Eagle printing moved to Spearfish

A few weeks ago the Ekalaka Eagle was informed that the newspaper press located inside the Miles City Star would be shutting down at the end of April.

Back in October, it was announced that Adams Publishing Group, owner of the Bozeman Daily Chronicle, was buying not only the paper in Miles City, but also 12 other small-town Montana newspapers of the Yellowstone Newspapers chain.

The papers purchased by Adams in a deal that was finalized last November were the Livingston Enterprise, the Miles City Star, the Glendive Ranger-Review, the Lewistown News-Argus, the Dillon Tribune, the Big Timber Pioneer, the Laurel Outlook, the Carbon County News, the Big Horn County News, the Stillwater County News, the Terry Tribune, the [Forsyth] Independent Press and the Judith Basin Press.

The press in Miles City was one of only a handful left in the state of Montana prior to the closure at the end of April. The closure was not a total surprise though, as the purchase of the Yellowstone chain fits into a consolidation trend that has become common business practice in the newspaper industry over the past decade.

The Eagle had been printed in Miles City since the mid 1980s, so I immediately went to work searching for another press after receiving the news. All papers owned by Adams that were previously printed in Miles City will now be printed in Bozeman. Smaller, independently owned newspapers that were printed in Miles City, including the Eagle and the Powder River Examiner, were also invited to make the move to Bozeman. Distance, freight and printing costs, changing deadlines and weather were only some of the concerns I had with printing in Bozeman, so I reached out to several papers throughout the region over the next several days.

Ultimately the first call made was the most important call, as the editor/reporter at Nation's Center News (thank you, Nancy) helped me get in touch with the paper's publication headquarters, Seaton Publishing Co., located in Spearfish, South Dakota. Seaton currently prints a number of surrounding papers, but their small town customer service and capable print facility, coupled with the fact that Spearfish is-by far-the nearest newspaper press to Ekalaka, made the decision to print with our neighbors to the South a relatively easy choice. I also worked closely with the editor in Broadus who made the eventual decision to print in Spearfish as well.

I hope this new relationship with Seaton Publishing will last for years to come, but the Eagle is just getting out of a pretty serious 38-year-long relationship with the Star. Consider this May 5 issue a first date. I'm hoping it goes well-I think it's going well-but I can't speak for the other party.

The biggest difference readers of the Eagle may notice right away is a new, slightly larger size newspaper. With this new size comes a lot of reformatting, so I'm also updating some of the current layouts to accommodate. Many of these new changes-though minor-will be noticeable in this week's issue, other's may take a few months to fully implement.

In addition to changes in print, a more efficient labeling system is being implemented. I'm hoping this makes for quicker and more reliable mail delivery of the Eagle.

For now, all deadlines will remain the same.

I would also like to apologize to all out-of-county subscribers that received an extra paper last week. Since Miles City was shutting down their press at the end of the week, they were short-staffed and working extra hours to put out their last few papers. Due to this, they accidentally printed half of the Eagle dated April 21 with half of the Eagle dated April 28.

I immediately reached out to the Miles City Star on Thursday morning and had them reprint the entire April 28 issue, but it was too late to stop many of the out-of-county newspapers from being mailed. The rest of the "error" papers, including all of the in-county copies, are sitting at the Eagle office. Those who received one in the mail may consider themselves lucky. The remaining "collector's items" at the office are available for sale for the rock bottom price of $199.00, plus shipping and handling!

Jokes aside, I'd like to thank the employees of Miles City for their many years of hard work and dedication to the industry-and to the Eagle. I now look forward to the future and a prosperous relationship with Seaton Publishing, and I especially thank all of you who are reading this for making it possible to keep a local newspaper in Ekalaka.