High school football season has been over for a couple of weeks, but the issues created by the multiple forfeits is going to come up again. I did enjoy making the map, though.
More than half of the teams in the smallest-school schedule did not play the exact set of teams they were expecting to play.
I didn’t do a story on my time at the Okoboji Writers (and Songwriters) Retreat last year because I ran into a different story on my departure via Sioux City, but I did this year. If anything, I had to write about running into a former teacher.
November 11, 2025: MercyOne Traer Family Medicine opened as the North Tama Medical Clinic in 1976.
A decade after losing the town’s longtime dentist, and a few years removed from losing the town’s once-a-week optometrist, the town of Traer is losing its doctor’s office. The final day will be Dec. 9. The office was down to one advanced registered nurse practitioner.
The announcement from the MercyOne system, which acquired Covenant Medical Center in Waterloo in 2016 and rebranded it and its satellite locations in 2019, came as a shock to all involved. The clinic was built in 1975-76, and served the people’s needs well. The pharmacy across the street is sure to take a huge hit from people not being able to walk over and get their prescriptions.
The sudden death of Dr. Teresa Lowe in her sleep in 2023 left a hole in the community, one that could not be stitched up by a nurse practitioner, doctor, or skilled surgeon.
The nearest MercyOne-affiliated location to Traer is in Reinbeck. There are only two doctor’s offices left in Tama County: a UnityPoint clinic in Toledo and a family medicine practice in Dysart that opened after MercyOne shut its clinic there earlier this year.
All but one of the seven Iowa high school football championship games pitted a public school against a private school. The outlier was Class A, MMCRU vs. St. Ansgar. (Semi-ironic, no?) That is more public vs. private finals in football than we’ve had recently. Last year only two of the seven title games had private schools, both of which won.
Due to the IHSAA bracketing Valley-Dowling in the semifinal, a non-Des Moines suburb team has a chance in the largest class (5A) final, but it’s Iowa City Liberty, who beat also-newly-existing Waukee Northwest never mind Dowling crushed Eastern Iowa as usual.
Four of the six private schools playing in the finals won a title: Algona Garrigan, Carroll Kuemper, Xavier, and Dowling. West Lyon needed overtime to beat Iowa City Regina. Nevada beat Sioux City Heelan.
But hey, at least Iowa’s taxpayers are funding everyone on the field now.
(Note: For the first time in YEARS, Grundy Center did not take the field on championship week.)
Erin Kiernan is voluntarily leaving WHO in Des Moines to spend more time with her family — and that’s in the most positive way possible. The TV staff surprised her with a seven-minute farewell segment.
Today is her last broadcast.
Mike Hlas will not be retained when a new owner takes possession of the Cedar Rapids Gazette Dec. 1. His last column will be Sunday, but he’s already put out his farewell piece.
(No further comment at this time.)
John Fitzsimmons of Boone, a longtime member of the Lincoln Highway Association, died Saturday.
He had a blog he occasionally posted to from 2016 to 2021. He billed himself as a “vagabond road artist”. I last saw him at the Lincoln Highway conference this summer in Ogallala, Nebraska, where his drawings were set up in the “book room”.
No services are scheduled, according to an e-mail sent to Iowa LHA members.
“As you pass a painted telephone pole or see a marker for the Lincoln Highway, as you drive by those shining spots of historical curiosity, and as you meet your own cast of characters in your own journeys, keep the vagabond road artist in mind,” reads one line in his obituary.
Here’s something that you might not notice unless it’s directly pointed out: Gannett newspapers nationwide, including the Des Moines Register, Iowa City Press-Citizen, and Ames Tribune, have changed how dates are written in their stories. This has been going on for between five and six months now.
Associated Press stories and media outlets that otherwise adhere to AP style follow the historical guidance: Use the day of the week “within seven days before or after the current date.” (“Today” is not AP style but some outlets use it.)
Starting May 15, “USA Today Network Style” has this rule on dates:
Because of the permanence of stories in digital, we will discontinue the practice of using days of the week within seven days of publication, as well as using today, yesterday or tomorrow as time elements. We now will only use the month and date. Avoid phrases such as this week or next month when possible. This rule will go across digital and print so that stories do not have to be reedited.
Such a change would take a large load off anyone who’s looking at stories that will be in print the following Sunday. The primary story in the Sunday Register’s A section June 15 had been online since Thursday morning.
(At my present job, I will still be looking for all those “this week”s and occasionally even “this month”s to fix in news stories.)
Well, how about that. It took Grundy County voting more than 90% in favor, but it happened. I cover the G-R bond vote and many more, with a map of every district in the state that had a bond referendum, in my Substack post.
Here we go again. This time, unlike last year’s vote, Gladbrook-Reinbeck’s superintendent made clear that there is a “stopping point” on this bond. It’s down to doing nothing but replacing the classrooms currently in the oldest building, and the auditorium and second gym (which is in the basement!) will remain until some future time. That’ll require another bond.
Gladbrook-Reinbeck made the state volleyball tournament, which means the Rebels will be playing Tuesday night. Parents of the Gladbrook students who attend GMG, though, have nothing scheduled.
Hinton also made state volleyball, and also has a bond referendum after a previous failure, and has a LOT farther to travel than G-R. (It’s 4½ hours from Hinton to Coralville.)
I almost, but not quite, published a recap of Day 8 of my circumnavigation of Iowa on the day of the 10th anniversary (!) of it happening. It’s still to the month, though.
