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Opinion

A little bit of childhood

Local Columns

Sixty-five years ago one of the favorite things our mother would say to us was, “We’re going to Titonka (or to Wellsburg) Sunday.” Those were the Iowa communities where our grandparents lived. A trip to Wellsburg meant spending a Sunday with our maternal cousins and a trip to Titonka ...

The Doodle Bug Club of America says thank you

Letters to Editor

To the editor: On behalf of the Doodle Bug Club of America, I would like to extend a heartfelt thank you to the entire Webster City community for the warm welcome and generous hospitality shown to our members during our recent gathering. We were pleased to host riders and families from many ...

Different strokes for different folks

Local Columns

Recently I ran into a childhood friend who is a lifelong (and successful) farmer. “How’s life in the big city?” he asked, referring to my home in the Des Moines suburbs. I get this query occasionally from rural friends, some of whom cannot imagine living in the city or suburbs. ...

Four dead in Ohio

Local Columns

The year I was a junior in high school, four college students were shot on a campus in Ohio. The setting was Kent State, a public university. On May 4, 1970, a rally protesting the expansion of the United States’ involvement of the Vietnam War into Cambodia went sideways; 28 National Guard ...

Leadership is listening. Listening is empathy.

Local Columns

As I have stepped into this role of leadership, I have come to realize that I quite literally had no idea what I was getting myself into. What I thought the position was when I declared my candidacy to now is a complete 180 turn. No one really knows what goes into a respective position until ...