
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, November 25, 1995                   TAG: 9511270022
SECTION: CURRENT                    PAGE: NRV-7   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE: PULASKI                                LENGTH: Short

PULASKI COUNCIL BIDS FAREWELL TO EX-PUBLISHER

W.R. "Billy" Smith, the former publisher of the Southwest Times, is leaving the community for Dyersburg, Tenn., where he will be in charge of another newspaper, the Dyersburg State Gazette.

Pulaski Town Council said its formal farewell to Smith this week with a resolution commending him for his civic activities while he was publisher of the local newspaper.

Smith had been publisher of the Southwest Times for 15 years, until earlier this month when the paper was purchased from New River Newspapers by Fackelman Newspapers of Florida. The deal included an agreement for Fackelman to manage its sister publications, the Christiansburg News Messenger and Radford News Journal.

As part of that agreement, Smith was transferred to the other two papers as their publisher. But he chose instead to accept the offer to head the Dyersburg paper, where his daughter works. Smith had also served as publisher of that same paper from 1971 until 1980 when he came to Pulaski.

In his time in Pulaski, Smith had been chosen as Pulaski's Business Executive of the Year in 1991, had been president of the Pulaski County Chamber of Commerce and was serving on its board.

by CNB