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Editorial

Progress coming in the quest for child care options in Fort Dodge

For a long time, parents of young children in Fort Dodge and Webster County have faced a dilemma — how are their children going to be properly cared for while they are at work? It’s possible that some parents never find the answer to that question and end up staying out of the workforce. There are a number of very good local child care providers, but there just aren’t enough of them to meet the demand. All of the openings in their programs are filled as soon as they become available. That’s why it’s nice to see some scaffolding and stacks of building materials in front ...

Nestle Purina boosts veterinary technician program

For decades, Iowa Central Community College has worked to help address the health care needs of the area by training generations of nurses, paramedics and X-ray technicians. Now the college is moving to help meet the health care needs of all the animals in the region. Because northern Iowa is an agricultural area, there is a lot of livestock that needs some veterinary attention. Plus there are all the dogs, cats, hamsters, birds and other pets that are members of so many local families. The college’s relatively new veterinary technician program received a huge boost recently from a ...

Parochial schools serve area well

There has been a Catholic school system in Fort Dodge for almost as long as this town has been in existence. There are other towns in the area The Messenger serves that can make similar claims. The same can be said for St. Paul Lutheran School in Fort Dodge. Both schools will celebrate their heritage this week as both Catholic Schools Week and Lutheran Schools Week will be marked at the same time. Both commemorative weeks started Sunday and will end Saturday. Catholic education got underway in Fort Dodge more than 160 years ago. The first Catholic school came into being during the ...

Progress 2026 sections begin today

As the holiday season draws to a close each year, The Messenger’s writing staff embarks on a challenging adventure — producing a comprehensive look at how a wide array of developments in our region are shaping tomorrow. While every issue of this newspaper is filled with articles, features and advertisements that readers find informative and useful, the six special sections we call Progress provide a perspective that goes far beyond simply reporting the latest happenings. Our goal is to look at the big picture, capture trends and explore more fully events that may lead to headlines ...

We honor a dream of justice

Martin Luther King Jr. Day, to be observed Monday, 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, was a preacher with a message as important today as it was more than five decades ago. He saw God’s words as fundamentally connected to his call for equality, nonviolence and justice. King’s religious faith was the heart, center and soul of his work. Without God’s word, King believed, ...

People needed to join the ranks of blood donors

The idea of getting poked with a big needle and having some of your blood siphoned out is not at all a pleasant one. However, people who are brave enough to get jabbed and allow some of their blood to be drawn out are a type of hero commonly called a blood donor. They save a lot of lives. Donating blood takes about an hour, according to leaders of LifeServe Blood Center, which has a facility in Fort Dodge. In that hour, a blood donor can save three local lives, they say. Blood and blood products are needed by trauma patients, premature infants, cancer patients, organ transplant ...