Tuscaloosa News former publisher Boone passes away

The following excerpt was sent out from The Tuscaloosa News:

James Buford Boone Jr., who followed his father James Buford Boone Sr. into the newspaper business, and whose extended family has expanded into a country-wide publishing business, has died at 87.

The senior Boone hired Carpenter as a printer for a dollar a day, good money in 1959. The younger Boone was Carpenter’s friend and contemporary.

In 1968, Jim Boone purchased controlling interest in Tuscaloosa Newspapers Inc., taking over as publisher and president, with his father staying on as chairman of the board until retirement in 1974.

Jim Boone remained chairman of BNI until his passing, overseeing 91 newspapers, websites, magazines and shopping guides throughout Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Virginia, North Carolina, Ohio, Tennessee and Texas.

His youngest child, Catherine Boone Hadaway, is among those staying in the family business, as publisher of the Vicksburg (Miss.) Post, one of the papers owned by BNI. She also group-manages the Natchez Democrat and Brookhaven Daily Leader.