Rich Boehne, the man who shut down the Rocky Mountain News, started worrying about the newspaper two years ago.

The economy was in good shape back then, but the newspaper's finances were heading south. Boehne, the CEO of Cincinnati-based E.W. Scripps Co., the parent of the Rocky, knew he had a problem.

"I'd be lying in bed at night, staring at the ceiling, thinking about Denver, at 3 a.m. or 4 a.m. every single night," said Boehne, who lives in Newport, Ky., a suburb of Cincinnati.

The sleepless nights continued.

Boehne is not the kind of CEO who keeps his board of directors in the dark. From the get-go, he kept them and the Scripps family informed of the Denver situation.

When poor July and August financial results came in, it became apparent the Denver outlook was growing dire.

In November, Boehne and other Scripps executives arrived in Denver and told the leadership of MediaNews Group, owner of The Denver Post, that they would no longer help fund the Denver operation. They wanted out.

After the Rocky was put up for sale, Boehne said there was a good deal of interest but very little of it was serious. He's seen that kind of thing before. "You see a lot of colorful characters coming out of the woodwork."

Boehne said Scripps did have one serious inquiry but nothing came of it.

"When Scripps decided that there was not a viable buyer, they told us and we sat down and negotiated an agreement" for Scripps to exit the market, Denver Post Publisher Dean Singleton said.

At a Feb. 17 board meeting, Boehne asked company directors for permission to shut down the Rocky. They agreed unanimously.

Addressing the board in a room filled with portraits of the company's pioneers was one of the hardest moments of the entire ordeal, Boehne said.

He couldn't look the board members in the eye, even though they all knew from the beginning that closing the Rocky was always on the table.

"It was enormously hard," he said. "Who wants to be the guy who shut down the Rocky Mountain News? We've been at this for 100-plus years."

Indeed, the Rocky itself had survived the Civil War, the Great Depression, both world wars and the economic fallout from the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.

But Boehne does not think he lost the newspaper war with the Post.

"No. It's not that simple. Scripps has been around for 130 years and to be around for another 130 years, you have to make some hard decisions."

On Thursday morning, a Scripps lawyer signed the separation agreement, officially allowing the company to close the Rocky and exit Denver.

As for Boehne, he said he'll second guess the decision to shut down the Rocky "for the rest of my life."

But Boehne isn't expecting a pity party.

"So what if it is emotional for us? You guys in Denver are impacted, so what right do we have to be emotional?"

Finance Editor David Milstead contributed to this report.