EMMETSBURG — Ziegler Ag Equipment expanded its operations in 2025 by opening a new facility in Emmetsburg in Palo Alto County. The store is the company’s seventh new location in five years, spread across Iowa and Minnesota. Company officials state that it reflects Ziegler’s unwavering ...
HIGHVIEW — It’s not so much about making a living for Knob Hill Farm owners Mike and Janine Robertson. It’s about making a life. The couple shared a vision to make this place a farm that they could call home for a long time. “When we moved here it had been stripped down to the ...
SIOUX CITY — February of 2026 brought the news of significant expansion plans for Sioux Honey Association in Sioux City, following a multiple-state location evaluation search that took almost one year. The multimillion-dollar facility will be located at 2501 Expedition Court (near the ...
An Iowa State professor and former grad student have helped NASA discover how they could harvest water from the moon. Mehari Tekeste, associate professor with the department of agricultural and biosystems engineering at ISU, also is director of the Soil Machine Dynamics Laboratory at Iowa ...
POCAHONTAS — The scope of the School To Work program in the Pocahontas Area Community School District is about to take some major steps forward by fall 2026, after the district was among a select few to get a state education grant. Kristyn Olson led writing the grant proposal. In ...
Continuing a recent theme of improvements and positives over the past few years, East Sac County Community School District Superintendent Nathan Hemiller views the future with optimism. “It’s been a lot of work to get where we are, which myself and others in the district are happy about, ...
WEBSTER CITY — In a recent conversation with Jama Hisler, director of teaching and learning for the Webster City Community School District, and later with the new high school Principal Jason Wedgbury, it was apparent that they are working hard on areas of concern. Some of those concerns ...
Southeast Valley High School students are taking their lessons beyond the classroom, gaining hands-on experience with real-world applications. Last fall, Jason Slinker, the district’s assistance maintenance director, began offering students the opportunity to learn practical skills outside ...
Two DG Market stores opened in Fort Dodge in 2025. The first of those stores, at 1149 Third Ave. N.W., opened in the spring. The second one, at 2210 N. 15th St., opened in the summer. DG Market is a grocery-focused part of the Dollar General chain. Including the Dollar General store at 1810 ...
Apartment living options in Fort Dodge are expected to grow this year, thanks to construction projects on the northwest and eastern sides of the city. A 65-unit apartment complex is planned along Third Avenue Northwest. The District 29 complex near Dodger Drive and 29th Street will grow, ...
The Kwik Star convenience store at Second Avenue North and 15th Street will be replaced by a new larger, version in a project scheduled for this year. The new store will measure 7,320 square feet, according to information presented to the city’s Plan and Zoning Commission. It will have ...
Back in 1953, two Fort Dodge men established Pederson-Sells Equipment Co. to sell hydraulic equipment to farmers and agribusinesses. In April 2025, FORCE America Inc., the modern version of that company, formally broke ground for a 32,000-square-foot facility that will meet the needs of the ...
The Fort Dodge Community Foundation and United Way serves in ways that aren’t always obvious. The Community Foundation manages close to 200 funds. It’s all behind-the-scenes work, but the money from those funds makes some major things possible. The United Way side of the operation is ...
A new team has taken over leadership of the Brushy Creek Area Honor Flight, and it plans to resume taking veterans to Washington, D.C., in May. This new board is led by Sara Murphy as president, Regina Rhea as vice president, Carmen Fielding as treasurer and Jim Wilkins as secretary. Other ...
The Albert Habhab Veterans Memorial Bridge in Fort Dodge now looks even brighter and more patriotic after the sun goes down. Red, white and blue lights were added to the 15 lamp posts lining the bridge. They came on for the first time in June. Mike Larson, a Navy veteran who is leading the ...
Whether it’s cross country running, softball or wrestling, sports remain the major activity drawing people to Fort Dodge and Webster County. Competitions like the girls high school state softball tournament continue to pack local hotel rooms, according to Kerrie Kuiper, executive director ...
In the Fort Dodge Fire Department, there were a lot of new changes in 2025. New leadership. New personnel. New vehicles. As the department moves into 2026, it anticipates the delivery of a major new unit called a tower ladder. And it awaits its share of the revenue from the new tax to ...
The Community Health Center of Fort Dodge is marking 20 years of caring for patients this year. This center grew from free clinics held in local churches. In April 2006, today’s Community Health Center began operating as a federally qualified health center. That designation means it accepts ...
SAC CITY — Loring Hospital in Sac City got a lot larger last year. A 42,000-square-foot addition was constructed over the course of about a year and a half. The new space houses rehabilitation, pulmonary and cardiac rehabilitation, the specialty clinic, diabetes and nutrition services, and ...
In March 2025, the voters of Webster County decided that emergency medical service should be an essential service, supported by its own property tax. Nearly a year later, the processes and agreements are being put in place to channel the revenue from that tax to the county’s ambulance ...
ALGONA — Camp Algona, despite being gone nearly a century, continues to tell stories. The camp, which housed World War II German prisoners from April 1944 to February 1946, was located northwest of the city, generally where Algona Municipal Airport is today. While it was open, about ...
GOWRIE — About 20 years ago, Andrea Kuhn dreamed of a way to pay it forward to those in the Gowrie community who had shown kindness to her family as her sister battled Lou Gehrig’s disease. “I thought a trail would be an asset to people with a lot of different needs,” Kuhn told more ...
LEHIGH — Work on an ambitious series of upgrades to the campgrounds at Brushy Creek State Recreation Area continues to inch forward. But because the projects are advancing at a slower rate than expected, it will be awhile before any campers can make reservations. Campers hoping to go to ...
Community center improvements to bike trail extensions spotlighted 2025 progress in the smaller towns of Webster County. Badger Badger City Clerk Glenda Rasmussen shared news of a trail extension to the city on the county trail system. “It comes to town and is getting a lot of usage from ...