Breaking News

Opinion

That is totally groovy and I dig it

Local Columns

Growing up in the 1950s and 1960s in small town Iowa had many benefits for which I am grateful. At the same time, when you leave home and get into the “real” world this set-up can leave you with a deficit of worldly knowledge. In the late ’50s I acquired a sweatshirt imprinted with slang and illustrations from the “beat generation.” Beatnik words like “cool,” “Daddy-O” “square,” and “fuzz” were common slang in the post-war beat counter-culture and 11-year-old me tried to comprehend them all. In my early ’60s teen years there was a new slang. ...

Vote: It's about the fate of our country

Letters to Editor

Letter to the editor As we approach this year’s crucial election, we face an important choice about our nation's future. Voting for Democratic candidates is the most effective way to ensure a future built on shared prosperity, equality, and progress for all Americans. Democrats consistently advocate for policies that invest in everyday citizens rather than concentrating benefits for corporations and the ultra-rich as Republicans policies do. From lowering prescription drug and health care costs to supporting infrastructure improvements and clean energy, Democratic leadership has ...

4-H is about helping youth achieve

Editorials

Editorial: National 4-H Week, which began Sunday and concludes Saturday, is a good time to celebrate the enormous contributions 4-H makes to our community and nation. It's hard to imagine anyone in Iowa who doesn't know a bit about 4-H, but this week is an appropriate occasion to reflect on the important contribution this organization makes by helping young people develop skills and values that will serve them well for a lifetime. 4-H got its start in Iowa in 1901. Today it is the largest youth-development program in the state. About one-quarter of the state's young folks are ...

It’s sad to see them go

Local Columns

While driving around Iowa I have noted a continuing decline in the number of barns. Once the monarch of every Iowa farmstead, the barn has given way to more efficient metal buildings and, in some cases, no buildings at all. Things change. As with threshing machines, windmills, the outhouse and the horse-drawn wagon the wooden barn is rapidly becoming a part of our past. And that’s okay, I guess. Things change and we have to learn to change with them. Still, I feel some sorrow in the loss of the barn. So much of what made a farm a farm several decades ago centered on ...

Leadership is a process, so it's time to start

Local Columns

Hamilton County needs you! Webster City needs you. Every city in the county needs their residents to take up the charge to help make their city into a place where we all want to live. We need new people to step in and learn how to become leaders in our communities. It's the only way our communities can grow and thrive. We need to work together to find our younger leaders and recommend them for positions where they can learn to take on roles that are important to all of us. This past week, we have run the lists of committees and boards that have openings in both the city and the ...

Employee appreciation is more than empty gestures

Local Columns

I have always believed that if you want good people, you must treat good people like they matter. That sounds simple. It should be simple. But too often, employee appreciation becomes nothing more than words. We tell employees they are valued. We tell them they are appreciated. We tell them they are the backbone of an organization. Then we go right back to doing things the same way we have always done them. And those employees see it, they feel it and they are tired of it. Words matter. But words without action eventually become empty. That’s where we are, already. Real employee ...