James “Jim” Conley, Jr., founder of Conley Publishing Group, 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, Jim 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.
Jim 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 Jim’s wife Rhonda R. Smith now serves as president and CEO.
Jim 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.
Jim died Friday, March 20, 2020, in Aiken, S.C. He was 76.
