The George Scheer Group, a commission rep organization formed in the late 1950s, is disbanding at the end of the current selling season in June 2011 after serving booksellers and publishers continuously for more than half a century.

Tom Murphy and Wayne Donnell bought the business from Scheer on his retirement in 1992. “When George started, the only way you could make a living was to travel from Virginia to Texas, and that’s our territory to this day,” Murphy, PW Rep of the Year in 1997 said. “He began with Holiday House and LSU Press in his bag, and they’re still in the bag all these years later. The power of George’s personality was such that publishers were loyal to him.” Over the decades Scheer, who was profiled at length in the New Yorker in 1975, took many fledgling publishers under his wing, including Sourcebooks’ Dominique Raccah.

When Donnell and his wife Deborah announced their retirement last month, Murphy saw an opportunity to do something different after spending the last 30 years selling books. He plans to enter a graduate program in mental health counseling, while associate Elaine Rathgeber will join the Southern Territories sales group for the fall 2011 season.

“I will miss the people, both in publishing and retail,” Murphy says. “The best part of being a rep is that you’re able to be an advocate for both the bookseller and the publisher. It’s the people in this business that make the book, and ultimately, of course, the book is the thing. I’ve not met anyone who was as passionate about books as George, and I like to think that the rest of us [in the group] reflected his passion and values.” Following the group’s disbandment, its publishers will be sold primarily by Southern Territories Associates.

Teresa Rolph Kravtin, who is on the board of the National Association of Independent Publishers’ Representatives and a member of Southern Territories, has fond memories of the Scheer Group. “We have shared war stories, trade shows, New York hotels, software, books, authors, meals, and camaraderie over the years, and it is hard to imagine the future without them,” she says. “The generosity of spirit, enthusiasm, and integrity they showed to us will not soon be forgotten.”