Area newspapers merging

(Photo by Kris Todd) Ed and William "Will" Robinson will serve as co-publishers and co-editors of the newly-merged Sentinel-News newspaper. [Order this photo]

The two weekly newspapers are merging.

According to Ed Robinson, who will serve as co-publisher and co-editor of the newly-merged newspaper along with his son, William "Will" Robinson, talk of a possible merge began over one year ago.

"We needed to do it because of economic times. We can save some money," the former publisher and editor of The Hartley Sentinel and publisher of The Everly-Royal News said of the newspaper merger. "We're going to try to make it an area newspaper. We will have news from Everly, Royal, Hartley and all the surrounding area."

The Hartley Sentinel became a four-generation family-owned operation in 1937 with the late Reuben "Rube" Vezina. Bill and the late Doris Vezina took over the reins before handing them to Ed and the late Billie Robinson, who bought The Everly-Royal News in 1981. Their son Will, the newspaper's fourth generation, joined the family operation in 1988 and took over as editor of the Everly newspaper in 1995.

The Robinsons have owned and operated both newspapers under The Hartley Sentinel Inc. banner,

"We haven't had any staff in Everly for a long time," Ed Robinson explained. "We closed that down. With e-mails, faxes and telephones, we run the whole operation out of the Hartley office."

"We had separate operations," he continued. "But now, because of economics, printing costs and postage costs, it just made it feasible to combine the two and make it one larger newspaper."

The father-son team intend to continue covering O'Brien and Clay County news.