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Spring cleaning helps keep city looking good

On Wednesday afternoon, groups of people carrying garbage bags could be seen moving through fields on the east side of Fort Dodge, in the area where lots of stores are located. As they moved, they gradually filled those bags with every piece of litter they found. That effort was the annual spring cleanup, once called the FOD Walk. For more than 15 years, the effort organized by the Greater Fort Dodge Growth Alliance has made our community a bit cleaner. The endeavor was started by Rhonda Chambers, the director of aviation at Fort Dodge Regional Airport who once led the alliance’s ...

Earth Day unites more than it divides

The late 1960s were turbulent years in America. It was a time of rapid change when young protesters expressed disillusionment with many aspects of the world their elders had built. The divisions in society that emerged from those conflicts decades ago still haunt our society in the 21st century. Some of the emotional scars from those bitter disputes will influence American politics well into the future. There is, however, one legacy of those chaotic times that unites rather than divides us — Earth Day. The first Earth Day was April 22, 1970. Tomorrow marks 55 years of Earth ...

There is hope for tomorrow, even here on this troubled earth

Having commemorated the sorrow of Good Friday, Christians the world over today are preparing for the joy of another Easter morning with the message of victory over death and despair. The celebration of the resurrection of Christ is a time of renewal and a reaffirming of faith in him who rose to lead mankind in the ways of peace and brotherhood and fulfilled the promise of eternal life. It is a time of subdued joy, the joy of understanding that the certainty of death does not detract from the good life and that good deeds and ideals live on and surmount even the inevitable. Easter is a ...

Reynolds should be remembered for dedication to Iowa

Gov. Kim Reynolds stunned the state by announcing last Friday that she would not seek re-election next year. Who saw that coming? We’re guessing that outside of the Reynolds family only a handful of the governor’s closest advisers knew about that decision in advance. Legislators serving the local area were caught completely by surprise. Already as many as eight candidates are lining up to run for the Republican nomination for governor. But as the attention inevitably shifts to the horse race between those seeking to replace Reynolds, it would be wrong to forget the legacy of ...

Take a look inside the kaleidoscopes

Chances are everyone played with a kaleidoscope as a child, twisting the tube to make the colored pieces inside of it form one unique pattern after another. A series of big kaleidoscopes, each of which is several feet long, have popped up across Pocahontas County. They work very much like those little ones to create colorful visions. They have also helped bring fresh attention to the county. Nobody just decided to put a bunch of kaleidoscopes up in different places. There is a historical link between the toys and the Pocahontas community. Leonard Olson had a business in downtown ...

PICA has major positive impact on Fort Dodge

The impact of a group of volunteers known as Pride In Community Appearance can be seen throughout Fort Dodge. Usually called PICA, the group makes the town look beautiful by taking care of flower beds and landscaping on public property. PICA members tend to flower beds in parks and around the welcome signs at the gateways to the community. They give the landscaping at Harlan and Hazel Rogers Sports Complex a thorough grooming before the girls state softball tournament every summer. In perhaps the group’s biggest project, its members turned a stub of street off Martin Luther King ...