High-quality Texas weekly quitting a week early: 'We have done what could be done . . . there seems little more to say'

Wikipedia map, adapted

When Laurie Ezzell Brown announced last week that she would publish only two more editions of The Canadian Record, one of the nation's best weekly newspapers, she did it in the middle of the third column of a three-column opinion piece and acknowledged that she had buried the lede, as her newspaper friends had accused her of doing recently. This week, she did it again, annnouncing in the second half of her column that it was her last:

We have decided to suspend publication with this issue, a week earlier than we had announced, having felt we have done what could be done, and that there seems little more to say. As we promised, we will continue to search for someone worthy of carrying on this 75-year Ezzell family legacy, and hope you will help us.

Tonight, I will wonder what my parents would think of the job we’ve done, the changes we’ve made, and this final, difficult decision that really made itself. Deep in my heart, though, I believe we have done the job given us to do, and have honored them in word and deed.

We leave with these words, written by Annie Proulx in her Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, The Shipping News: 'A paper has a life of its own, an existence beyond earthly owners.' May it be so. And for my newspaper friends . . . 

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Laurie Ezzell Brown

The Record continues to post on its Facebook page, but a weekly paper can miss only two weeks of print publication before it loses its postal permit. Laurie once thought she had a sale, but the buyer couldn't find anyone to move to Canadian to run the paper. Last month, she was ready to sell until the buyer jerked her around and she said no. She, the Record and the 3,400 residents of Hemphill County deserve so much better. This is an opportunity for a young person to buy at little cost a newspaper that makes enough money for a living, and one that has a tremendous legacy on which to build. Few jobs can be more rewarding.  –Al Cross, director and professor, Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, University of Kentucky