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Top stories of 2025
Years after bollards discussion halted, advocates turn to ‘sidewalk art’
Southeast Iowa Union offers audio versions of articles using Instaread. Some words may be mispronounced.
WASHINGTON — The city of Washington plans to consider one business owner’s proposal to install public sidewalk art aimed at preventing collisions between cars and buildings.
Northside Diner Owner Isabella Santoro said a pair of lion statues would spruce up the sidewalk in front of the restaurant but, more importantly, would protect it from collisions if any vehicles jumped the curb and hit a building.
Three such collisions in recent memory have struck Cafe Dodici or Dodici's Shop, two businesses owned by Santoro’s family. In one case, the damage was limited by a car hitting a public bench in front of the restaurant, stopping it from barreling into the building. In another, the car crashed more or less harmlessly into a corner on the back of the building. And in 2022, one vehicle smashed through the front entryway of the cafe on a Friday morning.
Santoro started a push to install bollards downtown in 2024, but the effort didn’t go far. Others worried the devices would limit access to buildings, or be an eyesore on the historic downtown, or cost too much to install.
Lake Darling celebrates 75 years, opens new trail
Lake Darling State Park celebrated two occasions in September 2025: the first dedicating a new paved trail to the local attraction’s namesake, and the other noting the state park’s 75th year of existence.
Friends of Lake Darling President Don Kline said the group was excited to mark two major achievements at once, three quarters of a century after Ding Darling himself set the gate, stopping the flow of water through a creek and forming a lake, with a crowd of roughly 1,000 in attendance.
“We thought, 75 years, that’s a milestone, we should celebrate that, and at the same time, we have the Ding Darling Trail that’s finished, so we’d have a ribbon-cutting, and combine the two,” Kline said. “We’re just trying to celebrate the lake, and get people out there.”
At roughly $150,000, Kline said the trail and its signage was covered largely by grants from the Washington County Riverboat Foundation, and other groups like the Frank and Ina Brinton Educational and Charitable Trust. The Friends of Lake Darling picked up about 10-15% of the bill, according to Kline.
The festivities occurred Sept. 20 at the four-seasons lodge, near the lake’s beach. The ribbon cutting was planned at the new interpretive trail head, and remarks for the 75-year celebration will began later that afternoon.
Guests were welcomed to light refreshments, a look at some historical photos and videos of the park, and self-guided tours of the roughly half-mile trail between the lodge and the park’s campground.
Kline said the idea was years in the making, just one of several trails installed or improved by the Friends of Lake Darling nonprofit in recent summers. While the route through the woods was already mowed as a footpath, he said the pavement would make it much easier to travel.
“It is an important part of the trail system,” he said. “This was just an undeveloped trail that a lot of people used when they wanted to go down to the lodge, or swimming, or rent a boat or something. They mowed it, but it was just a path, so this was a big upgrade.”
In addition to connecting the campground with the park’s beach and lodge area, the new amenity is an “interpretive trail,” marked with 10 signs discussing Darling’s work as a conservationist, and its broader implications for Iowans today.
Tweeton Chiropractic celebrates 75 years
Tweeton Chiropractic, a Washington-based business marked its 75th year of operation with a ribbon-cutting ceremony downtown in September 2025.
The ribbon was cut by Owner William Tweeton and his son, Dan Tweeton, who works alongside him.
The business first launched in Kalona in 1950, according to Dan Tweeton, who has a doctorate in chiropractic like his father and has practiced for 10 years. It later moved to Washington in the ‘60s, and its current location in the ‘90s.
He said his great-grandfather went into the field decades ago after a chiropractor helped him overcome pain from a bone infection, which led other doctors to amputate his leg.
“The infection remained in his body, and the surgeons wanted to take off his other leg, and potentially one or both of his arms,” Tweeton said of his ancestor’s childhood experience. “And that’s when his father said, ‘No more of that, we’re going to try something else,’ and in kind of a last-ditch effort, took him to a chiropractor.”
Others in the family line have similar stories. Dan Tweeton himself said he initially went to school on a premed track, but wound up studying to become a chiropractor after becoming disillusioned as an undergrad, and because his father’s expertise had helped him overcome injuries playing football.
Ribbon cutting marks opening of new Public Health building
WASHINGTON — Washington County’s public health department celebrated its new digs with a ribbon-cutting ceremony Aug. 22.
Public Health Director Jenifer Roberts said the office on Orchard Hill represented a much-needed upgrade, and said she was pleasantly surprised by a turnout of roughly 100 people for the open-house event Friday afternoon.
“It was a lot of fun,” Roberts said. “The community members really showed their support for us.”
Asked about the functional improvements of the new space, the director said Orchard Hill’s building came with a number of upgrades and was “100% better than being on three different floors.”
“Now we have two exam rooms along with two consult rooms for our immunizations and WIC clinics,” she said. “And they actually have sinks in them, because we did not have running water in our old exam rooms.”
Washington judge wins lifetime achievement award
The Iowa Judges Association announced a Washington-based judge as the winner of its most prestigious annual recognition.
Michael Mullins — a longtime judge in Washington whose work establishing a codex simplifying the state’s convoluted sentencing codes has made impacts across Iowa — said in an interview in July that he was honored to receive the Chief Justice Mark Cady Award of Merit.
“It was more of an emotional reaction than I thought it might be, I was surprised,” he said. “It was an overwhelming feeling of, I don’t know, appreciation, humility. I felt kind of choked up … I don’t generally get too emotional about things, I tend to be pretty analytical, methodical.”
