Towanda Printing Company announced on Wednesday that it has reached an agreement to sell the company, which includes The News-Item, to Sample News Group, based in Huntington and whose newspaper properties include the Milton Standard Journal.
George Lynett Jr., CEO of Times-Shamrock Communications, Scranton, the parent company of Towanda Printing, made the announcement along with George "Scoop" Sample, CEO of Sample News Group. An asset purchase agreement between the two companies was executed Tuesday and the sale is expected to be completed by Oct. 1.
"This is a bittersweet moment for our family and for me as a former publisher of The Daily Review. We have had a wonderful experience as owners of the Towanda Printing Company," Lynett said. "But we are also confident that we have placed Towanda Printing in the capable hands of another respected, family-owned media company."
"We welcome Towanda Printing Company and Shamokin into our family of newspapers. We are honored to have been selected by Times-Shamrock to continue their legacy of delivering all the best news to these fine communities," George "Scoop" Sample said.
Sample News Group owns more than 50 publications, including 15 daily newspapers, in Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont.
Towanda Printing Company is made up of three newspaper clusters that include daily, weekly and monthly publications that serve a five-county area in central and northeast Pennsylvania and southcentral New York. In addition to The News-Item and its sister paper in Valley View, The Citizen-Standard, publications include The Daily Review, the Bradford Sullivan Pennysaver and the Farmer's Friend, all in Towanda; the Northeast Driller, Sayre; the Troy Pennysaver, Troy; the Susquehanna County Independent and Weekender in Montrose; and the Owego Pennysaver in Owego, N.Y. Also included in the sale is the company's printing facility in Towanda.
Times-Shamrock purchased the Towanda Printing Company from the Turner family in 1977, opening a Sayre bureau the following year and debuting the Sunday Review in 1987. Towanda Printing Company's state-of-the-art printing plant was opened in 2001.
Times-Shamrock, which purchased The News-Item in 1997, continues to operate daily newspapers in Scranton, Wilkes-Barre, Pottsville and Hazleton, as well as 14 radio stations in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Wisconsin and Nevada.