra has more than 20 years of experience in the newspaper industry leading newspaper operations in Missouri, Tennessee, Michigan, Texas and Oklahoma. The newly formed Boone affiliate making the acquisition was LaGrange Newsmedia, LLC.

“My roots are in Georgia as I was born in Macon where my father was with the Telegraph. He was a native of Newnan, my mother a native of Macon,” said James B. Boone Jr., chairman of Boone Newspapers. “I look forward to getting to know LaGrange, meeting and working with its people.”