Tuesday I went to Dysart, which voted on a bond issue for Union (six votes short!) (just like North Tama!). Dysart is also part of Senate District 38, which despite a one-sided ad campaign and the bulk of its population in Cedar Falls, flipped Republican.
This coverage is also in the North Tama Telegraph, which was the only way I could be connected to newspaper coverage of a presidential election in Iowa.
(Sunday will be 500 days since my layoff.)
The US 30 exit at County Road R70 opened Oct. 14, according to a press release from the DOT. The overpass bridge was built right next to the intersection, so there’s going to be a slight bend in R70 from here on out. This exit is just east of the I-35/US 30 interchange.
Strangely, the BGSs include the rural street name, 580th Avenue, and not the town reached by R70, Cambridge. This was the exact wrong approach.
This exit is part of the plan to convert 30 between Ames and Nevada into a full freeway. Just to the west, construction to add an extra lane between I-35 and Dayton Avenue will start next year.
Previously, I explored how the northeast Iowa town of Fayette appeared to be the only town in the country that had a graduate degree program but not a high school.
But as of last year, Fayette joined Peru, Nebraska, as a second town in the United States that has a four-year institution of higher education but no school at all.
According to a February 2023 article in the Oelwein Daily Register, the North Fayette Valley school district closed Fayette Elementary, which had held fourth- and fifth-graders from the pre-merger North Fayette area. Elementaries in West Union and Valley (between Clermont and Elgin) each have grades PK-3, all fourth-graders are at Valley, and fifth-graders are in the middle school.
A follow-up article last January said the Fayette school site is being converted into apartments by the same people who converted the Quasqueton school.
I personally think fifth grade is too young for middle school, and sixth for that matter. That’s at least somewhat what Interstate 35 schools announced in March, realigning its large singular complex in Truro to have the elementary portion have grades K-6 and the secondary portion have grades 7-12. I-35 also has its students change classrooms for subjects starting in second grade, and as a former second-grader I think that’s too young too.
The North Tama Redhawks swept Belle Plaine in a regional semifinal volleyball match Monday. Wednesday’s game to go to state will be against River Valley of Correctionville at Webster City.
To prevent four ranked Iowa Star Conference teams from devouring each other early, some of the volleyball regionals are really double-districts, with the two halves of the brackets far apart. This worked like a charm. BCLUW, Don Bosco, Janesville, and North Tama are are still alive.
I made a map for last week’s “grab bag” Substack post. I also threw in a Halloween photo and another map that will scare anyone paying attention to the election.
I’m aware that more things are happening than I’m writing about. I’m also in the middle of a seven-week span where at least one of my days off is occupied by something lasting multiple hours. In the case of last week, it was this. Sadly, it’s already gone from Des Moines.
I’m a little late in getting this one in, but here is my story about the Honor Flight in Cedar Rapids earlier this month. I hadn’t planned on a story but when the flight’s return was delayed by two hours, I figured I didn’t have anything better to do.
In the past month, I have driven back and forth on US 30 in Benton County repeatedly. Each time, I approached the Luzerne corner (County Road V44) or IA 21 wondering if this was the time that the last barriers would be removed.
A month ago, 30 became “three” lanes, with both new westbound lanes open except at either end of the previous crossover and one eastbound lane open until restriping and cleanup was done.
As I drove west on Tuesday, I approached the Luzerne corner again and the short closure wasn’t there. Traffic was moving in two lanes eastbound. I caught up to the trucks with crews pitching the cones and poles to the side. They were working east to west, so that once the cars passed them, it was smooth sailing. At 4:30, all they had left to do was go through the IA 21 exit and take the “>>>” light with them.
US 30 is four lanes from Ogden to Lisbon, and there will be more time ahead to write about that.
There is a steadily decreasing number of rural school districts with three sites. East Marshall currently is one of those, but that status is the subject of this November’s bond issue vote.
(Schools now can have bond issue votes on the November election day in even-numbered years, although that creates its own set of ballot hoops. This is one of the knock-on effects of the “property tax reform” law.)
Both the Marshalltown Times-Republican and WOI have stories about a $13.5 million bond issue proposal. The Gilman school, currently serving as East Marshall Middle School, would be closed. Additions would be built at Laurel, where sixth-graders would go, and Le Grand, which would become a junior high/high school. (Le Grand has had two gymnasiums for a while now.)
Gilman’s core building dates to 1922, although I haven’t found an exact opening day. It was SEMCO High School (SouthEast Marshall County) with Laurel until whole-grade sharing began with Le Grand-Dunbar-Ferguson in 1989. LDF-SEMCO became East Marshall in 1992, a rare post-sharing name change at consolidation. I assume that Dunbar’s school closed when the grade-sharing began but the T-R archives at the Marshalltown library end at 1977. (Help appreciated!)
World War II veteran Roger Corbin died last month at the age of 103. He led an interesting life, with a first marriage that yielded five kids and a sad story, and then a second marriage that lasted more than 60 years.
(This was reprinted in the North Tama Telegraph.)
On my way to the Okoboji Writers’ Retreat I passed by Goldfield to check the status of the school’s demolition. Nothing looked changed on the outside save for the two pine trees out front being gone. Inside, the doors were stacked up waiting for removal, and a “Clarion-Goldfield” banner above one of the trophy cases was still there.
It’s entirely possible I took the last pictures of the exterior intact. Days later, it started coming down.
