After 20 years of operation, the investors of Kingfisher’s 89er Theatre are very proud to announce that we have sold the business to Zach and Jaryn Buseman.

Those investors include Larry Adams, Paul Schulte, Randy and Linda Mecklenburg, Tom Feagins, Bart Boeckman, the Johnsons Auto Family, the Kingfisher Times & Free Press, Doug and Karen Hauser and the Kingfisher Industrial Foundation.

Following the devastating fire that destroyed the original 89er Theatre in 2004, the vision of a three-screen 89er Theatre was contemplated and, after several months, the plan for the new theatre was born.

Over these past 20 years, we were able to operate and staff the theater, pay off the original loan of $1.75 million and continually reinvest into the facilities with new, state-of-the-art digital projectors, replace seating in two auditoriums, a new roof and continual upgrades to the building.

We offer our thanks to the many, many individuals and businesses of Kingfisher County who supported the 89er Theatre over that time through on-screen advertising.

For the theatre to continue to operate as it has, we ask that you continue to do so for the Busemans.

We continue to believe that for our community to remain a hub of commerce and positive economic activity, our theater plays a vital role in that healthy economic interaction.

It’s an asset that very few communities our size have to offer.

By our research, in all of northwest Oklahoma, we believe only Kingfisher and Alva continue to operate privately-owned movie theaters and Fairview operates one with the financial assistance of the City of Fairview.

That’s it. A total of three first-run movie theaters.

We all know that over the past several years, with the advent of the COVID shutdown, that Hollywood began streaming many first-run movies direct to households and bypassing theaters across the nation.

As a result, many closed forever and others struggle to continue to hang on.

Perhaps that policy will change. We certainly hope so.

There are still choices for movies to choose from for release to theaters only. But those choices are certainly fewer than were available to us pre-COVID.

We stated when we first undertook this project over 20 years ago that the theater could not survive without on-screen advertising and the greater Kingfisher market has always responded with the financial support.

We will support Zach and Jaryn and Kingfisher’s 89er Theatre as much as we possibly can and we ask the community to continue to do so.

The Busemans provide a new energetic marketing outlook and they are deeply committed to our community.

We think this is our best opportunity to allow for the 89er Theatre to continue to operate for many years to come.

We are delighted that they are taking on this new opportunity and challenge.

We also thank our longtime manager Nancy Striegel, who will continue to work with the Busemans.

She and her staff have always been loyal and dedicated to the theater’s operation. We’re very proud of Nancy and her crew.

A safely-operated hometown theater is one of the initial places children enjoy their first independent experience away from parents for a couple of hours.

The staff has always done a wonderful job looking after the welfare of children.

On behalf of our investors, we invite you all to experience movies often at Kingfisher’s 89er Theatre.

There’s something magical about a hometown movie theater to young and old alike.

We strongly feel that our community would be less without it.

– Barry Reid