James Henry Skewes was born in Ruan Major, Cornwall, England, in 1888. He was brought by his parents to the United States in 1891 and was reared on a farm near Racine, Wisconsin. He earned a teacher’s certificate from Milwaukee Normal School, now the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee extension.
Skewes worked on the Milwaukee Journal and the Kansas City Star with such literary greats as Carl Sandburg. In 1912 he became editor of the Racine Journal News then moved to the Milwaukee Daily News, where he was managing editor from 1914 to 1917. He was publisher of the Danville (Ill.) Press from 1918 to 1922, the year he moved to Meridian, Mississippi.
Along with his father-in-law, William E. Buckingham, Skewes bought the Meridian Star in 1922 and was editor and publisher of the daily paper until his death in 1958.
For more than 20 years, he was majority stockholder of the Laurel (Miss.) Leader-Call and also owned half of the Sunshine Press, which operated the Sun-News in Las Cruces, New Mexico, as well as the Walsenburg (Colo.) World Independent, the Brookfield (Mo.) News Bulletin. He also owned the Daily Corinthian at Corinth, Mississippi.
A fervent lover of Meridian and the Meridian area, Skewes often said he was an “Englishman by birth, a Middle Westerner by rearing and a Meridianite and Mississippian by choice.”
On a motion by Skewes, the Meridian Chamber of Commerce voted to build the Meridian Municipal Airport. In addition, Skewes was instrumental in attracting a military facility to Lauderdale County, which resulted in the establishment of the Meridian Naval Air Station.
He served seven terms as president of the Meridian Chamber of Commerce and in 1938 served the Mississippi Press Association as president.
