Geneva County Reaper

Last updated
Geneva County Reaper
Type Weekly newspaper
Format Broadsheet
PublisherMo Pujol
EditorKatherine Hepperle
FoundedJuly 3, 1901
Ceased publicationMarch 13, 2024
Headquarters506 S. Commerce St., Geneva, Alabama, United States
Circulation 2,000
OCLC number 11827296
Website oppnewsonline.com

The Geneva County Reaper was a weekly newspaper published in Geneva County, Alabama from 1901 to 2024. [1] Its most recent circulation was estimated at about 2,000. [2] It was published by Mo Pujol and edited by Katherine Hepperle. [3] The paper claimed to be "Geneva County's oldest and largest paper since 1899." [4]

History

The Reaper was founded as the Geneva Reaper on July 3, 1901, [5] with Ed M. Johnson as editor and proprietor. [6] [7] The Reaper absorbed the competing Geneva Journal in 1902. [8] By 1906, Johnson had moved purely to the business side of the paper, bringing on M. M. Brannen as head of editorial. [9]

Horace J. Wilkinson took over the paper from his father, Horace G. Wilkinson. [10] Horace J. printed the paper from 1928 until his sudden death in 1945, at the age of 48. Wilkinson made a note in his final printing of the paper, "Unless I feel stronger very quick, I won't attempt to issue a paper next week. I need a week's rest." He died 10 days later. [10] The paper was purchased by Howard, Clarence, and Alton Scott but did not publish another edition until February 1946, months after Wilkinson died. [11] In 1953, the three brothers also launched WGEA, the "Voice of the Geneva County Reaper." The station shut down in 2017.

Orsen Spivey, a former president of the Alabama Press Association, [12] was editor of the paper from 1947 until 1954. [13]

He handed the paper over to Joel P. Smith, who ran the paper until 1958. Sue Thomas became the general manager and editor in 1958. [14] For some time it was edited and published by Karol Fleming, the second woman to be elected to the Alabama Journalism Hall of Fame. [15]

Spivey sold the paper, along with three papers, to Specht Newspapers Inc. in 1984 for an undisclosed amount. [16]

Brenda and Moe Pujol purchased the Opp News and Geneva County newspapers, including the Geneva County Reaper, in 2008. [17] The formed Pujol Printing and Publishing LLC and operated the papers under that umbrella. Brenda Pujol died of breast cancer in 2016. [17] [18]

The Geneva County Reaper published its final issue on March 13, 2024. The Opp News, also owned by Pujol Publishing and Printing, ceased as well. Both paper's website and social media accounts were disabled. [19] The paper's owner did not publicly give a reason for the closings. [20]

Related Research Articles

<i>Press-Register</i> Newspaper in Mobile, Alabama

The Press-Register was a newspaper serving the southwest Alabama counties of Mobile and Baldwin. The newspaper is a descendant of one founded in 1813, making the Press-Register Alabama's oldest newspaper. It is owned by Advance Publications, which also owns the primary newspapers in Birmingham, Alabama and Huntsville, Alabama. The Press-Register had a daily publication schedule since the inception of its predecessors in the early 1800s until September 30, 2012, when it and its sister papers reduced printing editions to only Wednesday, Fridays and Sundays.

<i>Montgomery Advertiser</i> Daily newspaper in Montgomery, Alabama

The Montgomery Advertiser is a daily newspaper and news website located in Montgomery, Alabama. It was founded in 1829.

<i>The Anniston Star</i> American daily newspaper

The Anniston Star is the daily newspaper serving Anniston, Alabama, and the surrounding six-county region. Average Sunday circulation in September 2004 was 26,747. However, by 2020 it was approximately half of this. The newspaper is locally owned by Consolidated Publishing Company, which is controlled by the Ayers family of Anniston. As of 2020, the paper operated as a "digital-first" publication, and was putting out only three print editions each week.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2002 Alabama gubernatorial election</span>

The 2002 Alabama gubernatorial election was held on November 5. With 669,105 votes or 48.95%, incumbent Democrat Don Siegelman lost re-election to Republican Bob Riley, a margin of 3,120 votes or 0.22%. The close and controversial election was marked by high turnout. This was the third consecutive Alabama gubernatorial election where the incumbent was defeated. Riley was sworn in on January 20, 2003, marking what is to date the last time the Alabama Governor’s office changed partisan control.

