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Hugging to the music

Local Columns

Facebook friends are posting photos of their kids and grandkids all decked out for proms at their high schools. These photos are rekindling a 60-year trauma. During the years of childhood my only acquaintance with proms were news stories of teenagers driving recklessly after proms. The reality of a prom didn’t hit me until I was a sophomore in high school. Sophomores could volunteer to be servers at the Junior-Senior Prom. I thought I had better things to do. The next year our junior class staged a fundraiser to finance our prom and I pitched in. In those days proms included a ...

Would you believe me if I told you the tomb was empty?

Local Columns

He is risen! He is risen indeed. But — Would you believe me if I told you the tomb was empty? I mean really. Would you? Not in the Sunday school answer kind of way. Not because it’s Easter morning and we’ve got lilies and bright colors and eggs filled with confetti. I mean in your ...

Keep Iowa’s roads safe during spring planting

Editorials

This is the time of the year when big, slow-moving farm vehicles rumble out onto roadways dominated by faster-paced traffic. That shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone who lives in farm country. Even so, all of us should pay special heed to safety considerations as we share the roads with agricultural vehicles. In general, Iowa has been doing a good job of keeping accidents involving farm vehicles to a minimum. According to data from the Iowa Department of Transportation, fatalities and major injuries resulting from such accidents have been on the decline in recent years. That’s ...

Here are some things I didn't know

Local Columns

Here are some things I didn’t know before today: Jerita Nelson loves shoes as much — maybe more — than I do. AnNyce Kelting Hoff knows that my mother, who was a dear friend of her mother, would have had a cup of coffee front and center with her dessert at the Lenten Luncheon on Tuesday at Trinity Lutheran Church. AnNyce remarked on this because I was quaffing water. Someone would have had to scrape me off the ceiling if I drank the coffee. That someone would likely have been Kolleen Taylor, seated on the other side of me, who remarkably realized that I was having too good ...

Who you are because of where you were

Local Columns

A convention program many years ago left a lasting impression on me. I have remembered its message all these years since. The presentation was entitled “You Are Who You Are Because of Where You Were When” — or something similar. Dr. Massey, a professor from a Colorado university, was the presenter. His theory was that at about age 9 or 10 the average child looks around and — concluding that what is seen must be what is right — creates a values system on which judgments will be made the rest of his or her life. Only two things, Dr. Massey said, will change that values ...

Tell elected representatives to ask the ultrarich to pay their fair share

Letters to Editor

To the editor: “That’s so true,” replied the employee restocking shelves when I reached for an item that had yet another price increase and said, “The billionaires are robbing us blind.” President (Ronald) Reagan’s campaigning scheme that giving tax breaks to the rich will trickle down to provide prosperity to everyday citizens got him elected, but the notion has been proven false. Instead, it has been a boon for the wealthiest ever since his 1976 election. Common Good Iowa reports in 2023 that Iowa’s rich are getting richer and our poor are getting poorer. One in ...