Mt. Pleasant News

I would like to share with you a passage from a book that is shaping my life personally. The name of the book is ?My Grandfather's Blessings: Stories of Strength, Refuge and Belonging.? The author, Rachel Naomi Remen, is a medical doctor specializing in oncology, a professor and an author of another best-selling book called ?Kitchen Table Wisdom.? One quote about the author says, ?Where most doctors treat ...

Because it's Friday the 13th, I'm going to tell you a scary story. It's a true story, but maybe a little more unnerving than scary. Nonetheless, this is the story of the time my safety went missing.When your safety goes missing, your life begins to turn into the book, ?If you give a Mouse a Cookie.? Everything becomes cause and effect. When you have a big dog like I do, you have to take her for works. But when ...

To the editor: Last week's feature on Mt. Pleasant in the New York Times caught my eye. Although living in coastal Massachusetts, I consider myself a grandson of Mt. Pleasant. My mother Gladys (daughter of O.J. and Ozora Hoffman), grew up in a house facing the campus on the site of today's Iowa Wesleyan library. My father, Paul, worked at the Fankhauser Dairy. While both moved on to careers in this country and ...

Have you felt overwhelmed? Stressed? Or like your shoulders are weighed down by the busyness of life?This morning after having a successfully busy week, I felt it. I have been so busy this week, I haven't spent the time I need to with my boys or wife because, ?Daddy is working.? I have heard of individuals who put their careers, ministry or even hobbies above their family. They are so concerned with climbing the ...

Every November, we wonder why we don't eat turkey more often. It's high in protein, low in calories, affordable and can instantly turn any side dish into an entree. But, I think we can all agree, preparing the whole bird is a labor of love we can justifiably reserve for special occasions.Fortunately, plenty of turkey cuts don't require the same workload and time constraints of cooking a whole turkey, including ...

I've known for a long time that there were bones under our hen house. A year ago this spring, when I was patching up the floor of the shed, getting ready to turn the shed into a hen house, I spied an old bone through a hole in the floor. There was a long bone attached to a knuckle with some cartilage and tissue still clinging to it. I pulled the bone out and threw it into the adjacent field. I figured it was an ...

Part of the midsummer garden bounty for many is the arrival of ripe, juicy tomatoes. This iconic garden crop can, unfortunately, be tricky to grow to perfection. As usual, the hazards include weather, gardening practices, pests and disease.Here's a brief guide to some common problems, along with strategies for prevention or remediationCracksThis problem occurs because of uneven watering while the tomato fruit ...

Rachel Remen is one of my favorite authors. In her book ?My Grandfather's Blessings? she writes, ?Most of us have been given many more blessings than we have received. We do not take time to be blessed or make the space for it. We may have filled our lives so full of other things that we have no room to receive our blessings. One of my patients once told me that she has an image of us all being circled by our ...

People have been so good to us. They've shown their support in more ways than I can count. As I think of what everyone has done for us, including you readers, I just feel so blessed and unworthy. There have been untold little things and big things done by friends and family to show support since we started doing foster care eight months ago.One specific blessing that I've been so thankful for is our neighbors, ...

On Aug. 20, 2016, the United States men's basketball team clubbed Serbia 96-66 to win gold at the Rio games. Just over seven months later, the U.S. baseball team hammered Puerto Rico 8-0 to win the World Baseball Classic.That's the kind of dominance we expect out of American international sports teams. There has been no greater sports dynasty in the modern era than the ole red white and blue, but there is still ...

Willy Amos of Mt. Pleasant is the poster child for Hy-Vee's ?helpful smile in every aisle? slogan. And it's genuine. If it wasn't for his wheelchair, you would never know that he is paralyzed from the waist down. As store manager for the Hy-Vee Drugstore in Mt. Pleasant, you see Willy out front working with customers, or in the back unloading a truck, stocking shelves or building displays. He's a human dynamo on ...

Clark County is going under water.I don't know if I actually remember hearing the painful announcement over the static-filled radio or if I've just heard my dad tell the story enough times it's lodged in my brain like a memory. But that's how it started for us, the Flood of 1993.Clark County, our home, was in imminent danger of going under water.We ? my parents, sister and myself ? were on our first family ...