Promissory notes totaling $627,024 were listed among legal notices carried by the Oct. 10 edition of the newspaper. The Journal has been the legal organ for Houston County as well as the cities of Perry, Warner Robins and Centerville.
Properties owned by Evans will go on sale to the highest bidder at the Houston County Courthouse on Nov. 6, according to the Wednesday declaration. The properties include not only the Journal but other Evans interests in Perry including the Old Perry Theater, lots adjacent to the theater and radio station WBML.
Evans could not be reached for comment Friday afternoon. Principals involved in the defaulted loans are the Bank of Perry, DFE Investments and Security Bank of Georgia.
Evans purchased the Journal in 2000 and moved the newspaper to his facility at 1210 Washington Street in Perry. Evans had bought part ownership of the Journal in 1994 but sold his interests later that year to a partner, Robert Tribble.
The local publication, founded in 1870, has had a number of owners over the years. John Thomas Waterman began the paper and published his first issue in December of that year. He sold his interests to a Perry lawyer, Edwin Martin, three years later.
John Hicks Hodges, a native of Perry, bought the paper in 1880 and he and his successors operated the publication for the next 66 years.
Following the Hodges reign, a number of individuals was involved with the county’s oldest newspaper until it was purchased by Park Communications, an Ithaca, N.Y., company in February 1980. Park had purchased the Warner Robins Daily Sun in 1972 from Evans’ father, Foy S. Evans.
The newspaper was owned by American Publishing Company when the Danny Evans group bought out the Illinois entity in 1994.
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