Ames and Iowa State suffered a great loss Tuesday, as the owners of the Ames Tribune announced the sale of their newspaper company.

Michael Gartner, editor of the paper, and publisher Gary Gerlach sold Partnership Press, which owns several other publications in central Iowa, to the Omaha World-Herald.

Gartner and Gerlach were co-owners of the company with the late David Belin, who died in January.

Members of the journalism community have speculated for months that Gartner and Gerlach would sell their Pulitzer Prize-winning newspaper, particularly after the pair, along with Des Moines lawyer Mike Guidicessi, purchased the Iowa Cubs baseball team.

It’s no secret that both the Daily and the university have had problems with Partnership Press.

The company sued both the Daily’s publication board and the university.

But putting aside old rivalries, we at the Daily have a great deal of respect for the Tribune as a quality newspaper that has served the Ames community well.

Though it may not seem likely, we are truly sad to them go.

Michael Gartner has been an excellent mentor to many of us.

He is an outstanding example of what a newspaperman should be, and without him at the helm of the Tribune, things will not be the same.

Loss of local ownership and control is something for the whole city to regret.

A community needs its own paper.

A paper by and for that community.

Giving up that control to a larger company is like selling a treasured monument.

Don’t get us wrong, we believe The Omaha World-Herald is an excellent company to purchase the Tribune.

And again we have Gartner and Gerlach to thank.

The last thing they were good enough to do for Ames was to keep the Tribune out of the hands of some scurrilous corporate media firm more interested in making money than printing the news.

So for that favor, we thank you.

Gartner and Gerlach will undoubtedly enjoy their newest acquisition.

We wish them luck with that and hope they do for the I-Cubs what they did for the Ames Tribune.

If so, they will be winning championships in no time.

But with all of that said, Ames and Iowa State will miss them deeply.