As a Nevada newspaperman, I carry on a long love affair with our state's broadsheets and tabloids. Count me as a pup among its statesmen, but I still have a few stories to tell.

While perusing the Jan. 4 issue of the Lincoln County Record, I was drawn to a story headlined, "Record Gets New Management" with the subhead "Simkins Retires After 27 Years at the Helm."

Tabbed a "press release" for reasons known only to the newspaper, the story said Connie Simkins was retiring to pursue other interests (Yucca Mountain related) and owner Cecilia Thompson and Publisher Raymond Thompson had hired a new management team.

The story said "one of Nevada's oldest continuously published newspapers" had changed management hands. And that is what drew my interest.

As a publisher in central Nevada beginning in 1975 and a co-owner of a group of weekly newspapers, the term "oldest continuously published" had always been important to me.

We published the Reese River Reveille for many years. The Austin weekly proudly carried "The Oldest Continuously Published Newspaper in Nevada" on its front-page flag throughout our ownership tenure. It came into being on May 16, 1863. This was a proud boast that no other Nevada newspaper could claim.

It also was important to our family because my father became assistant editor of the Reveille in 1962, became editor a few years later, then named himself general manager and his son publisher when our family bought the weekly in 1975.

But our family roots went much deeper. My grandfather, who was known as "Tickle" Roberts in Austin before moving to Tonopah, was a printer's devil who "hand-set" type on a hot-type stick for the publication around 1890. And his father, an Austin mining man, had more than a passing interest in the community's newspaper.

Our family sold the Reveille to a "shirttail" relative from Battle Mountain when he assured us that the weekly would continue in the Lander County seat. His best intentions met our financial realities, and in the latter part of the 20th century the Reveille died.

However, we continued to own the Eureka Sentinel until we sold our publications to Stephens Media -- which owns the Review-Journal -- in May 2004.

With that sale, the torch of "oldest continuously published" newspaper was passed. The Sentinel started on July 16, 1870, and, according to the best of record keeping, has continued publishing until today.

Once, when I made a flippant columnist's remark about the publishing lifeline, Ms. Simkins reminded me that the Eureka Sentinel breathed life only a few weeks before the Lincoln County Record started on Sept. 17, 1870. And thus the Record's recent front-page acknowledgement that it is "one" of Nevada's oldest.

Some would have you believe that other Nevada publications are older: But consider:

The Nevada State Journal had its beginning on Nov. 23, 1870. Its eventual sister publication, the Reno Evening Gazette, did not start until March 28, 1876. Though they continue today as a combined newspaper, the Lincoln County Record is older.

The Nevada Appeal in Carson City started on May 16, 1865, but as a GOP partisan publication, it was bought and suspended by Democrat owners in 1870, and the New Daily Appeal did not start until 1872.

The Elko Independent started in June 1869 but spent its last days as a weekly and eventually was woven into the Elko Daily Free Press, which started in 1883.

The Ely Daily Times, though venerable and continuing today, started in 1920.

"Nevada's Largest Newspaper," as properly proclaimed on the front of this newspaper, grew out of a combination of the Las Vegas Review (begun in 1909) and the Las Vegas Journal (a weekly begun in 1929) when they were combined under the ownership of Frank E. Garside, one of many noted Nevada publishers, editors, owners and reporters who got their start in the rural mining camps of the Silver State.

A variety of sources were consulted for these biographical details. Many were gleaned from "The Newspapers of Nevada" by Richard E. Lingenfelter and Karen Rix Gash. and "Nevada's Newspapers: A Biography" by John Gregg Folkes.

Much of it could have been taken from vivid memories burned into my brain from conversations with esteemed Nevada newsmen such as Paul Gardner, Chris Sheerin, Thomas C. Wilson, Ty Cobb, Gerald Roberts, Jack McCloskey, Walter Cox, Bob Sanford and Bryn Armstrong.

Best wishes to the new management of the Lincoln County Record, Morris Workman and his staff.

Bill Roberts is a veteran journalist in Tonopah. His column appears every other Wednesday. Contact him at broberts@reviewjournal.com.