The Dothan Eagle is a daily newspaper published in Dothan, Alabama.

The TimesDaily is the daily newspaper for Florence, Alabama. The TimesDaily covers a four-county region in Alabama including Lauderdale, Colbert, Franklin, and Lawrence counties, as well as portions of southern Tennessee and northeast Mississippi. In addition to editorial offices in Florence, The TimesDaily maintains a state capital bureau in Montgomery.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Libertarian Party of Alabama</span> State affiliate of the Libertarian Party

The Libertarian Party of Alabama (LPA) is the Alabama affiliate of the national Libertarian Party (LP). It is headquartered in Montgomery, Alabama. Due to the high signature requirement to get onto the ballot and the requirement that a party run a statewide candidate that receives at least 20% in order to maintain ballot access the Libertarian Party of Alabama has rarely fielded candidates.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gerald Willis (politician)</span> American businessman and politician (1940–2015)

Noah Gerald Willis was an American businessman and politician who served in the Alabama House of Representatives from 1978 to 1982, and 1986 to 2002, as a member of the Democratic Party. Willis also sought the Democratic presidential nomination in the 1984 election.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Southern States Conference</span>

The Southern States Conference (SSC) was an affiliate of the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics that included member institutions in the U.S. states of Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, and Florida. The league existed from 1938 to 1997.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">1978 United States Senate special election in Alabama</span>

The 1978 United States Senate special election in Alabama was held on November 7, 1978. It was a special election to fill the seat which had been held by Senator Jim Allen, who died on June 1. His widow Maryon was appointed on June 8 by governor George Wallace to fill the vacancy until a special election could be held.

The Atmore Advance was founded in 1927 in Atmore, Alabama. It has a circulation of approximately 2,000, and serves Atmore and surrounding Escambia County, Alabama. It is published each Wednesday by Atmore Newspapers, Inc.

The Tallassee Tribune is a weekly newspaper serving Tallassee, Alabama and surrounding Elmore County. It is currently owned by Tallapoosa Publishers Inc.

The Demopolis Times is a daily newspaper serving Demopolis, Alabama, with a current circulation of about 1,700. The current editor is Robert Blankenship. In 2018, the paper won six awards from the Alabama Press Association including a second-place finish for best business story or column in its class.

The Advertiser–Gleam is a newspaper serving Guntersville, Alabama in the United States. It was founded by Porter Harvey in 1941 after he left the Birmingham Post. Harvey had worked for a number of other papers, including the New York Post and the Nashville Tennessean. Initially named the Guntersville Gleam, the paper was named for the gleam sunlight made on the town's Guntersville lake.

The Democrat-Reporter is a local weekly newspaper in Linden, Alabama, United States. It was established in 1911 from the merger of the Linden Reporter and the Marengo Democrat. The newspaper was published by the Sutton family for over a century, with Goodloe Sutton running it from 1985 to 2019. The newspaper won national acclaim in the 1990s for its investigation of a corrupt county sheriff, but was met with criticism in early 2019 over an editorial from Sutton calling for the return of the Ku Klux Klan.

Howard Goodloe Sutton was an American newspaper editor, publisher, and owner. From 1964 to 2019, he published The Democrat-Reporter, a small weekly newspaper in Linden, Alabama. Sutton was widely celebrated in 1998 for publishing over four years a series of articles that exposed corruption in the Marengo County Sheriff's Office; he received awards and commendations and was suggested as a candidate for the Pulitzer Prize. In 2019, Sutton once again became the focus of national attention when he wrote and published an editorial suggesting the Ku Klux Klan be revived to "clean out" Washington, D.C. He already had a local reputation for other, similarly inflammatory racist, sexist, anti-Semitic, anti-Muslim, and homophobic editorials.

