WAUSA — After publishing the Wausa Gazette for nearly 24 years, Rob Dump and Peggy Year have sold Wausa’s hometown newspaper.
Pitzer Digital has agreed to purchase the Wausa newspaper, which completes its 126th year of publication this week.
The transaction will be completed Aug. 8. The Hartington couple bought the Gazette Oct. 1, 2000, from Bob and Josianne Rinehardt.
When the Hartington couple made the purchase of the Gazette in 2000, they became only the ninth different owners/publishers of the newspaper. Only one other publisher operated the Gazette longer — C.A. Anderson, who published the Gazette for 27 years from 1922-1949.
At the time Dump and Year purchased the newspaper, it was located next to the Wausa Lumber Yard. Gazette Editor Tracy Clarkson moved the Gazette to its current location in 2006.
Dump and Year, who own and operate the Hartington-based Northeast Nebraska News Company, said they have enjoyed their time in Wausa.
“We’ve enjoyed being part of Wausa,” Dump said. “Wausa is a great little community. It’s so easy to see how much pride people have in this town.”
The couple decided to purchase the Gazette because of its central location between their Hartington newspaper and their Osmond Republican newspaper. At the time, all of the Northeast Nebraska News papers were printed at the Osmond Republican print shop.
That production plant has since been shut down, though.
Dump said the newspaper industry has changed dramatically since he first began working in his hometown newspaper, the Brandon Valley (S.D.) Reporter, back in 1978.
“It seems like every town in the state had a newspaper in those days, and every newspaper office had a Compugraphic machine to typeset all the copy and ads to paste up onto the pages,” he said. “I thought the industry was really changing in the late 1980s, when we all ditched the Compugraphics and started paginating all of our pages on the computer. That was nothing compared to what we do today.”
Today, everything is paginated and digitized and much of the local news produced by the local newspaper is also made available on websites and on social media.
Pitzer Digital Publisher Carrie Pitzer also owns the Knox County News, which covers the communities of Bloomfield and Creighton.
Pitzer said the Wausa Gazette will be merged with the Knox County News.
“We are excited about adding the Wausa Gazette to the Knox County News family and hope to make the transition as smooth as possible for readers and advertisers. We’ve been covering Wausa for some time with news and sports, so this feels like a natural transition for us,” Pitzer said. “We have worked with the Northeast Nebraska News Company over the years and appreciate them entrusting us with this opportunity.”
She added, “This purchase is key because it allows us to serve Wausa as its legal newspaper. Purchasing the Wausa Gazette fits well with our philosophy to ensure Knox County has a strong local journalism presence for generations to come. We are committed to serving all of Knox County.”
Pitzer said the Gazette phone number will stay the same, but the email address will be [email protected]. The Knox County News can also be reached via its toll-free number — 888-480-4759 or its central office in Neligh at 402-887-4000.
Pitzer Digital has acquired 10 newspapers since 2016, including the Bloomfield Monitor in 2017 and Creighton News in 2019.
