Our Story

For a dozen years, Simply Family Magazine, the #1 resource for families in our area,  created a link between families and this community we call home. Now in 2020, we have expanded our pages and what we are bringing to you. Simply Family will become one piece of a larger, more whole-community, puzzle. We want to support everyone who calls Billings and South Central Montana home in living your best life right here.

Introducing Simply Local, where you’ll find the heart of what we bring you and the resources remain the same, but now you’ll get more of what you’ve come to know and love. We have found over the years that people love the stories we tell. We have fallen in love as well with telling the stories. Now we want to tell more. We want to be a new kind of local media. The kind that helps people live their best life right here where they are planted. The kind of media that helps you foster a your best relationship with our community. Nothing sensationalized, just stories with heart and resources that matter to your life. 

Simply Local is all about heart. We’re not changing our heart or our values, we’re simply diving deeper and giving ourselves the space to expand, giving you more. Because…

Sometimes, more is more. 

Inside, you’ll first encounter the LOCAL section, where we’ll explore things happening in our community. It’s the space where we can shine a light on the bright spots; people and places and experiences that Billings has to offer.

Next, In the FAMILY section we’ll focus on the ages and stages and still be that space where parents, grandparents, families feel seen and heard. Part of a village.

We’re especially excited to pull Simply FOOD fully into the pages, where it’s all about the yum. You’ll find recipes, go behind the scenes with local chefs, and deep dive into all things food.

The HOME section is a destination and in itself, our destination that aims to show us how to love where we live. How to live in our dwellings and how to make them sanctuaries that help us feel complete.

And, as it always has, our community calendar will wrap up each issue – connecting you to our community’s happenings in a very tangible way. Expect more diverse happenings, still organized in a way that helps you find what you’re looking for on any given day.

Over the past 13 years, Simply Family Magazine has grown from being a 10-month a year publication to 12. We’ve experienced changes of all kinds within these pages, to now adapting to the times and people’s tastes. Even in the span of this decade, the times have changed significantly. How we live, how we parent is constantly evolving. We are honored that our readers can get lost in these pages; it’s a getaway you can hold in your hands. 

We work to be a collection of feel good, positive stories that highlight the best of Billings. The stuff that makes us proud to live here. While we’re aware no community is perfect, we strive to pull to the forefront the areas where we shine. It’s all too easy to get mired down in the negatives, and these pages offer a reprieve from that. And yet, life is not all roses and sunshine, so we tackle the difficult things that people experience with the hope of helping them through it, “we talk about hard things with a different heart,” explains Jenny Barriger, co-founder.

Simply Local Magazine will remain a free resource to our community. We continue to be a resource supported by the amazing businesses in our community to be free and enjoyable to our readers. Cheers to a future where more is wonderfully more.