Ag Salute B Section
Bunny Money Page 6A Friday
March 18, 2016 OFFICIAL NEWSPAPER OF HARDIN COUNTY
E L D O R A, I O W A
641-939-5051
www.eldoranewspapers.com
V O L U M E 84
• N O. 3 •
$1.00
Let Timothy Christian book your next tour by Rick Patrie News Editor WELLSBURG – Only one bidder could take home the trip to California wine country, but there was pie-enough to go around for everyone who helped extend a unique tradition in Wellsburg. There are benefit auctions and benefit auctions. But there is only one Timothy Christian School benefit auction. Early this month marked the 23rd annual coming together of friends and supporters, and along the way the setting of a new record – $47,500 for the school. That was roughly $7,000 more than last year, the previous record, and this year the event saw donations from 230 area businesses and
Newsbriefs Union Cemetery Assn annual mtg. March 22
The Union Cemetery Association will hold their annual meeting on Tuesday, March 22, at 6 p.m. in the meeting room of the Hardin County Savings Bank in Union. Anyone with interest in the cemetery is welcome to attend.
Early Childhood Board to meet March 22
The Iowa River Valley Early Childhood Area Board will meet Tuesday, March 22 at 4:30 p.m. at BCLUW Middle School Library in Union. The meeting is open to public and interested persons are encouraged to attend. For more information on call Carrie Kube at 641-648-6575 or email carriekube@ qwestoffice.net.
Roll-Harless Post 3974 mtg March 22
Rolls-Harless Post 3974, Veterans of Foreign Wars meetings are held at 7 p.m. on the fourth Tuesday of each month. The next meeting will be on Tuesday, March 22 at the American Legion Post at 1215 Washington St., Eldora.
Good Shepherd Preschool Roundup April 22
Good Shepherd Preschool, located in St. Paul Lutheran Church, Eldora is now taking enrollments for the 2016-2017 school year. Roundup will be held on April 22. Contact Karen Ritter, 858-6757 or 939-3561 (home) for more information. continued on page 3A)
Bunny Money
Spring means the return of the merchant community Bunny Money promotion. Kids, it is simple. Just go out and count the Easter eggs in the windows of the participating merchants around town. The top and most accurate counter wins $50 in bunny Money spendable at any of the merchants involved in the promotion. And there are lots of other prizes too. Check 6A for the instructions.
individuals, 370 items sold to 160 generous bidders, and a new wrinkle in the sale bill. Although school principal Janna Voss said the key to the sale’s success was, as always, the wide variety of donations made, the highlight of the day was the sale of the Napa Valley trip for $4,800. ‘Destination experiences’ became the theme this year as the auction committee sought out donations from various venues in Omaha, Kansas City, Des Moines, Boone and Waterloo/Cedar Falls. Organizers then packaged the trips and side trips. The new idea had come about by happenstance, the school says. continued on page 3A)
All the essentials of a Timothy Christian auction – the auctioneer, the floormen, a Dorothy Bakker quilt on the wall, and of course the pies. The auction set another record, eclipsing anything past. A big turnout and huge tally came as the planners came up with a new wrinkle in the offerings. Travel packages. Meanwhile, the early auction pie sale is usually a good barometer of how the rest of the sale will go. This year the pies sold well enough, but were no predictor of just how record setting would be the rest of the day.
Celebrating agriculture 2016
(Editor note:) This is the newspaper’s annual spring spotlight on agriculture in the local area. The biggest and the foundation industry here. See B-section of this paper for some related stories, and here Rob Maharry from our Mid-America Publishing paper in Grundy Center contributes a story about a new precision in farming.
By:Rob Maharry Mid-America Publishing CONRAD- Technology is changing everything around us and pretty much every industry in existence,
and agriculture is no different. Over the last few decades, the advent of data-driven farming and technology has revolutionized the industry, and Agronomist Susie Petersen of Mid-Iowa Co-Op sat down for an interview to discuss some of the changes as well as the latest piece of technology that she and her colleagues are using to assist farmers. “Basically, we’re finding the spots in the field that that maybe need a little bit more attention. We’re finding areas in the field where you’ve got better soils and better potential for higher yielding, and
Open houses spotlight health care occupations
By Rick Patrie News Editor HARDIN COUNTY– There is a story inside this edition on career opportunities in the agricultural field, and while it’s an obvious direction for people entering the work world here in Hardin County, there is one other career path that is creating a wealth of jobs, too. No surprise, in a rural area where the median age of the population keeps rising and rising, health care creates a lot of jobs. That in mind Iowa Valley Community College District’s two big training centers have set a couple of open houses where those coming out of high school and those looking for a career change or new startup can come and investigate job opportunities in Practical Nursing (LPN), Associate Degree Nursing (RN), Medical Assisting, Dental Assisting or working in a Medical Office. The Ellsworth Community College open house will be Tuesday, Mar. 22, from 1 to 4 p.m. in McClure Hall on the main ECC campus in Iowa Falls. The Marshalltown Community College Open House will be Friday, Mar. 25, from 1 to
4 p.m. in MCC room 536 (enter from the southeast side of campus through Door 9, marked Buena Vista University). The Open Houses will provide an opportunity for those interested in healthcare occupations to learn more about the educational training programs for these specific career areas, meet with the ECC and MCC faculty and some currentlyenrolled students, and (if ready) begin the process of applying for admission. Refreshments will be served, gift bags will be given away, and participants who plan to enroll in Fall 2016 can register to win one of four $500 scholarships (two for ECC, two for MCC). Students who specifically want to attend either ECC or MCC but can’t get to the appropriate Open House event can attend the open house at the other campus and still get information and register for the scholarship giveaways. Brenda Barfels of Iowa Falls, ECC Practical Nursing student, says she has not regretted her decision to make a career change and pursue a continued on page 3A)
we’re focusing resources to those areas,” she said. The latest advance at Mid-Iowa is the R7 tool from Winfield, which combines precision ag technology with satellite imagery and information from local test plots. It can analyze specific fields, soils and areas to help manage inputs, chemical application and planting plans in hopes of ensuring maximum yields and return on investment. As farmers face tough times economically, having every bit of available information and ability to manage their operations is more important than ever. “(If) I’m spending a dollar or two
an acre to get all of this data, all of this high resolution imagery, the field monitoring tool that will tell me which fields need to be looked at. I think it’s a fairly low input cost that can prove very high yield on return,” Petersen said. Another key feature is in-season imagery. As planting season nears, an agronomist can write a planting prescription for a farmer and put all of the data on a USB drive. “It’s basically downloaded onto a thumb drive, they put that into the planter tractor, and it does the work… it’s pretty cool,” Petersen continued on page 3A)
On the streets for Easter Seals Filling the boot again last weekend were members of the Pine Lake Saddle Club who could be found downtown in Eldora and in Steamboat Rock, encouraging passing motorists to donate to the Easter Seal Society annual project to support Camp Sunnyside. Shown are Jason Reinertson and Terry Steinfeldt in Eldora along Edgington Avenue Saturday morning. They collected $830 in Eldora and $425 from near the Rock Stop in Steamboat Rock and will add to the local total when they host the annual dance in Steamboat Rock from 8 p.m. to midnight tomorrow night, Saturday March 19, in the schoohouse gym. See page 4A for story on the campaign and how it fits into a statewide effort to help the Easter Seals Society, a project which has its finale in Des Moines every Easter Weekend.