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4-H is about helping youth achieve

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 ...

Voters face WCHS facilities question next week: Do they know enough?

For the past six months, the Webster City Community School District Board has shared with the community the need for improvements at the Webster City High School facility. There are many issues we can agree upon; take, for instance, the crucial need for an updated HVAC system to assure ...

Balance is needed in everyone’s online lives

Teenagers who once spent hours talking to each other on the phone now spend hours communicating on social media. Many adults do much of the same thing, spending hours scrolling through various web sites and social media feeds. Ironically, much of this is done using phones. Devices which were originally created to enable people to speak to each other in some cases now get used to do about everything but speak to another human being. The internet has a lot of tremendous benefits. It enables people to access all kinds of news and information that they could have never received ...

Buffer Pilot Project just got better

There are times when a good idea can be made even better. That is the case with the expansion of the state’s Streamside Buffer Pilot Project. It uses a comparatively small amount of money to help farmers plant vegetation along the sides of waterways, with the ultimate goal of cleaning up water downstream. And there is plenty of evidence showing that the all-natural processes of plants can make the nearby water cleaner. The buffers are the plant kingdom’s version of an NFL offensive line: they block things from getting through. But instead of protecting a quarterback, they ...

America at 250: A journey through time, told through our communities

What began as an experiment in self-governance rooted in personal freedom and liberty has grown into the world’s most unique and important nation: the United States of America. Here, we can, within the boundaries of the law, do, say and think what we wish; we can worship as we choose; we have taxation with representation; the American Dream remains a real, living concept; and so much more. As President Ronald Reagan so aptly said in describing America’s exceptionalism, we remain, in the eyes of the rest of the world, that “shining city on a hill.” But here at home, the mood has ...

Speed limit increase is a bad idea

Iowa’s lawmakers appear to be on the verge of raising the speed limit on the state’s two-lane highways. We think it’s a terrible idea and call on them to reject it. The bill now before the legislature would establish the default speed limit at 60 mph rather than the current 55 mph. But because four-lane highways have an established speed limit of 65 mph and highways that are part of the interstate system have a 70 mph speed limit, the impact of this bill would be realized on the two-lane routes like U.S. Highway 169. We see lots of bad things coming from this concept, and ...