It is the middle of August and the days are getting shorter and school is about to start. The mothers are cheering and Grandma Jo is worried she won’t see the grandkids as often. Although she will get to ride the white bus to GMG and Easton will start playing pee wee football again. We will both be there to watch him. Since it has been so long that I have written this letter, I’m going back to June and Corn Carnival. We got off to a bad start when we found out right before the start that we didn’t have a carnival. It seems that the owner had retired and didn’t let anyone know. After some long hours and many phone calls, Terri Luehring and Mike Bearden managed to come up with several bouncy houses for something for the kids to do on main street. It worked and the kids had a good time with the help of a lot of volunteers and the Young Women of Today. They all made it work. Everything else was going fine with a great kids parade, collectors fair, bingo, food stand, car show, grand parade and other events that make Corn Carnival great. Then came Saturday night. At 7:00 PM we got a very large downpour. It rained hard for several hours. That washed out the Legion-Peace Church food stand, the firemen’s beer garden, the bounce houses and put a very severe dent in the Saturday night talent show. It also caused the cancellation of Luethje Auto Sales fireworks show. Corn Carnival closed on Sunday with church services and a very good omelet breakfast. Every group including the food stand, beer garden, Luethje Auto fireworks and the Corn Carnival Committee lost money but we all will be back next year for the 97th celebration. Thank you all who stepped up to help make this years Corn Carnival still a place to come home to and we all look forward to better luck next year. Thank you everyone! The next event was the 4th of July. If you lived in Gladbrook you got to “enjoy” ten days of fireworks. Some were OK and some were very annoying. The Gladbrook City Council will be looking at our new ordinance on the amount of days you can shoot off fireworks in town. On to the Tama County Fair. The Fair Board extended the fair by one day, starting on Monday and ending on Saturday which seemed to work well. All the shows had large crowds. There were a lot of entries shown by our Tama County kids both livestock and non livestock with many of our kids taking their projects to the State Fair. It is fun to see the result of their year’s work and how much they have developed each year. Like many grandparents, Jo and I are lucky to be able to watch our grandkids coming up through the Clover Kid’s Club and going on into both 4-H and FFA. Thanks to those leaders for making this possible. New this year and the fair was Mandy(Mrs. Spanky)Boldt running the food stand. With the help of many volunteers she got it done. A lot of good food including 80 pies. Thanks to Mandy and all those who volunteered to help her. On Thursday when Marshalltown got hit with there tornado the sirens went off here in Gladbrook and at the fairgrounds. Everyone was rushed to the cement shower room for cover. Luckily we didn’t have any damage just heavy rain. Doug Bruene, our Tama County Fair Board President, did a tremendous job of keeping everything calm and under control. Just another case of one of Gladbrook’s young people who stepped up and became a leader making Gladbrook a safer place to live. Thank you, Doug! Moving forward with more good news for Gladbrook. We have three new businesses starting up here in our town. Ron and Holly Dudley have sold the bowling alley to a group of investors. New leagues will start up in August and they are redoing the restaurant with meals being served six days a week. The new pharmacy is about complete and will be open soon. It is located between the old fire station and Covenant Clinic. Also we have a new insurance agent in town. Stacey Posusta will be managing this Farm Bureau office. Stop in on Monday mornings for a donut.