Senator Walter Walker bought the newspaper. When he died in 1956, his son, Preston Walker, inherited the Sentinel, managing it until he died in 1970. He left it to newspaper employee Ken Johnson, who sold it the company to Cox Newspapers in 1979. Kennedy of the Cox family, left to become chairman and CEO of Atlanta-based Cox Enterprises in 1985. The corporation named George Orbanek publisher, who retired in 2007. He was succeeded by Alex Taylor.Īmidst a downturn in the newspaper industry and the Great Recession, Cox put most of its newspaper holdings up for sale. In 2009, it sold the Sentinel to Kansas-based Seaton Publishing Co., a long-standing family newspaper company that publishes the Manhattan Mercury. Jay Seaton was named publisher of The Daily Sentinel and president of the new Grand Junction Media Company. In 2017, The Daily Sentinel won the sweepstakes award in the categories of advertising, as well as photography and design from the Colorado Press Association. It also won 27 individual awards, 10 of which were first place winners.
