CANNON BEACH – The Cannon Beach Gazette has new owners, effective Friday.

Steve and Carol Hungerford, who own a group of Midwest nondaily newspapers, have purchased the newspaper from Tom and Cat Mauldin.

The Mauldins, who are retiring and moving to Central Oregon, have run the newspaper since taking it over from Don Holden in 1998. Tom Mauldin is the former softball coach at Seaside High School and plans to continue coaching in Sisters.

The Hungerfords have been running their newspaper company from a base in Scottsbluff in western Nebraska, where Steve Hungerford had been publisher of the Star-Herald, that state’s fifth-largest daily. Early in his career, he worked at newspapers in Milwaukie, Salem and Oregon City. He holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Nebraska and a master’s from the University of Oregon. Carol Hungerford has bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Washington and has worked in arts administration, including with the Portland Opera. She also founded a recycling center.