Opinion
Welcome to the 2010-2011 School Year
To the Vinton-Shellsburg School Community,
Welcome to the 2010-2011 school year! Many staff members have been working this summer to be prepared for our students in August. Teachers have been taking classes, staff have worked on upgrading our technology systems, our maintenance crew has worked to update some lighting and restrooms, our custodians have cleaned almost every inch of the district, and other staff have been busy painting.
Tax Cuts Debate
Dear Editor,
We are being told that the Bush Tax Cuts should be allowed to "drop dead", with the disclaimer that the Middle Class would be exempt. Only the wealthy (over $250 K) will be required to pay the bill for our Nation's huge and growing deficit. Is this just rhetoric to get the support of the American People, or is it a truism that the "rich" must pay their "fair share".
Iowa floods a chance for Vinton to help others the way others helped Vinton
I write this tonight from a tiny hotel room in Junction City, Kansas. Angie, Sage and I have been planning the trip for a year and a half, and hit the road this morning (Saturday) to take the long way to Denver, by way of our former home state of Kansas.
From mid-afternoon on, Angie and I read in stunned silence the news reports coming from Eastern Iowa News Online and other sources with the horrifying news that the dam at Lake Delhi had failed and that hundreds of residents down stream along the Maquoketa River were in imminent danger.
Remembering Paige Hicks with honor
Paige Hicks of the St.Louis area spent only an hour or two of her 21 years in Benton County.
While here, she saw our area from the same perspective from which she saw approximately half of the states in the U.S.: From the seat of her bicycle while traveling across the country on the back roads, just off the major highways.
I spoke to Paige very briefly, near a stop sign on Main Street in Van Horne, on July 12. Oh Deer, I thought they came here all by themselves!
A few years ago I was talking to a friend of mine about how I absolutely hated deer. Love to eat them, but not the part about them that includes them running on the roads.
Then she told me that they were brought here back in the 30's. Now I'm NOT a farm girl, or pay much attention to how animals migrate, but I just assumed that the deer came here all by themselves.
Childen's book explains why men NEVER ask for directions
“Why are we going this way?”
“Where are we going?”
“Why can’t we just go the way we always go?”
I heard these questions last weekend from my kids.
But any man who has ever driven with a woman knows the very same questions are so much more intense coming not from the kids in the back seat, but from the wife in the front seat.
A reluctant record
We've measure our success at Vinton Today, in part, by the number of page views we record in a day.
Our average weekly page views have been gradually increasing, to more than 15,000 per week.
But yesterday, we set a record of more than 5,300 page views.
However, I know that a large reason for that is the tragic death of former Vinton resident Lynn Fraker.
Feedback on The Iowa Braille Sight Saving School
The Murder (Failure? Death? Demise? Decline? Deterioration? Destruction?) of Iowa Braille: From Acclaim to Ruin in Less than Five Decades
How did this once great institution for the blind become what it is today, a mere shadow of its former self?
In the 1960s, The Iowa Braille and Sight Saving School was nationally recognized as the best institution of its kind, a true shining city on the hill in the area of work with blind children.
Reader Thanks Community
Dear Editor,
What a great Place to Live! I want to say a big "Thank You" to all the organizers and volunteers of Party in the Park. It was a great weekend. It's so nice to live in a family friendly community. We moved here six years ago from Florida. My husband and I are Midwesterners but moved to Florida to enjoy the sun and sand for a few years.
Raspberries after the rain
One of the surprises I have discovered living in the rural areas of northern Benton County are the wild raspberries that grow each June.
I do not have the same green thumb my grandfather and father had. I can barely make anything grow.
But with the raspberries, all I have to do is pick them once a year. I can handle that.
The ones that grow on our farm are best when eaten fresh, right after being plucked from the vine.