About Stettler Independent

Stettler Independent

Overview

The Stettler Independent is a weekly community newspaper serving the town of Stettler and the County of Stettler in central Alberta, Canada. Published each Thursday, it is one of the province's long-lived rural weeklies: its own masthead proclaims "Established in 1906," and the paper marked that lineage in a print edition dated Thursday, 12 February 2026, whose editorial page carried the paper's traditional motto, "Dedicated to the advancement of the well-being and the preservation of the heritage of the community, which includes Stettler and the County of Stettler."

Despite directory listings that describe it as an independent newspaper, the Independent is not independently owned. Its February 2026 masthead states that it is "Published by the Stettler Independent (a division of Black Press Group Ltd.)," and Black Press recruitment material for the paper says plainly that "the Stettler Independent is owned by Black Press Community News Media." It is produced within Black Press Media's Prairie Division alongside sister central Alberta titles including the Red Deer Advocate, the Lacombe Express, the Ponoka News and The Pipestone Flyer. The paper is a member of the Alberta Weekly Newspapers Association.

Current operation is directly verifiable: Black Press's own e-edition archive holds the paper's 12 February 2026 edition, complete with a current masthead naming its editor, regional publisher and Prairie Division president, and its website at stettlerindependent.com continues to publish local news for the Stettler area.

History

The Independent was founded in 1906 by Will Godson, an Australian newspaperman who had previously been a founding member of a short-lived newspaper in Strathcona and the founder of the Leduc Record, interests he sold in 1905 before moving to the new town of Stettler. The town history preserved by Our Town Stettler records the paper's launch campaign in detail: on a snowy 1 November 1906, Godson dispatched four canvassers on horse-drawn sleighs in four directions from the National (Stettler) Hotel — to the districts of Botha, Red Willow, Erskine and Big Valley — to sign up subscribers, a push credited with solidifying the Independent in the district. The paper's first office stood north of Taylor Street, west of what is now 50th Street.

Godson soon wished to return to Australia, and his advertisement of the paper for sale caught the eye of Charles L. Willis, an Ontario schoolteacher, who took over the Independent on 15 June 1908. The Willis name remained synonymous with the paper for eighty-nine years. The paper survived the fire of 13 October 1908 that swept the northern end of town, buying the lot of the former Union Hotel on Alberta (50th) Avenue, where it remained for most of its existence — and, the town history notes, it did not miss an issue. The Independent was consistently among the best-equipped rural newspapers in Alberta: it bought a used Optimus press from the Lethbridge Herald in 1910, installed a Linotype machine in 1916 — one of the first used by a rural newspaper — rebuilt its plant with type casters, automatic job presses and a photo engraver after another October fire in 1952, and in 1962 bought a $17,000 Cox-O-Type press from the Grande Prairie Herald capable of printing eight-page sections. By 1980, after a thorough computer-age retooling, its production capacity equalled that of a small daily.

C.L. Willis wrote the paper's editorials until his death on 10 May 1956, when his son Roy W. Willis succeeded him as editor and publisher. Roy Willis, who had joined the paper in 1941, bought the Castor Advance in November 1965, the same autumn the Independent won the Alberta Weekly Newspapers Association's Best All-Around Newspaper award in its circulation class and he was named Stettler's Citizen of the Year. He remained a working editor into his late eighties and died in 2008, aged ninety-one. In the early 1990s the Willis family sold the paper to Trinity Holdings, and the family's direct association ended with Alan Willis's resignation in 1997. The paper later passed to Black Press; Black Press itself came under new ownership in March 2024, when Carpenter Media Group, together with Canso Investment Counsel and Deans Knight, acquired the company following a creditor-protection restructuring.

