Management Team

Senior Management

Steve Stewart : President and Chief Executive Officer

Steve Stewart

President and Chief Executive Officer

Stewart, publisher of The Tidewater News, is active in group and individual management. He lives and works from Franklin, Va. Stewart was previously publisher of The Clarksdale (Miss.) Press Register andThe Yazoo (Miss.) Herald and editor of The Meridian (Miss.) Star before joining BNI in 2006. Stewart, whose background is in news, is a graduate of the University of Mississippi. In 2005, he was the inaugural John Emmerich Fellow at the University of Oxford in England.

Joseph C. [Jay] Davis, Jr. : Chief Financial Officer

Joseph C. [Jay] Davis, Jr.

Chief Financial Officer

Davis, business manager of The Selma (Ala.) Times-Journal since 1979, currently manages the BNI group's Accounting, accounts payable center and employee retirement plan. He lives and works from Selma, Ala. Davis has a varied experience in the newspaper industry, with emphasis in the area of accounting. During the years of his association with the BNI group, Davis has directed the group's accounting work, overseen accounting software development and implementation, administered employee benefits, and handled corporate insurance. He began his career as a newspaper carrier in Selma.

Catherine Boone Hadaway : Senior Vice President

Catherine Boone Hadaway

Senior Vice President

James B. Boone, Jr. : Founder 1935-2023

James B. Boone, Jr.

Founder 1935-2023

Boone was the founder of Boone Newsmedia Inc. (originally Boone Newspapers Inc.) and helped lead the company until his death in 2023. BNI's first newspaper acquisition was made in 1970 while Boone was publisher of The Tuscaloosa News. The News was published by Boone's father, Buford Boone, a Pulitzer Prize winning editor, from 1947 until 1968 when he was succeeded by his son. The Boones operated The News through a family-owned company that leased the newspaper's franchise and certain assets from Public Welfare Foundation until 1981. Prior to becoming publisher of The News, Boone was publisher of The Suffolk (Va.) News-Herald, then owned by the Carmage Walls and Gene Worrell organizations and prior to then did newspaper management work for Walls in Georgia and Texas. Boone's newspaper background was news, advertising, circulation and production. He was a graduate of the University of Alabama.