Category: Opinion

To the editor, Doug and I would like to share our support for the upcoming school bond initiative, “Our Kids, Our Future…..Greene County”. The campaign slogan in itself has caused us to realize how strongly we personally believe in this project. Our own kids, who benefited from their education here, have now brought their own kids to Greene County to…

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Dear editor, Third time’s a charm, or three strikes and you’re out! Which will it be? The opportunity that is being presented to Greene County with the career academy is one that reassures people like me that we made the right decision in choosing Greene County as our home.

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Dear residents of Greene County, My name is Audrey Hinote. I have called Greene County home for all of my 33 years. I grew up in Cooper next door my dad’s welding business, graduated from Jefferson-Scranton High School in 2003, and lived in Greene County while attending college in Carroll to pursue a degree in education. I teach second grade…

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February 16, 2018 In the Legislature: This week is the first funnel for this legislative session, making our days busy and full. This deadline focuses us on the issues we’d like to accomplish this year. Any bills, except for tax, spending, and oversight bills, we would like to consider for the rest of the session need to be through the…

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(DES MOINES) – Gov. Kim Reynolds and Lt. Gov. Adam Gregg announced on Monday the launch of a new campaign to educate Iowans on the importance of reporting suspicious activity.

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~a column by Colleen O’Brien A demand that grade school and high school teachers in the U.S. concentrate on math and literacy was written into law and passed in 2001 via a federal education bill called No Child Left Behind. That bill got left behind in 2015 when the Every Student Succeeds Act was passed. This bill also directed teachers…

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DES MOINES – Gov. Kim Reynolds and Lt. Gov. Adam Gregg unveiled the most significant tax reform package in decades on Tuesday, providing immediate relief to middle class workers, small business owners, famers, families and teachers across Iowa, making good on the commitment she made in her swearing in address last May and again in her Condition of the State…

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February 9, 2018 In the Legislature – Week Five  is coming to a close and we have been busy working to get our bills through the legislative process. With the increase in subcommittee meetings, there are bills on a variety of issues at the capitol. One of these, Senate File 2086, allows a person with a permit to carry weapons…

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~a column by Colleen O’Brien A friend wrote a story about her “memory of her first memory.” With this phrase in the first line of her essay, I was captured. It intrigued me in several ways – the combination of words that makes me read something again, ponder it before reading on, think about it just before sleeping; maybe dream…

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February 2, 2018 The pace has really started to pick up at the capitol as legislation works through subcommittees and committee. We had a number of groups visiting the statehouse to learn about the legislative process, ask questions on various bills and issues, and to get a tour of our beautiful state capitol building. There are several bills moving through…

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I learned something very surprising this week, so surprising that my response was, “that’s crazy.” And I said, “that’s crazy” a second time, and a third time. “That’s crazy!” I learned the number of criminal trials that can be held each year in Greene County is limited to 10. “That’s crazy!” may be what you’re thinking, too.

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~a column by Colleen O’Brien Last week I submitted to my writers group a possible column that I was calling “To be or not to be . . . angry.” It was about our president, and I had been struggling with it for days, ambivalent, writing and rewriting. I couldn’t understand my confusion, but I knew I could get help…

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