Farmville Herald sold to Boone affiliate

Farmville Newsmedia, LLC, a new Virginia entity wholly owned by Carpenter Newsmedia, LLC (CNL), has purchased The Farmville Herald from the Wall family. CNL is an affiliate of Boone Newspapers, Inc. (BNI) with offices in Natchez, Miss., and Tuscaloosa, Ala.

Todd Carpenter, of Natchez, is BNI's president and chief executive officer and is principal owner of CNL. James B. Boone, Jr., of Tuscaloosa, is BNI's chairman. BNI Vice President Steve Stewart succeeds Steve Wall as publisher.

Carpenter said he and Boone are "deeply appreciative of the confidence the Wall family has placed in CNL and BNI as their successors, and we will work hard to merit that confidence."

The sale ends three generations of ownership by the Wall family.

"The Herald celebrates its 125th birthday in 2015 and the 94th year the paper has been published by the Wall family," said Steve Wall, whose grandfather J.B. Wall purchased the newspaper in 1921. "The industry has undergone major changes in the last couple of years. My dad, Bill, who joined the staff in 1954, is planning to completely retire, and after 37 years in the business full time, I'm ready for another newspaper family to take the helm."

CNL has ownership in BNI affiliates in Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, North Carolina, Texas and Virginia. Carpenter has been president and CEO of BNI for the past 10 years.

Stewart leads BNI's East Coast Group, which includes newspapers in Suffolk, Va., Franklin, Va., Ahoskie, N.C., Washington, N.C., and Salisbury, N.C., in addition to The Herald.

BNI owns and manages 61 newspapers in similar-sized communities that, in addition to those in which CNL has ownership interest, are in Minnesota, Michigan and Ohio.

The organization has a rich history of quality newspapers, websites, magazines and other publications in the communities it serves, explained in part by Boone's corporate philosophy: "We seek to produce the highest quality product the economics of the community can support. And then, by ingenuity and imagination, we strive for a higher quality in an effort to serve and build that community."

Gary Greene of Cribb, Greene & Associates represented the sellers.