Be grateful, be safe, thank those working around us

October 16, 2026

This week across Iowa, harvest is in full swing. After a long rainy September, our farmers can finally get into the fields. If you have been in Iowa a few years, you know what is involved. People are working long hours using large equipment. Our roads are having entirely different traffic patterns. Even the deer are more erratic as corn fields are leveled. Despite all of the September rain, there is even a risk of devastating field fires. I grew up on a family farm in Greene County. As soon as I could walk, my parents and big brothers were telling me to stay away from the bull ...

That is totally groovy and I dig it

October 14, 2026

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. ...

It’s sad to see them go

October 5, 2026

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

October 2, 2026

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

September 30, 2026

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 ...

Not a Jimmy or Debbie in the bunch

September 28, 2026

Having spent the past 70+ years spelling my name for people who have never heard it before, I am particularly observant of unusual given names. Though I wanted to be a Billy or Tommy when I was a kid, I’m okay with Arvid. It has served me well over the years. My ancestors came to the United States from northwest Germany’s East Friesland region and from the Netherland’s Groningen and Friesland provinces. My mother, named after an aunt, was given the Old Country name Harmina (hahr-MY-nuh.) Harmina Catherina. Mom claimed she didn’t like her name but I thought it was ...