Financial Service focus B-Section
Unemployment holds low Page 3 UNITED WE STAND
Friday
Feb. 13, 2015 OFFICIAL NEWSPAPER OF HARDIN COUNTY
Newsbriefs
Eldora Children’s Center Bake Sale Feb. 13 The Eldora Children’s Center will be holding a bake sale in the lobby of the Eldora Hardin County Savings Bank on Friday, Feb. 13th from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. County Offices closed Feb. 16 All County Offices in the Courthouse, County Office Building, and Engineer’s Office will be closed on Monday, Feb. 16 in observance of President’s Day. Little Rock Ministry Pancake and Omelet Breakfast Feb. 15 The Little Rock Ministry will sponsor a fundraiser pancake and omelet breakfast at Dorothy’s Senior Center in Eldora on Sunday, Feb. 15 from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. A free-will donation will be taken at the door. Little Rock Ministry is a group of local volunteers who help with year-round activities and provide scholarships to summer camp for the children at Pinecrest Mobile Home Park in Eldora. Walter Sayer Post 182 mtg. Feb. 18 Walter Sayer Post 182, American Legion meetings are held at 7:30 p.m. on the third Wednesday of each month at the Legion Post at 1215 Washington St., Eldora.
E L D O R A, I O W A
641-939-5051
And you thought you had to work for a living.
This edition features a second section where a host of local financial services people extend an invitation to come in and accept their help. As always we try to come up with something in the theme for accompanying stories, and this year it is a return to yesteryear when Eldora was just starting, and when, as happened in many areas freshly put to settlement, someone discovered gold. It is generally acknowledged there might be a trace of gold in the Iowa River Valley – the geology is just right – but expect very, very little. It’s at best a phantom. So, keep your job and patronize the section B sponsors of this edition, if you want to hit it big financially.
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School ponders opening day options Legislature still grappling with school calendars
By Rick Patrie News Editor SOUTH HARDIN – Word is that the tourism industry is happy. One way or another it looks like schools will be opening later in the fall than has become customary in recent years. It is just a matter of how much later. And that in mind, the Eldora-New Providence School
board began preparing for next autumn by reviewing options for the 2015-16 school calendar. Each option takes into account a proposal moving through the Statehouse now, which would allow Iowa schools to open no earlier than Aug. 23. That is under a compromise being discussed by lawmakers in the wake of Gov.
Terry Branstad’s order a couple of months ago to more strictly enforce current law governing the granting of exemptions and allowing earlier starts to school. Again, the compromise would set Aug. 23 as the earliest start date. E-NP School superintendent Jay Mathis said all his three proposed calendar options, none of which
were voted on Monday night, would fit under the new restrictions and get the school year in the books and finished in time for May graduations. It was mainly a matter of juggling the dates for various Christmas and Easter time outs. The governor cited the growing number of schools taking advantage of earlier start dates under a climate
of easy exemptions. His directive was simply to have the state department of education more strictly enforce the current standards. Schools in great numbers cried foul, saying the move intruded on local control of local schools. It was no secret that a lot of the motivation behind the Governors move was to (continued on page 4)
Students test political fixes in a virtual world By Rick Patrie News Editor SOUTH HARDIN – Almost every time they hold a meeting, members of the E-NP school board hear from one of the instruction departments in the school. Monday night it was the social sciences. The short presentation presented something different. Out at the high school, several social studies students, freshmen sophomores, juniors and seniors, are
taking a stab at something we’ve all been meaning to do someday. When we had the time. Straightening the world out. Starting from scratch and getting it right this time. Of course there’s a condition to being a world-straightener-outer. Your best laid plans get a splendid launch, but then an elaborate computer program takes over. Sausage grinder style, it executes your every command, wasting
Calkins expansion Gold turns to discovered finish line in Iowa River!
www.eldoranewspapers.com
By Rick Patrie News Editor HARDIN COUNTY – For those who last saw the progress early in December when Calkins Nature Center was hosting its annual Christmas gathering, the news is now that the addition to the nature center is fully enclosed. Work will now progress through the winter on the interior, including the utilities. The plan is to have the completed structure by spring, and then the plan is to complete the second phase of fund raising and support-seeking, and have the new addition up and by fall housing the center’s much expanded Native American artifact collection. That means targeting a big open house for the exhibit in the early autumn. The nature center, some time ago, was approached by a collector (continued on page 4)
nothing, but it does so with the laws of unintended consequences in full force. That’s when the computer’s virtual reality starts to approach something like the real reality you encounter in politics, economics, and social science every time you start straightening the world out. Instructor Chad Van Zante says it’s a great way to learn what unhappy surprises can flow from implementing the best-intended,
best-laid plans. The big difference is, in the computer, you can experience the unintended consequences without all the real world damage. The ten students involved aren’t really involved in an official class assignment, they just took up a challenge from their instructors, Van Zante and Geoff Buchanan, that they look into an elaborate web offering that allows you to create your own country, create its systems, rule it however you please, right down to
the smallest detail, but create it all on the condition you’re willing to have your plan shredded by best intentions gone astray. Not that things never work out in the experiment. For instance, one of the students at work on the computer program was presented with a ‘national’ situation that called out for remedy. Drunk driving was skyrocketing in his little virtual country. (continued on page 4)
Calkins project now fully enclosed
By now the work shown here is phased in and with the building enclosed, the Calkins Nature Center addition is moving toward a structural completion in spring and then a grand opening and exhibit of its enlarged Native American artifact collection by next fall. The center not long ago was gifted with the big collection of artifacts, adding to its already substantial exhibit stock.
Ag technology students becoming well travelled
by Rick Patrie News Editor HARDIN COUNTY – Learning the ins and outs of agriculture is making seasoned travellers of some area young people in the ag studies departments of Ellsworth Community College and that at Hawkeye Technical Institute in Waterloo. At Hawkeye, the travel was to Haiti on a learning exchange (see article on page 3), and at Ellsworth it was first to the Iowa Postsecondary Agricultural Student spring leadership conference at Lake Rathbun, and next on to Idaho. A couple of Hardin County young
men will be flying to Idaho in a few weeks to follow up on their success at the state contests. First From Ellsworth: A big crop of students represented Ellsworth last week at the 2015 Iowa conference and competitions at Honey Creek Lodge by Lake Rathbun. Several ECC students not only entered the winner’s circle, but also earned the right to attend the National PAS Conference and similar competitions in Boise come March. Instructor Kevin Butt at Ellsworth says that the PSA is probably the closest thing to a collegiate version of FFA as you can get.
Coming from all around Iowa, hundreds of students, advisors, judges, sponsors and guests participated in agricultural competitions, seminars, and leadership development activities. Of particular note to Hardin County were a couple of young men in their first year at Ellsworth. Landon Brown and Simon Knutson of New Providence and Hubbard respectively earned second and third places, qualifying them to join a team from Ellsworth which will go on to the Boise competitions. Brown took his spot for a demonstration of precision agriculture knowledge and
familiarity with the emerging technology. Butt said that essentially it came down to examiners dumping a box of disassembled hardware on the floor and giving the contestant time to assemble it properly. The competition also tested the students acuity in using the software’s involved in precision ag practices, and also in demonstrating an ability do the computations involved, and produce the graphic images so commonly associated with those satellite-assisted tillage practices. Brown’s choice to compete in (continued on page 3)
ECC has created a unique Mobile Precision Agriculture Lab. The Mobile Lab travels to area schools to help expand high school students’ knowledge and provide valuable hands-on experiences in the high-tech area of Precision Agriculture.