JUNEAU -- Alaska Travel Publications LLP has purchased The Skagway News.
The new owners, a subsidiary of PR Services of Whitehorse, Yukon, will become the official owner Friday, Skagway News Editor and Publisher Jeff Brady told the Juneau Empire.
Brady created the paper in 1978 when he was 21. After 37 years at the helm, he said he is taking his wife to Victoria, British Columbia, for the weekend to celebrate the sale.
The Skagway News was first listed for sale about five years ago, when Brady was looking to sell the paper and the bookstore housed in the same building. He has since decided to keep Skagway Book Co.
Skagway's two staff members will continue to work at the paper and the name will not change. Brady says a new page design for the May 15 edition and eventually an improved website are in the works. Brady will stay on as editor emeritus "for a year or so."
Skagway News publishes monthly in the winter and twice per month during peak tourism season. It has slightly fewer than 1,000 subscribers, grown from 200 during the initial subscription drive. Brady says local coverage has been the key to keeping readers.
"That's kind of been my mantra," he said. "We've been unabashedly local. That's what people want."