Welcome. I’d like to introduce you to our family of weekly newspapers — The News-Sun, Perry County Times and Duncannon Record published since April of 2000 by Advance Publications of Perry and Juniata Counties Inc.

We are the newspapers of record for Perry County, Pennsylvania, a rural county of 45,000 people situated mostly in mountain valleys to the west of the Susquehanna River and to the north and west of the state’s capital, Harrisburg.

Working roughly from west to east, the communities served by the newspapers include New Germantown, Blain, Loysville, Landisburg, Ickesburg, Green Park, Elliottsburg, New Bloomfield, Shermans Dale, Newport, Millerstown, Liverpool, Duncannon and Marysville. These are just a few of the place names in Perry County, which also include smaller communities such as Andersonburg, Markelsville, Kistler, Eshcol, Meck’s Corner, Dromgold Corner, Wila, Mannsville, Donnelly Mills ... the list goes on and on.

Agriculture is the principal industry of Perry County, but it has prospered recently as a bedroom community for people who want to enjoy country living and the convenience of employment opportunities close by in Dauphin and Cumberland counties which lie to the east and south, respectively.

The Perry County newspapers, with a combined circulation of 11,400, have an editorial staff of six including Wade Fowler, editor; Gary Thomas, managing editor; John Alvanitakis, sports editor; Richard Steffy, editorial page editor; and Tammie Gitt, web master and production supervisor. Other notable staff include, Rick White, publisher, Lena Waltimyer, circulation manager; George Roche, advertising director; and Gale Shelley, bookkeeper.

Samuel Newhouse III is company president.

We are the descendants of a rich heritage of newspapering that goes all the way back to July 12, 1820, when the first edition of the Perry Forester appeared. If you were to plot our family tree, you’d find among our ancestors, papers such as Perry County Democrat, established 1836; Newport News, 1868; Liverpool Sun, 1881; Marysville Journal, 1897.

The Newport News and Liverpool Sun, became The News-Sun, now in its 135th year.

The Perry County Times, established in 1865, absorbed the Perry County Democrat; the Duncannon Record, established in 1873, absorbed the Marysville Journal.

Perry County also has been home at various times to newspapers such as the People’s Advocate and Press, established 1853; Perry County Freeman, 1839; and the Newport Ledger, 1875.

The People’s Advocate and Press espoused a Republican point of view, while the Democrat’s sensibilities were obvious in its name. Perry County Freeman was started from “slavery agitation,” according to H.H. Hain, author of History of Perry County Pennsylvania and longtime editor of the Duncannon Record.

The Perry County Times, on the other hand, was started by a New Bloomfield merchant, mostly as an advertising vehicle, but soon grew and became popular because it began emphasizing local news, Hain said.

Which brings us back to the present emphasis of the newspapers. In modern times, the Perry County Times and Duncannon Record, for years were ably published by Richard Swank, who sold the newspapers to Robert H. Fowler back in 1984. Fowler soon acquired The News-Sun and later the Juniata Sentinel in Mifflintown, operating them as Swank-Fowler Publications Inc. until April of 2000, when they were sold to Advance Publications of Perry and Juniata County Inc.

Under the new owners, the newspapers have prospered and continue to command the marketplace as the best source of local news for the 45,000 residents of Perry County, whose rural atmosphere is epitomized herein:

Perry County doesn’t have a traffic light. No other Pennsylvania county can make that claim.

— Wade Fowler
editor Feb. 14, 2002.