The Team

Distinctly Montana Magazine

Distinctly Montana Magazine has been sold by founder Michael Blevins to Bill Muhlenfeld and Anthea George of Bozeman, Montana, according to John Cribb, Cribb, Greene & Associates, who represented the seller in the transaction.

Distinctly Montana Magazine is a high quality glossy product published quarterly and distributed throughout Montana and most of the nation. The magazine, founded in 2001, is a resource guide for all things Montana and includes local features, literary pieces, and high quality art and photography. Included in the sale is the magazine website at distinctlymontana.com.

According to Anthea George, "Distinctly Montana is a quality publication with a great concept and a focused mission. We look forward as new owners to bringing the best of Montana to residents and visitors alike."

Cribb, Greene & Associates is an eighty-seven year old publishing company merger and acquisition firm with offices in Bozeman, Montana and Charlottesville, Virginia.

John T. Cribb

Managing Director

John’s father and uncle owned and operated daily and weekly newspapers, and over a period of years published newspapers in Indiana, Kansas, California, Oregon, and Montana.

John was the editor and had operating responsibility for a motorcycle racing magazine startup while in college and then worked through all departments at his uncle’s Oregon newspapers. He started by operating a 1250 Multi sheet fed press and flying on a three unit Goss Community web, then spent time as a reporter, ad salesman, ad manager, general manager, and publisher.

While looking for a newspaper to buy, John met John Jepson, a newspaper broker in the Rocky Mountain states. Jepson offered to sell his newspaper brokerage business and Cribb accepted in February 1984, at the age of thirty.

By 1994, John and Bob Bolitho of Krehbiel-Bolitho Media Service decided to merge their firms, creating Bolitho-Cribb & Associates. The Krehbiel-Bolitho newspaper brokerage was originated in Kansas City in 1923, and its evolution to Bolitho-Cribb and now Cribb, Greene & Associates makes it the oldest, continuously operated newspaper brokerage in the country. John is the fifth successive principal broker in eighty plus years of service to the industry.

John has written publication value and sale articles for, and been quoted in, Editor & Publisher Magazine, Presstime Magazine, The Inlander, Publishers’ Auxiliary, Suburban Publisher, The Independent Publisher, INK Magazine, Free Paper Publisher, and others. He has spoken on sale and valuation topics to the National Newspaper Association, Inland Press Association, Independent Free Papers of America, the Association of Free Community Newspapers, and most state and regional publishing associations.

Cribb, Greene & Associates has sold thousands of newspapers and other publications since 1923, and John has personally sold hundreds of publications in addition to appraising forty to fifty papers each year.

John and his wife Barb have two children, John and Sun Hye, and live in Bozeman, Montana.

Contact John T. Cribb

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