Published in the Mason County Democrat on Aug. 28, 2024

1ST OF A 3 PART SERIES

New Owners

In case you missed the August 7th edition, there are new owners of the Mason County Democrat. We are Jim and Carson Harris of Mason City; although new to this business, we are not new to the area. We both have been in Mason County our entire lives; Jim grew up in Havana, leaving in 1990 for Mason City, while Carson has been a lifelong resident of Mason City. We have two grown children, Cody and Cole, who also reside in Mason City.

Family

Jim and his brother Russ operate Mason County Transfer, a trucking company founded by our parents, Dan and Pat Harris, in 1985. After Dan's passing in 2011, Russ and Jim have been behind the wheel, steering the company with our mom, Pat, and Carson in the office, with Cody and Cole assisting with the shop and driving duties. The newspaper business is familiar to the family as Russ and his wife Angela own and operate 1867 Publications (The Banner Times).

The Martins

The Mason County Democrat and its sister paper, The Fulton Democrat, along with Havana Printing, have been owned and operated by Bob and Wendy Martin since 1973 and have been in Bob's family for nearly 170 years.

Bob and Wendy, wanting to retire, reached out to Russ and Angela for possible consideration. With full knowledge of the time and commitment involved in such an endeavor, Russ and Angela asked us to sit in on some meetings for possible help if a purchase was negotiated. After careful consideration, they passed on the possibility of taking over the oldest established business in Mason County. Knowing full well that someday soon, the Martins would be faced with choosing a date to close the doors so they could try and enjoy the retirement years that they have worked so hard for, we decided to keep up talks ourselves with The Martins to keep the historic papers open.

Decisions

After many months of talking and learning about these historic papers' history, we felt that going beyond our comfort zone was more critical than ever. With the aid of the Martins and the excellent staff already on hand, the decision was made to purchase, Jim and Carson Harris which became effective on August 1st. We are almost a month in, and as expected, it's been a whirlwind of work. We are comforted by our new staff, as they are always willing to help, and the unprecedented institutional knowledge we have in Wendy and Bob as they guide us through the transition.

As we embarked on this journey, we knew the importance of the papers but never realized just how important it meant to all the communities. The support we have been shown has been overwhelming from each community we have been through.

Hitting the ground running, we have had the opportunity to meet many of our faithful advertisers and readers, hopefully building the trust and friendships that they have enjoyed with the Martins all these years.

With the festival season approaching, we plan on being in your community, celebrating with you, and reporting all your community's exciting festivities. If you see us, please don't hesitate to stop us and introduce yourselves, we look forward to meeting you.

Over the next several weeks, we will be bringing you more information about us, our decisions to take on such a project, and how we plan to operate the papers in the future.

Until next week

Jim and Carson Harris