For the first time since the early 1900s, the Sebeka Menahga Review Messenger is under new ownership.

On August 28, Chad and Dani Koenen purchased the Sebeka Menahga Review Messenger from Tim Bloomquist. The family owned community newspaper has been in the Bloomquist family for 119 years.

“We are looking forward to being a part of the Sebeka, Menahga and surrounding communities,” said Chad. “We hope to continue the long legacy of quality journalism and putting together a newspaper this area can be proud of for another generation.”

In 2010 the Koenens purchased the Citizen’s Advocate in Henning when they were pregnant with their first child. They moved to rural Deer Creek, just down the road from where Dani was born and raised. In 2013 they began the New York Mills Dispatch after that community lost a newspaper through a merger, before purchasing the Frazee-Vergas Forum in 2018 when their owners were looking to retire.

As far as the Review Messenger, Chad said they are not planning any changes other than a refreshed look to the overall newspaper design. The staff will remain in place and the newspaper offices in both Sebeka and Menahga will not be changed. The newspaper will now be printed at Quinco Press in Lowry, but will be printed and delivered every Wednesday like it has in the past. That change in printers came even more urgent with news at the printing plant in Brainerd would be closing at the end of September.