John “Jack” Knowles, former owner of the Hillsboro Sentry-Enterprise, was born on March 20, 1942, in Chicago, to Bill and Evelyn Knowles. He spent the first 30 years of his journalism career at the Chicago Tribune, starting as a copy boy at 18 years old and working up to editor of the foreign news desk. He left the newspaper in 1989, moving his young family to a small farming community in Wisconsin, where he purchased the Sentry-Enterprise.
The 15 years he spent as owner of the newspaper — surrounded by employees who became like family and people who cared about putting out a quality newspaper — were some of the happiest of his life. In 2004, Jack sold the newspaper to Morris Newspaper Corporation of Wisconsin.
Jack died on May 1, 2022, at the age of 85, following a battle with vascular dementia. He was survived by his wife, Jane, and his daughters, Meg, Beth and Amy.
