Jul 05

Breakdown of 2025-29 highway plan

My annual breakdown of the big stuff planned for construction in the Iowa DOT’s five-year plan is on Substack.

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Jul 01

Sing, sang, sung

The Associated Press needs someone to copy-edit its news alerts, especially on weekends. That should be “formerly incarcerated” not “formally incarcerated.” If anyone is being informally incarcerated something strange is going on.

(note: the author’s work schedule has always included weekends)

(especially in the time period before one year ago Saturday)

(nope, totally not dwelling on it at all)

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Jun 28

CR sells schools right before new law takes effect

A case earlier this school year where a public school district refused to sell a closed building to a private school led to a bill late in the first part of the Iowa legislative session. That bill mandated that if a private school is the highest bidder for a closed school building, the public school district must sell it to the private school. That language was later incorporated into Senate File 2368, which dealt heavily with charter schools and was signed into law at a charter school.

Unlike many other recent bills, however, it was not declared “of immediate importance” and thus is to take effect July 1.

That gave the Cedar Rapids school district just enough time to avoid being forced to sell Garfield Elementary School to Isaac Newton Christian Academy. Instead, the district accepted a bid from a real estate developer half the size of Isaac Newton’s.

Cedar Rapids schools’ chief financial officer said at the June 24 board meeting, as reported by KCRG, “a loss of $1.5 million from our general fund was attributed to the 196 students choosing Isaac Newton Christian Academy.”

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Jun 25

Last walk through Goldfield school

My Substack piece looks at the history of the Goldfield school building and neighboring Boone Valley school district. It takes in the building’s current state as an alumna tours the building. Of course Mom recorded everything.

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Jun 21

License Plate Letters — OQX

We’re halfway through the O’s.

Back when I was in Des Moines there was a time when I spent Sunday afternoons with a small group of Scrabble players. It took me MONTHS to win my first game, and even then, it was only by hitting a triple-word near the end for maybe a 10-point margin. In the end, it wasn’t quite for me.

“I have a vocabulary,” I told them, attempting to justify myself. “You know Scrabble words.”

I double-checked, and OQX is not one.

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Jun 19

Dysart grocery store in danger of closing

Bobby’s Grocery and BBQ in Dysart, formerly Terry’s Food Center, could close soon without a rapid infusion of cash. Stories: North Tama Telegraph, KWWL, KCRG. KCRG is wrong on one detail: The nearest grocery store is in Traer (9 miles), not Vinton (16 miles), and that one can use shoppers too. Bobby’s has set up a GoFundMe.

It’s hard to keep a tiny grocery store in business; profit margins are notoriously low. But as the news stories show, the Dysart store has been battered by storms both literal and metaphorical.

The store has lost power repeatedly, including in the past month, that caused it to lose all perishable stock, the Telegraph story says. In addition, there has been significant (and very much not transitory) inflation. But the most obvious culprit is right there on Highway 21: Dollar General.

In 2022, Iowa Starting Line reported on the negative effects of Dollar General moving into towns that only had one family-run grocery. Part of the story focused on Trunck’s Country Foods, which had been running the Dysart grocery in addition to its base in Reinbeck, and how its owner pulled out of Dysart. The store would have closed if not for the Torres couple buying it, and they’re the ones asking for support now.

Dollar General doesn’t carry meat or fresh produce while Bobby’s and many other family-run grocery stores do.

At last check, Traer is the 14th-largest town in Iowa that does not have a dollar store or one in a bordering city. If Bobby’s goes under, that will be a giant warning light.

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Jun 17

Lincoln Highway double feature

A Model T Ford crossing the country for the anniversary of the “10 millionth” car doing the same in 1924 was delayed in coming to Iowa. That meant that not only could I check it out last Wednesday, but I would be at the Wieting Theatre in Toledo for a presentation on the Lincoln Highway. I combined the events into a story.

