You’d think Abbeville, Louisiana – where the local Meridional has just been acquired by a bigger neighbour – was just another small, sleepy town in what has been described as a down-on-its-luck part of the Gulf state.
Not any more with Elon Musk’s announcement of a $US100 billion ($149 billion) launch facility. Details are just emerging of the SpaceX deal, trumpeted on the paper’s front-page, where the plan is to have rockets soaring into space by 2029 from what is reported to be swampy wasteland.
All of which may change things for Paxton Media, which this month announced it had bought the Abbeville Meridional, 13 other community papers and a printing plant in Eunice, in a deal bringing together two longstanding, family-owned newspaper companies
Serving the state’s the Acadiana region, Louisiana State Newspapers – formally LSN Publishing Company – traces its roots to 1963, when Braxton ‘B.I.’ Moody III acquired the Rayne Acadian-Tribune and Church Point News. Over more than six decades, the company grew to become Louisiana’s largest newspaper chain by publication count owning 33 newspapers at one point.
Established in 2001 as the company’s production division Louisiana State Printing, located in Eunice, prints the company’s 14 publications as well as more than a dozen publications for other publishers throughout the region.
The acquisition expands Paxton Media’s presence in Louisiana, where it owns the Daily Star in Hammond. Paxton, based in Paducah, Kentucky, is a family-owned media company founded in 1896, and led by fifth-generation Jamie Paxton. It publishes more than 120 community newspapers across Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia. The company also operates WPSD-TV, an NBC-affiliated television station in Paducah.
Included in the acquisition are the Abbeville Meridional, Kaplan Herald, Eunice News, Church Point News, Ville Platte Gazette, Basile Weekly, Kinder Courier, Oakdale Journal, Morgan City Review, Franklin Banner-Tribune, Bayou Pioneer (Pierre Part), Rayne Acadian-Tribune, Crowley Post-Signal, and The Teche News (serving St. Martin Parish). Dirks, Van Essen & April represented Louisiana State Newspapers in the transaction, terms of which were not disclosed.
Pictured: Louisiana Life struts the “shady green square anchored by the beautiful St. Mary Magdalen Church” around which the town of Abbeville gathers