Lee Enterprises

Long-time Lee Enterprises, Inc. board member and former chairman Mary Junck, whose tenure was defined by taking on enormous corporate debt to buy the St. Louis Post-Dispatch in 2005, has retired.

Lee – the Davenport-based company that owns the QC Times, Daily Dispatch/Argus and some 70 other news outlets – did not issue a news release about her retirement. The change to the board membership, effective July 31, was contained in a required filing July 10 with the Security and Exchange Commission.

Junck was CEO when Lee purchased the St. Louis Post-Dispatch for $1.46 billion and took on the huge debt that the company is still struggling to repay today.

Lee Enterprises, Inc. began its new fiscal year with more red ink, losing $5.7 million in the first quarter ended December 28.

Thanks to significant personnel cuts last September the deficit was much less than the first quarter of 2025 when it lost $16.9 million. The company cut 49 full- and part-time positions when it ended print operations at its Davenport facility last September.

Lee – owner of the Quad City Times, the Dispatch/Argus and some 70 other newspapers and online news sites – saw operating revenue decline by more than $14 million in the first quarter of 2026 compared with the same period a year ago.

With no explanation, Lee Enterprises, Inc. canceled a special shareholders meeting seeking approval of a "rights offering" intended to raise $50 million for working capital and company operations.

In a three-sentence filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) posted Thursday, Dec. 18, the company stated it "decided to cancel the special meeting" set for the next day, Dec. 19, and had "withdrawn from consideration the proposal set forth in the Proxy Statement."

The company – owner of some 70 print and online publications including the Quad City Times and Dispatch/Argus – announced Nov. 13 it was planning to seek approval of the unusual "rights offering" as a way to pay for its "digital transformation" and lower the interest rate on its $450 million debt.

Lee Enterprises has announced it will end Monday print editions of its major newspapers, including the Quad City Times and Dispatch/Argus, effective November 3.

The media company headquartered in Davenport will continue to produce electronic e-editions seven days a week for distribution through its online news sites.

Last month the Quad City Times shuttered the newspaper printing operations at its Davenport location, eliminating 20 full-time and 29 part-time press and production jobs.