Mid-America Publishing Corporation is pleased to announce its purchase of The Holstein Advance and Tri-Valley AdVance Publishing from Mari Bauer, of Holstein, effective May 31, 2016.

The Advance will be added to the Hampton-based corporation’s growing roster of 30 Iowa weekly newspapers and shoppers.

Other nearby papers also owned by Mid-America include those in Ida Grove and Lake City.

 “We are excited to assume the ownership of The Advance,” said Mid-America Publishing’s President and CEO, Ryan Harvey. “After we purchased the Courier and Reminder from Roger Rector nearly a year ago, we began discussing the opportunity of buying The Advance from Mari shortly thereafter.”

The transfer of ownership is related to the Bauer’s decision to pursue other interests.

“We want to thank Mari for allowing Mid-America to continue the legacy of the Advance,” Harvey said. “We know she’s put her heart and soul into the paper and we look forward to working with the area customers to provide a strong news product going forward.”

Harvey will assume the duties and title of publisher of the newspaper while the staff of the Courier and Reminder will be responsible for its day to day operations.

“We believe a local newspaper needs to have local content,” Harvey said. “Our mission going forward is to tell the stories of local residents, report on local events, and give strong coverage of local government at the city, county, and school district levels. One of the specialties of the staff in Ida Grove has been to provide quality indepth coverage in Holstein. We’ll ensure the paper’s future by providing unique content, unique photos, and quality journalism for the folks in the Holstein area.”

The publication will join Mid-America’s portfolio of weekly newspapers which aside from the Courier and Reminder also include: The Calmar Courier; Postville Herald; The Outlook, in Monona; The Eldora Herald-Ledger and Hardin County Index, with an office in Eldora; The Leader, with offices in Garner and Britt; the Kanawha Reporter, the Wright County Monitor, in Clarion and Dows; the Eagle Grove Eagle; the Buffalo Center Tribune, The Pioneer Enterprise (Rockwell-Thornton), The Sheffield Press; The Hampton Chronicle; The Butler County Tribune-Journal (Allison); the Clarksville Star, the Ida County Courier in Ida Grove; The Ogden Reporter, and The Graphic-Advocate, with offices in Lake City and Rockwell City.

The company also owns and operates newspapers in southeast Iowa, namely, The News-Review, in Sigourney, The Keota Eagle, Keota, and The Sun with offices in New Sharon and Fremont. The company additionally produces two weekly political newspapers, the Conservative Chronicle and the Liberal Opinion Week as well as several TMC shoppers, such as The Hampton Chronicle’s Bonus in Hampton, The Spectrum in Lake City-Rockwell City, The Leader’s Shopper News Review in Garner, The Reminder in Ida Grove; and the Wright County Reminder in Clarion; plus monthly shoppers such as The Dual County Leader in Eagle Grove and the Keokuk County Chief in Sigourney.

The company also publishes north central Iowa’s only Latino-oriented newspaper, Viva Iowa! which serves Franklin and Wright Counties. In addition to its newspapers and shoppers Mid-America operates a commercial printing division that offers customized printing and publishing solutions such as banners, posters, postcards, direct mailing, mailing list management, letter head design, newsletter management and dozens of other marketing and promotional products which it plans to make available locally in the Holstein area.

Effective immediately, several major changes are in store for the publications.

The Advance’s supplemental shopper, the AdVantage, has been discontinued and merged with the Reminder effective next week, so all of your familiar inserts, such as the Holstein Super Market and Shopko will be found inside the Reminder. The Advance will move from a Thursday publication to a Wednesday publication to ensure timely delivery to our readers.

The newspaper’s billing and circulation will be consolidated to the company’s home office in Hampton effective immediately. The printing of the newspaper will also move to the Hampton facility and a website for the newspaper will be launched within a few weeks. The newspaper will have a new email address, holsteinadvance@gmail.com, effective immediately. The paper will retain its current mailing address.

To reach the office, please call the Ida Grove location at 712-364-3131 for immediate assistance. The paper will be staffed in Holstein from 10-2 on Tuesdays and Thursdays each week.

The newsstand price will increase from 75 cents to $1 effective next week and will be available at the Holstein Super Market and Pronto locations on Tuesday mornings prior to 12 noon.

Also, effective immediately, fees for publication of full obituaries will be $50 and run in both the Courier and Advance.

On the paper size the paper will transition to a slightly wider format, expanding from a 25.5-inch web to a 28-inch web format.

The format also reflects the width of all other Mid-America papers which will allow the customer to seamlessly cross sell advertising from the Advance into any of the company’s other newspapers, and include other area social news and photographs of possible interest to local readers.

Readers can find more information on this story and additional coverage of the newspaper’s transition in next week’s Advance!