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Local Columns

Iowa Central bond extension will help ensure a skilled workforce

As president of Iowa Central Community College, there is not a single day that passes without a business owner or community member asking me how we can increase the number of people in the skilled workforce that our region, state, and nation so desperately depend on. On Nov. 4, our region ...

Duncombe School strives to help students succeed

Recently, a story was published reporting on the statewide measure of success for Iowa public schools. The School Performance Profile is a mathematical formula that creates a standard score based on standardized test scores, reading and math proficiency scores, student attendance, and a number ...

Serving Iowans during the Schumer shutdown

The same Washington politicians who were whining about DOGE laying off unnecessary bureaucrats just a few months ago are now exposing who is and isn’t an essential employee by shutting down the government. The Schumer shutdown has sent home 750,000 federal employees deemed non-essential, ...

Tom and Joan Tibbitts have served Fort Dodge community for 51 years

What are the odds that a couple celebrates 60 years of marriage in the same year they both reached 80 years of age? Infinitesimally slim, to be sure. Joan and Tom Tibbitts celebrated both milestones earlier this year, but a third milestone number they achieved turns out to be the most ...

Bureaucrats being paid for multiple jobs, while doing none

Ever had to be in two places at the exact same time? It sounds impossible, yet I’ve discovered a number of bureaucrats holding several different government jobs simultaneously. It may sound impressive, except this multitasking isn’t magic, folks, it’s fraud. A full-time Department ...

A turning point in America

It was a week before Thanksgiving Day in 1963. I was halfway through my shift at the punch press at Waterloo Register. A manager came up to me on the assembly line and said, “JFK was shot.” I was 30 years old, moonlighting at the furnace factory to make ends meet between my other jobs as ...