Programming and Content

The Independent's pages follow the life of a central Alberta farming, energy and railway town and its surrounding county. Town of Stettler and County of Stettler council coverage, agriculture, schools, health care, minor and junior hockey and other local sports, business news, obituaries and classifieds form the core of the news report. Its opinion pages mix a strong local editorial voice with shared regional commentary: the 12 February 2026 edition carried a lengthy editorial-page column on the Alberta sovereignty debate by Byron Hackett, the Red Deer Advocate's managing editor and Black Press's Central Alberta regional editor, alongside a column by the federal Conservative leader, illustrating how Black Press's central Alberta papers share opinion content across the region.

The paper bills itself on its masthead as "The leading weekly newspaper of Central Alberta" — its own description, printed above the motto that commits it to the advancement and heritage of Stettler and the County of Stettler. A letters-to-the-editor policy printed in the paper invites correspondence of up to five hundred words on topical and local issues, and the masthead notes the paper is funded in part by the Government of Canada. News and sports tips are directed to the paper's editor address, and its reporting team covers the same county beat the paper has worked since 1906.

Audience and Reach

The Independent's audience is the town of Stettler and the farm and acreage communities of the County of Stettler — readers for whom the weekly is the newspaper of record for municipal decisions, school and sports results, agricultural news and the social record of the district. Its circulation model is that of the traditional Alberta weekly: a paid and distributed print edition published every Thursday, read across the town and county, in a market too small for a daily newspaper and distant enough from Red Deer and Edmonton that metro media cover it only occasionally.

Within Black Press's Prairie Division the paper sits in a regional family — the Red Deer Advocate as the division's central Alberta daily anchor, with the Lacombe Express, Ponoka News, Rimbey Review and The Pipestone Flyer among its weekly sisters — which gives its stories regional circulation through the group's shared platforms while the paper itself remains focused on Stettler. Its unbroken publication run since 1906, surviving two fires, the Depression-era decades of prairie journalism and the twenty-first-century consolidation of the industry, makes it one of the enduring voices of rural central Alberta.

Digital Presence

The Independent's digital home is stettlerindependent.com, where its local news, sports, obituaries and classified content are published online. Black Press also maintains a complete e-edition archive of the print paper on its pages archive service, where the full 12 February 2026 edition — masthead, editorial page and all — can be read page by page, giving the weekly a durable digital facsimile edition alongside the website. The paper's recruitment and business listings appear on Black Press's corporate channels, and its journalism is indexed by the usual news aggregators. For readers who have moved away from the county, the combination of the website and the archived e-edition is the practical way to follow the paper.

Ownership and Organisation

The Stettler Independent is owned by Black Press and published by "the Stettler Independent (a division of Black Press Group Ltd.)," in the words of its own current masthead. Descriptions of the paper as an independent or family-owned weekly are decades out of date: the Willis family's ownership ended with the sale to Trinity Holdings in the early 1990s, and the paper is today one of the central Alberta titles in Black Press Media's Prairie Division, whose president, Daria Zmiyiwsky, is named on the paper's February 2026 masthead. Black Press itself was acquired in March 2024 by Carpenter Media Group with Canso Investment Counsel and Deans Knight, following a creditor-protection restructuring of the group.

The paper's current masthead (12 February 2026) names Christina Komives as Regional Publisher and Kevin Sabo as Editor, with Emily Jaycox reporting and Daren Gawron handling multimedia advertising sales. In 2017 the editor's chair was held by Moush Sara John, per the paper's recruitment advertising of that year. The office telephone number printed in the current edition is 403-742-2395, with subscriptions handled at 403-314-4302 and news directed to editor@stettlerindependent.com. The Independent is a member of the Alberta Weekly Newspapers Association, in whose awards its Willis-era editions were repeatedly recognised.

Contact and Availability

The Stettler Independent publishes every Thursday for Stettler and the County of Stettler, Alberta, Canada. Subscriptions can be arranged through the number printed in the paper, 403-314-4302; the office can be reached at 403-742-2395; and news and sports items can be sent to editor@stettlerindependent.com. The current edition and recent back issues can be read through the paper's website, stettlerindependent.com, and through Black Press's e-edition archive, which holds complete page images of the print paper. Advertising enquiries are handled through the paper's sales representative listed in each edition's masthead.