Jonathan Meyer.

Week to week as I write my various articles I always find some element of our community that I have no knowledge of. Being nineteen years old, I accept the fact I simply haven’t lived enough years to know everything about the place that I call home, but it still drives me crazy.

Being a naturally curious and resourceful person I take a few different routes to answer my community questions. My best friend for questions pertaining to the last ten or so years is Facebook. While most young people prefer other social media platforms, I find Facebook to be the best combination of heartwarming posts from friends and family, a place to shop for a recliner, and a great resource to search for answers like a mad detective.

If Facebook doesn’t quite do the trick and I need about 15 years of local information I will turn to the newspapers official website: tamatoledonews.com. The article archive stretches back to about 2010-2009 and has lots of great information written by my predecessors in the Tama-Toledo news game. I have so much respect for Darvin and Allison Graham along with John Speer. Their contributions to this community will forever be appreciated.

My next avenue in chasing down information is by asking my dad. My father (Jeremy Meyer) served the Tama-Toledo area in funeral care for nearly fifteen years. What comes with this career is a certain level of base knowledge and hearing stories of local people who have done incredible things for the place they live. Oftentimes we’ll discuss the recent history of where we live and a question always turns into several different tangents in route to a wonderful conversation.

My last step is usually just going more direct and finding someone involved in the event or situation and learning all I can.

While reading some of Dr. Jared Smith’s work (Former STC Superintendent), I picked up the concept of being a lifelong learner outside of the classroom. Helped by a bit of curiosity and passion for where I live, I strive to be a lifelong learner dedicated to preserving the history of our community and helping to create more history far after I’m done writing in the paper. This community deserves our best!