Richard Scudder

Richard Betts Scudder (May 13, 1913 – July 11, 2012) was an American newspaper pioneer, newspaper publisher, journalist, and co-founder of the MediaNews Group, the second largest newspaper company in the United States. He served as MediaNews' chairman from 1985 until 2009. Scudder is also considered an innovator and pioneer of newspaper recycling. He founded the Garden State Paper Company, which later became one of the world's largest newspaper recycling companies. Biography Scudder was born to Edward Wallace Scudder and Katherine Hollifield Scudder, on May 13, 1913, in Newark, New Jersey. Scudder graduated from the Loomis Chaffee School before attaining a bachelor's degree in Economics with honors from Princeton University in 1935. He enlisted in the U.S. Army during World War II and served within Operation Annie, an Allied German-language counter-propaganda radio station. Scudder earned the rank of Major and the Bronze Star. In 1944, he married Elizabeth Shibley. Scudder returned to New Jersey from Europe in 1946 and became reporter at the Boston Herald, followed by a journalist position for the Newark Evening News, which his grandfather had founded in 1883. He later became the paper's publisher from 1952 until its closure in 1972. By then, the Scudder family had already sold the paper to Media General, in 1970.