About Strathmore Times

Strathmore Times

Overview

The Strathmore Times is an independent community newspaper serving Strathmore and Wheatland County in southern Alberta, about 40 kilometres east of Calgary along the Trans-Canada Highway. It is published every Friday by Strathmore Times Inc., a locally owned company, and distributed by Canada Post to Strathmore and fourteen surrounding rural communities, with additional pickup locations across its coverage area. Unlike many Alberta community papers of its size, the Times is not owned by Postmedia, Black Press or any other chain: the inventory description of it as an independent weekly is accurate, and it has remained independent through a decade in which Alberta's community newspaper map was repeatedly redrawn by chain consolidation and closures. It is, in the mid-2020s, Strathmore's surviving local newspaper, and it is demonstrably active: journalist indexes tracking its output record stories from its July 2026 editions, its reporter attends county board meetings as the paper's representative, and the federal government recognizes Strathmore Times Inc. as a news business in the current Online News Act program. Its website is strathmoretimes.com.

History

The Times' own founding date is not stated in the public sources consulted for this profile, and none is asserted here; what the surviving record shows is a paper fully established by early 2012, with complete mastheads surviving from its issues of March 2012 onward. From those earliest available mastheads, Mario Prusina appears as publisher and editor, the role he retained in every subsequent masthead examined, through 2020. The paper's first documented office was at 202, 114 Canal Garden in Strathmore, and by 2014 it had relocated to 123 2nd Avenue, the downtown address it continued to publish in its 2017, 2018 and 2020 mastheads. The early newsroom was small: Shannon LeClair reported alongside Prusina in 2012, with Rose Hamrlik handling advertising and Jody Schneider production. By 2017-18 the masthead had grown to include associate editor Miriam Ostermann, reporters Tyler Lowey and Adelle Ellis, financial manager Kristina Bezic and production manager Jody Schneider, and by April 2020 Janet Kanters was editor, with Sean Feagan reporting under the federally supported Local Journalism Initiative. The paper's second decade has been shaped by the transformation of its market: Strathmore's growth as a Calgary commuter town, the arrival of major industrial employers in Wheatland County, including the CGC wallboard plant and De Havilland Canada's aircraft manufacturing development, and the disappearance of its chain-owned competitor, the former Strathmore Standard, a separate Sun Media and later Postmedia title that no longer publishes. The Times carried on as an independent, and its participation in the Local Journalism Initiative continued into the mid-2020s, with reporter John Watson filing under the program in 2024, 2025 and 2026.

Programming and Content

The Times covers the full civic life of its market. Its reporters attend Strathmore town council and Wheatland County meetings and the boards that run regional services: the minutes of the Wheatland and Adjacent Districts Emergency Medical Services Association for September 2024, for instance, record Strathmore Times reporter J. Watson in attendance, a small but characteristic trace of the paper doing the routine accountability work of a community weekly. County development is a major theme in the mid-2020s, as industrial projects reshape Wheatland County: in 2026 the paper reported Siksika Nation's concerns about a lack of consultation over a proposed data centre in the county, within the Nation's traditional territory, and a June 2026 investment publication was citing the Strathmore Times among its sources on the county's growth story. The paper covers the Golden Hills and Christ the Redeemer school communities, agriculture across the county's farm belt, local business, and an active arts scene; one 2026 story followed Strathmore artist Emmeline Keeling to a one-day Calgary gallery show. Sport is a staple, including the Strathmore Wheatland Kings of the Heritage Junior Hockey League, whose April 2024 players' banquet and naming-rights deal the paper covered in a story later cited by the team's reference pages. Columns from the area's provincial representative, Chestermere-Strathmore MLA Chantelle de Jonge, appear in its pages, as do letters to the editor, which the paper's longstanding policy requires to be signed, with a telephone number for verification, and kept under 400 words where possible. Obituaries and community announcements round out each Friday edition.

Audience and Reach

Strathmore is a town of about 14,000 residents (14,339 in the 2021 census) and the service centre for Wheatland County's rural population, and the Times was built to reach both. The distribution statement printed in its mastheads records delivery by Canada Post to Strathmore, Carseland, Cheadle, Cluny, Gleichen, Hussar, Indus, Langdon, Lyalta, Namaka, Nightingale, Rockyford, Rosebud, Speargrass and Standard, with further pickup locations throughout the coverage area: fifteen communities in all, most of them small farming centres for which the Times is the only regular print news source. The same mastheads put the print run at 11,500 copies, printed by Star Press Inc. of Wainwright, Alberta; those figures are the paper's own published statements and are presented as such, unchanged across the mastheads examined from 2012 to 2020. Readership extends to the Calgary commuter population that has driven Strathmore's growth, to the Siksika Nation east of the town, whose affairs the paper covers as part of its county beat, and, through the website, to former residents and the development community following Wheatland County's industrial expansion.

Digital Presence

The paper's digital home is strathmoretimes.com, where its current reporting is published for readers beyond the Canada Post delivery area. The site could not be fetched directly by the automated tools used to prepare this profile, a common restriction among small Canadian publishers, but the paper's current output is independently visible: Muck Rack's journalist index maintains a Strathmore Times outlet page recording its recent stories, including items from a July 2026 edition and the work of its Local Journalism Initiative reporter, and individual stories from the site are republished and indexed by syndication services. That dated 2026 output, together with the paper's presence in current directories and federal program records, confirms an actively publishing digital operation. The mastheads have long directed readers to the paper's Facebook page as well, and its stories circulate through regional sharing among Wheatland County community groups. In keeping with the economics of independent weeklies, the print edition remains the flagship product, delivered by mail each Friday, while the website carries the paper's journalism to the wider region between editions.

Ownership and Organisation

The Strathmore Times is published by Strathmore Times Inc., an independent company based in Strathmore. Mario Prusina, its publisher and editor in the paper's earliest surviving mastheads, has been the constant figure in its organization across every masthead examined from 2012 to 2020, supported over the years by a small staff of reporters, advertising and production employees and a roster of community contributors. The paper is a member of the Alberta Weekly Newspapers Association, the provincial body for community weeklies, appearing in the association's current member listing. Its standing as a recognized Canadian news business is a matter of federal record: the CRTC's status reporting under the Online News Act lists Strathmore Times Inc. as a recipient, recording $20,027.39 received by the company, and the paper has employed reporters funded through the Local Journalism Initiative, Sean Feagan in 2020 and John Watson in the mid-2020s, whose bylines appear on its county and Siksika coverage. That combination, a locally owned publisher, an association-member weekly and a federally recognized newsroom, makes the Times one of the clearer examples in Alberta of the independent model surviving the chain era intact.

Contact and Availability

The Strathmore Times is published every Friday and delivered by Canada Post across Strathmore and Wheatland County, with copies also available at pickup locations in the fifteen communities listed in its masthead. The address the paper published throughout its recent mastheads is 123 2nd Avenue, Strathmore, Alberta, T1P 1K1, and its published telephone number is 403.934.5589; readers should confirm both against the current edition, since they are taken from mastheads up to 2020. Online, the paper is at strathmoretimes.com, and its journalists' contact routes are listed through journalist directories that index the outlet. Letters to the editor must be signed and include a telephone number for verification, and the paper asks writers to keep letters under 400 words. Advertising and subscription enquiries are handled by the paper's Strathmore office, and community groups, schools and sports organizations across Wheatland County can reach the newsroom through the same channels.