NATCHEZ — The Washington (N.C.) Daily News has been sold to Washington Newsmedia, LLC, a newly formed North Carolina company owned in part by two Natchez residents.

The transaction was legally closed Wednesday. Agreement in general for the transaction was reached in June, and the final details were worked out in the past week.

Washington Newsmedia, LLC, is majority owned by Todd H. Carpenter, president and chief operating officer of Boone Newspapers Inc. Others with ownership are BNI and its key personnel, including Kevin Cooper, publisher of The Natchez Democrat and a vice president of BNI.

Carpenter and Cooper will both continue to live and work in Natchez.

Ray McKeithan succeeds Ashley B. “Brownie” Futrell Jr. as publisher of the Washington Daily News, which publishes six days a week with circulation of more than 8,000 in Washington, Beaufort County and neighboring counties. McKeithan had served the former owners as associate publisher and general manager since 2001.

The newspaper will be managed by BNI, which is owned principally by its chairman, James B. “Jim” Boone Jr. of Tuscaloosa, Ala. The company publishes 38 daily and weekly newspapers in Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, Virginia, Ohio, Michigan and Minnesota.

The Futrell family had operated The Daily News since 1949, when the late Ashley B. Futrell Sr. became its publisher. The newspaper marked its 100th year of publication in 2009.

Carpenter said he is “deeply appreciative of the confidence Brownie Futrell and his family have placed in us as their successors, and we will work hard to merit that confidence.”