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The paper was originally entitled the Langley Advance, and was first published July 23, 1931.The paper was started by Ernest J. Cox, who had moved to BC from North Battleford, Saskatchewan to take a half interest in the Abbotsford News along with Gerald Heller. At the same time, the Langley Board of Trade had been negotiating with Heller to start a paper in Langley: Cox took up the task. A few months after the Advance was founded, Cox and Heller went their separate ways, and Cox retained the Langley paper and Heller kept the Abbotsford paper. Cox ran the paper with the help of his wife and two teenaged children. After the war, son Fred Cox returned to the paper along with George Johnson (an RAF instructor) who had married daughter, Kathleen Cox. In 1947 Jim Schatz joined the paper. In 1949 The Langley Advance Publishing Co. Ltd. was formed with principals E.J. and Fred Cox, Johnson, and Schatz. E.J. Cox went into semi-retirement in 1958, and Fred Cox sold his interests in the paper, but took controlling interest of the commercial printing portion of the business. Schatz served as publisher and editor, and was well known in the BC newspaper industry. In 1981 Bob Groeneveld became editor, and remains editor today (2005).
Term Source: Paper Trails: a history of British Columbia and Yukon Community Newspapers, 1999 (by George Allan Afflek).