After 18 years at the helm of The Columbus Packet newspaper, Roger Larsen is turning the business over to local investors Justin Shelton and Colin Kreiger, he announced in the Packet this morning.
“They”re going to bring energy and innovation to it,” Larsen said of the businessmen. “The media landscape is changing rapidly, and they”re going to be able to keep up with it.”
“Our main goal is to preserve the trust Roger has built with the people of this community,” Kreiger said in the Packet.
Shelton is an entrepreneur and Lowndes County native, according to the Packet, while Kreiger, who will be the “hands-on” editor and manager, is a New Orleans native, who has managed Papa John”s pizza franchises in Columbus and Oxford.
Larsen, 61, has lived in Columbus for 35 years and started the weekly newspaper in 1991 after The Commercial Dispatch refused to run his letters to the editor, he said.
Larsen imagined didn”t imagine he”d be in the newspaper business this long, but “one thing leads to the next.”
“I”ve been doing it a long time and need more rest,” he said. “These are young guys (in their 30s) and they”re gonna grow the paper. … I think they”ll get involved and make it a lot more than I did.”
The change in ownership is effective immediately, said Larsen, noting final paperwork was signed Wednesday. Larsen plans to work for the paper full in the coming months and then will continue to contribute to the publication.
“I have a lot of other interests, and I have plenty to do,” he said, declining to elaborate on his post-Packet plans.
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