Grapevine Sun, weekly newspaper, shuts down this week

by Teresa Gubbins

GRAPEVINE — The Grapevine Sun, a weekly newspaper that covered the town of Grapevine, will cease publication, with the final issue coming out this Thursday, April 30.

The newspaper had been part of the Denton Publishing wing of A.H. Belo since 1992, but had been in existence for 114 years.

"We had a large farewell dinner last night out at Cross Timbers, it was very nice," said editor Les Cockrell, one of only three remaining staffers. He and General Manager Jenny Moore will transfer to the Denton Record Chronicle.

"Towards the end, it wasn't a large staff," he said. "It had been an ongoing process. It wasn't totally unexpected, we had known it was coming. But we were only able to announce it around the first of April. We wanted to get things taken of."

Current circulation was around 7,500 or so, Cockrell said.

"I don't know what the circulation was at the peak," he said. "You'd have to talk to somebody else about that. I only did the editorial part. I never was good with math anyway."

The paper was located right on Main Street in a nifty old building where it had resided since 1947.

The town still has the Grapevine Courier, another weekly newspaper that's delivered on Fridays to 24,000 homes in Grapevine and Colleyville. Courier executive editor Charles Young said that "everyone in Grapevine was pretty sad" about the demise of the Sun.

"I grew up here, it pre-dates everybody, it's the oldest paper in Tarrant County, so we don't feel a bit of joy," he said.

The Courier, which is owned by the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, is still doing OK, fortunately.

"We're certainly down compared to last year but business has been pretty good for us," Young said. "The recession does affect the weeklies, but probably less so than the dailies. In that respect, I think we’re OK."

Mike Orren contributed to this story; thanks to Terry Heaton for tip!