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by Sharon Sander-Palmer Freelance Writer

Last week the students of Waterville Elementary School had surprise visitors to their classrooms to thank them for a donation made from the heart. The visitors - Blackie the cat, and Molly, a collie/Australian shepherd mix dog. The reason - a donation of items collected by the children especially for the Humane Society of Northeast Iowa (HSNEI).

This past Christmas Day Dennis DeBuhr, Dana DeBuhr Johnson, and Hattie Johnson took to the freshly fallen snow to build a Rose Bowl Hawkeye Snowman, complete with team scarf and roses in hand. When the Hawkeyes traveled to Pasadena in 1986 Dennis, Cory, Jeff, and Dana DeBuhr built their original Rose Bowl Hawkeye Snowman, featured then on the front page of the Waukon Standard. Submitted Photo.

by Jason Meyer
The Allamakee County Board of Supervisors met Monday morning, December 28 at 9 a.m.
Speaking before the Board was Carson Eggland, Executive Director of Helping Services of Northeast Iowa. Eggland asked the Board to consider a $1,500 funding request for Fiscal Year 2017, the same amount the group has requested for a number of years. He outlined services provided by Helping Services in Allamakee County, including domestic abuse counseling, substance abuse prevention, mentoring services, and family education programs.
The Supervisors thanked Eggland for his presentation, noting that he was the first in-person funding request received for the upcoming budget cycle.

Yellow River State Forest and the Allamakee County Conservation Board (ACCB) will be hosting two “First Day Hikes” January 1, 2016, at 10 a.m. and at 1 p.m. For the 10 a.m. hike, those interested should meet at the Yellow River State Forest Headquarters, 729 State Forest Road, Harpers Ferry. For the 1 p.m. hike, participants should meet at the Pike’s Peak State Park main shelter house, 32264 Pikes Peak Rd, McGregor.
The hikes will lead participants on designated hiking trails through the forest and along the bluffs, each hike will be approximately two miles. The events will be held weather permitting. If adequate snowfall exists snowshoes and trekking poles will be provided to those who do not have their own.

by Jason Meyer

by Jason Meyer

The Waukon Police Department wants the local community to be aware that there has been a report of counterfeit money that has surfaced in Waukon. The Waukon Chamber of Commerce received a report last week from a business in Waukon that received a counterfeit ten dollar bill.
The bill was confirmed to be counterfeit through use of a counterfeit indication pen. The Waukon Police Department suggests that the most effective way to detect counterfeit currency is with such a pen that reacts to the wood-based paper used by most counterfeiters in comparison to the fiber-based paper used by the United States Treasury.

Snow showers that powdered northeast Iowa Friday, December 18, such as what was captured in the above photo, may have had some area residents thinking of the possibility of the traditional white Christmas first popularized in song during the 1940s by Irving Berlin and Bing Crosby. Anywhere from a trace to nearly half an inch of snow was reported in various locations throughout Allamakee County that Friday, making for some difficult travel conditions during the day. The edging up of weekend temperatures, coupled with the arrival of light rain Sunday, December 20 into the first official day of winter, Monday, December 21, to start this week leading up to the Christmas holiday, erased all signs of Friday's snowfall, perhaps along with any hopes of this year featuring a white Christmas locally.

Because of, but also in spite of, the unseasonably mild early December weather, work has continued to progress on the Driftless Area Education and Visitor Center located just south of Lansing on the Columbus Property. Although the several inches of rain received the weekend of December 12-13 coupled with the lack of frozen ground has recently made for a rather muddy job site, the warmer than average temperatures for the first half of December have allowed for much of the structural foundation to begin to take shape, such as the pouring of concrete walls for the Center pictured above. Since the project started in November, the building site has been excavated to the bottom level of the structure, and footings and foundation walls have been nearly completed. Other work completed on the project includes the drilling of two wells for the building's geothermal system, although they await connection.

A total of 35 Cub Scouts from Pack 64 in Waukon collected toys at their December Pack meeting for the Allamakee Giving Tree, sponsored by Northeast Iowa Community Action Corporation (NEIACAC). NEIACAC is assisting 106 families during the holiday season this year and the donations from the Cub Scouts will help give those families toys as gifts or to play with during the holiday season. Pictured above at the donation presentation are, left to right, Letha Folsom of NEICAC, Cub Scouts Zach, Caden, Jackson and Ryan, and Susan Troendle of NEICAC. Submitted photo.