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Progress 2025 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 ...

One man’s work is preserving Fort Dodge history

The yellow cardboard boxes of negatives fill multiple shelves in the Webster County Historical Society's room in the Fort Dodge Public Library. Inside those boxes are about 12,000 photographic negatives. There are years written on the boxes. But what’s really inside them - what images are to be found - remain a mystery until someone digs into them. Joe Kudron has become that someone. Over the course of about 10 years, he has been steadily opening up those boxes and scanning the negatives into a hard drive. There is no profit in this undertaking for the Fort Dodge native who lives ...

Fort Dodge area is home to legislative leaders

Webster County is represented by three lawmakers who are uniquely positioned to have significant influence on the future course of our state. State Sen. Tim Kraayenbrink, R-Fort Dodge, is chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee. That’s the panel that handles spending bills. Every measure that calls for spending a cent of state money will go through Kraayenbrink’s committee. State Rep. Mike Sexton, R-Rockwell City, is the chairman of the House Agriculture Committee. In Iowa, there can hardly be a more influential committee to lead. After all, this is a state that keeps ...

Transition of power

One of the things that makes American democracy unique took place at the Webster County Courthouse last Thursday. There, in a brief ceremony, a peaceful and seamless transition of authority occurred when two newly-elected members of the Board of Supervisors, along with other officials who won reelection, were sworn into office by District Court Judge Angela Doyle. The newly elected members of the board are Nathan Montgomery in District 2 and John Cochrane in District 5. Shaunna Abrams, the new county auditor, also took the oath of office that day. In the November general ...

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 ...

Happy New Year! Welcome to 2025.

Soon, we will welcome in a new year. Tomorrow, no doubt many readers will stay home, joining the ranks of those sitting on the couch, counting down the final moments of 2024 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. ...