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Lee Enterprises Appeals to Shareholders

Quad Cities based newspaper publisher Lee Enterprises is asking its shareholders to help it fight off a hostile takeover offer from what it calls a ``vulture hedge fund,'' Alden Global Capital.

The publisher of the Quad Cities Times, Dispatch-Argus, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the Bloomington Pantagraph, and dozens of other newspapers, sent a letter to shareholders Monday asking them to support its board nominees in the dispute with Alden.

Lee, which is based in Davenport, has already rejected Alden's offer of $24 per share because it said the $141 million bid grossly undervalues Lee. But the two sides are locked in a court battle over whether Alden will be able to nominate its own directors.

The annual meeting and board election are scheduled for March 10th in Davenport.

Monday afternoon, company shares were trading around 35 dollars.

A native of Detroit, Herb Trix began his radio career as a country-western disc jockey in Roswell, New Mexico (“KRSY, your superkicker in the Pecos Valley”), in 1978. After a stint at an oldies station in Topeka, Kansas (imagine getting paid to play “Louie Louie” and “Great Balls of Fire”), he wormed his way into news, first in Topeka, and then in Freeport Illinois. While a graduate student in the Public Affairs Reporting Program at the University of Illinois at Springfield (then known as Sangamon State University), he got his first taste of public radio, covering Illinois state government for WUIS. Here in the Quad Cities, Herb worked for WHBF Radio before coming to WVIK in 1987. Herb also produces the weekly public affairs feature Midwest Week – covering the news behind the news by interviewing reporters about the stories they cover.