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Welcoming Fort Dodge and Webster County to Washington

Local Columns

Last week, I had the pleasure of welcoming Iowans from Fort Dodge and Webster County to our nation’s capital to discuss opportunities and challenges facing our families, farmers, and businesses. We had an extensive and productive conversation on a wide range of issues from education and agriculture to infrastructure and tax policy. The delegation to Washington included Fort Dodge Mayor Matt Bemrich, Fort Dodge City Manager David Fierke, City of Fort Dodge Chief Development Officer Chad Schaeffer, Director of Aviation at the Fort Dodge Regional Airport Rhonda Chambers, CEO of the ...

Q&A: Courts, Congress and the Constitution

Local Columns

Q: What are “universal injunctions?” A: An injunction is a court order requiring someone to do or stop doing a specific action. Temporary restraining orders (TRO) are similar to injunctions but are short term, unappealable orders from the court directing someone to take or not take some action until the court can review more fully. Historically, injunctions and TROs were limited to the parties before the court. But in recent years, we’ve seen an eruption of court orders that apply far beyond the parties directly before the court — sometimes even the entire country. These ...

Keep Iowa’s roads safe during spring planting

Editorial

This is the time of the year when big, slow-moving farm vehicles rumble out onto roadways dominated by faster-paced traffic. That shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone who lives in farm country. Even so, all of us should pay special heed to safety considerations as we share the roads with agricultural vehicles. In general, Iowa has been doing a good job of keeping accidents involving farm vehicles to a minimum. According to data from the Iowa Department of Transportation, fatalities and major injuries resulting from such accidents have been on the decline in recent years. That’s ...

Local lawmaker’s determination will make our roads safer

Editorial

Persistence really does pay off. If you have any doubt about that, talk to state Rep. Ann Meyer, R-Fort Dodge. For more than four years she worked to protect all of us from distracted drivers who aren’t paying attention to the road because they are talking on their phone, texting or fiddling with some other electronic gizmo. Her proposal was actually quite straightforward - outlaw the use of electronic devices by drivers unless they are in hands-free mode. That seems so basic that it ought to have been the law since cell phones first came on the market. A May 8. 2015, crash ...

Joan Drewes continues legacy of the musical Johnson Family

Local Columns

Joan Johnson Drewes is proud to be part of Fort Dodge’s First Family of Music, among six talented members of the Johnson family — her parents, Gladys and Dick, and her three sisters Karen, Donna and Martha. She moved away from her hometown decades ago, but continues the family music ...

Fur Ball is Saturday at Laramar Ballroom

Editorial

It would be hard to imagine our society without pets. Dogs and cats contribute wonderfully to the happiness and well-being of people of all ages. In a perfect world, every pet would at all times be a welcome and loved part of someone’s home. Unfortunately, reality falls short of that ideal. That’s why it’s important to our community that the Almost Home Humane Society of North Central Iowa remains strong and grows even stronger. As with so many other worthwhile endeavors, achieving laudable goals depends in part on raising the money necessary to support the cause. For the ...