A memorial service next Thursday (January 14) will celebrate the life of Chris McPherson, joint managing director of Shepparton News publisher MacPherson Media.
The service at St Augustine's Anglican Church in Shepparton will be followed by refreshments at the newspaper office.
McPherson, who died on December 22 following a long struggle with prostrate cancer, was a member of the family which famously "bought back the farm", seizing the opportunity to re-acquire control of the Victorian country newspaper from the then publisher of The Age.
A director of McPherson Media Group, he was a former president and long-serving board member of PANPA (now merged into The Newspaper Works), and a life member of the Victorian Country Press Association and the Country Press Australia.
He joined the family newspaper from school and worked in its composing, printing and advertising departments. With brothers Ross and Paul, he built the Shepparton News into a regional media group publishing multiple titles and with interests in web design, as an ISP and telephone reseller.
Having sold an interest in the company to The Age in the 1960s and seen it grow to 47 per cent, the family bought out its shareholder - by then Fairfax Media - in 1998.
In a 2008 interview with columnist and former publisher Mark Day, the brothers recalled that the last time they had through about selling out was when Fairfax paid $155 million for the Albury Border Mail, a price described as "insane" but rejected because "we were having too much fun".
After being diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2007, he launched 'Biggest Ever Blokes Lunches', helping raise more than $2 million for research and was named National Volunteer of the Year in 2015.
Aged 61, he died at the Epworth Freemasons Hospital in Melbourne. He is survived by his wife Gaye, son James (married to Megan, with son Oliver) and daughter Elizabeth (husband, Alex).