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Additional awards distributed at Friday’s annual banquet can be found on Page 4A in this week’s print and e-edition of The Standard.

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by Lissa Blake

The conditions for the 57th annual Yellow River bird count were perfect. That’s according to Larry Reis, the northeast Iowa naturalist who compiles the results each year.

Each year, the Yellow River bird count is among hundreds taking place across the nation. Data is compiled and submitted to the National Audubon Society.

The 2016 Yellow River bird count took place Tuesday, December 20. Eight area birders spent the day counting birds in a 15-mile radius spanning from north of Effigy Mounds to Waterville, Harpers Ferry, Wexford, Marquette and across the Mississippi River to Prairie du Chien, WI. Reis said December 20 was a sunny day that stayed around 30 degrees.

“We had eight observers, but we could always use more,” said Reis.

The December count spotted a total of 51 different species making up 2,912 individual birds. Highlights included two American black ducks, which were found along the Mississippi.

by Joe Moses

The Allamakee County Board of Supervisors met in a pair of regular sessions within this past week due to the President's Day holiday falling on the board's usual Monday meeting date February 20. Coverage of both the Tuesday, February 21 and Monday, February 27 regular meetings of the Board appears below.

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 21
The Allamakee County Board of Supervisors met in regular session Tuesday, February 21 due to the President's Day holiday Monday, February 20. The Supervisors addressed a full agenda of items including an insurance quote presentation by Upper Iowa Insurance Services, consideration of a bridge embargo and a public hearing for a Fiscal-Year 2017 budget amendment.

The road from smalltown rural Iowa to the Fortune 500® won't be found on any map or GPS unit, but Waukon High School 1981 graduate Robin Schoh may be a good one to ask directions from.

The former stand-out athlete for the Indians in her high school days, who may best be remembered locally for her athletic prowess that earned her All-Conference and All-State recognition in three different sports: basketball, softball and track, is now the co-founder of a steadily growing business that has been ranked among the business world elite on the Fortune 500® list compiled by Entrepreneur magazine. Making that prestigious list last year was only another step forward, however, as this year's list unveiled in January showed Schoh's 2003-founded Waxing The City body waxing company had zoomed from its initial #392 spot on that 2016 list to the even more elite top 100 at #89 for 2017.

The long-running television series "Finding Bigfoot" on the Animal Planet channel is scheduled to air an episode of that series this weekend that is reported to have been filmed in Yellow River State Forest in Allamakee County. The television series is described as "A team from the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization (BFRO) tracks the legendary beast using infrared and night-vision cameras, as well as information from firsthand accounts of alleged encounters."

A northern Allamakee County landowner recently reviewed trail camera footage from last fall and made a surprising discovery. An animal known as a fisher (pictured in lower half of photo at right) was discovered in a trail camera photo and confirmed by the Iowa Department of Natural Resources (DNR), a notable sighting since fishers have not been known to be in Iowa since the 1800s. This relative of the weasel is more common in the woodlands of Minnesota, but Furbearer Biologist Vince Evelsizer with the Iowa DNR out of Clear Lake has indicated that a southward trend has been recorded over the last five years for fishers in Minnesota, with a noticeable increase in numbers of the mammal in southeast Minnesota. Evelsizer believes the uneven terrain of northeast Iowa and southeast Minnesota, known as the Driftless Area, lends itself as an ideal habitat for fishers.

Although area thermometers and daytime weather conditions didn't offer much support of the name, the annual WinterFest celebration did take place in Lansing Saturday, February 18. Temperatures rising toward the 60-degree mark during the latter portion of this past week (confirmed by the LED thermometer reading pictured at right) allowed for WinterFest enthusiasts to take part in a variety of activities while donning some very "unFebruary-like" attire, such as the shorts and sandals sported by the youngsters pictured above. For additional WinterFest photos taken for The Standard by Jordyn Burroughs, see Page 5A of the print edition or e-edition. For additional spring-like weather in February... don't look too far ahead in the forecast.
 

by Brianne Eilers

The Effigy Mounds National Monument Quarter, the 36th such coin in the America the Beautiful® quarter series from the U.S. Mint, was officially unveiled Tuesday, February 7 during a program at the Waukon High School gymnasium. A crowd numbering over 1,000 of Allamakee Community School District (ACSD) students and members of the public were able to experience the Native American heritage instrumental in the history and creation of the mounds depicted on the new quarter through the sounds of traditional drumming and singing from the Iron Mound Drum Group as they opened the program, and that group also played while the Andrew Blackhawk American Legion Post 129 presented the colors at the start of the program.

Staff, residents being transferred to other facilities through June of this year; future depends on budget

The Iowa Department of Corrections (DOC) has announced a plan to reduce its fiscal year 2017 budget by $5.5 million, and the Luster Heights prison camp facility in Allamakee County will be one of four DOC facilities feeling the direct impact of that reduction with what has been termed a "temporary suspension of operations". The budget reduction announcement was made Wednesday, February 8 by DOC Director Jerry Bartruff in a media release.

Designation could open funding and other preservation resources

Preservation Iowa has designated nine properties for 2017 Most Endangered designations. Among those properties are the Stone Schoolhouse located in Lansing.

According to information gathered and reported by Preservation Iowa, the Stone Schoolhouse was built in 1863 and cost $5,000 to build. It operated as a school until 1973 and is reportedly the oldest schoolhouse that was in continual use west of the Mississippi. Its architectural style and building materials are emblematic of the period in which it was built and the local materials available for such a construction.

The building had a new roof added in the 1960s and there were some emergency repairs to the foundation in the same time period. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and is currently under the ownership of the City of Lansing.