the las cruces bulletin weekly newspaper was founded in 1969 by ken dahlstrom. first issue was published on december 4, 1969. on march 31, 1983, dahlstrom sold the paper to steve klinger who converted the format from broadsheet to tabloid. the bulletin was sold by klinger in 1996 to kilpatrick newspapers, inc. of austin, texas. owner mark kilpatrick sold the newspaper to fig publications, llc, owned by jaki and david mccollum on may 1, 2003. on november 1, 2012 it was sold to opc news, owned by the osteen family. osteen publishing, also owned by the family, publishes "the item".