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Local Columns

Dengler Domain: Thoughts from the Field

Here are my thoughts from the field: 1. I am one lucky son of a gun. Few live their passion every day, let alone try to earn a living doing it. Farming does this. I also love performing comedy and MCing events, but those are not exactly paying the bills. Shameless plug, please hire me if ...

Dengler Domain: Zobel’s Memories

A few weeks ago, I wrote about the Dysart baseball team. Relying on the Dysart Reporter’s archives to recreate their run through the postseason was great, but I hoped to contact a former player from the team. While not too many are left all these years later, I was fortunate to talk with ...

On Nature: Dire Predictions

Critics of scientists who tell us that the world’s climate is warming as a result of the emissions of carbon dioxide like to point out past dire predictions that did not happen. One that is often mentioned was the prediction in the 1970s that a decade of cooling temperatures could continue ...

Between Two Rivers: Lincoln Highway bridge at a crossroads

TAMA - The iconic Lincoln Highway bridge here will have to be replaced in some manner, but the exact strategy has yet to be decided. The Tama City Council held a work session Monday to go over the options. A vote will be taken next Monday, August 21, on how to move forward. The tug-of-war ...

Dengler Domain: Baseball

Dysart has a history of good baseball teams. They won the American Legion Junior State Championship in 1956. This is an impressive feat, but only a few years before this monumental win, they almost won the high school state championship. They did this by defeating teams from communities ...

Dengler Domain: Iowa State Fair Foods

Next week the Iowa State Fair starts another year full of animals, 4-H projects, lots of interesting people, politicians, and the most important part, food. It is not a state fair unless there is pork chop on a stick or deep-fried Oreos. This means clogged arteries and full bellies. If one ...

‘Manly Man Marries Fertile Woman’: The headline that never happened

In Iowa newspaper lore, it’s the headline that had to happen at some point. In 2007, Mason City Globe Gazette columnist Richard Johnson tried to find it and came up empty. He wrote, “like all good mysteries, [it] remains shrouded in the mists of time.” However, through modern research ...

Welcome to Between Two Rivers

“One who knows the Mississippi will promptly aver — not aloud, but to himself — that ten thousand river commissions, with the mines of the world at their back, cannot tame that lawless stream, cannot curb it or confine it, cannot say to it, Go here, or Go there, and make it obey...” ...

On Nature: Normal Climate

The question has been asked recently, “What is the normal climate?” The answer is that there is no normal climate. Earth’s climate is always changing. In the past when it was cold, you could walk across the Gulf of Mexico from Tampa, Florida, to New Orleans, Louisiana. At other times ...

Dengler Domain: Anti- Trust

This year marks the last year the University of Texas and the University of Oklahoma will be in the Big 12 Conference. They have been in this regional conference for almost 30 years. They leave for the Southeastern Conference on July 1, 2024, which is also the same year the University of ...