RUST COMMUNICATIONS BUYS PUBLICATION IN ARKANSAS

Rust Communications of Cape Girardeau has acquired the Holiday Island Regional News, a direct-mail distribution newspaper of 14,000 circulation in Carroll County, Ark.

The company already owned three weekly newspapers and a regional shopper in Carroll County -- the Eureka Springs Times-Echo, the Berryville Start-Progress, the Green Forest Tribune and the Ozark Mountain Trader -- and a monthly entertainment guide, The Flashlight. The company operates them as Carroll County Newspaper (CCN).

Jim Farley, CCN publisher, said the Holiday Island Regional News will cease publication, with news and advertising functions to be merged into the three paid weeklies and the shopper.

A full-service office will be maintained at Holiday Island to provide service to the area, said Farley.

"I am looking forward to the future expanded news coverage of the Holiday Island area, which will appear in the pages of the Eureka Spring Times-Echo," said Farley. He noted that advertisers will have several effective packages from which to choose with the other CCN publications.

Tom Dees, who founded the Holiday Island Regional News in 1996 and is also a residential and commercial real estate developer, will be working as a consultant with CCN. Although the Holiday Island publication focused on development of Holiday Island, it also featured coverage of news and events in a wide area of northwest Arkansas.

Farley, of the Siloam Springs, Ark., area, worked several years as advertising manager of the Northwest Arkansas Times at Fayetteville. He joined CCN earlier this year.

Rust Communications, a family-owned newspaper company, has daily and weekly newspapers in six states, including the daily Southeast Missourian in Cape Girardeau.