Mid-America Publishing announces merger of Record, Grundy Register

Effective December 2, 2015, the Conrad Record has merged with The Grundy Register. The paper will continue to be a Wednesday publication.
“We are excited to be able to provide the subscribers of the Record with a bigger, stronger newspaper,” said Ryan Harvey, President and CEO of Mid-America Publishing.
“Losing an identity in the community is never easy, however, we believe, after a lot of heavy consideration, that by merging the two papers into one, the positives far outweigh the negatives.”
One of the biggest positives, Harvey added, is the ability to serve the readers with one bigger and stronger publication. All subscriptions to The Record will continue as normal. For those who subscribed to both, the subscription will be extended for an equivalent amount of time.
“It’s our mission to provide the most in-depth coverage of Grundy County possible,” Harvey said. “By widening our breadth of coverage, we’ll be able to do just that. Our energies can be focused on the entire county for one publication rather than trying to produce two publications and making sure each one has unique news content. Plus, it allows readers to call one office to place an ad rather than trying to advertise in two.”
The Grundy Register will continue to be based in Grundy Center. “We believe this approach has served us well over the past several years,” Harvey said. “Our staffing levels will remain the same and our news room becomes even stronger as John Jensen and Rob Maharry will continue to provide the news coverage our readers expect.”
All Record employees were retained during the merger. Maharry has been assigned to The Grundy Center office as regional news editor while former Record administrative assistant and customer service representative Stephanie McManus has been re-assigned to Mid-America’s Eldora-based publications.
With this change, Mid-America Publishing, based in Hampton, has 21 weekly newspapers, eight weekly shoppers, a twice a month Hispanic publication, two advertising supplements, and two weekly political publications.