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Hanke, Henschen Earn Trips to State in Individual Speech

    It takes a bit of courage to put yourself in front of others and to express yourself through speaking and acting. This year, two MVAOCOU seniors were courageous enough to take on the individual speech challenge. Both did well at Districts on February 24th and advanced to the state competition which was held on March 9th in Carroll.
    "I was emotional going into and out of my last competition, because I have been doing it consistently for four years, and it was sad seeing something I love doing so much come to a close," said Grayce Hanke, daughter of Jesley and Chad Hanke of Mapleton and a veteran of speech. "I wish I had a few more years."
    Grayce competed in Improv at Districts where she earned a I which gave her the opportunity to perform one more time at State. Technical difficulties at State may have cost her a I rating, but Grayce had done the best she could in her final performance.
    "Grayce has shown such great dedication and leadership. She worked hard all four years in both group and individual speech, and she has set a great example for the younger members," commented Coach Stephanie Kolln. "Her confidence when performing is truly inspiring to her peers and me. Grayce's commitment to speech really made a difference in the program, because I truly believe she recruited a lot of our awesome members over the years."
    Grayce definitely was a speech advocate over her high school years.
    "If someone was contemplating joining, I would tell them to sign up immediately," she said. "Speech doesn't have to be you on a stage, alone, reading off of a piece of paper. Speech allows you to act, sing, speak, and express yourself. Speech was a way I could be creative and be myself. I've always loved acting, and speech gave me the tools to fulfill it. I have improved in my speaking skills, obviously, but I also have become more open minded, creative, and adaptive. Speech skills are skills you will need for the rest of your life, so I encourage everyone to join."
    Unlike Grayce, a veteran at Speech, Caralyn Henschen was a newbie on the speech circuit. She had been hesitant to try this extracurricular activity, but she found the courage to give it a try and earned a trip to State in Poetry.
    "I decided to join speech to take new risks and try new things," commented Caralyn, the daughter of Peggy and Jim Henschen of Charter Oak. "I wanted to participate in speech in the past, but I got too nervous to join. I am very happy that I finally joined this year!"
    While she didn't have the experience that other Speech seniors had, Caralyn had the drive to do the best she could and practiced poetry until she could practice no more, and it paid off with a trip to State. Her State performance earned a II rating.
    "This was Caralyn's first year on the speech team, and she worked hard and had a lot of fun with it," stated Kolln. "She not only worked hard but also found joy in being a part of the speech team, making the most of every opportunity to learn and grow. Her positive attitude and willingness to step out of her comfort zone was really fun to watch!"
    Henschen advised underclasspersons to not wait until their final year in high school to try something new to them, such as speech.
    "If an underclassmen wanted to join speech, I would tell them to join right away. I wish that I had built up the courage to join before my senior year. I would encourage them to do it. I would also inform them that you do not have to do it alone; you can do group speech."
    Congratulations on a good speech year, ladies!


Ram Ball This Weekend

    The Ram Ball will be held this Saturday at the Anthon Event Center. Doors will open at 5:30pm with dinner by Staley's served at 6:30pm. Attendees can look forward to a steak and chicken dinner along with entertainment, an auction, memorabilia and socializing. Everyone is encouraged to wear their favorite vintage school apparel.
    This year's Ram Ball will honor Coach Alden Berkenpas. The evening will feature highlights from his 46 years of service to Rams athletics.
    The Ram Ball will serve as the inaugural fundraiser for the newly formed Rams Boosters. The Boosters will provide support to all high school extracurricular activities. The idea is to reduce the number of small fundraisers across the district.
    The Boosters look forward to making this event an annual opportunity to highlight former district coaches, sponsors and groups while catching up with alumni and current Ram fans.
    Tickets are available at Security National Bank in Mapleton, through any Rams coach or activity sponsor, or at www.ticketstripe.com/2024RamBall.


DC Kindergarten Round-Up, Preschool Destination Friday

    With the current school year in its final quarter, it's time for parents of future preschool and kindergarten students to begin thinking of next school year. Danbury Catholic School has set this Friday for potential students and their parents to check out the school.
    DC will hold Kindergarten Round-Up on Friday from 9:00 until 10:00 a.m. Preschool Destination will follow from 10:30 until 11:30. Those interested are encouraged to do so to attend the events.
    For more information or to register, please call the school at 712-883-2244.


