May 19, 2004: The naked pole for the west end of former IA 157 west of Lime Springs. I shouldn’t need to use a metaphorical clue-bat here.
The last posts at the Lime Springs Herald‘s online news site, dated Jan. 16, deliver twin blows to the Howard County town.
The Howard-Winneshiek school board voted to close the elementary school, and the last print issue of the Herald was set for Feb. 12. The longer story about the paper’s shutdown ran three days earlier. Both functions will move to Cresco, the elementary school and the Times-Plain Dealer there.
I speculated about the school in the middle of December after finding out about Elma. The end of the paper, though, is a surprise. Given that there have been no updates to the WordPress-hosted site since then, I assume there won’t be. The timing really makes it hurt, yet all so very fitting. The loss of two pillars of small-town life, the school and the weekly newspaper, will forever be linked in Lime Springs.