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Baby Shower for Dannens A Come-n-Go baby shower will be held for Josh and Amanda (Kirschbaum) Dannen on Saturday, June 15. The show will be from 10 a.m. to 12 noon at the United Methodist Church in Rockwell. The couple are registered at Target and Babies-R-Us.
Kaplan University hosting movie night Kaplan University is joining forces with the North Iowa Youth Center on Friday, June 14 for a family movie night. Wreck-It Ralph will be featured from 6 to 8 p.m. at the Kaplan University Campus (2570 4th St SW, Mason City, next to Hobby Lobby). Admission is free and will include popcorn and refreshments. Call 641-420-6609 with questions.
Swaledale Nuisances By Travis Fischer The City of Swaledale has begun taking some aggressive steps towards curbing down on nuisance properties within the city limits. Dealing with nuisance properties is a continuing struggle in most small towns. As junk piles up or the grass grows too long, city governments will send several letters asking residents to maintain their property before taking action. Often this involves cleaning up the property themselves and assessing the cost to the property tax. “You try to be nice about it and say ‘please clean up the property to make the town look better’ and they just don’t,� says Mayor John Drury. “They’ve called our bluff in the past and we don’t have the resources to go after it.� The City of Swaledale will no longer depend on the threat of increased property tax to induce compliance of city ordinances. Instead, the city attorney will send offending property owners a letter of Notice to Abate Nuisance, informing them that they are in violation of the city code and have 30 days to correct the issue before they are charged with a municipal infraction. Failing to comply with orders to clean up a nuisance property will result in a civil penalty from the sheriff’s office. A first offense could result in a penalty of up to $500, with subsequent offenses increasing to $750 and $1,000. “It’s a different way of going about it,� says Drury. “The other way is a little bit nicer.�
Harper returns home ahead of schedule By Nick Pedley If it weren’t for a thin surgical mask over her face, you couldn’t have picked Madisyn Harper apart from any other ordinary teenage girl. “We’re just glad to be home,� said Madisyn’s mother Kaci. “It’s been hard being away from everybody for so long.� Madisyn returned home to a house full of family and friends Monday night after spending 83 days in Rochester, Minn. The 14-year-old Sheffield girl was recuperating at the Ronald McDonald House following her heart transplant on March 20. Despite the magnitude of the surgery, Madisyn’s improvement and recovery have been exceptional. She returned home 10 days ahead of schedule. “The heart has been fantastic since Day 1,� said Madisyn’s father Glen. “If you didn’t know what was wrong, you couldn’t tell what she’s been through over the past year.� Aside from being reunited with family and friends, there was an added surprise waiting for Madisyn at her rural Sheffield home. My Happy Place, a charity organization that specializes in giving sick, grieving or emotionally distressed youth their “dream� room,
Madisyn Harper gets a first look at her brand-new bedroom. renovated Madisyn’s bedroom while she was recovering in Rochester. “Every child deserves a place where they can hang out and just relax,� said Lisa Tan, founder of My Happy Place. “Our goal is to give them that comfort zone to make things a bit easier on them.� Madisyn’s room was completely re-
Rockwell Makes Summer Plans By Travis Fischer The Rockwell City Council got ready for summer projects during their regular meeting on Wednesday, June 5. The city’s south water tower will be getting a new paint job this summer. The tower will be sandblasted and repainted for the first time since 1983. K&W Coatings will perform the work this summer at the cost of $45,350. The council also approved a $600 bid for dust control at the industrial park and noted that Mosquito Control should be in town to spray for mosquitoes once the weather permits. The city is also planning to patch the Madison Street Bridge to keep the deck safe until it can be fully repaired next year. In pool news, it was reported that the recent rain was fortuitous as it gave the pool time to replace a pool pump. The pool was filled and opened up over the weekend for the summer season. In other business, the council expressed concern about kids driving golf carts around the city. The council reminds residents that all drivers need to be licensed to operate any motorized vehicle, including lawnmowers and golf carts, on city streets. The Harper family was reunited on Monday as Madisyn Harper returned home to her family. Parents Kaci and Glen and sister Samantha welcomed Madisyn home after a lengthy recovery.
