Tryon Newsmedia, LLC, an affiliate of Boone Newspapers, Inc., with offices in Tuscaloosa, Ala., and Natchez, Miss., completed its purchase of the Tryon Daily Bulletin, Appointments, a monthly equestrian publication,&bsp; and related products from the Byrd family on Thursday.

Agreement in general for the sale was announced this summer, and final details were worked out in recent weeks.

The sale ends more than two decades of operation by the Byrd family. Helen and Jeff Byrd purchased the Tryon Daily Bulletin in 1989 from Seth M. Vining Jr., son of the newspapers founder, at the time of Vinings retirement. The Bulletin, a unique treasure, unlike any other newspaper anywhere, is a gift to this community from the Vining family. It has been our privilege to keep its traditions alive, a challenge which largely required deftly stepping aside to allow the TDBs organic quirkiness to thrive unhindered. Jeff Byrd said. The Tryon Daily Bulletin will be even stronger with Boone Newspapers Inc., fine publishers of small market newspapers. The principals, Todd Carpenter and Tim Prince, understand the TDB, this community and this industry at this time. We wish them all success.

Byrd is succeeded as publisher of the Tryon Daily Bulletin by Betty Ramsey, general manager of The Tidewater News in Franklin, Va., which is also owned by Boone Newspapers, Inc. Ramsey, as president and with an ownership interest in Tryon Newsmedia, LLC, will be responsible for the companys operations, consisting of the Tryon Daily Bulletin, Appointments, a monthly equestrian publication, and the operations online products.

Majority owners of the newly formed company are Boone Newspapers Inc. (BNI) and BNIs president and chief operating officer, Todd H. Carpenter of Natchez, Miss., Tim Prince of Columbiana, Al., publisher of two BNI-owned Alabama newspapers and group manager, Ramsey and BNI key personnel hold minority ownership.

Boone Newspapers owns and manages 38 newspapers in similar-sized communities in North Carolina, Virginia, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Minnesota, Ohio and Michigan. Operations near Tryon include The Washington (N.C.) Daily News, The Roanoke-Chowan Herald (Ahoskie, N.C.), The Gates County (N.C.) Index, The Suffolk (Va.) News-Herald and The (Franklin, Va.) Tidewater News. James B. Boone Jr., of Tuscaloosa, Ala., is BNIs chairman and chief executive officer.

BNI has a rich history of quality newspapers and other publications in the communities it serves, explained in part by Boones corporate philosophy: We seek to produce the highest quality product the economics of the community served can support. And then, by ingenuity and imagination, we strive for a higher quality in an effort to serve and build that community.

Carpenter said he is deeply appreciative of the confidence Jeff Byrd and his family have placed in us as their successors, and we will work hard to merit that confidence.

Carpenter added: We are pleased that Betty Ramsey has joined us as president and publisher. Her steady leadership and knowledge of community newspapers will be important to us during the transition and thereafter. We look forward to becoming a part of the community and will work hard to meet our every obligation to readers, customers, employees and all who have a stake in the community.