A file photograph of Frank Clarke III, co-owner and chair of Democrat Printing and Lithographing Co. (Arkansas Enterprise)
Democrat Printing and Lithographing Co., one in every of Little Rock’s oldest operational companies, introduced Monday a brand new strategic partnership with one other long-established enterprise, EP Graphics of Berne, Indiana.
DP&L, based in 1871, has grown by means of six generations of household possession, printing magazines, catalogs and even Arkansas Enterprise. Native printing operations will shift from Little Rock to Indiana, the corporate mentioned.
The brand new relationship displays a “important milestone within the firm’s journey and opens up new alternatives for progress and innovation,” the businesses mentioned in a joint information launch.
Frank Parke III, DP&L’s co-owner and chairman of the board, described the milestone as an acquisition, and mentioned it’ll deliver alternatives for his crew and for patrons. “EP Graphics shares our core values and imaginative and prescient, in addition to sharing our historical past as a family-owned enterprise, and we’re assured that this transition will end in continued success and progress.”
He mentioned the partnership was rigorously thought of, and that EP Graphics “emerged as the perfect accomplice to hold ahead the legacy and proceed the custom of excellence established by DP&L.”
EP Graphics, itself practically 100 years previous, is a high-volume industrial printer and specialist in success and mailing companies, the discharge mentioned. “We’re thrilled to welcome DP&L into the EP Graphics Household,” mentioned Tyler Kitt, EP’s president and CEO. “This partnership strengthens our place within the trade and reinforces our dedication to delivering distinctive worth to our prospects,” he mentioned in a press release.
Each DP&L and EP predicted a seamless transition, with each working carefully to make sure minimal disruption to prospects, staff and different stakeholders.
Earlier than the deal, the Parke household held 100% of DP&L, having purchased out its longtime companions, the Whitney household, on the finish of 2022. The Whitneys’ co-ownership dated again to 1968, when Tom Whitney Sr. purchased a stake within the operation.
In response to the Encyclopedia of Arkansas, the Arkansas Democrat established the corporate in 1871 as a part of the newspaper’s printing division. The newspaper divested itself of possession in 1906 when it divided its property, and the Parke Household received concerned in 1938 when the Parke-Harper Printing Co. acquired DP&L and stored its title.
“My great-grandfather A.W. Parke was a newspaperman,” Frank Parke III advised Arkansas Enterprise early final yr. “He and Clio Harper began a statewide information service about 1906.” That developed into printing, and Parke’s grandfather Frank Herbert Parke joined the corporate after graduating from Princeton in 1924. Frank Herbert Parke Jr. joined DP&L in 1954 after graduating from Vanderbilt and serving within the U.S. Air Pressure.
Frank Parke III, a Hendrix School graduate, joined the corporate in 1980 and finally turned chairman. DP&L left its landmark downtown Little Rock constructing on Second Road in 1999. One trendy tenant of the constructing, which was added to the Nationwide Register of Historic Locations in 1998, is Arkansas Enterprise Publishing Group, writer of this newspaper.
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