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Waukon High School seniors Brenna Berns (left) and Braxton Stewart (right) were crowned Waukon High School's 2021 Homecoming Queen and King at the "Burning of the 'W'" pep rally held Thursday, September 16 at the Waukon High School. Additional photos of Waukon High School's Homecoming events are featured on Page 40 in the September 22, 2021 issue of The Standard, as well as coverage of the Waukon football team's Homecoming victory over North Fayette Valley featured on Page 19. Even more photos from this year’s Homecoming festivities can also be found at the Photo Galleries link on The Standard’s website.

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Members of the Kee High School Homecoming Court for this week’s 2021 celebration of the event include the King and Queen candidates from the Senior class pictured above, as well as the underclassman attendants pictured below. Pictured above are, left to right: Front row - Senior Class Homecoming Queen candidates Abby Wood, Maggy Weymiller, Reagan Mudderman, Haley Meyer and Lydia Strong; Back row - Senior Class Homecoming King candidates Ahmed Atta, Ethan Rasque, Dalton Dibert, Ethan Schweitzer and Luke Eiden. Pictured at right, front to back and left to right, are: Freshman Attendants Summer Walleser and Dalton Mudderman, Sophomore Attendants Mallory Mohn and Brendan Croft, and Junior Attendants Jaylyn Walleser and Carter Goetzinger. Details of this week's Homecoming events at Kee High School, along with celebratory pages, can be found on Pages 20 and 21 inside this issue. Photos courtesy of the Kee High School Yearbook.
 

Voters in the city of Lansing elected Melissa Hammell to the office of mayor in a Tuesday, September 14 special election. Listed as the lone candidate on the election ballot, Hammell garnered 156 of the 162 votes cast in the election.

The six remaining votes cast were all write-in individuals. According to the results, four of those write-in votes were for Don Peters, one was for Dave Janzen, and the other - although marked - was left blank. The Allamakee County Auditor’s office reports that all but one of the votes in the election were cast in-person on election day, with that lone other vote cast absentee before election day.

U.S. Representative Ashley Hinson from Iowa’s First District hosted a town hall discussion Thursday morning, September 16 at the Allamakee County Courthouse in Waukon as part of a northeast Iowa trek that day that also included a tour of the Northeast Iowa Dairy Foundation facility in Calmar and a tour of the Fareway grocery store in Manchester. Approximately two dozen area residents were in attendance at the hour-long session in Waukon, which included an introduction by Hinson of her priorities as a legislator followed by fielding questions from the audience in attendance in an effort to gather information and feedback to take with her to Washington, D.C. from the area she represents.

Students at Waukon High School have selected their Homecoming Court representatives for 2021, with the coronation of this year's Homecoming Queen and King set to take place at the "Burning of the 'W'" pep rally scheduled for this Thursday evening, September 16, beginning at 7 p.m. in the Waukon High School gym. Pictured in the photo above are this year's Waukon High School Homecoming Queen and King candidates from the 2021-2022 Senior class, including: Left to right - Front row: Queen candidates Justine Sullivan, Ella O’Neill, Brenna Berns and Faith Schulte; Back row: King candidates Nick Goltz, Braden Hemann, Braxton Stewart and Patrick Hennessy. For the second consecutive year, there will not be any Homecoming attendants selected from this year’s freshman, sophomore or junior classes as has traditionally been done in the past.

Allamakee County Sheriff’s Deputy Ross Kolsrud and K9 Tyr participated in another United States Police Canine Association (USPCA) Patrol Dog 1 Trial in Altoona August 29-31. With a total of 31 K9s from agencies throughout Iowa, Minnesota and Illinois, K9 Tyr brought home two prestigious awards (pictured in the submitted photo). K9 Tyr was awarded first place in Criminal Apprehension, where he demonstrated resisting the attack without the handler’s command, recalling back to the handler after he was commanded, and the apprehension itself. These tasks are done with and without gunfire, and also with one scenario of handler protection where the handler is assaulted.

K9 Tyr was also awarded third place in Evidence Search, where he must locate two objects which could be any of the following: keys, driver’s license/credit card, leather, shotgun shell, matchbook, screwdriver and gun. K9 Tyr found the two random articles in an astounding 26 seconds, the fastest of the trial.

The Allamakee County Fair Board has announced the dates for the 2022 Allamakee County Fair scheduled for next summer. Those dates have been set for Wednesday through Sunday, July 20-24 at the Allamakee County Fairgrounds in Waukon. Further event details will be published as they become available.

Public comment due October 11

The Iowa and Wisconsin Departments of Transportation (DOT) are holding a public information meeting and providing information online as a means to gather public input for a proposed replacement of the Iowa 9/Wisconsin 82 (Black Hawk) Bridge in Lansing over the Mississippi River, connecting Allamakee and Crawford, WI Counties. The public meeting is scheduled for Monday, September 27 between 5 and 6:30 p.m. at Kee High School, located at 569 Center Street in Lansing.

The Iowa DOT is providing two meeting formats for the public meeting, including the in-person event and an at-your-own-pace virtual meeting available after the in-person event. Depending on COVID conditions in the community, the meeting may need to be moved completely online. If that happens, updates will be found online at www.iowadot.gov/pim.

Park & Recreation project benefiting from the funding is designed to improve safety, usability, health benefits of Mt. Hosmer trail system

The City of Lansing and the Lansing Park and Recreation Board announce the awarding of a Wellmark Foundation Grant to be used in mapping and marking the trails that emanate from the Mt. Hosmer Park at the north end of 6th Street North. The $25,000 Matching Assets to Community Health (MATCH) grant will benefit the Lansing Trails Expansion & Promotion Project, one of 29 initiatives to receive this year’s funding.

“We are grateful that the Wellmark Foundation sees the value in formally mapping this treasured trail system and helping us make the trails more discoverable and usable, as well as safe, for both residents and visitors,” said Maryann Baldwin, Lansing Parks Board Chair.

The City of Lansing will be holding a special election Tuesday, September 14 to elect a new mayor following the June resignation of Kyle Walleser from the mayoral office after a change in his employment would no longer allow him to fulfill the mayoral duties. With no candidate stepping forward to express interest in being appointed to the office within the designated timeframe for that option, the special election was called for.

Walleser had been elected in November of 2019 and served about a year and a half of Lansing’s four-year mayoral term. The newly-elected mayor will take office within 10 days of the official canvassing of Tuesday’s election results and then serve out the remainder of the current mayoral term through the year 2023.