WINTERSET INVITE
TRACTOR PULL RESULTS
Creston’s cross country team brought home five medals, while Nodaway Valley won a total of 10 medals Tuesday at the Winterset Invitational. For more on the meet, see SPORTS, page 7A. >>
Diagonal hosted a truck and tractor pull as part of its Labor Day weekend celebration. For results from the truck and tractor pull, see page 12A. >>
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Wednesday, September 7, 2016
day in the life | Maddison Haines
CITY COUNCIL
Council approves Sealcoat project agreement Portions of several Creston roads will be sealed beginning this month, weather permitting. n
CNA photo by LARRY PETERSON
Lenox first-grade teacher Maddison Haines talks about a book she read aloud to the class with Peter Hernandez during a social-studies lesson. Other students are clockwise from lower left, Laine Marshall, Hannah Swaney and Jaci Cox.
By LARRY PETERSON drawing in roads and trees and math. They’re able to CNA senior feature writer lpeterson@crestonnews.com
LENOX — It’s early in the afternoon on the eighth day of school, and first-year teacher Maddison Haines recognizes a need to gain control in her class of 23 first-graders at Lenox Elementary School. The students had just returned to the classroom from the daily afternoon milk break. It was time to focus on a social-studies unit. “I still hear talking. Show me you’re ready to learn.” “Shh! Shh! Shh!” The students repeated that “shush” cadence, a signal to their teacher they understood it was time to be quiet. It’s a classroom management tool Haines gained from her student-teaching experience in a Waukee second-grade classroom. Soon, a room full of 6-year-olds was working in small groups on the floor, putting their self-constructed paper-bag houses amid those of their classmates,
and stop signs while learning how communities are developed through teamwork. Bouncing around from group to group to answer questions or offer feedback, Haines held to the philosophy stated on a sign above her desk: “Keep calm and carry on.” That’s the only way to get through a hectic seven-hour day as a beginning teacher, with only a 25-minute lunch break in the teacher’s lounge and two recess breaks providing a few minutes to regroup for the next task. After all, a first-grade teacher handles all of the disciplines — writing, reading, math, science and social studies. Special periods taught by other staff members include art, music, physical education and “life skills” taught by the guidance counselor with Haines’ assistance. “The morning recess comes at a good time,” Haines said, “because it gives them that mental break between reading
switch their minds.”
Career switch Herding first-graders from one task to the next was not how the 22-year-old Haines envisioned her life three years ago. The 2012 graduate of Creston High School was a sophomore accounting major in the Iowa State University business school. Then, Haines and a close friend in the business school decided to switch gears together after the fall semester of their sophomore year. “I enjoyed my accounting classes. However, I couldn’t picture myself as an accountant in the future,” Haines said. “One of my friends in the business school was having the same thoughts. We talked about both of us switching our majors to elementary education. I was lucky to have someone experience this change with me. We were in a majority of the same classes.” Haines graduated after four years despite the career switch, thanks to some math credits transferring
WHO-TV’s John Sears films the crowd gathered on the south side of the square in Mount Ayr Tuesday evening as part of the RVTV stop in town. Patrons gathered donning their Iowa State Cyclone and Iowa Hawkeye apparel to support their teams before of Saturday’s football game at Kinnick Stadium in Iowa City.
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MADDISON HAINES
Lenox first-grade teacher
from the business school and a number of college classes taken at Southwestern Community College as a high school student. She was hired to teach first grade this year in Lenox before she graduated in May. Again, it was a slightly different assignment than she originally envisioned. “Originally I wanted to teach middle school math after I graduated,” Haines said. “But once I got into my practicums (four weeks in a school classroom twice a week) in second and fourth grades, I found that I loved those lower grades. They are so excited about learning. It’s very chaotic, but they like to learn and they just love you. I like to HAINES | 2A
CNA associate editor khaugen@crestonnews.com
Despite concerns of a council member, an agreement was approved 6-1 for the Sealcoat maintenance project to seal streets in Creston during Tuesday’s Creston City Council meeting. The maintenance project, which Mayor Gary Lybarger said is done most years, is estimated to be complete by the end of September, weather permitting. The work will be done by Manatt’s Inc. and Blacktop Service Co. “Sealcoat is not as good as blacktop, but what it does is seal the roads back up and covers up the gravel spots we’ve had to put in to take care of the frost boils,” Lybarger said. “It’s just to fix the streets and try to keep them in better shape than what they Lybarger are.” The plan is to seal portions of these streets: Mills, Ash, Cedar, Irving, Harsh,
CITY | 2A
CNA photo by RYAN KRONBERG
RVTV:
PRICE $1.00
“I FOUND that I loved those lower grades. They are so excited about learning.”
By KELSEY HAUGEN
Carpenter, Prairie, Oak, Spruce, Spencer, Howard, Stone, Adair, McKinley, Kirby, Park, Jefferson, Division, Fremont, Ringgold, Elm, Lucas, Higby, Lake Avenue and Grand Avenue. Dave Koets, ward 5 councilman, expressed concern about beginning the project in the fall, when temperatures are beginning to drop. “I was looking some stuff up online this weekend about it ... and if it gets below 50 (degrees) at night, it’s not going to seal,” Koets said. “It takes 30 days for it to seal. Once again, we’re doing it way too late in the year. It doesn’t even look like we took bids until Au- Koets gust. Why didn’t we take bids earlier so they come earlier? From what I’ve read, it works best when it’s done in the hottest months of the year.” City Administrator Mike Taylor said he and Public Works Director Kevin Kruse have talked to the workers, and they think they can complete the project in September. “If not, they have assured us that they will not do the work,” Taylor said. “We put a specification in there. Both companies use the same material, and it says in the specifications what the temperature and all that needs to be. They are very well aware of
Volume 133 No. 69
2016
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CNA photo by SCOTT VICKER
Tot trot: Jentry Shields, 3, of Diagonal, left, and Nevaeh McGuire, 2, of Lenox race down
the road Saturday evening during the “tot trot” portion of the Fogle Glow Run at Fogle Lake in Diagonal. The glow run was part of Diagonal’s Labor Day weekend celebration.
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