National FFA Week is this week.Those of us who live in rural Iowa need little reminder of the importance of agriculture education and the contributions to our nation made by those who pursue careers in agriculture. Even so, this is a welcome opportunity to showcase the activities of FFA at ...
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is right about one aspect of security along the U.S. border with Mexico. Just ask “El Chapo.” During the seemingly interminable battle over funding for border security, Pelosi, D-Calif., vowed not one dollar would be spent to construct new barriers meant to stop ...
Providing up-to-date public safety services is always a struggle for small, rural communities that just don’t have a lot of money. That’s what makes a recent development in the tiny Calhoun County town of Knoke special. There, a modern three-bay station for the Butler Township Fire ...
This evening about 120 singers and 12 accompanists will take their places in the sanctuary of First United Methodist Church in downtown Fort Dodge. Soon after that, the voices of the Sonshine Singers will fill that room with majestic and inspirational music. They will bring all of their ...
Fifty-five miles of border made impassable to illegal immigrants beats nothing. That is the view President Donald Trump should take of a border barrier compromise hammered out by Republicans and Democrats in Congress. With the three-week deadline to avoid another partial shutdown of government ...
From the beginning of the discussion, we have supported a medical marijuana program for our state because we have compassion for Iowans who seek relief through cannabidiol for medical conditions from which they suffer. Moving forward, we have urged the state to study ways of improving ...
Liberal leaders are so angry about any potential challenges to the Democratic Party’s new far-left orthodoxy that some are beginning to sound positively vicious. Take the reaction to former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz’s decision to consider running for president as an independent. Some ...
It wasn’t so many years ago when community leaders all across the nation were worried about high unemployment rates. Fortunately, our nation’s booming economy has put that concern in the rearview mirror — at least for now. The labor market is tight all across the United States with the ...
Robbers traditionally had to go somewhere, often wearing a mask and packing a gun, in order to steal some money. Now, a new breed of bandits can help themselves to someone else’s money with a few keystrokes on a computer. Stopping these cyber crooks requires a new set of security skills. ...
In the Animal Legal Defense Fund’s 2018 annual ranking of states for animal protection laws, only Mississippi and Kentucky rate lower than Iowa. Our state can and should do better. One step in the right direction would be passage of a bill designed to increase the penalties for abuse of ...
President Donald Trump and North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un are planning a second summit meeting. The summit will be held Feb. 27-28 in Vietnam. But the question the two will discuss is clear: Is Kim keeping his pledge to dial back on North Korea’s runaway militarism? North Korea already ...
Americans have become frustrated by the failure of Congress to get its work done on time. Adopting a budget and approving the appropriations bills needed to fund the government should be a top priority. Unfortunately, for decades Congress has repeatedly failed to get these basic tasks ...
Iowans have put a high priority on education since the pioneers first settled the Hawkeye State. It is a tribute to that emphasis — and a source of pride — that ours is the state with the nation’s highest graduation rate for high school students. According data just released by the U.S. ...
Venezuela is the 10th-biggest oil producer in the world. It may have larger petroleum reserves than any other country. Yet socialism has devastated the nation’s economy to the point that there are shortages of food. About three million Venezuelans have fled their homeland during the past ...
The marketplace for Iowa’s many agricultural and manufacturing products extends well beyond the borders of the Hawkeye State. Increasingly, international sales are an important part of the picture. That’s why Lt. Gov. Adam Gregg and Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Mike Naig are taking part ...
The United States has become the world’s leading producer of petroleum, beating even Saudi Arabia. That means we can be somewhat choosy about where we drill for oil. Two key conflicts exist in that regard. One, of course, is protection of the environment, including natural treasures that, ...
Truck drivers see a lot of things as they travel the nation’s roads. The nature of their job can put them in the right place at the right time to see something and report it in time to save a life. They already do so every day by reporting crashes and other emergencies. Now, the drivers ...
Fort Dodge property owners just got a break from their city government. During Monday’s City Council meeting it was revealed that the property rate for the 2019-2020 fiscal year will remain unchanged for the fourth consecutive year. The rate will remain the same at $20.42 per $1,000 of ...
For most of its 115 years, this joint was jumpin’ — as it was 60 years ago today when the Winter Dance Party and its headliners — Buddy Holly and the Crickets, the Big Bopper, Ritchie Valens, and Dion and the Belmonts — performed on its stage on a cold, snowy night in Fort Dodge. It ...
An iconic civil rights organization is returning to Fort Dodge. A new chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People is expected to debut within the month. Fort Dodge had an NAACP chapter in the past, but it faded out of existence sometime in the 1990s. Sherry ...