Despite having its financial situation profiled in the media, Bobby’s Grocery and BBQ in Dysart couldn’t find a way forward. The North Tama Telegraph reported earlier this month that the store is closing.
In addition to problems with equipment that took out inventory, partially due to storm-induced blackouts, the main culprit is the Dollar General store that opened five years ago.
Beth Howard’s documentary “PIEOWA,” about the history and social connections of pie in Iowa, was shown at the Gladbrook Theater last month.
It was berry, berry good.
It was in Gladbrook because Laura Bru, “The Pie Lady,” is one of the pie makers featured in the film
(Happy Pi Day, in advance!)
Back-to-back press releases from the Iowa DOT indicate two construction projects in Black Hawk County will start March 23.
The US 218 bridge in La Porte City, between the four-way stop and the north side of town, is going to be replaced. Traffic will not be detoured. There will be alternating one-way paths controlled by stoplights.
Pavement on US 20 between IA 58 (Hudson Road) and US 63 is going to be replaced in both directions. It’s very likely that it’s still the 1986 concrete with various patching, and now both sets of lanes will be torn up.
The westbound I-80 rest area south of Victor opened at the end of February, the Iowa DOT said in a press release. It closed in October for full reconstruction.
“The rest area’s theme, ‘Modernization of America,’ displays murals that celebrate the nation’s new industrialization that followed World War II,” the press release says.
The release also says that the rest area will be closed again this summer for expansion of the parking lots. The numbers of both truck parking spaces and car parking spaces will nearly double.
My Substack “sports grab bag” a month ago started with the re-emergence of the “Iowa High School Sports History” website and also mentioned a good bill in the Legislature (mandating acceptance of cash for event admissions) and a very bad bill in the Legislature (mandatory “dead weeks” between sports seasons).
This Monday, that last one got worse.
Rep. Skyler Wheeler of Hull took his “noncontact period” bill, which has been renumbered HF 2508, and is throwing in two more calendar changes.
First, the amendment mandates that all school districts implement a spring break week after the state boys’ basketball tournament, i.e. the third week of March/week following the second Friday of March. As I wrote in the Substack post, many schools don’t set a spring break like this, and right now, it’s their choice to have a whole week off or Good Friday and the Monday after Easter instead (or even none at all, since they can also be makeups for snow days).
It just so happens that Western Christian of Hull, one of three(!) private schools in the town, has the full March spring break with Good Friday thrown in elsewhere, whereas Boyden-Hull does not, and instead has its spring break on the Thursday through Monday around Easter.
Second, and this is relevant to my analysis of school bond issue votes in November, Wheeler’s amendment mandates that the state volleyball tournament not start until the day after Election Day.
Wheeler is, in effect, micromanaging not only the school academic calendar but the school activities calendar. Ironically, the amendment doesn’t touch the heretofore-only third rail of the calendar, the August start date. It still says August 23 and not, say, the Monday or Tuesday following the end of the Iowa State Fair.
As of blog post time, the bill is one of two dozen eligible for debate in the House. It would have to go to the Senate if approved.
The main building of Orient-Macksburg Community School District has been demolished before the district technically ceases to exist.
WOI has a story with video of the demolition. The stone “Orient Consolidated School” plinth above the main entrance was removed beforehand.
(Previously planned posts of the past week had to be held due to events.)
If you want food along the IA 48 corridor, your options are more limited.
KMA Radio reports that Shenandoah and Red Oak are going to lose their Burger King restaurants on Monday. They’re the only locations in Iowa south of IA 92 and west of Ottumwa. Each town also has a McDonald’s and a Subway. In Iowa, though, having a BK typically means you’re a little “bigger” as a town.
Business headlines recently were about Wendy’s planning to close hundreds of locations nationwide, although no specifics have been released. If the BK news is larger than these two, I was unable to find anything about it.
September 17, 2014: There are no paved streets in Conway, although from 1935-61 it was the east end of IA 319.
Iowa’s third-smallest town is going to be no more.
The City Development Board agenda for last week’s meeting has a line item for the discontinuance of the Taylor County town of Conway. In the Bedford Times-Press on Oct. 29, a notice was issued for a hearing in two weeks about Conway. “It is due to lack of interest and participation in the local governing process and increasing costs to the city finances that the council is considering this discontinuance,” the notice said.
In March 2024, State Auditor Rob Sand issued a report on the city’s records for calendar year 2023. The report revealed multiple irregularities, including paying a city council member $850 for mowing and snow work.
Following Conway’s disincorporation, there will be 939 incorporated places in Iowa for real, five years after two college students from Nebraska miscalculated while doing a one-year whirlwind tour of every town in the Cyclone State and promoting the wrong number.
My visit to Van Buren County on Jan. 18 was a two-fer for stories. The Historic Hills Scenic Byway coordinator made the Iowaville presentation the cornerstone of a two-day, multiple-location tour of sites along the byway. This second presentation, in Bentonsport, was about the Mormon Trail and the marks it left in the area.
A visit to Lacey-Keosauqua State Park kicked off the first of what I hope will be multiple stories of Iowa history related to Iowa Scenic Byways and America 250. The presentation focused on an Ioway village rediscovered a few decades ago.
