For the second consecutive year, Kee High School in Lansing will kick off the celebration of its Homecoming Week with the crowning of the Homecoming King and Queen taking place at the beginning of the Homecoming Week, rather than during the previously traditional Friday afternoon pep rally event. This Sunday, September 15, Kee High School’s Homecoming King and Queen for 2024 will be crowned at a ceremony beginning at 5:45 p.m. in the Kee High School gym, in conjunction with a “Lighting of the K” event also taking place as part of Homecoming Week 2024, with those events being open to the public. The switch to the Sunday afternoon coronation event prior to Homecoming Week getting underway was made last year in an effort to “have our King and Queen preside over the entire week of Homecoming, rather than just the final half-day,” Kee High School Homecoming faculty sponsors explained.
Zahns bring research & development business back to their hometown ... Waukon natives Jim and Jody (Van Ruler) Zahn stand with their son, Jackson, among some of the lab equipment they use in their Natureferm research and development business they started together. The Waukon High School graduates returned to their hometown earlier this year and brought that research and development business to the former JaDecc’S building on 1st Street NW in Waukon. Submitted photo.
Brings global experience to his hometown corner of the world ... Jim Zahn, a 1986 graduate of Waukon High School and the son of Bob and Cathy Zahn of Waukon, is pictured above standing within the plant he was in charge of in Tennessee for DuPont, the multinational chemical company. Zahn has taken his education and experience from many years in the field of industrial biotechnology and, along with the human resources background of his wife, Jody, a 1987 graduate of Waukon High School and the daughter of Howard and Dorothy Van Ruler of Waukon, started a new research and development business called Natureferm that they have now brought back to their hometown of Waukon within the past several months. Submitted photo.
by Brianne Grimstad
In May of this year, a new business moved into the building at 17 1st Street NW in downtown Waukon. Formerly housing The Copy Shoppe and more locally known previously as JaDecc’S, the building has now taken on a new identity as the home of Natureferm, becoming an R&D (research and development) center where a potentially life-saving drug is being developed in partnership with Iowa State University (ISU), the University of Michigan and a German Research Institute specializing in disease treatments.
Jim and Jody (Van Ruler) Zahn are both Waukon natives and owners of Natureferm. Jim is the son of Bob and Cathy Zahn, and Jody is the daughter of Howard and Dorothy Van Ruler.
After leaving Waukon in 1988, they attended Central College and Iowa State University (ISU). They then spent the next 35 years working in industry, within the fields of Human Resources for Jody and Industrial Biotechnology for Jim.
Saturday, September 21, family and friends of lifelong resident and local “River Rat” Pat Sandry will be honoring his memory with the Seventh Annual Pat Sandry Memorial Fishing Derby and Friends of Pool 9 Fundraiser held on the Mississippi River. Sandry passed away in November of 2017 after a short, courageous battle with cancer. He thoroughly enjoyed the outdoors, had a great passion for fishing and hunting, and he truly treasured the beauty of Lansing and the surrounding area.
Entry fee is $50 per boat with 50% payback in prize money and 50% being donated to Friends of Pool 9. There is a limit of two adults and two children per boat.
Monday, September 30, 2024, Ross Kolsrud will become Lansing’s new chief of police.
Currently an Allamakee County Deputy Sheriff, Kolsrud was hired as the city’s chief of police during the regular Lansing City Council meeting held Tuesday, September 3, a day later than the council’s typical Monday meeting date due to the Labor Day holiday observed September 2. As chief of police, Kolsrud will be paid $75,000 per year with two weeks of annual vacation time.
LAW ENFORCEMENT BACKGROUND
Kolsrud, who graduated from Kee High School in Lansing in 2004, began his law enforcement career with the Lansing Police Department in 2017. In 2019, he took a position with the Allamakee County Sheriff’s Office. Since 2020, Deputy Kolsrud has been partnered with K9 Tyr, a Belgian Malinois.
Friday, September 20 at 1 p.m., the Lansing VFW Post and Auxiliary and the Lansing American Legion Post #50 will commemorate National POW/MIA Recognition Day with a Missing Man Ceremony on Mt. Hosmer in Lansing. The ceremony will be held on the Ralph Bartels Patio located next to the shelter house.
Everyone is invited to attend this special ceremony and should bring a lawn chair for seating, if desired. The Missing Man ceremony honors those still missing from this nation’s past wars and conflicts, as well as those who made the ultimate sacrifice and whose remains have not yet been recovered and returned home to the country they served.
Amanda Dolley, DO, MHA, has joined the medical team at the Gundersen Waukon Clinic. As a Family Medicine doctor, Dr. Dolley provides a full range of care for patients of all ages from wellness exams and obstetrics to management of chronic conditions and osteopathic manipulation medicine.
A native of Iowa, Dr. Dolley received her Associate of Arts degree from Kirkwood Community College in Cedar Rapids and her Bachelor of Science degree in Biology and Chemistry from Mount Mercy University in Cedar Rapids. She then attended Des Moines University, College of Osteopathic Medicine where she earned her Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine and Master of Health Administration degree.
The general public is invited to stop by Waukon City Hall between 4-6 p.m. Monday, September 16 - prior to the Waukon City Council meeting - to see designs for possible community and regional trails, new signage, pedestrian connectivity and additional community amenities such as tree plantings, a dog park and more for the Waukon community. Waukon’s Steering Committee is participating in the 2024 Community Visioning Program and the public can discuss proposed projects with committee members, designers and Trees Forever staff.
Iowa writer Ruth Suckow is Iowa’s Willa Cather but, sadly, not as well known.
This all is changing, however, with the Ruth Suckow Traveling Exhibit which is traveling around the state and will be hosted by Robey Memorial Library in Waukon from Monday, September 16 through Saturday, October 12.
“Ruth Suckow’s first novel, ‘Country People’, is set in northeast Iowa,” says Dr. Barbara Lounsberry, President of the Ruth Suckow Memorial Association. “In nine novels and 43 short stories - most set in Iowa - Suckow captured the lives, passions and struggles of ordinary people in their small towns and farms. She offers tales of Iowa love and loss, of farm couples retiring and moving to town, of women and men striving to be independent, of going away and coming home.”
The Waukon City Council met in regular session Tuesday, September 3 following the closure of City Hall in observance of the Monday, September 2 Labor Day holiday, with Mondays typically set as the council’s regularly scheduled meeting date. The council addressed a full agenda of matters including the consideration of changing Waukon’s nomination process for elections, discussion of the Northeast Iowa Regional Housing Trust Fund Local Match and discussion of Highway 76 and 9th Street.
The Allamakee Community School District (ACSD) Board of Directors met Friday morning, September 6 for a special meeting to appoint a new school board member to fill the At-Large seat on the board being vacated by long-time ACSD board member Al Rissman, who submitted his resignation from that position at the board’s regular August meeting. Petitions from two individuals were received by the school district for potential appointment to the board, Tim Smedsrud and Jesse Delaney.
The board members voted to appoint Jesse Delaney to fill out the remainder of Rissman’s term, which expires at the end of 2025. Delaney is scheduled to take the Oath of Office at the next regular board meeting, which is scheduled for Monday, September 16.
