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Right in the centre - Yes, still two papers in Neepawa

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Published on Thursday, September 10, 2015

By Ken Waddell

The Neepawa Banner

The Neepawa Banner and the Rivers Banner have been in business for a long time. They are owned by myself, my wife Christine and our two sons.

We are blessed to have four grandchildren and a great-grandson who will, hopefully, some day own shares in the company.

The Neepawa Press began a lot earlier, 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. Many are surprised that we are going to print two papers in Neepawa. Here’s the reason why: we believe in local communities, we have dedicated all our adult lives to rural communities, 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 web site. The news had reached over 7,000 people on Facebook by Friday morning and that was four days ahead of the Neepawa Press’ 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. Similarly, 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 Ë®¹ûÊÓƵ site, our Twitter and Facebook sites all go along as usual and are available 24/7. Advertisers will be able to choose which paper or combination of papers best suits their needs and budget.

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 pleased to be able to say we now own the Neepawa Press.

The two 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 the Neepawa Banner, the Rivers Banner and the Neepawa Press. It's an interesting time for us and hopefully it will be good for the communities 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 to 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.