Coming Back to the Story

Lisa Cownie is used to being the one asking the questions.

For much of her career, that has been the work: listening carefully, pulling out the story, and helping people understand not just what happened, but why it matters. Now, as Connect Business Magazine returns in a fully digital format, Cownie is stepping back into a familiar role with a publication she helped shape for years.

This time, she returns as contributing editor.

For Cownie, the role is less about coming back to something old and more about continuing work she has always cared about: telling the fuller stories of the people, businesses, and organizations shaping Southern Minnesota.

“To me, business stories at the heart of them are people stories,” Cownie said.

That belief has guided much of her work.

Cownie grew up in a small town in Missouri with a population of about 300. From a young age, she knew she wanted to work in media. She loved writing, watched the local news, and saw a future for herself in storytelling.

“I think from, like, age 14 on, I always knew what I wanted to do,” she said.

She attended what was then Northeast Missouri State University, now Truman State University, where she earned a degree in communication. While in college, she worked in radio and built early broadcasting experience from the ground up.

“I won a teen disc jockey contest,” she said.

That experience helped lead to her first television job in Quincy, Illinois, where she worked as what was known as a “one-man band.” She shot video, reported, edited, found stories, and handled the work herself.

“It sounds probably miserable to people, but I learned so much because I had to be the photographer, the reporter, the editor, find my own news stories,” she said.

Her career would eventually take her around the country. After marrying her husband, who served in the Coast Guard, Cownie moved often, reinventing her career along the way. She worked in the San Francisco area as a business reporter for a cable station, did freelance writing in the political world while living in Virginia, taught writing in Hawaii, and continued building a broad communications background through each move.

Those experiences, she said, helped round her out.

Eventually, Cownie and her family returned to Mankato. She had briefly worked at KEYC News 12 in 1990 after college, and when the family decided to settle down and raise their children, Mankato felt like the right place.

She moved back in 2008 and returned to KEYC, where longtime general manager Denny Wahlstrom remembered her from her earlier time at the station and welcomed her back. Cownie would go on to spend more than 18 years with KEYC, including as anchor of KEYC News 12 This Morning and creator and host of the lifestyle show Kato Living.

Through that work, she became a familiar face across Southern Minnesota. More importantly, she began to understand the region in a deeper way.

“Through KEYC, I just started meeting so many people, of course, throughout the whole southern Minnesota region and really understood what a special place it was,” Cownie said.

She had known Mankato would be a good place to raise a family. What surprised her was how much the region had changed and how much more growth she could see coming.

That perspective made Connect Business Magazine a natural next step.

When someone from Connect reached out and asked whether she would be interested in becoming editor, Cownie said she did not hesitate long.

“I think I hesitated maybe 10 seconds and said, yes, of course,” she said.

Broadcast news had given her discipline, speed, and clarity. But the format was brief by nature. Connect gave her room to tell stories with more depth.

“I was really wanting to tell the full story of the people and the businesses in Southern Minnesota,” she said.

Cownie served as editor of Connect for roughly eight years, helping tell the stories of regional business leaders, companies, and organizations. What stayed with her most was not a single article, but the response from readers.

She remembers hearing from people who had known a business owner or community leader for years, but still learned something new through a Connect story.

“They were learning about them personally that you could see why it impacted the way they were as a business person,” Cownie said.

That is the kind of storytelling she believes matters.

After her time with Connect, Cownie continued her work in media and communications while also moving into the nonprofit world. She worked with MRCI as community relations manager and strategic writer from 2017 to 2023, bringing her storytelling skills into an organization focused on mission and community impact. She has also taught speaking and writing for broadcast as an adjunct professor at Minnesota State University, Mankato since 2017.

Today, Cownie serves as Senior Manager, Client Success for Moore’s 1st Degree division. She is also an Emmy Award-winning voice-over artist and remains active in the community.

Cownie’s return to Connect comes at a different moment for the publication and for media in general. The magazine is no longer built around print, but the work that drew her to Connect in the first place has not changed much: finding the people behind the business story and giving their stories room to breathe.

“I’m excited that Connect’s coming back so that we can really showcase the region, amplify it,” she said.

She sees Southern Minnesota as a region with a larger impact than many people realize. Some companies based here serve global markets. Local decisions ripple across industries, communities, employees, and families. The stories are not small. They simply need to be told with the right attention.

That is where Cownie returns to the work.

Not just to cover businesses.

To understand the people behind them.