The 1971 Livingston Tigers football team was an American football team that represented Livingston University in the Gulf South Conference (GSC) during the 1971 NAIA Division I football season. In their second season under head coach Mickey Andrews, the Tigers compiled an 11–1 record and shared the GSC championship with Troy State. The Tigers advanced to the NAIA playoffs, defeating West Liberty State (25–2) in the semifinal and Arkansas Tech (14–12) in the Champion Bowl to win the NAIA Division I national football championship.

The 1949 Troy State Red Wave football team represented Troy State Teachers College as a member of the Alabama Intercollegiate Conference (AIC) during the 1949 college football season. Led by third-year head coach Fred McCollum, the Red Wave compiled an overall record of 6–3–1 with a mark of 2–0–1 in conference play, sharing the AIC title with Livingston.

The 1948 Troy State Red Wave football team represented Troy State Teachers College as a member of the Alabama Intercollegiate Conference (AIC) during the 1948 college football season. Led by second-year head coach Fred McCollum, the Red Wave compiled an overall record of 6–5, with a mark of 3–1 in conference play, and lost to Jacksonville State in the Paper Bowl.

The 1949 Jacksonville State Gamecocks football team represented Jacksonville State Teachers College as a member of the Alabama Intercollegiate Conference (AIC) during the 1949 college football season. Led by fourth-year head coach Don Salls, the Gamecocks compiled an overall record of 6–3 with a mark of 3–2 in conference play, placing third in the AIC.

References

  1. ↑ "Alabama Newspapers | Alabama Press Association". www.alabamapress.org. Retrieved 2019-06-25.
  2. ↑ "Geneva County Reaper". Mondo Times.
  3. ↑ "Contact Us". Opp News Online.
  4. ↑ "Geneva County Journal" (PDF). Retrieved June 24, 2019.
  5. ↑ Alabama Dept of Archives and History (1915). Alabama Official and Statistical Register. State of Alabama.
  6. ↑ Reports of Cases Argued and Determined in the Supreme Court of Alabama. Brown Printing Company. 1906.
  7. ↑ "About Geneva Reaper". Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Library of Congress.
  8. ↑ "(Items)". Montgomery Advertiser. 6 April 1902.
  9. ↑ "(Items)". Montgomery Advertiser. 1 June 1906.
  10. 1 2 "Horace Wilkinson claimed by death". The Andalusia Star. November 8, 1945. Retrieved 2019-06-25.
  11. ↑ "Editor Thomley". Newspapers.com. Retrieved 2019-06-25.
  12. ↑ "Sanguinetti elected to press group pos". The Anniston Star. 2 Mar 1975.
  13. ↑ "Orsen Spivey". Newspapers.com. Retrieved 2019-06-25.
  14. ↑ "Sue Thomas". Newspapers.com. Retrieved 2019-06-25.
  15. ↑ Lifland, Jonathan (22 February 1998). "Fleming Delivers Opinions to Readers". Anniston Star.
  16. ↑ "Three Geneva papers sold". The Montgomery Advertiser. 9 February 1984.
  17. 1 2 "Brenda Whitaker Pujol :: RickeyStokesNews.com!". www.rickeystokesnews.com. Retrieved 2019-06-25.
  18. ↑ "Geneva County newspapers owner dies after breast cancer fight". Dothan Eagle. September 26, 2016. Retrieved 2019-06-25.
  19. ↑ Everett, Richard (2024-03-21). "Two western Wiregrass newspapers close". WDHN . Retrieved 2024-03-21.
  20. ↑ Smith, Robert (2024-03-21). "Newspaper publication employee speaks out about sudden closures after over 100 years". WDHN. Retrieved 2024-03-23.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.