EXHIBIT 99.1

                                                                    News Release

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             Contact LAMAR:                                       Contact OBIE:
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             Keith Istre                                           Gary Livesay
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             Chief Financial Officer                    Chief Financial Officer
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             (225) 926-1000                                      (541) 686-8400
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                       LAMAR ADVERTISING COMPANY COMPLETES
                      ACQUISITION OF OBIE MEDIA CORPORATION

         BATON ROUGE, LA AND EUGENE, OR - Wednesday, January 19, 2005 - Lamar
Advertising Company (Nasdaq: LAMR), a leading owner and operator of outdoor
advertising and logo sign displays, today announced it completed the purchase of
Obie Media Corporation (Nasdaq: OBIE) in a stock for stock transaction valued at
approximately $43 million, plus the assumption of approximately $23 million of
Obie indebtedness. Each share of Obie common stock converted into the right to
receive 0.1665 of a share of Lamar common stock, resulting in Lamar issuing an
aggregate of approximately 1.0 million shares.

         American Stock Transfer & Trust Company is acting as the Exchange Agent
for the merger and will be sending Obie shareholders a Letter of Transmittal and
instructions on how to surrender shares of Obie common stock for the merger
consideration.

         ABOUT LAMAR

         Lamar Advertising Company is a leading outdoor advertising company and
currently operates 153 outdoor advertising companies in 43 states, logo
advertising businesses in 20 states and the province of Ontario, Canada, and 63
transit advertising franchises in 14 states, Canada and British Columbia.





















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         ABOUT OBIE

         Obie Media Corporation is a leading full-service out-of-home
advertising company. Obie sells, designs, produces and installs out-of-home
advertising displays which include transit posters, billboards, wallscapes,
transit shelters and bus benches throughout the United States and Canada.

         Obie holds 38 exclusive agreements with transit districts in both the
United States and Canada and operates transit advertising displays on over 7,000
transit vehicles. These transit districts are located include 8 of the 30
largest US markets - Dallas, TX, Portland, OR, St. Louis, MO, Sacramento, CA,
Hartford, CT, Fort Lauderdale, FL, Indianapolis, IN and Kansas City, MO. Obie
also operates the third largest Canadian market - Vancouver, British Columbia.

         Obie operates over 1,100 billboards primarily located in Washington,
Oregon, California, Montana, Wyoming, Utah, South Dakota and Idaho. Many are
directional billboards and are located along major thoroughfares.










































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