The Santa Maria Times is a daily American newspaper on California's Central Coast serving the cities of Santa Maria ; Orcutt ; Guadalupe ; Nipomo ; unincorporated parts of northern Santa Barbara County and southern San Luis Obispo County . It is published Tuesday through Saturday, and is part of Santa Maria California News Media Inc., which also publishes the Lompoc Record and Santa Ynez Valley News , among other newspapers.
6-624: The Santa Maria Times was established in April 1882. In 1918, the paper became a daily. Owner E.L. Petersen sold the paper in 1938 to Robert and Stanworth Hancock, who in turn sold the paper to Kansas-based Stauffer Communications in 1948. In 1947 the paper bought up the Santa Maria Vidette , Guadalupe Gazette , and Santa Maria Courier , and later the Santa Maria Advertiser Burl Hagagone bought
12-673: A group of Canadian newspaper executives. Terri Leifeste became Vice President/Group Publisher. In April 2022, the Santa Maria Times celebrated its 140th anniversary. Stauffer Communications Stauffer Communications was a privately held media corporation based in Topeka, Kansas , that owned many publications and broadcast outlets, including the Topeka Capital-Journal and WIBW , WIBW-FM , and WIBW-TV . The company operated from 1930 to 1995. The company
18-481: The 805?", and in 2019 received a President's Award honorable mention by parent company Lee Enterprises for the newspaper’s in-depth series "Wildfire County: Planning for the next big blaze". In November 2019, Davis Taylor became Regional Publisher Marga K. Cooley has been the Managing Editor since 2013. In March 2020, the paper was sold to Santa Maria California News Media Inc. a newly formed company led by
24-455: The company in 1992. In 1994, the company arranged to sell its properties to Morris Communications of Augusta, Georgia . The transaction was completed in 1995 for $ 275 million. At the time of its sale, Stauffer's multi-state operations included 20 daily newspapers, 11 radio stations, 3 magazines, and the broadcast rights to Kansas City Royals baseball. As a condition of the sale, Morris had to sell Stauffer's television holdings. Most of
30-510: The paper in 1958. The paper had been owned by Pulitzer, Inc. at the time of the company's acquisition by Lee Enterprises in 2005. In 2016, the Santa Maria Times won first place in the General Excellence category in its division of California's Better Newspapers Contest. In 2018, the Santa Maria Times received First Place CNPA Online General Excellence and received a 2018 Lee President's Award for its yearlong series "Green Rush in
36-642: Was founded by Oscar S. Stauffer in 1930 as Stauffer Publications. Oscar Stauffer had started a journalism career at the Emporia Gazette and Kansas City Star , and in 1915 had become the publisher of the Peabody Gazette-Herald in Peabody, Kansas , until 1922. When Stauffer died at age 95 in 1982 the company had grown to include 31 newspapers and broadcast companies in 11 states. Oscar Stauffer's son John H. Stauffer became head of
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