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Editorial

It’s time to honor local leaders

Do you know anyone who has worked hard, perhaps out of the public view, to make Fort Dodge and Webster County a better place to live, work and play? If so, a unique opportunity to honor them is at hand. The Greater Fort Dodge Growth Alliance is seeking nominees for its Catalyst Award and its new Emerging Leader Award. The Catalyst Award has long been the highest honor bestowed by the Growth Alliance. Nominees for it should meet these basic criteria: • Have a history of active involvement in the Growth Alliance. • Have shown that they are an active and visionary leader ...

Growth at Corridor Plaza sets Fort Dodge apart

It can be pretty easy to drive right by the area where Crossroads Mall once stood without even thinking about what’s there now. We think it’s worthwhile to pause and consider the remarkable change that has taken place there. In fact, the redevelopment of the mall site into today’s Corridor Plaza will surely make other communities across Iowa and the Midwest envious. How many other Iowa communities, or communities across the nation, have been able to take an outdated enclosed mall, demolish it and then turn the property into a thriving area that draws hundreds of people ...

The Christmas spirit of giving should continue throughout the year

Every year around the holidays, the generosity of people who live in and around Fort Dodge blossoms. The familiar red kettles of The Salvation Army get filled with change by people going in and out of stores. Donations flow for initiatives like Bikes for Tykes. Those are some of the best-known helping campaigns in the Fort Dodge area that ramp up at Christmas time, and we know there are a lot of others out there as well. The holiday season is now over. Several charitable programs have gone dormant until next Christmas. But the need is still there. Hunger, sickness, poverty and ...

Transition of power

One of the things that makes American democracy unique took place at the Fort Dodge Municipal Building Friday morning. There, in a brief ceremony, a peaceful and seamless transition of authority occurred when a new mayor, three new members of the City Council and three reelected council members were sworn into office by Magistrate Neven Conrad. The new mayor is Dave Flattery, a veteran of 18 years on the council. The new council members are Scott Davis and Terry Moehnke, who hold at-large seats, and Todd McCubbin, who represents Ward 3. Moehnke is actually returning to the council ...

Happy New Year! Welcome to 2026

Soon, we will welcome in a new year. Tonight, no doubt many readers will stay home, joining the ranks of those sitting on the couch, counting down the final moments of 2025 while participating vicariously in the festivities broadcast from Times Square in New York City. Others will celebrate the passing of another year by making merry until the wee hours of the new year. And yet others will let the new year come in just as they let each new day, week or month arrive — snugly tucked into bed getting some sleep. There is no right or wrong way to mark the arrival of another year. ...

Enjoy a festive holiday season

It is that time of year when holiday parties pile up one after the other over the course of a few days — and many of them are held after dark and feature alcoholic beverages. Everyone wants to get to and from all these gatherings safely. No one wants to be added to the grim table of statistics compiled by the Iowa Department of Transportation which records all of the deaths resulting from traffic accidents. The good news is that 2025 has been a comparatively safe one on Iowa’s roads. For the first time in a century, the state is on track to conclude a year with less than 300 ...