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4-H is about helping youths achieve

Editorial

National 4-H Week, which begins Monday 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 state. About one-quarter of the ...

Pay It Forward Friday to honor Henderson’s legacy

Editorial

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 ...

Shellabration Inc. is asset to Fort Dodge

Editorial

Jim Reed, Ted Bodensteiner, Craig Schlienz and all the other volunteers who make up Shellabration Inc. have done it again. On Saturday night, thousands of people crammed into the intersection of Central Avenue and Ninth Street for this year’s Downtown Country Jam concert. They were treated to rousing performances by Tyler Richton and the High Bank Boys, Morgan Myles and Joe Nichols. Hundreds of local volunteers worked behind the scenes for months to make the show possible, then shifted into really high gear the day before the concert to get everything set up. And before the sun ...

Q&A: What to know about passport renewals

Local Columns

Q: What new option do Americans have to renew their passports? A: The U.S. Department of State announced in September a new service, enabling Americans to renew passports online. This is good news. Americans have enjoyed a robust return to international travel that contributed to a post-pandemic backlog for passport applications and renewals. More Americans have passports than at any time in U.S. history: 46 percent in 2023 compared to 30 percent a generation ago. Whether applying online or through postal mail, my advice for Iowans is to apply early. Double check the date your ...

Biorefinery offers welcome opportunities

Editorial

In the early 1990s, local residents heard repeated, often vague plans for a corn plant west of Fort Dodge where the tiny village of Tara once stood. It took awhile, but the community, region and state got something much bigger and better than a single corn plant in that area. What developed instead was an ag industrial park called Iowa’s Crossroads of Global Innovation. It is home to Valero Renewables, Cargill and CJ Bio America. And the site is about to grow again. The community got a nice infusion of good news recently when company and local leaders announced that a new ...