Serving O'Brien & Clay Counties
Serving O'Brien & Clay Counties
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The COVID-19 pandemic has created economic turmoil and shut down countless activities over the last two months, but it hasn't stopped local volunteers from feeding children in need. The Hartley-Melvin-Sanborn Kids' Backpack Program has seen a surge in demand since mid-March. With school closed for the rest of the year, children who would normally get two meals a day in H-M-S cafeterias have been forced to rely on other sources of nutrition. The program, which traditionally provides snacks and...
The search to replace outgoing Clay Central/Everly Elementary Principal Curt Busch is becoming clearer. According to discussion at the April 27 school board meeting, Heidi Vasher has been offered a contract to serve as director of student services. Negotiations are ongoing, but if she accepts, the title would make her principal of the school and allow CC/E to pay her salary with revenue from the district's Dropout Prevention Fund. "She would be the face of the school and more or less be the...
State inspectors recently gave a local nursing and assisted living facility big praise for COVID-19 prevention efforts. Community Memorial Health Center in Hartley was commended last week by the Iowa Department of Inspection and Appeals for keeping residents safe during the global COVID-19 pandemic. The facility has been closed to visitors since mid-March and employees have implemented several prevention methods to keep potential infections at bay. "They said that our protocols were above and be...
Local election officials are hoping to keep residents away from the ballot box this year, but they still want people to vote. O'Brien County Auditor Barb Rohwer has joined other election commissioners across the state in emphasizing mail-in absentee voting for the June 2 primary election. The COVID-19 pandemic is behind the push, as health officials have urged people to limit social interaction by staying home as much as possible. "We've had really good response thus far with mail-out absentee...
Although it seems like a lifetime ago, we've only been at war with the invisible enemy – the COVID-19 virus – for a couple of months. Earliest reports of the novel coronavirus were horrendous – the disease is extremely contagious, and suffering will be unbearable. Americans were told millions would be infected, and hundreds of thousands would die. Terrified, we panicked, and in a matter of days our freedoms were severely curtailed. Life as we knew it ceased to exist. Suddenly, with little warni...
Last Wednesday, at the invitation of House Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin Peterson, I went to Worthington, Minn., to participate in a press conference to focus attention on the current crisis in the pork industry that has been caused by the temporary closure of processing plants in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Producers throughout the Midwest are being faced with the nightmare of having to euthanize an estimated 1.25 million healthy, market-ready hogs. The number could likely be mor...
The what-ifs of the COVID-19 pandemic hardly seem answered almost two months after everything shut down. Iowa re-opened some shuttered businesses and other gathering places this week, but after all we’ve been warned about this virus, you have to wonder why. How can we begin the process of re-opening the state before we’ve even reached the projected peak of infections? It seems head scratching and dangerous. Despite a surge in both coronavirus deaths and infections, Gov. Kim Reynolds last week signed an order allowing malls, restaurants, fit...
