The state softball tournament arrives on Fort Dodge’s doorstep for the 55th consecutive year beginning Monday at Rogers Sports Complex. Forty of Iowa’s best high school teams visit our community in a tradition that dates back to 1970. At that point, the event was just 13 years old and ...

It was a random day early in the 2009 school year. My son and I were at R.D. Mitchell Park in Fort Dodge after one of his very first preschool classes. We decided to have a picnic, and I remember watching him play and run freely, ducking in and out of the tunnel there that only 4-year-olds ...

She was a legendary coach long before landing a once-in-a-lifetime recruit. Yet to many, Lisa Bluder’s career will forever be defined by her time with Caitlin Clark — an era of Iowa Hawkeye women’s basketball filled with fame and fortune. The 63-year-old Bluder announced her retirement ...

In 1992, the baseball field at Dodger Stadium was named after Hall of Fame coach Ed McNeil. McNeil, who had died of a heart attack the year prior, was an icon in both Fort Dodge and baseball circles. His name in our community will always be synonymous with the sport, which saw tremendous ...

“Dad, I’m really nervous.” I watched my 12-year-old daughter — donning her Hawkeye colors — anxiously pace in the living room, hours before the Iowa women’s basketball team would play in the national championship game for a second consecutive season. Think about the heights ...

T.J. Otzelberger’s Iowa State roots run deep, first established in 2006 when then-Cyclone men’s basketball coach Greg McDermott hired him as a 29-year-old assistant. Otzelberger’s philosophies, meanwhile, have even more of a throwback ISU feel. He cut his teeth with McDermott and Fred ...