1946 – 2026 Watching Steinbach Grow: A winning community newspaper format

Living up to the pledge of an early slogan, which members of the news staff were happy to see the last of, The Carillon News, grew from an eight-page weekly to nearly 30 pages by the 1960s, all the while continuing to “Cover Southeastern Manitoba Like the Morning Dew.”

While the news was different every week, Eugene Derksen’s format proved to be a winning formula for Community Newspaper Association competitions and subscribers alike, and that didn’t change much over the decades.

And tucked into most issues, was a tabloid-sized supplement highlighting events like agricultural fairs, weather events like tornadoes and floods, community profiles, ag issues, or perhaps an issue of The Western, a magazine-style weekly with an eclectic variety of feature stories.

The newspaper itself may have looked much the same every week, but the photos and stories provided readers a real snapshot of what was happening in the coverage area.

For example, the front page of the Aug. 23, 1963 issue of The Carillon News carried more than a dozen stories, ranging from politics, to sports, to health care, and agriculture. Inside were snippets of happenings across the Southeast in contributions from dozens of community correspondents.

There were pages of want ads and wedding pictures, and a church page that included the latest news of the Mennonite Central Committee’s activities overseas.

In what was a typical week that August, readers were informed of an impending huge hospital construction project, learned that Progressive Conservatives were no longer all that happy with the leadership of John Diefenbaker, got to see if their children’s names were among the 82 listed for successfully completing swimming lessons sponsored by the Kinsmen, and were told that the local court’s coffers were “thriving on the thirst of underage drinkers.”

It would appear the teenagers of the ‘60s weren’t content to wait for the legal drinking age of 21 and were never at a loss to find someone to pick up a six-pack of beer for them. The results of this folly often resulted in a trip to the courtroom for their suppliers and to their chagrin, the parents who had to accompany the miscreant on his visit to the magistrate.

The court news in the newspaper continued to garner an increasing group of followers over the years and much of the credit went to the quips and lectures of sitting judges like Robert Trudel, Mike Baryluk and Sam Minuk.

The trio also shared their thoughts outside the courtroom and made many a visit to Steinbach between court dates to speak to community groups about special issues of local concern. Steinbach was no longer a small town, but was growing into a city, with many of the big city vices coming along with that growth.

And for readers who were looking for good news in the pages of The Carillon News, during that week in August of 1963, the grocery ads let them know that Penner’s Tom Boy had ground beef on for 39 cents a pound and 10 tins of tomato soup cost only a buck.

And just in case you didn’t win the 1963 Dodge A.D. Penner was giving away, Steinbach’s most famous auto dealer ran an ad promising to sell you a new Dodge for less than $2,300.

And by the way, The Carillon News continued to live up to its new, more modest slogan, by “Serving Southeastern Manitoba.”

The next change of slogan reflected the goal of the weekly newspaper and stressed the regional focus The Carillon has always strived for.

Today, The Carillon still promises to print weekly “News that matters to people of Southeastern Manitoba.”