Larry Persily (Photo courtesy of Mr. Persily)

Larry Persily is buying the Skagway News from current owner Chris Sorg. According to the paper, Sorg is leaving the paper to take care of health issues.

This won’t be the first time Persily has run a newspaper in Southeast Alaska. He and his late wife moved to the state from Chicago when they bought the Wrangell newspaper in the late 1970s. After about 25 years of journalism jobs he transitioned to public policy work.

“After covering the legislature for so many years I was getting frustrated,” Persily said. “I thought if reporting on it isn’t making it better, maybe I can try getting involved inside to make it better.”

So he worked for the State Department of Revenue, as an investigator for the ombudsman’s office, and as Chief of Staff for Kenai Peninsula Borough. He’s also worked for several governor’s offices and as a legislative staffer in Kotzebue. He says he missed journalism after a couple of decades in government and public policy. Persily lives in Anchorage and has an apartment in Juneau. So why Skagway?

“Because Skagway [News] is for sale… And I could afford it,” he said with a laugh.

He also has friends and community in Southeast after his years in Wrangell. Haines residents may remember Persily managed the Chilkat Valley News for a few weeks last summer while owner Kyle Clayton was commercial fishing. He’s been helping out at a number of Alaska papers as part of a transition back into journalism. He calls it quasi-retirement and says Skagway residents can look forward to a fatter paper.

“We need more pages, more news, more content in there,” Persily said. “So people have more reason to look forward to it, to advertise in it. Definitely my immediate plan is to add more pages and more news.”

Persily was in Skagway this week to meet with newspaper staff. He will officially take over the first of April.