The Smithfield Times: A Century of News for Isle of Wight and Surry
The Smithfield Times is a weekly newspaper published in Smithfield, Virginia, serving Isle of Wight County and neighboring Surry County in southeastern Virginia. First published in 1920, the Times has spent more than a century as the community newspaper for Smithfield, a town known nationally for its ham and pork heritage, and for the rural counties around it. Published each Wednesday from 228 Main Street in Smithfield, the paper describes itself as the two counties' center for critical local information and the public's forum for discussing issues vital to Isle of Wight and Surry.
The Times is independently owned within a small Virginia newspaper network and has earned the Virginia Press Association's highest honors for community service and journalistic integrity. In an era of consolidation, it remains a locally rooted Wednesday weekly whose editorials and columns, particularly under its current publisher, have drawn statewide recognition for editorial leadership.
Overview
The Smithfield Times is a weekly newspaper, published each Wednesday, covering Isle of Wight and Surry counties. Its office is at 228 Main Street, P.O. Box 366, Smithfield, Virginia 23431, and its website is smithfieldtimes.com. In the Virginia Press Association's 2022 contest circulation groupings, the Times was listed with a circulation of 3,193, a substantial figure for a two-county weekly market. The paper is a member of the Virginia Press Association and the National Newspaper Association, and its masthead records its founding plainly: Established 1920.
Smithfield sits on the Pagan River in Isle of Wight County, historically a rural, agricultural county that has become, in part, a bedroom community for metropolitan Hampton Roads. The Times covers that transition directly: town and county government, schools, growth and zoning disputes, farming, and the cultural life of a community balancing small-town identity with suburban pressure from the Suffolk and Newport News directions.
History
The Smithfield Times was established by a group of local businessmen in 1920 and operated under a series of owners and managers during its first decade. In 1930, Jesse L. Scott and his wife Lillian purchased the paper, and they published it until 1962, a 32-year stewardship that carried the Times through the Depression, the Second World War and the postwar growth of Isle of Wight County.
In 1962, the Scotts sold the paper to Tom and Betty Phillips. A decade later, in 1972, John Edwards and his wife Anne, both Isle of Wight County natives, returned to Smithfield when the Phillipses hired John as managing editor and reporter. John Edwards later reflected that writing about the community was what he had always wanted to do, and that covering its history and people had been a tremendously satisfying experience. In 1986, the Edwardses purchased the paper from the Phillipses. Anne Edwards left a successful career as a preschool director and teacher at Benn's United Methodist Church to become the newspaper's business manager, while John became editor and publisher.
The Edwards era lasted 34 years, making John Edwards's total association with the Times 47 years, from 1972 to the paper's centennial year. Under the Edwardses, the Times won statewide respect, including the Virginia Press Association's community service and journalistic integrity awards, the association's highest honors, earned twice by the paper's team.
Ownership
As the Times entered its 101st year, John and Anne Edwards agreed to sell the paper to veteran Virginia newspaper publisher Steve Stewart, principal owner of Smithfield Newsmedia LLC, a new Virginia entity created for the purchase. The agreement in principle was announced in 2020, with the transaction expected to close no later than November 1 of that year. The Edwardses said a primary goal in approaching retirement was ensuring the newspaper would continue to publish, and they described Stewart as a publisher who knew the industry and its challenges and was well positioned to meet them.
Stewart, then 52, was a senior vice president of Boone Newspapers Inc. and a former publisher of the Suffolk News-Herald and the Tidewater News in Franklin, and he was majority owner of The Coastland Times, serving North Carolina's Outer Banks. With the sale, the Smithfield Times joined the Suffolk, Franklin and Outer Banks newspapers as affiliates of Boone Newspapers, the company founded by James B. "Jim" Boone Jr. Stewart said he was honored to succeed John and Anne Edwards and committed to building on the foundation they had laid. Longtime staff member Diana McFarland, a 16-year veteran who had won state awards in nearly every journalism category, remained with the newspaper as managing editor, providing continuity through the ownership change, while John Edwards continued in the role of publisher emeritus.
Coverage and Content
The Times covers Smithfield town government and the Isle of Wight County Board of Supervisors, the Surry County community across the James River, local schools, courts, business, agriculture and development, high school sports, and the cultural and historical life of two of Virginia's oldest counties. Its opinion pages are a particular strength: publisher Steve Stewart writes columns and editorials that engage directly with local controversies, from school policy debates to zoning proposals on the edge of Smithfield's historic district.
