Iowa Ag Expo starts Tuesday

January 30, 2023

What organizers say is the third largest indoor agricultural equipment show in the upper Midwest starts Tuesday and continues through Thursday at the Iowa Events Center in Des Moines. The 2023 Iowa Ag Expo will feature about 700 exhibitors filling more than seven acres in three buildings. The exhibition was started in 1910 and lots of people still know it by its original name, the Iowa Power Farming Show. That name was changed in 2020 to reflect the diversity of the show. It will feature the best ag has to offer from big iron, precision ag, aerial imaging, livestock production, ...

Eggs and Issues is democracy in action

January 25, 2023

Interaction between citizens and the officials they elect to represent them is crucial to a democracy. Citizens must be able to tell the officials what they want and what they don’t want. They must also be able to hold the officials accountable for their actions. The elected officials must explain to the citizens why they take the actions they do. In Fort Dodge there has been an event in place for at least 25 years that brings state, and sometimes federal, legislators together with citizens. It’s called Eggs and Issues. Eggs and Issues is a forum that is held once a month ...

Service projects, fun activities mark Lutheran Schools Week

January 23, 2023

Students at St. Paul Lutheran School may be seen wearing sports team logos and showing off some crazy hairstyles this week. Wearing the colors of their favorite teams and taking part in Crazy Hair Day are components of the Fort Dodge school’s observance of Lutheran Schools Week, which began Sunday and continues through Saturday. The week provides the school’s students with some fun breaks from the usual routine. But the greater purpose of the week is to highlight the strengths and characteristics of St. Paul Lutheran School and other Lutheran schools across the country. St. ...

Progress 2023 sections begin today

January 21, 2023

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 ...

Talking while driving a hazard to all

January 18, 2023

It’s an all too common sight on Iowa roads: a driver with a phone pressed to their ear, chatting away while their vehicle weaves in and out of its lane. Such action could be the beginning of a crash and, in a worst case scenario, a tragedy. Just how bad is this kind of distracted driving situation? The Iowa Department of Transportation recently posted preliminary numbers for 2021 that answer that question. According to those statistics, there were 1,084 crashes in Iowa that year caused by people distracted by an electronic device. Those crashes killed 11 people and injured at ...

Today we honor a dream of justice

January 16, 2023

Martin Luther King Jr. Day, being observed today, 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, ...