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Make your voice heard

After a seemingly endless campaign season and weeks of early voting, Election Day is finally here. Today, thousands of people will go to the polls to decide who will lead our nation, state and community. The polls will be open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. A listing of Webster County polling places is in today’s edition of The Messenger. If you have not voted already, do not miss this chance to make your voice heard. Casting a ballot is a crucial way for everyday citizens to help shape the future. Anyone thinking about skipping this election ought to remember that their right to vote has ...

The time has come to end Daylight Saving Time

People across Iowa will set their clocks back one hour tonight because of Daylight Saving Time. That means if they go to bed at their regular time they will get an extra hour of sleep. Hopefully, they will also replace the batteries in their smoke detectors that use 9-volt batteries. Serving as a reminder to replace the smoke detector batteries is a big advantage of the twice yearly ritual of changing the clocks. The other advantages to changing the clocks are less and less apparent. For as long as anybody can remember, Iowans have been changing their clocks twice a year for Daylight ...

‘Grandma Pat’ Hassett: Keeper of history for St. Edmond High School

If Trivial Pursuit ever invented a game involving facts about St. Edmond High School, you’d want your partner to be Pat Hassett. You couldn’t lose. Hassett, a member of the Class of 1960, has been chronicling the history of the Catholic high school for 45 years, operating from a first-floor office off the school library called the Alumni Room – stuffed full of all kinds of items relating to the school. If there was such a Trivial Pursuit game, here are some questions that might be posed. Go to the bottom of this article for the answers. No peeking! Who is St. Edmond named ...

100 Women Who Care makes a big impact

The organization called 100 Women Who Care may be one of the newer philanthropic groups in Fort Dodge, but it is capable of making a big impact. It made such an impact this week by making a donation of about $10,000 to Golden Day Adult Day, which strives to provide meaningful programs to enhance the dignity, independence and quality of life for older people and those with disabilities. Right now, Golden Day Adult Day is run entirely by volunteers. It operates on alternating Mondays at Citizens Central. The organizers of Golden Day envision it becoming a fulltime operation complete ...

LifeWorks fundraiser is tonight

A fun way to support a local organization that serves the disabled returns to a live, in-person format tonight. It’s called A Night for LifeWorks. It was a regular tradition in Fort Dodge for years, providing entertainment and raising money for LifeWorks Community Services, which provides daily living and employment supports to about 200 people living with disabilities. The pandemic forced the event to become an online one for the last two years. Tonight, however, it will return to its traditional live, in-person format with a musical competition very much like what you would see ...

Make sure to vote in this general election

Voting for next Tuesday’s general election is actually already underway. As always, there are many important matters on the ballot this year. Nationwide, the races on next week’s ballot will decide which party will control Congress. Here in Iowa, we will pick a governor, attorney general, secretary of agriculture, auditor, treasurer and secretary of state in addition to selecting all 100 members of the state House of Representatives and half of the state senators. Closer to home in Webster County, two seats on the Board of Supervisors will be filled. Voters in Calhoun and ...