Loescher
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Shopper’s Guide
VOL. 88 • NO. 33
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Benefit planned for Bonnie Stuckey
submitted photo Rock Valley Publishing
Willow Folk Festival Aug. 13 - 14
It is time to celebrate the long-running Willow Folk Festival, started by Reverend Craig Miller. The festival was created as an entertaining fundraiser idea, and has since expanded into a weekend of music, camping, and community. Proceeds from the event have benefitted the church building in many ways, such as carpeting for the sanctuary, a replacement for the original church steeple, and in recent years, the addition of a narthex wing. Come join in on the fun Aug. 13 and 14 and support Willow United Methodist Church.
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Millennials getting priced out of farmland market By Daniel Grant FarmWeek
A significant increase in farmland prices and low turnover rate are making it more difficult for many farmers to expand their operations. And perhaps the demographic of farmers getting squeezed the most in the current economic environment are millennials, those between the ages of 26 and 41, according to AgAmerica, the nation’s largest non-bank agricultural lender.
It recently reported more than 40 percent of U.S. farmland is owned by people older than 65. And now younger generations, who often have fewer resources compared to veteran farmers, are facing another real estate barrier to enter the ag industry as farmland prices surge. “It’s so tough to maintain an operation when it comes to rising operating and input costs,” Pat Spinosa, director
See market, Page 7
Bonnie Stuckey has devoted her life to serving others and to blessing countless people through her teaching career and her musical giftedness. In December this past year, following oral surgery, she continued to experience ongoing concerns with pain and swelling that eventually led to emergency surgery on Feb. 19 at the University of Wisconsin Hospital in Madison. It appeared that she had a serious infection in the jawbone. As a breast cancer survivor for over 30 years, it did not occur to her or her physicians that cancer might be the source of this problem, but a biopsy during surgery revealed that there was cancer in her jaw. Following that diagnosis, she went through a very extensive eight-hour surgery to remove her entire left jaw, all of her teeth and then to place a reconstructed jaw made partially from her own thigh muscle. After a lengthy recovery, she had 30 radiation treatments at UW Hospital and six weeks of intense chemotherapy as part of an experimental trial. Through so much pain, exhaustion, and disruption of taste as well as difficulty swallowing, Bonnie has continued her positive focus, even returning to play the organ at her local St. Paul Church of Epleyanna whenever her doctors and her physical condition allow. She continues to need rehydration therapy at SSM Health in Monroe until she is able to sustain enough intake to maintain correct electrolyte balance.
See benefit, Page 6
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