We were deeply saddened last year by the deaths of three individuals whose contributions to Media General’s growth and success are truly immeasurable.

Jim Evans, retired president and chief executive officer, died in May. He was 77. Jim’s career with the Company was marked particularly by his broad expertise in newsprint manufacturing and in the construction of major new facilities.

In October, Alan Donnahoe died at age 82. Alan joined the Company in 1950 and was an integral part of the founding of Media General and served as its first chief executive officer from 1966 to 1985.

David Tennant Bryan died on December 9 at age 92. He directed Media General’s growth from a holding company for newspaper publishing into the diversified media firm that it is today. He had a deep and abiding belief in the special role newspapers had to play in our society. In a speech in 1958, when he was president of the American Newspaper Publishers Association, Tennant Bryan said:

“Newspapers are ministers of the constitutional right of the public to know what their government is doing. Our ability to do the job is threatened by an increasing tendency toward secrecy at all levels of government and we must persistently combat that tendency if we are to be the diligent trustees of the people’s right to know.”

We shall miss the wise counsel and advice of these three colleagues, but we shall rejoice in their examples.