Does the Swift County Monitor cover Benson, Minnesota and surrounding communities?

Updated

Yes. The Swift County Monitor's homepage coverage centers on Benson and the wider Swift County area, including city government, county offices, local schools and sports, community life, obituaries, and opinion columns. If you live in or follow Benson or nearby Swift County communities, the paper's front page is built around exactly that territory.

What the coverage looks like in practice

The homepage is organized into a few recurring sections, and each one points to a specific slice of local life.

Benson city government

The lead story on the homepage is a Benson City Council item: the council set its preliminary 2027 levy increase at 6.5% at a Sept. 28 meeting. The report also notes the state rule behind the timing — Minnesota local governments must adopt preliminary levies by the end of September, then refine budgets over the following three months, and the preliminary amount can still be reduced before final adoption.

That is the kind of story you only get from a local outlet: a specific body, a specific percentage, a specific deadline, and the procedural context that explains why the number might change.

County-level news

Beyond the city, the paper carries county news. A recent item reports that the county attorney, Gerads, is resigning. County offices and services like this sit at the boundary between Benson and the surrounding townships, which is why they show up alongside city stories rather than in a separate regional feed.

Schools and sports

The sports section covers teams from the area, not just one school. Recent headlines include:

  • Braves spoil WCA homecoming with 38-6 win
  • KMS volleyball stops four-game skid
  • Braves drop two Prairie Conference games
  • Monster games from Young and Ascheman pace Braves
  • Saints pull off two Camden Conference wins
  • Saints drop defensive battle against SCC

The mix of Braves, Saints, KMS, WCA, and conference names (Prairie, Camden) shows coverage stretching across multiple schools and leagues in the region.

Community life, obituaries, and opinions

Local Life items include Medicare Open Enrollment dates (Oct. 15 through Dec. 7), a Hubbard School award for Anfinson, and community comment on CentraCare. The obituaries section lists death notices for residents such as Glenn L. Rois, Sharon J. Mitteness, Myron Paul Olson, Verna Quandt, and Roger Hanson. Opinions carries a column, "View From a Prairie Home," written by a contributor who taught German in high school for 27 years.

How to check whether your community is covered

  1. Open the homepage and scan the section labels: Home, Sports, Obituaries, plus the News / Local Life / Opinions groupings in the feed.
  2. Look at the datelines and place names inside headlines and story text — Benson, the county, and the school or conference names are the fastest signal.
  3. Check the obituaries list, since death notices are usually the clearest indicator of which towns a local paper treats as its home territory.
  4. If you want ongoing access rather than the front page, use the "View or Subscribe" link on the site; the homepage shows a subscribe prompt but does not display pricing, so check that page for current terms.

What this means for you

If you are looking for Benson City Council decisions, Swift County government news, area high school sports, or obituaries for Swift County residents, this outlet covers all of those categories. If your interest is a different county or a larger metro area, the scope here is narrower — the paper's identity is tied to Benson and Swift County, and its story selection reflects that.