Garner purchases Ringgold County newspapers
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Ken Garner, of Maryville, MO, has purchased Paragon Publications, Inc., which includes the Mount Ayr Record News and the Diagonal Progress from Tom and Tami Hawley effective August 5.
The deal has been finalized and the handover to Garner officially took place on Tuesday.
The purchase by Garner continues an improbable streak of local ownership and all of the staff are being retained, minus Tom Hawley, who is retiring.
The Record News is the oldest continuous business in Ringgold County, tracing its roots back to 1863. It has had only five owners including Garner.
Since purchasing the Record News in 2012 and the Diagonal Progress a few years later, Tom has served as publisher of the newspapers and remained actively involved in all day-to-day operations. Hawley maintained the two newspapers’ public standing and its products, while continuing to employ local staff in a time when many local publications operate without any reporters at all.
As he retires from the newspaper industry, Tom was committed to finding someone to continue the newspapers’ legacy.
“We came to Mount Ayr in 2012 looking for a great newspaper in a great community, and we certainly found it here,” said Hawley. “We will be forever thankful for the great employees we’ve had the pleasure of working with as well as the amazing support of local readers and advertisers.”
Hawley said they plan to continue to live in Mount Ayr and enjoy their place in the Lake of the Ozarks. They also will spend time with their 13 grandchildren.
“After 45 years of deadlines, we were ready to slow down,” Hawley said.
They wanted to sell this valuable community resource to someone who would continue its legacy of excellence.
“We had opportunities to sell to newspaper groups, but wanted someone who would be “hands on”, and we think we found that in Ken,” said Hawley.
Garner commended the Hawleys for keeping journalism thriving in Ringgold County, and said he’s excited to pick up where they left off.
“Tom’s commitment to local news throughout his entire career, but especially here in Ringgold County, are beyond commendable,” Garner stated. “When many local newspapers are closing their doors, Tom seemingly double downed and continued printing thriving newspapers. From a weekly reader of the newspapers you can tell how much Tom and the rest of the staff care about their community.”
Originally from Bethesda, Maryland, Garner moved around as a child of a military family as his father served in the Navy. One constant no matter where he lived growing up or as an adult was his love of newspapers, starting when he was a young boy in Manassas, Virginia, where he got his first job in the industry — as a paperboy.
That interest in journalism never left him, throughout his own military career where he served nearly seven years in the U.S. Marine Corps. After serving his country, Garner went to and graduated from Northwest Missouri State University in Maryville. Upon graduation, he began working at the then Maryville Daily Forum. Although he loved journalism and newspapers, his sense of public service had not waned and he left the industry to become a police officer in Maryville and served that community for nearly 12 years. Following his law enforcement career he worked for his wife’s family’s construction business until he was approached by the then owner of the Maryville Forum during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic with an opportunity to get back into the newspaper business.
It was one that Garner jumped at.
“People said that I was a little crazy to buy a newspaper, much less to do so during the pandemic,” he said. “However, my love for and belief in local newspapers trumped any real concerns.
When Hawley began considering retirement in 2024, he reached out to Garner to gauge his interest in purchasing the Ringgold County newspapers.
After a meeting between the two local newspapermen there was definitely interest from both parties to find a way to make a deal.
Now nearly a year later the ink is dry on the contract transferring ownership.
“After meeting with Tom and the staff I could tell right away that these newspapers are special and are something that I wanted to be a part of,” Garner said.
Although newspapers across the country, especially those owned by large corporations, are struggling to keep their doors open, Garner said he is excited about the Mount Ayr and Diagonal newspapers continued success.
“I’ve had many different people say, ‘What on earth are you doing that for?’” Garner said. “Well, Ringgold County is unique, as these papers are not necessarily struggling like larger newspapers across the country are. We are vital to this community. We need this community, and the community needs us.”
That is an attitude that Garner said he intends to carry forward into the future.
“Those are the things that keep me excited about this industry,” Garner said. “It’s important for the people here to have a voice that holds their government, and businesses, and everything else not just accountable, but provide the reader with factual information — not getting their news off of social media even though we do use social media engines to get our information out there. But it’s important that the information is factual and … it’s engaging, and that the people can trust us.”
National news, Garner said, is at readers’ fingertips wherever they go and from a multitude of voices, for better and worse. Engagement at the local level is often different, and sometimes requires potential readers to make more of an effort to seek it out instead of relying on the unsubstantiated rumors that frequently dominate social media feeds. A commitment to facts and accuracy is what sets a local newspaper apart from local gossip.
“We don’t engage in rumors,” Garner said.
Instead, he hopes to instill a daily philosophy of improving on the existing products and finding ways to better engage community members with what’s happening in their community.
“What can we do today? How can we be better today?” Garner remarks. “And that is one of the things that I hope people remember, is that (we) will always try to get better, to do more, find different ways to present the news, and sports, and advertising — the total package — to people, and get them engaged.”
As publisher and owner, Garner said his door is always open, and he encourages anyone to come and talk with him and start — or continue — a conversation.
“I want people to realize that although I’m the owner and publisher, I’m just the holder of a civic trust — that’s what I see my role as,” Garner said. “The newspaper is the people’s voice. We’re here to inform the people about what’s going on, so I want people to be able to feel that they can interact with us.”
“I love talking to people, I love meeting people. And all of us here love to tell people’s stories. Give me ideas — I’m open to ideas, suggestions. It doesn’t necessarily mean we’re going to use them, but I’d love to hear what you, the reader, want to see from your newspaper.”
