Cram and her two youngest sons, Westin and Ira, accepted the gift in a presentation that took place in front of Leon’s Pizza downtown. Lunch for the family followed at Leon’s.

The money was raised through HCPOA’s golf benefit, dinner and auction held on July 20.

Hamilton County Peace Officer Association President Rod Hicok shared what it means to him and the organization to be able to support the families in the wake of the loss of their loved one.

“It means a lot to us, as a group, to help these families when they just need someone to help.

“It’s emotional when you deal with these kids. But for us, to see our community come together like they do, to help out these families that just need extra support, I guess, it’s just overwhelming. We just can’t thank our community enough.”

Lara Cram said she is grateful for the law enforcement community’s efforts.

“It’s just so great to have such great support from the law enforcement community in general, when everything has fallen apart elsewise. To know that they were there to support and keep us afloat.”

Asked what surprised her the most from the public response, Cram said, “Just how supportive the community of Algona was to us. They were great. Couldn’t have asked for a better community. And the law enforcement community have been so good to us. Just the good in people that outshined the bad moment that happened to us.

“We’ve gotten support from law enforcement in Hawaii, there’s other countries that sent supportive things; it’s been really good.”

She added, “The hardest part is always just thinking he’s not gone, he’s just went to work. You always think it’ll never happen in a small community. You still feel that level of safety and then that gets torn away and it just doesn’t seem real. A lot of stuff still doesn’t seem real.”

Lara Cram’s husband was murdered in the line of duty in 2023. That left her with three boys to raise by herself.

“They’ve been OK,” she said when asked how they are coping. “A lot of the officers that worked with my husband have stepped up and reached above and beyond to make sure that they still get to go hunting, they still get to go fishing and they still get to do the things, even though it’s not the way that we had hoped.

“They helped me tackle the things that I’ve had to modify in my life, being a widow.”

Lara Cram attended the recent trial of Kyle Ricke, the man who has been convicted of the shooting death of her husband. He was found guilty of first-degree murder by a Dickinson County jury.

“It was expected,” she said. “It was a good piece of closure; it’ll never be completely closed obviously. There’s always going to be that hole and, obviously, we still have all of the legal things that he is allowed that we have to drag through and be retraumatized with.

“The part that frustrates me the most and what I think of in my head is how many times does he have to murder my husband in public. He did it. We had to go through it again at court. We have to go through it at sentencing. And now anytime he’s doing all of these things (appeals), to me it’s just remurdering him. And that makes it awful.”

She offered her thanks to Webster City and Hamilton County, saying, “It’s great to be a part of communities that support law enforcement. It’s great to have support from people that don’t even know who we are but support us. We would be very much struggling if it wasn’t for everybody that was there to make sure that we stayed above water.”

Hicok said the kind of support HCPOA is giving is ongoing.

“We’re reaching out to Ames, Fort Dodge, trying to get into the Des Moines area, we’re trying to branch out to let people know that the families we’re helping; it’s not just people from Hamilton County. We’ve only done two benefits for someone else from Hamilton County.

“We’ve helped people from Keokuk, now Algona, the Waterloo-Cedar Falls area, by Council Bluffs, so it’s a statewide thing. We’re trying to get out, spread our sponsors out, if you will, I guess, looking for other communities to be involved — Iowa City or trying to branch out even further yet.

“But it says a lot for the Hamilton County and Webster City businesses and the people who step up and donate. If it wasn’t for them, we wouldn’t be able to do this.

“At the end of the day, this silver lining in such a tragedy is that once again, Iowans, in this case Webster City and Hamilton County area residents, have shown that there are still good people willing to stand up and help a family who have sacrificed so much with a loss so great.”