The Verona Press, WI

The Verona Press is a weekly community newspaper that has been continuously publishing since 1965. Our circulation and coverage area roughly comprises the Verona Area School District, the Town of Verona and the City of Verona. The Verona Press is part of Wisconsin Media Group, which also publishes the Fitchburg Star, Oregon Observer, Stoughton Courier Hub, Your Family magazine and the Great Dane shopper. Wisconsin Media Group is a division of O'Rourke Media Group, headquartered in Illinois, and is a family-owned, community-focused company that was launched from ground zero in October 2018.

We acquire hyper-local, print, and digital community newspapers and apply our strategic playbook that results in digital transformation. O’Rourke Media Group brings a contrarian business mindset to the media industry and maintains a low-cost corporate infrastructure and decentralized approach to running our business. We engage with nonprofits and other local organizations to help improve the communities we serve. Founded in 1965 by Butler Delany, the owner and publisher of the Oregon Observer, the Press named Henry Schroeder editor and publisher in 1966, when the two men founded Southwest Suburban Publications Inc. Schroeder purchased Delany's interest in 1980 and sold Schroeder Publications in 1998 to Woodward, which renamed the group UNG, and was sold to O'Rourke Media Group in 2021.

Originally a mill town and stage coach stop founded in 1847, today Verona is among the fastest-growing cities in the state of Wisconsin, with 12,442 as of January 2019. Located about 10 miles from the state Capitol, its borders have been growing closer and closer to Madison each year.

The Verona Press played a key role in the establishment of Verona's nickname, "Hometown USA." After Schroeder published a letter written by a local GI during the Vietnam War, members of his unit voted to give Verona that nickname.