James Conley, Jr., a longtime journalist and owner of several Wisconsin newspapers, including Conley Publishing Group, died Friday, March 20, in Aiken, S.C. He was 76.
Conley was born Aug. 31, 1943, in Madison to James E. Conley, MD and Lillian Quirk Conley. He started his newspaper career in 1967 at The Wall Street Journal before returning to Wisconsin two years later.
In 1969, Conley purchased his first newspaper, the (Beaver Dam) Daily Citizen. Under his ownership, the Daily Citizen expanded operations, adding weekly newspapers and a printing division. The Daily Citizen was sold to Capital Newspapers in 2001.
While in Beaver Dam, Conley married Nancy Parker, whose family had been operating the newspaper since 1911. The Conleys had four children together, James, Christopher, Brooke and Patrick. He later married Rhonda R. Smith, with whom he had another son, Brandt.
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Conley would go on to own several other newspapers in the eastern part of the state, including The (Waukesha) Freeman, (West Bend) Daily News, Oconomowoc Enterprise, and the (Cedarburg) News-Graphic. Those four publications now comprise the newspaper division of Conley Publishing Group, of which Smith now serves as president and CEO.
Conley also started two city magazines during his journalism career, Tucson Lifestyle in 1983, MKE Lifestyle in 1993, and in 1990, he began publishing a trade magazine for the media industry, News & Tech.
A celebration of life is planned for late summer in Milwaukee.
