Kathy and I attended a Greene County High School performance last Saturday evening of Anastasia the Musical. It’s based on the animated film Anastasia, about the Romanov princess who, according to …

What would you do if armed federal agents were pounding on your door? Not in a movie or a history book — but tonight. Your house. Your family. History shows that free societies rarely lose …

When something breaks on our farm, my first instinct is the same one my father had, and his father before him: figure out what’s wrong, fix it, and get back to work. That instinct is bred into …

For the past 14 months, Americans of all political persuasions have witnessed how Trump’s ICE-related actions have involved aggressive detention and demonization of immigrants and minorities. …

If you grew up on a farm, you know that milk cows show up to be milked, horses return to the barn to be fed and, like clockwork, chickens return to roost every night. In fact, chickens are so …

We’ve seen it countless times across the country, career criminals who have never had to face consequences for their actions harming and even killing innocent people. Iowans have had enough and …

Fog set thick outside while serotonin ran thin inside on this early March morning of Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) in Iowa. If I had the gumption I would go jump in the lake. It only gets worse …

The world bears less of a burden with Iran’s supreme leader and his ruling junta dead in the rubble. Israel and the United States joined forces to decapitate the leading sponsor of terrorism in the …

The Iowa Legislature is at it again, trying to eliminate publication of legal notices in newspapers. And it will cost Iowa’s citizens way more money than it saves. Republican sponsors say it …

F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote that the very rich “are different from you and me.” While that quote comes from a short story, his novel, The Great Gatsby, fully embodies that observation. We …

When it comes to the First and Fifth Amendments, I’m a Jeffersonian Jeffersonian. The amendments are two of the ten in the Constitution’s Bill of Rights. Thomas Jefferson didn’t write …

March is when most people’s thoughts turn to spring and most farmers start looking forward to another productive year of growing food, feed and fiber. Until then, though, there's weather to …

My hope is that by sharing these stories, we can all get to know our community a little better. I feel thankful to have met so many amazing people in the Storm Lake area who are working hard to build …

During his interminable State of the Union address, President Trump included reference to waste, fraud and abuse. Of course, such mention was opportunistically political, containing recurrent …

“In a perfect and just America, who possesses the greater political power — the rich and wealthy or the language contained within the U.S. Constitution? Answer: The U.S. Constitution, namely, …

Last week was the seventh week of the legislative session. We are past the first funnel and the week was filled with floor debates. Last Monday we passed SF 2219 with a vote of 46-0. This bill …

One of the major issues in the transportation arena over the past year has been the proliferation of deadly accidents across the country involving people who somehow have gotten Commercial Driver’s …

Belle Plaine farmer Zach Lahn caught the nation’s attention last week talking up conservation agriculture with none other than Tucker Carlson, who was too far over the line for Fox News and is an …

Leading legislators bent on hobbling Iowa’s community newspapers so they can keep the public in the dark are lurching forward. A bill to eliminate public notices from newspapers cleared the Senate …

I had a big response to my column last week, “Scooping the loop,” from my high school days in the 1960s. I had a good vantage point to watch loop scoopers. Twice a week I perched high above …