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Summer fun beckons for all

Science tells us that summer technically started Thursday, but many people feel like we are in the middle of that much anticipated season. School has been out for weeks now and long days all but beg to be filled with fun activities.That is especially true for younger folks. The kids are, hopefully, out and about. But kids being kids, they are more focused on what they are doing and less likely to be paying attention to things around them, even things that could hurt them. The situation is magnified by the fact that so many of them will have their eyes and minds zeroed in on some ...

Juneteenth celebrates end of slavery

Juneteenth is a national holiday commemorating June 19, 1865, which is the day that Union troops entered Galveston, Texas, and declared that all the slaves in that state were at last free. That date is often considered the final end of slavery in the United States, although it took a constitutional amendment ratified later that year to truly eliminate it. Clearly, Black Americans have the most emotional connection to Juneteenth, but people of every race are invited to join in celebrating a day which helped to create a modern United States in which no one thinks twice about things like ...

Summer fun is here in the Fort Dodge area

The long days of summer are upon us, with seemingly endless hours of daylight to be enjoyed. In fact, at least on weekends, you might as well call them the long, lazy days of summer. Locally, there will be plenty of things to do on those on summer weekends. Consider this upcoming weekend. Lehigh River Days is back, led by an all new organizing committee determined to inject a fresh sense of excitement and vibrancy into the yearly festival. It will include some traditional staples of years past, such as the log rolling contest. That consists of people standing on a log in a four foot ...

Exciting developments coming in Gowrie

Members of the Gowrie Development Commission like to talk about “putting the go in Gowrie.” Now that commission, in partnership with other agencies and private businesses, is doing just that. There are some exciting things going on in this southern Webster County city that people throughout the area ought to take note of. After years, perhaps decades, of not having enough housing stock to welcome new families to town, things are now changing quickly on that front. Five new homes are under construction along Sunrise Drive on the city’s east side. In a city of about 1,000 ...

Frontier Days 2024 to kick off summer

This weekend there will be a sure sign that the summer season is truly at hand. What is that sign? Frontier Days 2024, of course. Frontier Days is the annual Fort Dodge event that draws thousands to the downtown parade and the Fort Museum and Frontier Village. The gates open at the Fort Museum and Frontier Village at 4 p.m. Friday and the excitement and entertainment will commence soon after. The three-day festival continues a Fort Dodge tradition that is returning with a theme this year of “How the West Was One.” Not content to rest on applause for past glories, organizers ...

Take the time to remember

Monday is Memorial Day. For many people, it is a time to welcome the summer season by taking advantage of a three-day holiday weekend to spend time relaxing with friends and family. It is important, however, not to forget what this day is truly about. Beginning soon after the Civil War, a day in May was set aside as a time to decorate with flowers the graves of the war dead. The original stimulus for this day came from the Grand Army of the Republic, an organization of Union Army Civil War veterans. For many years it was called Decoration Day. Honoring those who gave their lives in ...