Meisners purchase Yale and Drumright newspapers

Barbara Vice has announced the sale of the two newspapers she has owned and operated in Payne and Creek Counties for the last few decades.

Vice closed on the sale of the Drumright Gusher and Yale News newspapers to J. D. and MaryLee Meisner, owners of the Cushing Citizen, effective Sat., Aug. 1, 2020.

“We are excited to become a part of the Drumright and Yale communities,” said J. D. Meisner. “When we heard that Barbara was considering stepping out of the newspaper business after so many years, we felt a calling to step in. It just made sense to us to make this decision.”

Vice said that the primary goal in the sale of the papers was to ensure they continue to operate.

“I knew if these small community newspapers were to stay open and stay local, the best hope for that happening was to consolidate them under the umbrella of a larger, existing company with experience and infrastructure already in place,” she said. “I felt like J. D. and MaryLee, being right there in Cushing, was the clearest, best choice to move both the Gusher and the Yale News forward.”

J. D., who has extensive experience in the community newspaper business, started as a cub reporter at The Cibola County Beacon, a twice-weekly newspaper in Grants, New Mexico, in 1991. He became managing editor of the Beacon in 1992, and remained there until 2002, when he took a hiatus from journalism and entered the world of marketing and public relations.

J. D. and his family moved to Oklahoma in 2006 where he first worked as associate editor at the Tulsa Business Journal, then became editor at the Lincoln County News in Chandler, and was managing editor of the Bristow News, before coming to the Citizen in January of 2019.

One year later, J. D. and his wife, MaryLee, purchased the Citizen from David and Myra Reid.

MaryLee continues to teach school and will work at the papers during the summer months.

Their daughter, Allie, will be coming onboard to handle news gathering and operational duties for the Yale and Drumright properties.

“I hope the Drumright and Yale communities will work closely with the Meisner family to keep these newspapers vibrant and full of useful content,” said Vice. “I can’t emphasize enough the importance of advertising and subscriptions to make that happen.”

What’s next for Vice?

“I’m looking forward to being a subscriber and to submitting a column now and then, but mostly to no more weekly deadlines,” she said.