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Jun 14

Orient-Macksburg to dissolve

The Orient-Macksburg school district in southwest Iowa will cease to exist at the end of the 2024-25 school year. The district made the decision Monday.

WOI, KCCI, and Iowa Starting Line all have stories. The last goes into the most detail. However, the latter two need a correction/clarification: Only voters in the dissolving district vote on its dissolution. A soon-to-be-appointed dissolution commission will get in communication with neighboring school boards on what areas the surrounding district would be willing to take. The commission will also take residents/property owners’ input and then draw lines. See Iowa Code chapter 275.53 and 275.55.

If the attempted Gladbrook-Reinbeck dissolution is any example — and given its circumstances, it may not — the school boards will be in favor of whatever land OM will offer. North Tama’s letter said it would work with GR and AEA 267 “to reach an appropriate solution.”

If Clearfield’s dissolution is any example — and I really hope it isn’t — residents of OM will want to go every which way and create a crazy quilt.

Right now, the Winterset and Nodaway Valley districts do not spill out of their county lines at all. If they did, that could cause administrative headaches, including extra ballot styles created for just those outlying portions in elections. Those boards could specify that they do not want anything outside their counties. Orphaned land, should there be any — and in the modern era, I don’t think there has been — would be the state’s responsibility to figure out.

The last district to dissolve was Corwith-Wesley in 2015, but 87% of the school territory went to LuVerne and CWL had been together for decades. No district in the modern era has voluntarily dissolved in the summer following its last high school graduation; Boone Valley came close, shutting down one year after its last senior class. Russell and Hedrick were both forcibly shut down by the state over funding issues.

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Jun 12

Goldfield school to be demolished; sale Friday


June 10, 2024: The padding and backboards in the Goldfield gym date to before 2007, based on family video archives.

The Goldfield school will be torn down starting next month.

I got wind of this through an alumna of Goldfield High School, who saw on Facebook that someone saw the city council minutes about its demolition. The “notice to bidders” was in the Eagle Grove Eagle on April 18.

The school, built in 1956, closed as an elementary in 2008. Iowa Central Community College used some classroom space for a while but that duration is unknown.

While the demolition is to begin “no sooner than July 15,” what remains of what’s inside is to be emptied out Friday. If you have any interest in trophies from events in the north-central Iowa area from the 1960s and 1970s (and in some cases earlier!), the sale is from 12 to 4.

I wouldn’t be surprised if someone goes for the scoreboard at 12:01.

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Jun 10

An extended correction to the IA 39 page

Good news! I was wrong … mostly.

On the page for IA 39, I said that present-day US 30 west of the west edge of Denison, following the railroad, was never part of the Lincoln Highway. Well, in the course of exhaustive research since I wrote that — see the Denison Highway Chronology — a correction is needed.

The original Lincoln Highway to Dow City stayed on the north side of the then-Chicago & North Western Railroad and Illinois Central Railroad. This included stairsteps through Arion that every source does differently. In the second half of 1925, IA 6 was graded on an alignment paralleling the railroads on the south side. The Denison Review on Nov. 10, 1926, said the C&NW overpass was completed. The state map was not updated until after paving through Crawford County was completed in 1929.

In 1960, US 30 was four-laned from Denison to the northeast corner of Dow City. In 1962, a relocation of US 30 over the railroad and Boyer River was completed. Chamberlin Drive is a piece of the 1925-62 route of 30.

It’s possible that the 1929 Lincoln Highway pavement, and very likely the 1925 bridges, stayed in place until one of those bridges near Dow City had to be closed because it couldn’t handle semis. That probably happened Oct. 28, 1980, based on articles in the Review on Oct. 25, 1980, and July 9, 1981. The concrete on the closed segment was extant at least through April 1982, according to aerial photos.

About a mile and a half of westbound 30 from the intersection southwest of the ethanol plant to Chamberlin Drive is on the roadbed of the Lincoln Highway built in 1925.

So there you have it. After it took a decade for me to update the IA 39 page (2008-18), it took another five years to correct a supplemental part.

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