Back in 2000, now President and CEO Jim Nowlan, a former state legislator and University of Illinois professor, had an idea for the small community of Stark County located in central Illinois. You see, Stark County had recently lost its only newspaper, and Nowlan, drawing inspiration from the “dot com” boom, decided the next great thing for Stark County was a website, filled with community news and all the latest headlines. So on August 17, 2000, countyenews.com debuted and was an immediate hit. The site was the first of its kind for the area and filled a large void that the community was hungry for.

About that same time, Nowlan purchased and began restoration work on an old, deteriorating building on Main Street in Toulon. The building, once a furniture store and funeral home and most recently a bowling alley, went through a significant amount of work before the countyenews.com team moved in during the fall of 2001.

However, it soon became apparent that the demographics of our area justified a physical weekly newspaper in addition to our electronic version and work began to revive Nowlan’s family’s old newspaper, The Stark County News.

On February 21, 2002, The Stark County News printed its first copy after being inactive for over twenty years. The paper started as a weekly newspaper printed on Wednesday and mailed on Thursdays to subscribers and continues that format today. Once printed in Galesburg, The Stark County News and its new sister publications are now all printed at the Bureau County Republican in Princeton.

In 2005, Stark County Communications, Inc. was formed and included the Stark County News and the News Room Bistro, the main floor of the restored building for rental. Rich St. John, now Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, also joined the company around this time to give the business a new mission and plan for the future.

Stark County Communications then acquired the Chillicothe Independent on September 15, 2008. The Chillicothe Independent, or CI, serves a town of over 6,000 people and a school district that is even bigger. Located in the heart of Chillicothe on Second Street, the paper continues to grow and serve as the premier source for local news, and now includes a website, mycinews.com

On June 1, 2009, Jason Musselman officially joined SCC full-time as the Chief Operating Officer. Musselman had been an employee since Nowlan created countyenews.com in 2001 and worked as the sports editor and various jobs while attending high school and then college.

In the summer of 2009, plans were finalized and work began on a new publication called the NoPeoCo Shopper, which stands for North Peoria County Shopper. The Shopper officially began on July 23, 2009 and on September 3^rd the Shopper grew to include two special newspapers for the Princeville and Dunlap markets, The Princeville Press and the Dunlap Dispatch, respectively.