Alison Gowans

MARION – At Goldfinch Tap & Eatery, a restaurant that opened Sept. 13 in Uptown Marion, co-owner Andi Sofranko and …

The sea creatures are delicate and beautifully rendered, carefully constructed glass creatures so lifelike they could be mistaken for the anemones, corals, octopi and jellyfish they're modeled after.When University of Iowa MFA candidate JD Whitman saw these works, created in the late 1800s by German glass craftsman Leopold and Rudolf Blaschka, she was intrigued. She was studying marine biology in Ireland on a ...

In one corner of the room at Studio Reserved, a former church turned into a photography studio, a group practiced juggling skills, while in another, people balanced on each other's shoulders or lifted each other in the air with their feet. Nearby, hula hoopers practiced tricks, and others used long silk cloths and a hoop suspended from the ceiling to perform elaborate swings and drops.This was the Eastern Iowa ...

A partnership between the Iowa Renewable Fuels Association and the Iowa Monarch Conservation Consortium will be good news for monarch butterflies and other pollinators this year.Under the Monarch Fueling Station Project, announced Tuesday, ethanol and biofuel plants across the state are encouraged to convert green spaces on their land into monarch habitat.?We thought it would be a great way to help Iowa's ...

Every year when the holidays roll around, the United Way of East Central Iowa is flooded with calls from people looking for ways to give back.?We get a lot of calls starting a couple of weeks before Thanksgiving from people wanting to help,? said Sue Driscoll, senior manager of volunteer engagement.In response, the organization has started compiling an annual holiday volunteer guide. Their VolunteerNow online ...

In December of 1932, a group gathered at the Roosevelt Hotel in downtown Cedar Rapids for the inaugural meeting of the Congenial Hundred Dance Club. A notice in The Gazette at the time remarked on the room decorated in ?holiday finery ... with garlands of Christmas greens, silver stars and bells? for the dance, planned to be the first of many.Those plans have held true; 85 years later, members of the Congenial ...

Grace Fincham is in fourth grade, and she loves to run.Specifically, the 10-year-old, who attends Lincoln Elementary School in Iowa City, loves to run with her teammates and coaches at Girls on the Run.The program, which is marking 10 years in Eastern Iowa this year, combines life skills curriculum with running and serves about 500 girls a season in Linn, Johnson, Benton, Buchanan, Iowa and Jefferson counties.F...

When Kelli Sutterman and Mike and Molly Schulte decided to throw a Halloween party three years ago, they thought it would just be their friends and acquaintances. They would offer a chance to put on costumes, listen to live music and raise a little money for charity.They were hoping for 300 people, but were worried they wouldn't get even that. They had the DoubleTree by Hilton in downtown Cedar Rapids on board ...

On the screen, individuals spewed vitriol; loudly belittling others, calling them stupid, fat, terrorists, telling them to kill themselves. The moments were ugly, and as the cameras rolled, bystanders stepped in and stood up for the strangers victimized in front of them.The bullies and the victims were actors, filmed for a PSA unveiled by Monica Lewinsky earlier this month in partnership with ad agency BBDO New ...

Before Miriam Alarcon Avila moved to the United States from Mexico 15 years ago, she had never heard of pumpkin carving.Now the artist looks forward to fall as a time when she can spend hours creating intricately decorated gourds.Alarcon Avila, who lives in Tiffin, is also a photographer and is currently working on the Luchadores project, an effort to document the lives of Latino immigrants in Iowa through ...

Kim Kacere didn't name his houses the Painted Ladies, but he acknowledges the nickname is appropriate.The homeowner and landlord's eight Oak Hill Jackson properties stand out; his houses boast red roofs and brightly colored exteriors, with multicolored paint schemes. A friend started calling them the Painted Ladies after similarly painted Victorian and Edwardian-era houses in San Francisco, and the name stuck.Th...