That editorial voice has addressed the pressures of growth head-on. Stewart has written about proposed mixed-use developments near the historic district, about how residents should be able to take part in civic discussion without intimidation, and about what neighboring Suffolk's development model might teach, or warn, Isle of Wight. His columns were recognized nationally when he was named an additional finalist in the Columns category for newspapers under 35,000 circulation in the Carmage Walls Commentary Prize competition, for work helping the community navigate its transition toward suburbia.
Community Role
The Times presents itself as the forum where Isle of Wight and Surry counties argue out their future, and the Virginia Press Association has repeatedly honored that role. The paper has twice earned the association's community service and journalistic integrity awards, its highest honors. Managing editor Diana McFarland, herself an Isle of Wight resident, has described her commitment in terms of the government watchdog role, informing neighbors about issues and concerns in the community as well as its successes.
The paper's pages carry the community's memory as well. Publisher emeritus John Edwards's long-running historical columns draw on decades of reporting and photography in the two counties, recalling everything from wartime rationing to the watermen and farm life of an earlier Isle of Wight. Those features, alongside obituaries, church news, school coverage and public notices, make the Wednesday edition a shared record for families across both counties.
Print and Digital Presence
The Smithfield Times is published each Wednesday in print and maintains a website at smithfieldtimes.com, with a presence on Facebook and other social platforms. Single copies, print subscriptions that include digital access, and electronic subscriptions are offered, with the electronic edition priced for readers who have moved away from the two counties but keep their hometown connection. The paper's office on Main Street in Smithfield's historic district places it literally at the center of the town it covers.
Like other Virginia weeklies, the Times has entered its award-winning work in the Virginia Press Association's annual news and advertising contest, where its photography, column writing and editorial writing have won first-place honors in its circulation class in recent contest years, evidence of a small staff producing work judged among the best of Virginia's non-daily press.
Audience and Reach
With a circulation of about 3,200 in recent press association listings, the Times reaches a large share of households in Isle of Wight County and a meaningful audience in Surry County, in a combined market where it is the only newspaper based locally. Its readers include county and town officials, farmers, teachers, business owners, and the growing number of commuters who live in Isle of Wight and work in Hampton Roads. For local advertisers, from Smithfield's Main Street merchants to county services, the paper offers concentrated access to that two-county audience every Wednesday.
Notable People
Jesse L. and Lillian Scott, owners from 1930 to 1962, and Tom and Betty Phillips, owners from 1962, built the paper's mid-century foundation. John B. Edwards, editor and publisher from 1986 and a staff member from 1972, is the defining figure of the modern Times, with his wife Anne as business manager and co-owner. Diana McFarland, managing editor through the 2020 ownership transition, brought award-winning experience in nearly every state contest category. Steve Stewart, publisher since 2020, has continued the paper's tradition of strong editorial leadership, and editor Tracy Agnew, who nominated Stewart for statewide honors, leads the newsroom's daily work alongside staff writers including Stephen Faleski.
Editorial Leadership and Awards
In April 2022, Steve Stewart received the Virginia Press Association's 2021 D. Lathan Mims Award for Editorial Leadership in the Community, presented for work published during 2021. Editor Tracy Agnew's nomination described how Stewart brought clarity and context to readers as national and state controversies arrived in Isle of Wight and Surry, including the debate over how schools teach about systemic racism, which became a major issue in Virginia's tight 2021 gubernatorial race, and the legislative redistricting that reshaped the counties' representation in Richmond and Washington. The award judge described Stewart as an entrepreneur whose writing showed a deep passion for understanding the communities his newspapers serve. The award, named for a former Daily News-Record editor and Virginia Press Association president, placed the Smithfield Times's editorial page among the most respected in Virginia community journalism.
Recent Developments
Under Smithfield Newsmedia, the Times has continued weekly publication into its second century, maintaining its Wednesday print cycle, its Main Street office and its editorial focus on growth, schools and county government in Isle of Wight and Surry. The paper marked its centennial transition in 2020-21 not with closure or consolidation, the fate of many papers its size, but with a deliberate handover from one local publishing family to a regional publisher who had run neighboring papers in Suffolk and Franklin. For readers in Smithfield, Windsor, Surry and the surrounding communities, the Times remains what it has been since 1920: the two counties' own newspaper, arriving each week with the record of local decisions, local sports, local history and local argument.
