The initial full title of the newspaper was The Hay Standard and Advertiser for Balranald, Wentworth, Maude, Booligal, Wilcannia, Menindie, Bourke, &c., reflecting its wide catchment area incorporating townships and districts in a broad arc to the north and west of Hay on the Murrumbidgee, Lachlan and Darling rivers.
[2] The first publisher of The Hay Standard was John Andrew (1828 - 1902) who printed and edited the newspaper for the proprietors D. G. Jones and Co., owners of The Pastoral Times newspaper in nearby Deniliquin (of which Andrew had been the publisher for the previous eight years ).
By January 1890 the newspaper was being published twice weekly, on Wednesdays and Saturdays, and the name had been shortened to The Hay Standard.
Richard Chambers continued as publisher until October 1900 when he was replaced by John Andrew (the founding publisher in the early 1870s), who renamed the paper The Hay Standard, Riverina Times and Journal of Water Conservation and relocated the office to Alma Street.
The last issue of The Hay Standard was published on Wednesday, 28 November 1900; the very next day John Andrew published the first issue of a new newspaper, with the re-arranged title Riverina Times, Hay Standard and Journal of Water Conservation.