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Recently, I had the opportunity to attend the annual American Legion birthday party for my home post, Ingalls-Keoppen Post 102. Now I know I am not a veteran and technically have never belonged, but I grew up in that post. I attended everything from the fund-raising carnivals the...

Sometimes a person gets lucky - even on Friday the 13th. Last week my wife and I went to Florida to visit her sister and husband, Sandy and Tom Wells of New Richmond. Actually, I shouldn't say New Richmond, they are now Florida residents, living in Fort Myers. When they come to what...

Citizens of Hudson, if you care about the future of your city, you'll want to pay attention to what the Plan Commission is up to. For the past few months, the commission - with the assistance of planners from the firm of Short Elliott Hendrikson - has been working on an update to...

With all the news so bad, what is a columnist to do? There are usually two choices - the economy and the husband. With the economic news swirling consistently around the bathroom plumbing, smarter people than me have just about said it all. Of course that won't stop them from continuing...

While I was actively engaged in promoting newspapers in education, I frequently shared with teachers the following quote by Thomas Jefferson: "Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate...

It was kind of fun last week watching the entire nation make a sort of collective New Year's resolution that we can do better. There's not much to argue about when it comes to that. But after attending last week's Chamber of Commerce awards dinner and a committee meeting here and...

I happened to open a paper from January 1989 and was somewhat shocked to find that the community was heavily embroiled in the midst of the dog track controversy. I was shocked because I find it hard to believe that it was 20 years ago! The top headline in the Jan. 26, 1989, edition...

There is always a constant struggle at our house to keep up with the latest technology and last week I think we made a big step - we acquired "high speed" Internet. Now by most people's standards, my new Internet service is probably very average. But, like most technical problems,...

On a recent visit to Dave Holt Ford to take a photo of the dealership's new salesman, Tony Gruber, it occurred to me to ask the owner what he thought about the hubbub in Washington, D.C., over efforts to rescue U.S.

It's no news that the news has been mostly bad of late. But I can't remember a time when so much of it impacted me and mine so directly. The unemployment figures released last Friday had me running home at lunch to take all the sharp objects out of the kitchen before Kevin got home....

We've all heard the descriptions of Willis H. Miller. They include icon, legend, historian, generous person -- the list goes on and on. For me, it's even more personal. I was hired by Willis to work at the Star-Observer in May of 1973. I have been working at the Star-Observer for...