NEWS-REGISTER (MCMINNVILLE)

The 'News-Register' is a newspaper published in McMinnville, Oregon, United States. The News-Register Publishing Co. is a closely held corporation owned by members of the Bladine family of McMinnville. It is a tri-weekly community newspaper serving McMinnville and the surrounding Yamhill Valley. The official corporate name is Oregon Lithoprint, Inc., but that name primarily refers to the web printing division of the company.

Contents

History

Family leadership

Internet connections

External links

History

The newspaper traces its family tree through two branches, back to 1866.
First Branch: The Lafayette Courier started in 1866, and by 1872 became the Yamhill County Reporter based in McMinnville. In 1905 the Reporter merged with the McMinnville News (founded 1901) to form the News-Reporter.
Second Branch: The Oregon Register started in 1881 in Lafayette, and the West Side Telephone was founded in 1886 in McMinnville. Those two newspapers merged to form the Telephone-Register, which was purchased in 1928 by Lars Bladine of Iowa. His eldest son, Jack, came first to McMinnville to begin family operation of the newspaper. On September 9, 1948 Jack B. Bladine and brother Phillip N. Bladine were granted a construction permit from the FCC to build McMinnville's first radio station. On June 18, 1949 KMCM began operation at 11:00am. Today this is KLYC.
Branches Merge: In 1953, Jack and his brother, Phil, purchased the News-Reporter and merged it with the Telephone-Register, forming the News-Register on February 12, 1953. They published that newspaper six days a week until 1958, then returned to twice-weekly. On August 22, 1959 KMCM was sold to Yamhill Radio Co. In 1976 it became a tri-weekly, a schedule continued today with deliveries Tuesday/Thursday afternoon and Saturday morning.1

Family leadership

Lars Bladine was publisher of The Telephone-Register until his death in 1941. Under his leadership, and with Jack Bladine as editor, the paper was named Oregon's best weekly in 1931 and 1935, and was named the nation's best weekly newspaper in 1939.
Jack followed his father as publisher. Phil became editor, and became publisher in 1957 following his brother's death. In 2001, Phil was inducted into the Oregon Newspaper Publisher Association's Hall of Fame.
Phil's son, Jeb Bladine, became editor in 1974 and assumed the role of publisher in 1991. Like his father, uncle and grandfather, he has served as president of ONPA. The News-Register was named Oregon's best community newspaper in its category for 2000, and in 2003 won its fifth consecutive "Sweepstakes Award" from ONPA as the state's most honored non-daily newspaper.1
Members of the company board of directors, all stockholders, include Phil and Meg Bladine, Jeb and Michelle Bladine, Pam Bladine of San Angelo, TX, and Chelsey B. Nichol of McMinnville.

Internet connections

The company helped create McMinnville's largest Internet access provider, McMinnville Access Company, dba OnlineNW. Today, as an independent company, OnlineNW leases a portion of the O'Dell Building from the News-Register and maintains an operational partnership with the newspaper. OnlineNW provides Internet access; web site design services; business telephone systems; and through a partnership with Integra Telecom of Beaverton, local and long-distance business telephone services. The newspaper also helped launch Oregon Interactive Corporation, a company that provides Internet services to newspapers throughout Oregon and beyond.

External links

★ The ''News-Register''