Northside Neighbor publisher Otis Brumby Jr. dies

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Otis  A. Brumby Jr., the hard-charging newspaperpublisher of the Marietta Journal and Neighbor Newspapers—including theNorthside Neighbor that has weekly graced Buckhead homes for four decades—andwho helped shape modern Cobb County, has died at age 72.

Brumby died at home on Saturdayafter an almost two-year battle with prostate cancer.

Newspaper publisher, community leader
Otis A. Brumby Jr. dies at age 72. 

TheMarietta resident, one of Cobb’s best-known native sons, had a family pedigreethat stretched back generations in the county, according to the news obituaryin the Sunday Atlanta Journal-Constitution.Brumby was known as a prominentbusinessman and journalist who grew a small local paper into a thrivingconglomerate during a time when Atlanta’s suburbs were beginning to expand.But, he also was known as a force in local politics as well, using hisnewspaper to promote his vision of progress in Marietta, Cobb County and thestate.
Behind the scenes, Brumbyinfluenced decades of important decisions in Cobb that drove residential andcommercial development, and turned the county into a magnet for establishmentsof higher learning, such as Kennesaw State University, the AJC reported.
Brumby got his start in thenewspaper business at the Marietta Daily Journal, working for his father andnamesake as an assistant to the publisher in 1965. Two years later he took overthe top job. He went on to start the Neighbor Group of weekly communitynewspapers in 1969, growing the company into a collection of 24 newspapers, twomagazines, six websites and a weekly circulation of 375,000.
A diagnosis in 2010 of stage IVprostate cancer slowed Brumby but did not stop him. He was known to come towork almost every day, overseeing the pages and producing strongly wordedcolumns about the goings-on of the county’s government and civic groups,according to the AJC story.
Brumby’s sway was evidentthroughout his career, extending to the recent regional transportation taxreferendum that his Journal railed against and helped defeat.
In a personal editorial in the MariettaJournal last November, Brumby reflected on his illness, thanked family andfriends who had cared for him, and told readers: “I may have cancer in mybones, but I still have ink in my veins.”
He alsohad fondness for rocking chairs. In 1875, Brumby’s grandfather co-founded theBrumby Chair Co., known for the Brumby Rocker — which has graced porchesnationwide, including at the White House. Brumby regained family control of thecompany in 1991, becoming its fifth president, and the next year opened ashowroom on the square in downtown Marietta.
Brumby is survived by his wife,Martha Lee, daughters Spain, Lee, Betsy and Anna, son Otis III and 11grandchildren.
To read the full AtlantaJournal-Constitution news obituary, go here.
To read the story onBrumby’s death by the Marietta Journal and Neighbor Newspapers here.