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4-H is about helping youths achieve

National 4-H Week, which began Sunday and concludes Saturday, is a good time to celebrate the enormous contributions 4-H makes to our community and nation. It’s hard to imagine anyone in Iowa who doesn’t know a bit about 4-H, but this week is an appropriate occasion to reflect on the important contribution this organization makes by helping young people develop skills and values that will serve them well for a lifetime. It has been more than a century since 4-H got its start in Iowa in 1901. Today it is the largest youth-development program in the Hawkeye State. About one-quarter ...

The Messenger is here to serve you

Newspapers and reporters have had a rough few years, as they’ve been lumped in with those in newsertainment who led too many to become distrustful of the community-focused work our journalists practice each day. For the men and women working in our state’s weekly and daily newspaper newsrooms, the objective is to avoid that twisting, curating and injection of agenda that has been masquerading as “news.” We do so strenuously. Why? Because we know how hard we must work to earn your trust; and that it is our responsibility to accurately and thoroughly report the news of our ...

October is Co-op Month across US

There are various types of businesses that operate as cooperatives, but according to the National Cooperative Business Association they all are owned and democratically controlled by their members and are designed to serve those members. The members typically are the people who use the co-op’s services or buy its goods. According to the United States Department of Agriculture, there are 40,000 co-ops of all types in the country. Collectively, they pay out some $25 billion a year in wages. Here in Iowa, we are most familiar with the co-ops that run grain elevators and provide fuel ...

Grassley, Feinstein work together for the public good

The United States Congress takes a lot of criticism, and frankly, much of it is deserved. But the nation’s governing body is still capable of doing the right thing in a bipartisan manner. A case in point is a bill championed by Iowa’s U.S. Sen. Charles Grassley, a Republican, and U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-California. Those two have very different voting records in the Senate, but they came together to sponsor a bill that will help to protect all Americans. The legislation is called the National Computer Forensics Institute Reauthorization Act of 2022. It will ensure that a ...

Pay It Forward Friday to honor Henderson’s legacy

The late Rev. Al Henderson had a habit of wrapping up conversations by saying “Carry on.” Residents of Fort Dodge and Webster County are being asked to spend Friday carrying on Henderson’s legacy of support and compassion on what has been named Pay It Forward Friday. Doing so will not require some big elaborate action, according to organizers of the event. Small gestures of kindness can make a huge difference, also. Henderson, who was killed on Oct. 2, 2019 – exactly one year before the inaugural Pay It Forward Friday – was the pastor of St. Paul Lutheran Church in Fort ...

Keep Iowa’s roads safe during harvest

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. 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 encouraging ...