School, County and City Budget Year Statement to Taxpayers

    The Iowa Legislature passed House File 718 (Iowa Acts Chapter 71) during the 2023 Legislative Session, which changed many parts of the property taxation process. One of the more prominent changes was the introduction of an annual mailed hearing notice to each owner of taxable property in March. These notices will provide a large amount of information aimed at educating taxpayers about the forthcoming budget. Below is a description of the various parts of the notice.
Meeting And Property Tax Request Information
    The front page of the mailed notice is divided into 3 sections. Each section will show the proposed property tax information and meeting information for the K 12 school district, county, and city (for urban residents) which tax within the tax district where the property is located. These hearings will be solely concerned with the proposed property tax, and no unrelated business can be discussed during this meeting. There will be another hearing on the full budget at a later meeting of the local government. The time, date, and location for each of these hearings is shown at the top of each section.
    Information for three different hearings will be shown – one each for the K-12 school district, county, and city. If this property is outside of a city, the city meeting section will be blank. Below the hearing information is information on the property tax that is being proposed for the next fiscal year. Presented in this property tax information box is the current fiscal year's budgeted tax dollars and total tax rate and the property tax revenue and total rate for the coming fiscal year.
Property Tax Distribution – Current Budget Year
    At the top of the back page of the mailed notice is a table showing an estimate of property tax that will be distributed to each local government on this notice in the current year. The information in this table is based on tax district totals, so it will not show the full amount going to each local government in total. The table shows the amount of property tax revenue, including Tax Increment Financing revenue, going to each local government from the tax district. The rightmost column shows the percentage of the total property tax revenue from the tax district that goes to each of the three local governments listed on the front of the notice. The percentage is based on the "Total Property Tax" column so that TIF revenue is included in the calculation
    If this table shows all zeros on the mailing, it is due to the property being in a tax district in the budget year that did not exist in the current year. Since the tax district did not exist in the current year, there is no tax data available to display.
Examples Of Change In Property Tax – Budget Year
    The last section of the mailing, at the bottom of the back page, is a pair of examples which show a comparison of how the proposed taxes owed will increase or decrease taxes for a property with a 100,000 assessed value in the current year and in the budget year. The top example is for a residential class property, and the bottom is for a commercial property. The first 150,000 of commercial property is taxed the same as residential property, so the examples match.
    Visit https://dom.iowa.gov/property-taxes for a tool to help you apply the property tax rates in this mailing to a specific property.


Relay For Life Spring Fundraiser

    Hop on over to Horn Memorial Hospital and support the American Cancer Society's Ida County Relay for Life. The Horn Relay for Life Team is selling chances to win several Easter baskets. The baskets will be displayed in the


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Clean Up Days April 12 and 13

    Spring is here, the snow is gone (for now), and the time has come to do some Spring cleaning.
    The City of Danbury will be helping their residents with their clean up efforts with their Spring clean up.


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Seed Planting at Cord Memorial

    Even though we are supposed to get another dose of Winter, Spring is here, and the ladies at Cord Memorial Library are helping get into the swing of Spring.
    All are invited to gather at Cord Memorial


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Rosary Society Meeting

    St. Mary's Danbury Rosary Society will be meeting on Monday, April 1st at 6:30 p.m. at the rectory. Please plan to attend.


Monona County Cattlemen's Scholarship

    The Monona County Cattlemen's Association will once again be offering $1000.00 scholarships for high school seniors.
    To be eligible to apply the student's parents/guardians must have been a paid


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The Schultz Perspective

by Senator Jason Schultz
    Unfortunately, the age-old idea of Universal Basic Income has started to take root in Iowa. It is in our best interest to protect our work ethic and stop it. The Senate committee I chair


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Feenstra's Weekly Column

By Randy Feenstra

President Biden's $7.3-trillion budget is a recipe for disaster

    More than a month after federal law requires, President Biden finally submitted his budget


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People Over Politics

By House Democratic Leader Jennifer Konfrst

Another Tough Week for Perry

    It was another tough week for the Perry community. After the devastating school shooting back in January,


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The Alons Archive

by Senator Kevin Alons
    This was week 10 of the 2024 legislative session and marked the end of a significant "funnel" date preventing a number of bills from advancing, but did see a significant number "make the cut".


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Mapleton Starspinners 4-H Minutes

    The Mapleton Starspinners 4-H meeting was held on February 10, 2024 at 9:00AM at the Mapleton Community Center. As always, we began with our Pledge of Allegiance led by Quinlan Koenigs. Next on the agenda was our 4-H Pledge


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Mapleton Starspinners 4-H Minutes

    The Mapleton Starspinners 4-H meeting was called to order on March 9, 2024 by our president, Sara Rosener, at the Danbury Fire Station commencing at 9:00 AM. We began our meeting with the Pledge of Allegiance led by Jenna


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Letter to the Editor

Dear Editor,
    YES, finally warmer weather and longer daylight hours are greeting us. As spring is a time of renewing growth, we are look around to growth by sprucing up our community.
    We ask that you appeal


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Wanted: Your Egg Cartons

    We have been working diligently on the Easter Eggstrazooganza (March 30th 9:00 - 11:00), but we need your trash, well some of it.
    We need lots and lots and lots of egg cartons by March 27th. Keep in mind that


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MAPLE VALLEY-ANTHON OTO COMMUNITY SCHOOL BOARD MEETING

Monday, March 11, 2024 - 7:00 PM
Library, MVAOCOU High School, Mapleton, IA

Present: Wimmer, Streck, Kennedy, Schram, and Hamann (all present)
Others: 22 guests including several government class students


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CHARTER OAK-UTE COMMUNITY SCHOOL BOARD OF DIRECTORS JOINT MEETING MARCH 13, 2024

    The Board of Directors of the Charter Oak-Ute Community School and Maple Valley-Anthon Oto Community School met on the above date in the Charter Oak-Ute Center.
  


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