Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, August 26, 1995 TAG: 9508280027
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Short
``It was a fresh paper, and it was fun,'' recalled Sandra Rowe, the paper's top editor in the 1980s and now the editor of The Oregonian in Portland. ``Our reporters were young, they were smart, they were feisty as hell. They were real risk-takers.''
The Ledger-Star had served as an afternoon edition of The Virginian-Pilot daily for the past 18 months.
Plans to close the newspaper were announced last month by Frank Batten Jr., the paper's publisher.
The Ledger-Star's circulation had fallen to below 10,000. Its elimination did not require layoffs, since the two papers' news staffs were combined in 1982.
The papers are owned by Landmark Communications Inc., which owns The Roanoke Times.
For 119 years, The Ledger-Star chronicled southeast Virginia's major events, from visits by presidents and foreign heads of state to the building of the world's largest naval base.
For a time, The Public Ledger fought for readership in a region served by seven daily newspapers. In 1906, it became The Norfolk Ledger-Dispatch in a merger with The Norfolk Dispatch. It became The Ledger-Star in 1955 after the acquisition of The Portsmouth Star.
Landmark publishes seven daily and 31 nondaily newspapers. Among the company's other holdings are cable television's The Weather Channel.
by CNB