Photo by Fritz Busch Lee Zion stands outside the Lafayette-Nicollet Ledger office in downtown Lafayette. He’s willing to give the newspaper away to someone he feels is worthy of owning it. Zion said he often works till midnight on newspaper work.

LAFAYETTE — An area newspaperman said he was moved to take action after watching news reports of the Russian Army invasion of Ukraine earlier this year — so moved, in fact, he’s looking to walk away from his weekly newspaper to Ukraine to join in its defense against Russian invaders.

“It’s a crazy story,” Lafayette Ledger owner-publisher Lee Zion said. “All these things ultimately add up to my feeling I should go to Ukraine.

“Until the (Russian) invasion, I didn’t know or care about Ukraine. I heard the lies and saw the images everyone else did. That got me started.”

Then came his activity in State Street Theater.

“They were considering putting on Shakespeare’s play ‘All’s Well That Ends Well,’ which is about a guy who joins up to fight a war in another country,” said Zion. “They aren’t doing the play, but I was very familiar with it. I studied it to possibly be in it.

“After seeing the war in Ukraine that began last February, it just kept getting worse and worse, I decided I just couldn’t stay here. It got to the point where every day that I’m still here bugs me. The idea to go was so firmly entrenched in my heart, I decided I should go.”

Zion has a passport, but he has to go to the Ukrainian embassy in Chicago to try to get a visa to go to Ukraine.

“I can’t go to the Ukrainian embassy until I have someone else in the office. I can’t take two days off now to go to Chicago,” he said.

Zion said got an email Tuesday from Duluth Skyline Rotary Club member Bob Sherman, who asked Zion if he wants to work with them in Ukraine.

Sherman recently returned from Poland to continue raising money to create a mental health center for Ukrainian refugees in the middle of Russian’s invasion. Sherman said he often heard missiles overhead and air raid sirens sounding daily.

Zion said Sherman told him he’s back in Duluth now but leaves June 16 for Lviv, Ukraine, to work as a hospice volunteer.

“I’m going into debt to give the newspaper away and into further debt for a plane ticket to Ukraine,” said Zion. “All I’m asking for is the same pay Ukrainians get.”

Zion said he was recently contacted by St. Peter media specialist and entrepreneur Rob Lawson about the Lafayette Nicollet Ledger. Zion recently gave Lawson, who has years of community journalism experience, a tour of the newspaper.

With about 500 subscribers, Zion said the Ledger newspaper is profitable, but the work is demanding. He said he works seven days a week but is thankful that former Ledger staffer Ruth Klossner helps out greatly, taking sports photos and writing sports stories.

In his advertisement to give away the newspaper, Zion wrote: “To get this newspaper entirely free of charge, the next owner must show that he or she has the knowledge, experience and drive to take on the challenge. That means putting out a newspaper every week, with only a handful of stringers to assist, while handling the billing and other paperwork. Small circulation, but financially solvent, read by people who are proud of their kids and proud of their hometown.”