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I'm supporting Nikki Haley for President

Letters to Editor

To the editor: Wouldn’t it be great if the President understood small town America? That’s one of the reasons I’m supporting Nikki Haley for President and encouraging my friends and neighbors in Hamilton County to vote for her at the January 15 caucus. Nikki was born and raised in a town not much different than Webster City. At 14, she started helping with the bookkeeping at her family business. After getting an accounting degree at Clemson and a short stint in an accounting firm, she returned to the family business in her hometown. Later, after finding that the ...

The caucuses are January 15. Will you be there?

Letters to Editor

To the editor: Recent conversations with friends have shown how discouraged people are about all the division and chaos that is going on in our country, and how hopeless people feel. I understand. It can be overwhelming. While over 75% of U.S. citizens do not want open borders, the current executive branch policy is to maintain open borders and let millions of unvetted people into the country. This comes with a tremendous cost to the country as we struggle with a recession. It also enables a fentanyl underground market that killed over 73,000 Americans in 2022. Most Americans (55%) ...

Elon Lee was a Civil War veteran

Local Columns

In The Daily Freeman-Journal dated May 10, 1938, an article appeared on the death of the last Civil War veteran in Hamilton County, some 73 years after the end of the war. It marked the end of an era in local history; these veterans had played such active and important roles in this ...

An Open Letter to Governor Kim Reynolds

Letters to Editor

Dear Governor Reynolds, The picture of you and your grief-stricken face at the press conference in Perry on Thursday reflects the pain and shock all Iowans feel at the horror of the school shooting there. You graciously pledged at that press conference to provide the “full resources of the state government to provide support” to the Perry community for its healing. Did you mean it? Are you sincere? If so, prove it. Prove it to the young people who all of a sudden have been forced to grow up too soon to what hatred can do. Prove it to the hurting families in Perry. Prove ...

Understanding life backwards

Local Columns

Danish theologian and philosopher Søren Kierkegaard observed, “Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards.” I’ve been thinking about that concept all week. Fifty years ago this month my wife, our one-year-old son and I moved from a community we loved to a city nearly three hours away. I moved to Webster City, Iowa, in October 1967. Two years later I married Cindy Fisher, a Webster City native. The next summer we purchased a modest house and settled down to a life we enjoyed. Cindy worked full-time until our son was born in December 1972. While we ...

Way, way too close to home

Local Columns

You'll recognize these words. I'm going to run this until somewhere, someone grows a spine. I'm going to run these words over and over until the people who imagine they are in power can understand that with power comes responsibility. I'm going to publish this column until we are sick of it in the way that we are sick of violent and needless death. To our politicians: Find a way to work together. And stop telling us you're praying. Jesus taught, “When you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by ...