The Twin-City News

Twin City News

We’d like to give you a little history on how we got to the present day. In the early 1920s, our great grandfather, William Wentz Bruner and his family came to Batesburg from Wilkes County, GA looking to purchase a local newspaper. However, this wasn’t on a whim because W.W. Bruner owned half interest of, “The New Reporter” out of Washington, GA. Since the newspaper business was what he knew, he pursued and seized the opportunity to buy a local paper in Batesburg called, “The Summerland Headlight.” Then, a short two weeks later, in 1925, this publication was transformed into what we now know as, “The Twin-City News.” In the beginning, the paper was published in a building across the street from our present location. Our family didn’t occupy or purchase it until about 1928. For nearly seven decades, Douglas (William Wentz’s son) and Sara Bruner, lived and breathed their work. They even lived in the same building as their business for about 7 years along the way. In the mid-2000s, Doug Bruner Jr. came out of retirement after his father, Doug Bruner Sr., passed away and his mother, Sara’s, health began to deteriorate. Unsure of what was ahead, he worked to help preserve a business that had meant so much to his parents and grandparents. Doug, Jr. watched the business struggle during the recession of 2008, just as it did during the Great Depression in the late 1920s when his grandparents started the newspaper, but it has managed to survive through the years. Throughout the decades, the newspaper and our family have always championed its readers by covering the community, civic and religious groups and always striving to assist the Town of Batesburg-Leesville in active roles for the growth, development and betterment of the area.