A Chamber of Commerce ribbon-cutting in Callaway celebrated the continuing of the Callaway Courier on Thursday, November 4. Members of the Callaway Chamber attended the ribbon cutting and thanked the new staff of the Courier for helping keep the newspaper alive in the small town.
According to a previous article from the Callaway Courier, the Courier has been providing news and local happenings to the residents of Callaway for the past 32 years or so, under the ownership of Michael Wendorf and his wife Suzanne. In October, Syndicate Publishing of Gothenburg officially took ownership of the Courier just before the final story was scheduled to be printed.
Syndicate Publishing is owned by Colten Venteicher and John Bell of Gothenburg who, in 2019, created a brand new newspaper, the Gothenburg Leader. Venteicher told KCNI/KBBN having a local paper is important to make sure everyone knows what is going on.
“We have a lot of good things going on, but if you don’t have that local paper highlighting those pieces then who is finding out about it,” said Venteicher.
He also noted that accessibility is the focus of the paper and making sure it can be viewed at any time.
“Our model is accessibility. We utilize social media quite a bit. We have a website that garners about 50,000 page views a month. We have been big about taking advantage of that technology and getting eyes on our content,” Venteicher said. “We don’t want there to be a barrier or paywall for folks to read our content which is a bit of a different approach that papers haven’t taken especially in rural communities.”
The team that will be continuing the legacy of the Callaway Courier consists of: Rebecca Steward, General Manager and sports reporter; Alisa Mullen, Sales & Marketing Manager; Ellen Mortensen, news and feature reporter; and Mark Lewis, graphic and page design specialist.
