![]() Front page of December 29, 1899, issue | |
Type | Weekly newspaper |
---|---|
Format | Broadsheet |
Owner(s) | Lee Enterprises |
Founder(s) | A.B. Wood |
Editor | Rich Macke |
Founded | April 27, 1887 |
Ceased publication | December 5, 2024 |
Headquarters | 1405 Broadway, Scottsbluff, Nebraska |
Circulation | 321 [1] |
OCLC number | 32034477 |
Website | starherald |
The Gering Courier was a weekly newspaper serving the Gering, Nebraska community from 1887 to 2024. It was printed in Gering's sister city of Scottsbluff. [2] The Courier shared resources with two other nearby newspapers, the Star-Herald and the Hemingford Ledger, both also owned by Lee Enterprises.
Established by Asa Wood in 1887 [4] [5] as a Republican-leaning weekly, [6] the Gering Courier was the first paper in Gering.
By the mid-1910s, it had a good reputation, with the Alliance Herald calling it one of the best papers in the West. [5] In 1915, it moved into the new Gering Courier Building, a structure now on the National Register of Historic Places. [7] In 1927, it absorbed competing paper the Gering Midwest. [8]
For over fifty years, Wood was publisher and editor. A one-time president of the Nebraska Press Association, [9] he was also a breeder of cattle, [10] a state senator from 1924 to 1930, and, like many publishers of that time, the local postmaster. [11] Described as a "walking encyclopedia" of western Nebraska history, [11] he was one of the best known newspapermen in the state. [5] He left the paper to his son, Warren Wood, on his death in 1945. [11]
Under the younger Wood, the paper continued to expand, buying out Banner County's Banner News in 1955. [4] [8] Following the death of Warren Wood in 1978, Wood's daughter Carol became publisher of the Courier and her husband Jack Lewis oversaw the paper's general operations. [12]
In April 1999, Carol and Jack Lewis sold the Courier to Robert Van Vleet's Excellence in Publishing, Inc., which owned the Sidney Daily Sun in nearby Sidney, Nebraska. [13] The Courier was then sold by Van Vleet to the Omaha World-Herald Company in February 2000 as part of a deal where the World-Herald Company turned over ownership of the Sidney Telegraph to Van Vleet (and the Daily Sun and Telegraph were consolidated into The Sidney Sun-Telegraph). [14] The Omaha World-Herald Company, whose holdings included the Courier, was in turn purchased by Berkshire Hathaway in 2011. [15]
The Courier was part of Berkshire Hathaway's subsidiary BH Media Group, although starting in 2018 it was managed by Lee Enterprises. [16] In January 2020 it was announced that Lee Enterprises was purchasing Berkshire Hathaway's newspaper holdings. [17] [18] The Courier published its final edition on December 5, 2024. [19] [20]
The Courier has won top honors in the Nebraska Press Association's Better Newspapers contest, including the Loral Johnson award in 2006. [21]
Lee Enterprises, Incorporated (NYSE: LEE), a trusted local news provider and leading platform for advertising in 50 markets, has entered into a definitive agreement with Berkshire Hathaway to acquire BH Media Group's ("BHMG") publications and The Buffalo News for $140 million in cash.