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Editorial

Shellabration Inc. is an asset to Fort Dodge

Jim Reed, Ted Bodensteiner and all the other volunteers who make up Shellabration Inc. have pulled off another musical masterpiece. Last Saturday, thousands of people crammed into the intersection of Central Avenue and Ninth Street for this year’s Downtown Country Jam. They were treated to rousing performances by the Tank Anthony Band, Jake McVey and Big & Rich. Hundreds of local volunteers worked behind the scenes for months to make the show possible, then shifted into really high gear the day before the concert to get everything set up. Then the day after the show, they took down ...

Fort Dodge, area residents can be thankful for good water service

When the folks in Jackson, Mississippi, turn the handles on their water faucets, water may or may not come out. And the city was under a boil advisory for about seven weeks, which meant if people got any water from their faucets they had to boil it before drinking it or cooking with it to get rid of any nasty bacteria. And this is happening in a modern American city. We in Fort Dodge and surrounding communities are fortunate and indeed downright spoiled. Water comes out of our faucets. We occasionally have boil advisories, especially in the smaller communities, when a water line ...

Mentors can make a huge difference

Some of the young folks attending our schools are not progressing as well as they could be. That’s true even though the educators of the Fort Dodge Community School District do an excellent job. Some young people, however, need a little more special attention than can easily be provided in a traditional classroom setting. To address that need, the school district launched a mentoring program in 1994. The goal was to recruit people from a broad spectrum of the community to spend time each week working with students at one of the district’s elementary, middle or high schools. These ...

Iowa Central, Iowa State team up on 3D printing

Printers are found in basically every home and business nowadays. Every day they spew out reams of words and numbers on flat pieces of paper. Newer devices that also are called printers are not limited to an output on flat pieces of paper. That kind of printer can make things that have length, width and height. The devices known as 3D printers are fairly new technology, but more and more uses are being found for them. They have been used to make parts for several years. People who like to build scale models of airplanes and other vehicles are often working with components that ...

Lunch on Central succeeded because of teamwork

Area residents had three opportunities to enjoy good food, great conversation and fresh air in downtown Fort Dodge this summer. The event that made all of that possible was Lunch on Central. Anyone who has lived in Fort Dodge likely remembers Lunch on the Square. Lunch on Central is the same concept, but the location was moved a few blocks east of the City Square to an alley in the 700 block of Central Avenue that runs between the Webster County Courthouse and The Messenger building. While the location changed, the ultimate goal of the noon meals remains the same: get more people to ...

Soybeans are big business in Iowa

Nobody knows exactly how long humans have cultivated the soybean, but agricultural historians are quite certain its domestication as a crop in China dates back three millennia. There are actually Chinese records documenting soybean growth as far back as the 11th century. There is some disagreement about who first introduced soybeans into North America, but researchers seem to agree that by the 1760s soybean seed had reached Georgia. Whatever the origin, few would dispute that in the 21st century soybean cultivation is important to the world as a food source and a great deal more. Food, ...