Dec 22

Degner named Superintendent of the Year

Posted on Monday, December 22, 2025, at 10:00 AM by Jeff

The website K-12 Dive has named Iowa City superintendent Matt Degner its Superintendent of the Year.

Degner is a North Tama graduate, hence the link here, and because it’s that time of year.

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Dec 18

The very, very preliminary I-380 six-lane meeting

Posted on Thursday, December 18, 2025, at 10:00 AM by Jeff

The biggest revelation of the DOT’s public meeting about six-laning the middle section of I-380 between Iowa City and Cedar Rapids is that project PDFs will not be made available online on a regular basis due to the Americans With Disabilities Act, because visually impaired people cannot read PDFs.

However, PDFs for a different meeting, on six-laning I-35 in Story County, were made available, so it could be hit-or-miss. (If I have to annoy state employees to get the files, none of us is going to like it.)

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Dec 17

Lansing bridge demolition Friday

Posted on Wednesday, December 17, 2025, at 10:07 AM by Jeff

The Iowa DOT has a press release about the various warning zones around the Black Hawk Bridge in preparation for its demolition Friday morning. There will be a livestream. The car ferry will not operate over the weekend as debris is removed.

(note: As of this week, I am getting errors while trying to make new posts when I use the Safari browser, so if anyone knows what “Failed to initialize plugin: wplink” means and how to fix it, that’d be appreciated.)

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Dec 15

Meeting on I-35 in Ames today

Posted on Monday, December 15, 2025, at 10:00 AM by Jeff

The Iowa DOT will have an open house and information meeting at the Ames Public Library tonight regarding the six-laning of I-35 from the end of the present project near IA 210 to the US 30 interchange.

PDFs are available at the meeting link. The new alignment of the interstate isn’t entirely straight. Notably, the little weave just south of US 30 where the southbound lanes move away from the northbound lanes is retained.

As for the US 30 interchange itself, the three remaining loops of the cloverleaf are retained, but rebuilt. Also, another lane of eastbound US 30 will be built from the Dayton Avenue on-ramp to the exit to southbound I-35.

Construction will not start until 2029 (second half of 2028) at the earliest.

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Dec 10

Veterans Day at North Tama

Posted on Wednesday, December 10, 2025, at 10:00 AM by Jeff

Obviously, this happened a month ago, but I’ve been busy.

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Dec 08

How about those Hoosiers?

Posted on Monday, December 8, 2025, at 10:05 AM by Jeff

If I ever update my Iowa State-vs.-Oklahoma football page, the first graphic will need a fix after all.

As for the rest of the weekend’s events, I might have more about that on my Substack later. Might.

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Dec 05

A map of 2025 8-man football forfeits

Posted on Friday, December 5, 2025, at 10:00 AM by Jeff

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.

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Dec 03

Okoboji writers retreat recap 2025

Posted on Wednesday, December 3, 2025, at 10:00 AM by Jeff

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.

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Dec 01

Traer losing its doctor’s office

Posted on Monday, December 1, 2025, at 10:00 AM by Jeff


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.

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Nov 26

Public vs. private, times six

Posted on Wednesday, November 26, 2025, at 10:00 AM by Jeff

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.)

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