The great Southwest Arkansas newspaper war is over.
John Robert Schirmer, editor of the once-upstart Nashville Leader, has fired the last shot.
Schirmer is buying the assets of Graves Publishing Inc. from the children of Louis “Swampy” Graves after a 13-year small-town fight for news and advertising that had aspects of a family feud.
The Graves assets include four papers, primarily the Nashville News, the oldest continuously operating business in Howard County. The News will cease publication after 138 years. Its successor will be the Nashville News-Leader, according to Schirmer, who edited the News before defecting along with Louie Graves, one of the 10 Graves siblings, to create the Leader 13 years ago.
Graves became publisher of the Leader, choosing to go head-to-head against his siblings, including Lawrence Graves, who became publisher of the News. That left a town of about 5,000 people with two newspapers, the Leader printing weekly and the News publishing twice a week.
The other properties involved in the sale are the Murfreesboro Diamond, the Glenwood Herald and the Montgomery County News in Mount Ida. The tentative closing date on the deal is May 31. No financial details were available from the privately held company.
“There will be one paper in Nashville starting June 1, the Nashville News-Leader,” Schirmer said, noting that word of the sale had seeped out locally. “As people in town heard about a possible sale, they’ve contacted Louie and me, and the response has been overwhelmingly positive.”
Schirmer, a longtime Nashville High School teacher who taught journalism and English before resigning to edit the Nashville News in 2000, said “people are excited about having one paper again.”
“Advertisers are happy about what we’re doing,” he added. “They won’t have to split advertising dollars between the papers, or choose one paper” over the other. Likewise, he said, subscribers will have one source to go to. “I think this will be good for our community.”
Schirmer said that he does not expect to make wholesale changes in the product.
“What we’ve done has worked for us since 2003, and I look for that to continue. We plan to incorporate some of the features which the News has offered, such as its Early Files column, which is a local history feature,” he said. Early Files highlights a photograph and a few paragraphs from stories dating back 100 years, 50 years and so on.
“People like that, and I want it to continue,” Schirmer said. “There are some other features we will try to keep from the News, along with some of the staff.”
The newspaper war was rooted in bickering among the children of Swampy Graves, Arkansas Business reported in 2004. A specific family dispute was said to have prompted Louie Graves to break away and form the Leader.
“It was a notorious thing that happened,” Louie Graves said at the time, declining to be more specific. “Everybody had their own version of what happened.”
Louie Graves’ departure left a vacancy that brother Lawrence filled as publisher of the News. Lawrence Graves later turned the job over to another brother, Mike. Attempts to reach Louie Graves and Mike Graves for comment were not immediately successful.
The initial staff at the Leader included Louie Graves; his wife, Jane; Schirmer; Tracy Denny-Bailey; Pam McAnelly; and Amy Beene, Schirmer wrote in an email.
“Louis met Jane when both were students at UA,” he wrote. “They were journalism majors. Louie and Jane were active in the Arkansas Press Association and each served a term as president. John Balch [associate editor] joined the Leader from the Murfreesboro Diamond a few years later.”
Jane Graves died in 2007.
The Nashville News, founded in 1878, was bought in 1950 by Swampy Graves, who moved his family to Nashville from Texarkana, Schirmer said. Coincidentally, both it and the second-oldest running business in the county will be closing this month.
“Nashville Drug started around 1900. It will close May 11,” Schirmer said, adding that the newly christened paper will move forward with an eye on tradition. “We can’t disregard 138 years of history.”
Schirmer, a Nashville High School graduate with bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Ouachita Baptist University, said that Graves Publishing representatives approached him last fall about the possibility of a sale. “It was a long process, but I’m pleased with the outcome.”
Nashville has been a unique example in Arkansas media, Schirmer said.
“We’ve had two competing newspapers since July 2003. We have three radio stations, all under the same ownership. The competition between the newspapers has been intense,” he said.
Schirmer noted that the papers not only competed for advertisers and readers, but for “community support in general.”
He said the Leader focused on local news and sports in not only Nashville, but in Murfreesboro, Dierks, Mineral Springs and surrounding areas.
“We wanted as many pictures and stories of people in our area,” he said. “We attempted to give readers something they couldn’t get anywhere else. For the most part, I think we succeeded.”
But now is a time to move forward, Schirmer said.
“It’s time to put 13 years of competition behind us and move on toward making our paper the best it can be,” he said.
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