Spur newspaper owners acquire Post, Knox weeklies

The Post Dispatch, the weekly newspaper serving Garza County and its county seat of Post, southeast of Lubbock, and the Knox County News-Courier, serving the county seat of Benjamin and other cities including Knox City and Munday, are under new ownership beginning with the first issue of August 2023.

Paragraph Ranch LLC, a media company based in Spur (Dickens County), has purchased both publications from Lufkin-based Hicks Media LLC. The Paragraph Ranch group currently publishes three other award-winning weeklies, The Texas Spur (Spur), The Caprock Courier (Silverton) and The Floyd County Hesperian-Beacon (Floydada).

“We are pleased and honored to continue the tradition of community coverage in West Texas with the Post Dispatch,” said Kay Ellington, CEO of Paragraph Ranch LLC. “We look forward to serving new readers and renewing long-standing relationships in the region.”

Together the five newspapers cover news in 10 contiguous counties of West Texas, reaching approximately 9,000 square miles of area and a market population of over 24,000. The group will constitute the largest media footprint between the larger cities of Lubbock, Abilene and Wichita Falls, with a social media following of some 20,000 on Facebook and other platforms.

“The addition of Post and Knox’s long-established weekly newspapers to our group brings together a powerful voice in rural Texas, especially in agriculture and local retail,” said Ellington, a West Texas native.

Ellington, who brings to the job four decades of experience with local newspapers and national media firms, including the New York Times Group and Gannett Newspapers, has been publisher of The Texas Spur since 2018. In 2015 she was founding editor and publisher of Lone Star Literary Life, a weekly online news about Texas books, authors, and literary events.

Barbara Brannon, who retired in 2019 as executive director of the Texas Plains Trail Region heritage tourism organization of the Texas Historical Commission, currently serves as editor of the Texas Spur and serves as associate publisher of the group. Formerly marketing manager of Texas Tech University Press, Brannon has worked in publishing and communications for four decades.

“I’m excited to join with The Texas Spur, and I think it will be an asset to our community to have ownership of the Post Dispatch,” said Julia Childs, Dispatch editor. Vonda Carter, editor of the Knox County paper, also expressed enthusiasm for the future of the combined group, which will begin offering regional advertising packages with attractive discounts.

The Post Dispatch was founded in the early 20th century as the Post City Post and in 1926 reorganized as The Post Dispatch, similar to the hyphenated name of the famous Pulitzer-founded daily newspaper in St. Louis, Missouri.