Neepawa will remain two paper town

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Published on Wednesday, September 9, 2015

Pictured: From left: Dale Brin (divisional manager with Glacier Media) and Ken and Christine Waddell stand in from the Neepawa Press building in Neepawa. (Picture by Eoin Devereux)

By Ken Waddell 

Publisher Neepawa Press, Neepawa Banner, Rivers Banner and myWestman.ca

The Neepawa Press began in 1896. It’s been a tradition, a mainstay for Neepawa and area for 119 years. On Wednesday, Sept. 2, 2015, my wife Christine and I purchased the venerable Neepawa Press. We are pleased to be able to return the paper to being locally owned and operated.

Many people were surprised that we, the Waddell family business, was able to purchase a local paper from a large corporation. Some were also surprised to hear we would even want to make such a purchase. Here’s the reason why: we believe in local communities, we have dedicated all our adult lives to this area, having arrived here in 1971. We believe in the news industry and especially newspapers. We also have a lot of faith in social media when it’s properly used. In fact, we spread the news of our purchase of The Neepawa Press on our Facebook account and our website. The news had reached over 7,000 people on Facebook by Friday morning and that was four days ahead of this print edition.

So what are the plans for the future? It’s a simple formula. The map on the back page shows it in a graphic format. The Neepawa Press will circulate to 3,200 homes and businesses every Wednesday, its usual publishing day. The Neepawa Banner will continue to go to 8,200 homes and businesses every Friday and the Rivers Banner will continue to distribute to 1,675 homes and businesses every Friday. The myWestman.ca site, our Twitter and Facebook sites all go along as usual and are available 24/7. 

Christine and I started the Neepawa Banner in 1989 and a few years later, took over the Rivers Gazette-Reporter, under the Rivers Banner title. We are very proud to be able to say we now own the Neepawa Press.

The Neepawa papers will both be run out of our 243 Hamilton Street location in downtown Neepawa. The phone numbers will all stay the same, as noted in the map on the back page.

We look forward to serving all our readers, advertisers and print customers from both Banners and the Press. It’s an interesting time for us and hopefully, it will be good for the community as well. While we plan to use the Neepawa Press building as a kind of business incubator for downtown Neepawa, we are making every effort make sure the 119 years of archives will be preserved. There’s a lot of history in that building, which was built in 1932.

It’s our hope that our papers and our various internet efforts will be here serving our communities for a long time. Thank you all for your past and future support.