Mullins’ contributions to Iowa’s judicial system go beyond his extensive sentencing guide, today maintained largely by law students at Drake University with his oversight.
He’s become a frequent speaker at legal conferences, often on sentencing issues. He was appointed as a district court judge in 2002, then a Court of Appeals judge in 2011. In 2022, he retired and became a quarter-time “senior judge,” a role he maintains today that involves some casework, as well as consultant contributions the judicial branch’s education staff.
Former hog farmers switch to shrimp
The Reed family, by some miracle, got out of the swine industry in early 2023, mere months before major market decked pork prices, pushing other producers well into the red.
While Ken Reed hoped to pursue something less physically taxing on the family’s farm in rural Washington County, he and his wife initially weren’t sure what to do with their out-of-use hog confinement buildings. They researched a handful of options with little success: hydroponics had high input costs and seemed far too technical, mushrooms demanded experience they didn’t have, flower production faced lots of market competition and seemed easier in a pasture. A few other ideas required a level of biosecurity not achievable in a well-ventilated livestock building.
When they found their answer, it was anything but intuitive. Roughly 900 miles from the nearest body of seawater, the Reeds would raise whiteleg shrimp.
They harvested their first batch last week.
“It’s very similar to any other livestock operation, it’s not radically different,” Reed said. “You need to take care of them every day, know what to look for, and do standard chores. Once you understand that, whether they’re in water or they’re on land, it’s basically the same.”
The family said they settled on the saltwater shrimp after hearing about a pilot project through a business called Midland Co. The Iowa-based seafood startup had two other farms already involved in its work, and eventually agreed to add the Reeds to a short list of partners.
Ken Reed said the guidance from another professional made starting a new revenue stream more attainable. He talks to Jackson Kimle — Midland’s founder and president — several times a week, and the company helped set up the aquacultural endeavor’s lights and equipment when the farm got started.
How two WHS students got their associate’s degrees — before graduating
Washington High School graduates Maya Murphy and Halle Cuddeback walked the stage in May at the Class of 2025’s commencement ceremony.
Like their peers, the two moved their tassels to the left side of their caps after receiving diplomas, and shook the hands of school district administrators as they received well-earned congratulations. Unlike the rest of the graduating class however, both already had another academic accomplishment already under their belt: an Associate of Arts degree.
Usually earned after two years of college-level studies, both Cuddeback and Murphy got their degrees by mixing Kirkwood Regional Center coursework with their high school classes.
“I didn’t decide I wanted to get my AA until probably the end of sophomore year, when I realized that was achievable for me,” Murphy said. “Then I just took as many classes as I needed for each semester … it saves money on college, a lot of money, and I felt like a lot of high school classes weren’t challenging me. Also, I didn’t see the point of taking a high school class that I could take at Kirkwood and get college credit for.”
Cuddeback said she also found many of her high school classes insufficiently challenging, a factor that drove her to Kirkwood courses covering similar material. That’s not to say the new workload wasn’t daunting, at times.
“It was pretty manageable,” she said. “There were some times when I would have like, a softball tournament every weekend, and I’d be trying to finish an assignment that was due at midnight, at 11-o'clock on the way home from Kansas City.”
Grads say degree will help through college
Now out of high school, Cuddeback and Murphy both plan to attend universities this fall to study event management and pre-med biology, respectively.
The alumnae expect their associate’s degrees to shave off time in college, putting them on the fast track toward certifications and even grad school with a handful of gen-ed credits and required courses already knocked out. That, in turn, means a quicker path to more interesting coursework, and a considerably lower cost to complete bachelor’s degrees.
While the monetary benefits are appealing, both said that wasn’t the driving factor behind their pursuit of an undergraduate degree before finishing high school.
For Murphy, it was a matter of personal achievement.
“I’m always looking to be the best in everything I do,” she said. “That’s obviously not something that’s always going to happen, but this was something I could do, and I really pushed to get it done … there’s something in the back of my head telling me, ‘I’ve got to get this done.’”
Cuddeback, meanwhile, said she was motivated by a sense of friendly competition with her older siblings.
“One of my sisters was salutatorian, one of my sisters was valedictorian,” she said. “It’s not aggressive, but we’re all like, ‘I’m smarter than you.’ And we’re close enough that we’re always joking when we say that … but I want to be able to get to my full potential.”
Crawfordsville alum group holds 100th, and final, meeting
A modest crowd gathered at the Washington Pizza Ranch in June for the bittersweet 100th and final annual reunion of former Crawfordsville High School students, all of whom attended the small institution before its closure in 1961 and subsequent consolidation into WACO schools.
After a brief meeting where attendees reviewed last year’s minutes, discussed the club’s modest financials, commemorated a handful of deceased classmates, and sang the high school’s cheer chant, the assembled alums enjoyed the offerings of Pizza Ranch’s buffet.
The sizable crowd and group meal were a welcome return to tradition for the former students, after the alumni association held smaller gatherings in the last several years due to low attendance.
“I didn’t have perfect attendance, but I’ve been to many of them, I was on the committee for several years,” said Ruth (Davis) Erwin, a graduate of Crawfordsville’s Class of 1950. “It’s so good to see a good crowd here today, and see so much interest … We used to do a banquet, a meal, you see, but we hadn’t done it for years.”
Members said the association’s remaining funds — about $2,225 before paying for Saturday’s meal — would be donated to WACO elementary in Crawfordsville. The group’s collection of memorabilia — including yearbooks and old photos of the buildings — will be preserved at the Crawfordsville Fire Station, according to committee members, who said the Washington County Historical Society turned down an offer for the items.
