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Under the News-Record flag, the paper has continued
to be a window of the Valley, the state, the nation
and the world for more than eight decades.
A 1913 merger brought together the Harrisonburg Daily
News (the new name for The Evening News when it became
a morning paper) with the Rockingham Daily Record. The
first edition of the paper with its current nomenclature
(as the Harrisonburg Daily News-Record) was June 4,
1913.
The Daily News-Record was not the only newspaper in
town in 1913, but it was to be the only newspaper to
last. The merger that brought the Rockingham Daily Record
and the Harrisonburg Daily News together grew out of
a political battle between owners of those newspapers
and the Daily Times at a time when there was very little
confidence that the area could support three daily newspapers.
No longer paying its own way, the Times folded late
in 1912. That left the Record, the Harrisonburg Daily
News and the Rockingham Register, the weekly edition
of the Daily News, as the only newspapers in town. The
weekly Register, which was first published in 1822,
continued to be printed as a weekly edition of the Daily
News-Record until 1914.
The Daily News-Record remained the lone survivor from
the years of battling dailies in Harrisonburg.
In 1923, State Senator Harry Flood Byrd Sr and associates
bought the Daily News-Record.
In 1925, Byrd, manager and secretary of The Rockingham
Publishing Co., was elected Governor of Virginia.
Byrd served as publisher of the News-Record from 1923
until 1939, when his son, Harry F. Byrd Jr., took the
position. He served as publisher for over 60 years until
retirement in 2001. Byrd's son, Thomas T. Byrd, currently
serves as publisher.
The News-Record moved its operations from the Keezell
building on Newman Avenue and South Main Street, where
the Harrisonburg Daily News had been established, to
South Liberty Street in 1941.
Rockingham Publishing Co., Inc. purchased The Valley
Banner in Elkton in 1986.
Today, the News-Record publishes over 32,000 copies
a day for readers in four Virginia counties and three
counties in West Virginia. The total estimated readership
daily is more than 80,000 (based on the nationally-proven
formula of about 2.5 readers per issue).
Under the News-Record flag, the paper has continued
to be a window of the Valley, the state, the nation
and the world for more than eight decades.
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