To the editor- After visiting the Panorama 6-12 building this last week, I have changed my mind on a future new school here in Greene County. Panorama has the ability to share teachers and administrators between junior high and high school. The superintendent, principal, full time court liaison, guidance counselor, and full- time athletic director are located in the same office. Communication with…
Read MoreCategory: Opinion
Christensen, board members answer ‘questions from the public’
A trio of Greene County school board members and school superintendent Tim Christensen met for informally for nearly two hours Feb. 16 with Hardin Township farmer Kurt Oathout to answer questions he posed in a public forum on a range of topics. Under a headline “Questions from the public to the ‘publicly employed superintendent’” in another publication, Oathout had asked…
Read MoreWhen was the first time someone pulled the prejudice card on you?
~a column by Colleen O’Brien Busy month, these Februarys of our lives. Groundhog Day, Black History Month/Negro History Week/Valentine’s Day/Lincoln’s (AND Darwin’s) birthday and Washington’s birthday, too. Punxsutauney Phil arises — or doesn’t — each February 2nd. Lincoln’s dead. Washington’s dead. Darwin’s dead. Saint Valentine is long dead even as he is a consternation to some and a reason to…
Read MoreThank you from JPRD
To the editor, Jefferson Park and Recreation would like to thank all the volunteers to helped make the youth basketball tournaments Feb. 6 and Feb. 13 a success. JPRD has a long tradition with those tournaments, and we’re able to host them only because a our great community volunteers. We particularly thank the young people of St Brigid Catholic Church for their…
Read MoreBaffling
~a column by Colleen O’Brien The English language is so much fun. There are a million words in it and about 100,000 ways to use them incorrectly. American English delights in promoting confusion or downright dumbfoundedness, both in meaning and in pronunciation.
Read MoreOpen letter to the Jefferson city council – Michael F. Mumma
Dear Council Members, I am usually supportive of the council’s decisions and appreciate the time you devote; however, in the last few weeks you have made a decision with which I heartily disagree. This decision involves the hotel/motel tax. On August 7, 2001, the voters of Jefferson authorized a 7 percent tax on the gross receipts of lodging rentals and…
Read MoreSuckin’ air – An old curmudgeon’s view
~by Bill Smith Assuming, first, all statements made in the Jan. 27 GreeneCountyNewsOnline article, Jefferson officials may have a priority problem. … but fire department told to seek outside funding for essential equipment.
Read More“Life in these United States”
~a column by Colleen O’Brien “Life in these United States” used to be a humorous column in Reader’s Digest. Now life in this country is as hysterical as those old jokes in what was the world’s most successful magazine; only it’s not hysterically funny, it’s just hysterical, in the sense of its consistent level of intense hyperbole and emotional excess.…
Read MoreTree Tracings
~by Valerie Ogren for the Greene County Genealogical Society Meeting notice: The Greene County Genealogical Society will meet Saturday, Feb. 6, at 10 am in the basement meeting room of the Jefferson public library. Terry Clark, children’s library director, will present the program. I’m not sure what the topic will be, but you can be sure that when a librarian is at the helm,…
Read MoreLast presidential candidate in Jefferson – Sen Ted Cruz
The steering committee of the 2015 Bell Tower Festival was a few months ahead of the times when it selected a circus theme. Area residents had the Bell Tower Big Top in June; the Iowa Caucus Big Top had its last act in the county Monday afternoon at the Greene County Community Center. Republican presidential candidate Sen Ted Cruz of…
Read MoreSantorum campaigns in Jefferson
Republican presidential candidate Gov Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania made a return visit to Jefferson Jan. 19 after speaking at the Iowa Renewable Fuels Summit earlier that day in Des Moines. Santorum spoke to a small group of fewer than a dozen voters at Pizza Ranch. Santorum said he is a proponent of the renewable fuel standard. “The RFS is as important…
Read MoreA mania for glass shards
~a column by Colleen O’Brien I do not have the fire-starting desire called pyromania. That is a kind of common enthusiasm one reads about periodically in the newspapers. My mania is fracto speculomania — a word I made up. It means, loosely, an enthusiasm (that’s the mania part) for broken glass (fracto speculo).
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