Dr. Meghan Hanson stands outside of Anew Family Chiropractic, her new business in Fairmont located at 1001 E. Blue Earth Avenue.

FAIRMONT — Anew Family Chiropractic is a new business in Fairmont located at 1001 E. Blue Earth Ave. Fairmont native, Dr. Meghan Hanson, began accepting new patients this week.

Hanson, daughter of Patty and Todd Monsen, graduated from Fairmont High School in 2010. She then went to the University of Minnesota in the Twin Cities where she studied animal science.

Hanson had horses while growing up and would do shows on the weekend and always went to the fair with them.

“It was a huge part of my life which is why I thought I wanted to go the animal route,” Hanson explained.

During her undergraduate work, she did an internship at a ranch in Texas during the breeding and reproductive season. She helped deliver about 300 baby horses while there.

“It was fun, but I was still figuring out what I wanted to do,” Hanson explained.

She came back for her last year of school and finished out her animal science degree. After graduating, she went straight to chiropractic school at Northwestern Health Sciences University in Bloomington, Minnesota.

She shared what made her consider chiropractic as a career.

“One of my horses was having a hard time going around a barrel to the right. She would start throwing her head and bucking and I could not figure out why,” Hanson said.

She took her horse to a vet where it was X-rayed. She also took it to several trainers and even got the horse new equipment and nothing seemed to help.

“And then I took her to a chiropractor and it was a night-and-day difference,” Hanson said.

Hanson said she herself had been a long-time chiropractic patient and knew it worked for, but seeing her horse improve immediately after its adjustment was eye-opening.

After three more years of schooling, Hanson graduated from chiropractic school in 2017. Then she went to Kansas City to attend an animal chiropractic school, which she received her certification.

“I found an office down there that I loved that focused on seeing a lot of kids, babies and pregnant women. They offered me a job, so I stayed,” she explained.

Her then boyfriend, Kevin Hanson, also a Fairmont native, joined her there in 2017 and began working for Cargill. The couple was married in Fairmont in the summer of 2019.

Meghan shared what brought them back to Fairmont.

“Kevin and I have always wanted to move back home. I just wanted to work in a busy setting right out of school. Working for someone else was really nice because I could hone in on my skills and see a lot of cases. But we always wanted to move back home,” she said.

The couple decided to move back during late fall of 2020. They began working on remodeling a house on her grandparents’ acreage where her horses are. They spent the next few months going back and forth from Kansas City to Fairmont while working on the remodel.

Hanson worked her last day at her old job on March 31, 2021, and they made the move back to Fairmont the next day. Her husband is able to work remotely for his job with Cargill.

As for opening her own business, Hanson said, “My end goal was to come back to Fairmont and have my own practice.”

Hanson said she was looking at a few places, but when her current space became available, she said it felt like the perfect fit.

Right now Hanson is strictly working with people.

“I do tonal techniques which are more a light force chiropractic, not as much as the click-y, pop-y, crack-y. I work a ton with the nervous system, re-patterning and breaking old habits to get you from not functioning to functioning,” Hanson explained.

She has a lot of training in pediatrics, including babies, children and children with neurosensory challenges like ADHD and autism. She also works with colicky babies who are not sleeping well, have difficulties nursing or not hitting milestones appropriately.

“Those are my favorite patients to work with because you can set the foundation at an early age versus when you’re an adult trying to backtrack,” Hanson said.

The name of her business, anew, means in a new or typically more positive way.

“I think that embodies what I do here. It’s a very positive atmosphere. Healing is so good for everyone. Create each day anew is my slogan,” she said.

Hanson shared what she hopes her business brings to Fairmont and the surrounding communities.

“The chance to cultivate working with kids and the younger generation to create a healthy community in the long term for Fairmont is exciting to me and I’m excited to serve everybody here and give back to the community that raised us,” Hanson said.

Anew is open Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays from 8:30 a.m. – 5:30 p.m. On Tuesdays it’s open from 8 a.m. -1 p.m. and Fridays by appointment only.

The website can be found at anewfamilychiro.com and Hanson recommends people call to schedule an appointment at 507-399-2045.