Iowa continues to get some good news on the jobs front as the state’s economy gradually rebounds from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. In December 2020, the state’s unemployment rate stood at 3.1 percent. That marks a healthy decline from the November 2020 unemployment rate of 3.8 ...
A conversation with a political candidate of my acquaintance nearly 25 years ago has rolled through my mind frequently in recent months. The candidate told me about a discussion he had with a student when speaking to a high school class a few days earlier. He said he and the class were ...
It was a dark and stormy night. Well, it was dark anyway. It was the night I was born many, MANY years ago. This is the week my personal calendar flips to new year. By the end of January I will be one year closer to my 100th birthday. I’m not planning a big celebration but I am ...
Martin Luther King Jr. Day, being observed today, is an appropriate time to recall an exceptional person. But more importantly, it’s a time to recommit the nation to the cause for which King died and the legacy he left for all of us. The famed civil rights leader, assassinated April 4, 1968, ...
While I think of him often, at this time of year I think even more frequently of a friend, now deceased, who is unforgettable. Duane Gibson was the longtime pastor of First Baptist Church in Des Moines. During the 1990s I read about him in Des Moines Register stories about the ...
Although it seems like it just started, in many areas across the ice-fishing belt, the ice fishing season is already at the midway point. In many places it’s been much warmer than usual, so travel on the ice has been limited. Despite that, there are lots of anglers on the ice, and numerous ...