March has come and gone and we are now in the home stretch of the FY 25-26 budgets being approved. The Board of Supervisors and Auditor have spent over 40 hours in the office working on the budget, as well as several hours at home to ensure a balanced budget. We’ve reviewed each line item to ...

Somewhere in the living room, there is a small wooden box marked with a label that reads "Mike's Balls." Years ago, I gathered together all of the hacky sacks, bouncy, and stress balls that I owned and put them in this box. Why? So that I could make that label. I said it before, and I'll say ...

This week I was lucky enough to be in town for a whopping…five hours. While not the longest adventure, I got plenty accomplished in my time in Tama-Toledo. The purpose of my trip was to attend the first community band rehearsal at the high school. I’ve played in the band since 2018, and ...

After reading the article in the newspaper the weekend of March 29, I would say the Tama County Board of Supervisors should rethink their position on wind and solar instead of trying to dictate to farmers what they can and can't do on land they OWN. With what they say we have for a budget ...

Only a few times in the history of this column have I mentioned the impact COVID had on a young impressionable Jonathan Meyer. For all the terrible things the pandemic brought, I did my best to see the positives. While not a lot was going well on a large scale, I spent my newfound time off ...

I had a living nightmare last week. A real-life experience of a stereotypical dream from hell. My misery, your mirth, let me tell you about it. So, I was at the high school working on a story for the paper, and if you haven't been in the STC high school in the past ten years, saying it has ...

The best definition of a pet peeve is something that is a minor annoyance that you find just a tad irritating but you don't usually say anything about it. Here are some of my top pet peeves: -Public displays of affection, eek. -Slow drivers down the left lane on the interstate. ...

It’s been great to see so many of you engaging with us on social media. I really believe in the power of communication, and social media is a great way to share information quickly. But over the last couple of months, I’ve started to notice the tone of some comments and the lack of respect ...

While sitting in class I often find myself bored out of my mind. While not a great trait and something that I probably shouldn't be publishing in the newspaper, I make good use of my guaranteed boredom. I’m sure we’ve all Googled ourselves at some point. It’s really easy to type in ...

“I feel like you could write about this for your column,” — you know what, I probably can. Here is the story of my Sunday, showing off my hometown(s) to my dear roommate. I hadn’t been home much since Christmas break, that really eats at me, who is going to pet my dog? I missed my ...