tooled in preparation for her return. My Happy Place volunteers repainted the walls and ceiling, hung new curtains, brought in a custom-made dresser and installed a comfortable new adjustable bed. Numerous local businesses donated materials and other goods for the project, according to Tan. Additionally, volunteers removed carpet and installed new hardwood floors in the room. The new flooring is more sanitary and easier to keep clean than carpet, which will be a huge area of focus for the Harpers following Madisyn’s return. Anti-rejection medicine has compromised her immune system, in turn forcing Madisyn to wear a mask over her face to thwart airborne illnesses. “She’s self-conscious about it some days like any girl her age would be, but some days she’s fine about it,� said Glen. The next few months will be touch and go, according to Madisyn’s parents. Kaci will stay home and provide daily health care to ensure Madisyn’s recovery remains on-schedule. Regular doctor visits will be the norm for the foreseeable future, but that’s nothing new for the Harpers. “The first six months after the transplant, you’re kind of in limbo – you’re flying by the seat of your pants for the
first year, really, which is the tough part,� said Glen. Though unforeseen hurdles may await Madisyn in her recovery, there’s been no cause for alarm as of yet. A seroma blister on her upper thigh has been the lone post-transplant issue, according to Glen, but it’s been only a minor inconvenience. If everything goes according to plan, Madisyn will enter school this fall as a freshman at West Fork. She was keeping up with coursework online during her stay at Rochester, so she hasn’t fallen behind despite these past few hectic months. “Everyone there has been very accomodating, which has been just great,� said Glen. “Her classmates and teachers understand everything that’s going on, so she really has nothing to worry about this fall.� Coming home for the first time in nearly three months was a welcomed step for Madisyn, if not an overwhelming one. She entered her remodeled room and remained speechless as she took in the new scenery. She sat down on the new comfy bed and tested its features. “My old room was a lot more messier. I like everything about this one,� she said.
Summer renovations in full swing at West Fork By Nick Pedley Though classes have been out for a week, West Fork’s school buildings in Sheffield and Rockwell are still buzzing with activity. Numerous improvements to outdated facilities have been a main focal point for Superintendent Darrin Strike this spring. Topping the list of renovations is a completely revamped heating system in the middle school buidling and a new roof at the high school. The price tags on the projects may give some folks sticker shock, but Strike explained that the improvements will have an immediate impact on the district’s annual spending. “The new boiler will improve efficiency by 20 percent, and that will be seen right away. It’s an extensive project, but it’s needed,� he said.
Strike said estimates have the boiler replacement pegged at upwards of $800,000. Included in that cost is the removal and replacement of asbestoswrapped pipes. The superintendent explained that a large portion of the cost is earmarked for the asbestos abatement process. The district had to hire one firm to handle the removal and another to moniter air quality. According to Strike, the old boiler was installed over 40 years ago. The district investigated installing a geothermal system in Rockwell, but engineers steered them towards a hot water set-up powered by natural gas. “The building really isn’t the best type for geothermal,� explained Strike. “It’s older and two stories tall, and the number of years to see a payback would take too long. They figur
ed geo-thermal just wasn’t viable.� The district must have the project finished by the next heating season. Work removing pipes and asbestos was ongoing since mid-May and completed last Thursday. Though it may surprise some that asbestos removal started during the school year, Strike assured that the building was safe. “It’s not a don’t-go-anywhere-nearthat-building type of situation,� he said, explaining that workers kept areas quartered off and controlled with reverse air pressure, quality monitoring and plastic barriers. The new boiler may be West Fork’s biggest project this summer, but it’s not the district’s lone focus. The high school’s original rubber membrane on the roof was replaced and is near
completion. The protective layer had reached its 10 to 15-year lifespan, and leaking problems had become an issue in certain portions of the building. The project was started in May and cost the district roughly $80,000. Additionally, new shelving and cabinetry will be installed in each elementary classroom this summer. Despite having nine make-up days, Strike said the district’s projects are on schedule. Many other smaller renovations like landscaping and interior renovations will help freshen up the Sheffield and Rockwell campuses and benefit the district in the long run. “The district has grown following the consolidation over the past few years. It’s all part of the growing process,� Strike said.
Bob Wiegmann of M & N Heating and Cooling, top, and Rockwell public works director Jay Siefken, bottom, were busy pumping out stagnant water that accumulated this spring in the deep end of the municipal pool. Poor weather and broken equipment pushed the opening of the pool back this spring, but the city finally received replacement parts last week. Repair and prep work began last Thursday. (Photo by Nick Pedley)
Community Calendar ................................... page 3 Area Sports ................................................... page 4 Franklin County Relay for Life .................... page 4 Courthouse News/Public Notices ............... page 5 Classifieds ...................................................... page 6
Workers from Mick Gage Plumbing & Heating were busy unloading pipe for West Fork’s new heating system at the elementary/ middle school building in Rockwell Thursday morning. (Photo by Nick Pedley, Hampton Chronicle)