Oct 11

Lisbon Lincoln Highway panel rededicated


October 6, 2023: Amelia Kibbie speaks at the dedication of a Lincoln Highway interpretive panel in Lisbon. The state map is the “Historic Auto Trails” map the Iowa DOT made in the 1980s.

Last Friday at Lincoln Square Park in downtown Lisbon, a short ceremony was held for the Lincoln Highway. One of the interpretive panels in Linn County for the history highway has been replaced and relocated. This particular panel focuses on the variety of markers used for auto trails in the 1910s, and how the Lincoln name was selected.

Amelia Kibbie, poet laureate of Mount Vernon-Lisbon, said she hoped this would promote the location as “Lincoln Square” and not just “the gazebo.” She read a poem she composed for the event.

A group photo was taken afterward, with everyone bundled up. If only it had been held on Tuesday.

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Oct 09

Clay Central-Everly still had homecoming

There are only 63 students in grades K-6 at Clay Central-Everly, and there’s no high school anymore, but that didn’t stop the school from having a homecoming week this year. KTIV was there to cover the parade. The Sioux Central marching band showed up, although CC-E is officially sending its higher grades to Spencer.

On an unrelated news note, KTIV is in an interesting situation in terms of news presentation. Its studio was redesigned when it was owned by Quincy Media, but then Quincy got out of TV and sold KTIV to Gray.

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Oct 06

Jack Trice’s story, and what happened after

My latest Substack recaps the Jack Trice story. This includes the decades after his death, when the Big 6/7/8 had a “gentleman’s agreement” that kept minority players off the field.

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Oct 04

West Sioux bond would replace 1961 Ireton addition

There’s apparently a 1921 school hiding somewhere in Ireton. It’s not readily visible, but something from that year would get renovations, according to West Sioux’s plans for a bond referendum.

Aerial photos show that a building that was there in the 1930s and 1950s isn’t there now, but there could be a remaining portion.

The 1961 addition, however, wouldn’t be so lucky. The FAQ says windows in that addition have been boarded up because they are 62 years old and bond referendums to replace them have failed twice. Renderings on the West Sioux website show an addition that is thematically architecturally similar, but attached north of the gymnasium instead.

This bond missed a supermajority by 10 votes in March, and the cost has increased from $15 million to $15.5 million. A different bond vote, which would have put all students in fifth grade and lower in a new building in Ireton, also narrowly failed to reach a supermajority in March 2022. Very notably, the FAQ says inflation has outpaced the district’s bonding capacity, which means replacement of the Ireton building is out of reach.

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Oct 02

Okoboji retreat recap

I have written about my experience at the Okoboji Writers’ Retreat. I hope you enjoy it. This post was delayed as I spent the week dealing with laryngitis that struck two hours after a job interview and berating myself over what I didn’t say in the interview.

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Sep 29

Repeat clues appear on ‘Jeopardy!’

One of my favorite clues on “Jeopardy!” appeared again Wednesday.

“Total cubic feet of earth in a hole 1 yard wide, 1 yard long & 1 yard deep,” was a clue in “Tricky Questions.” This time the first to buzz in got it right.

On February 15, 2000, it stumped all three College Championship semifinalists and Alex Trebek stared into the camera to shame them.

Two other clues from that 2000 category appeared along with that one Wednesday. In addition, Double Jeopardy repeated an entire category from 2004 about pipe organs, but with new HD video.

The fact that clues were going to be recycled wasn’t a secret. The Writers Guild of America strike also applied to game shows. The strike was resolved at the start of this week, and writers are returning, so the period where old clues reappear will be short-lived.

It’s just funny that it happened to include something I yelled at the TV long ago, “What is, there is no dirt in a hole!”

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Sep 28

Lost and found for old schools

On the grounds where the Ferguson school used to stand in Marshall County, a class ring was lost in 1961. The ring’s original owner and the boyfriend who lost it still got married.

Earlier this month, someone with a metal detector found it. The Marshalltown Times-Republican has the story.

In Creston, the missing pieces were a bit more substantial: the most important pieces of the 1926-89 building. The limestone engraving that said “CRESTON” had been in a pile of rubble for decades, broken into three pieces. The cornerstone had been in the weeds by the bus barn, its time capsule intact.

The Creston News Advertiser has a story about the men who found these pieces of history and restored them for display at Union County Historical Village.

In Story County, nothing has been lost, but you might be able to find your next home. The 1923 Milford Township school can be yours for $1.7 million, the Ames Tribune says. It’s on E29 two miles east of I-35 (no nosy neighbors!), closed in 1991, and was painstakingly turned into a “prairie castle” earlier this century.

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Sep 26

Ely community center would replace old school

Ely voters in November will be deciding on a $7 million bond issue to build a community center, KCRG reports. (Link includes autoplay video and no longer works in my version of Safari.) The bond does not cover the entire cost, necessitating a “funding gap” to fill.

Ely’s current city hall is located in the old school, which dates back to the early 20th century. It was used as part of the College Community (Prairie) district until 1971. In the second half of that year, the district had to delay procedures to sell the building because the title to the property was in doubt. The community center would be built on this site and replace both the city hall and the library.

The school building is so old, it never got a gymnasium, which is a big selling point for the new community center. It’s also so old that it’s obviously not ADA-compliant, and so that adds costs to fixing up the building.

The city has a page about the plans. The last sentence said the group was working toward having the project “on the ballet” instead of “on the ballot.” (There’s also an ensure/insure issue in the FAQ.)

The renderings for the project liberally use That Shade of Green, which is also a color theme in the city’s branding.

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Sep 22

Annexation of entire towns: A history

In my latest Substack post, I write about some notable cases in Iowa history where one community was entirely subsumed by another. In one case, it was one community swallowing eight others. (I bet you can figure out what city was allowed to do that.)

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Sep 20

Kenyon Road bridges to be replaced


Excerpt from the Iowa State Highway Commission’s blueprints for “650′ continuous steel frame overhead crossing,” over what’s now South 7th Street, dated 1934. The Kenyon Road bridge(s) opened in 1936-37. Before that, US 20 crossed the Des Moines River on a viaduct heading northeast from the intersection of G Street and Avenue C.

Two historic bridges in Fort Dodge are going to be replaced in a yearlong project. Next year, the other bridges will get overlays, and the invisible remaining parts of IA 926 will be gone.

Work to demolish and replace the westbound bridges of Kenyon Road across the Des Moines River and South 7th Street starts today (Sept. 20), the Fort Dodge Messenger reports. As you can see in the Messenger’s pictures and on Google Street View, while it might look like two bridges from the top, and even feel like one bridge because the in-between portion is on raised ground, it’s very visibly four bridges underneath.

One of the bridges being replaced was named the Herring Viaduct after the governor of Iowa who was in office at the time.

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