Donald Bell, 84, former publisher and owner of The Ladysmith News, owner of the Bloomer Advance, and retired president of Bell Press, Inc., died Friday, April 27, 2001, at the Palliative Care Unit of St. Joseph’s Hospital in Marshfield.
Bell was the fourth generation of his family to publish a newspaper. He began his newspaper career as a boy, working as a printer’s devil for his father. He also was a linotype operator for the Wisconsin State Journal in Madison before his association with The Ladysmith News. His father, Mark Bell, was the former publisher of The Ladysmith News and a past president of the Wisconsin Newspaper Association.
The family tradition continued for a fifth generation, with Tom Bell serving as publisher of The Ladysmith News, Jim Bell as publisher of the Barron News-Shield, and Mary Bell as publisher of the Bloomer Advance.
