Community News

The Allamakee County Veterans Museum will again present the popular Town Theatre video program of movies taken in downtown Waukon during the summer of 1941. The program will be held this Saturday, February 10, beginning at 10 a.m., at the Veterans Museum located at 105 Allamakee Street in Waukon.

The video will run continuously between 10 a.m. to 12 noon. There is no admission charge, and the museum is wheelchair accessible.

The popular movies were filmed in downtown Waukon in the 1940s by the Cote family and shown during intermissions before and after feature movies, previews, cartoons and news reels. Viewers can try and spot and identify relatives shown in the film and enjoy a nostalgic look back at period vehicles and dress with local scenes and businesses, just before the entry of USA into WWII.

Like other day care facilities in the area, Postville Childcare was recently ready to close its doors, which would have left 49 families without care and 17 staff members without jobs. Thanks to strong community partnerships, help came just in time.

As the center was gearing up to close, The Northeast Iowa Funders Network, made up of community foundations in Allamakee, Chickasaw, Clayton, Fayette, Howard and Winneshiek Counties, awarded a grant to Upper Explorerland Regional Planning Commission to support the work of regional planner Michelle Barness, who is coordinating strategies for addressing child care challenges.

Barness provided support to Allamakee County providers, economic development leaders and other partners as they worked to raise $163,000 for a countywide child care wage enhancement program. The state of Iowa provided 2-to-1 matching funds, making nearly $500,000 available to help providers pay staff competitive wages.

by Brianne Grimstad

From the time that she was a young girl, Jane (Buntrock) Tepesch says she knew she wanted to be a telephone operator. “When you saw the pictures in the magazines, they looked so kind and helpful,” she says of what inspired her to follow her dreams.

When Jane was a teenager, Marian (Moyer) Smedsrud worked as an operator and one Saturday she brought Jane with her to work. Jane said she sat in a chair with a headset on and observed how the operators worked the switchboards. “Back then, the head sets covered the ears entirely,” Jane explained.

When asked if she could hear what was being said in her headsets, Jane couldn’t. “I had the holes turned to the outside,” Jane laughed. She had been wearing the headset wrong.

In June of 1954, Jane went to work for Northwestern Bell at the age of 18 years old. The office was located above the Chevrolet Garage at the time, on the second story.

Val Reinke of Allamakee County Economic Development & Tourism (ACED&T) was pleased to join the Iowa Travel Industry Partners in gathering with statewide partners for Tourism Legislative Night with Iowa’s elected officials Wednesday, January 17. Conversations taking place at Curate, a reception event space located in downtown Des Moines, focused on the importance of tourism to Iowa’s economy. Bipartisan members of the Iowa Senate and Iowa House of Representatives attended the event.

Dillon Michael Heiller, age 37 and listed as homeless in court documents, was sentenced in Allamakee County District Court Monday, January 22 for a series of crimes committed in the Allamakee County area within the past year. Heiller was sentenced to a total of 15 years in prison in conjunction with three different theft charges stemming from two separate incidents within the county in 2023.

Heiller was arrested in October 2023 in Waukon after officers responded to a call of a suspicious individual and vehicle in the 700 block of 1st Avenue SW in Waukon. He was pursued on foot to a garage behind a residence on West Main Street, where he was tasered and arrested on several charges that included Theft in the 2nd Degree, for which he received a sentence of five years in prison January 22.

The Black Hawk Bridge memory printed below was submitted by Marsha Garrett Kurth of La Crosse, WI. The story is about her grandmother, Rita Garrett, who was a lifelong resident of Lansing. She and her husband, Roy Garrett, owned the Lansing Hotel and Garrett’s Corner Cafe. Their three sons still live in Lansing.

Grandma Rita, a practical woman with a heart as big as her laughter, lived in the river town of Lansing. Most afternoons, she would take Uncle Tom’s black lab, Pepper, for a walk beside the hotel along the Mississippi River. Little did she know that one particular stroll would become a tale told and retold at family gatherings for years to come.

Saturday, January 27 at 10 a.m., the Allamakee County Veterans Museum will present another program from its Veterans History Project at its museum located at 105 Allamakee Street in Waukon.

A video interview by Chuck Bloxham with U.S. Army Veteran Lt. Col. Joe Emerson will be played. Emerson will also be present to share comments and answer questions.

Lt. Col. Joe Emerson enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1967, serving two tours in Vietnam and remaining in the Army until his retirement. In Vietnam he was a combat helicopter pilot, first flying a Huey and then a Chinook.

by Joe Moses

The Allamakee County Board of Supervisors met twice within a week’s time following the closure of the Allamakee County Courthouse Monday, January 15 for the observance of the Martin Luther King Jr. Day holiday with regular session meetings taking place both Tuesday, January 16 and Monday, January 22 this past week. Coverage of both meetings appears below.

TUESDAY, JANUARY 16
The Tuesday, January 16 meeting was called to order by Board of Supervisors Chairperson Dan Byrnes with Supervisors Mark Reiser and Dennis Keatley present. There was no Public Comment during the time allotted for that agenda item.

Helping Services for Youth & Families’ Domestic Abuse Resource Center (DARC) is recognizing National Stalking Awareness Month in January to recognize and respond to this criminal, traumatic, and dangerous victimization.

Stalking impacts nearly one in three women and one in six men in the United States but too often goes unrecognized and unaddressed. It takes everyone - advocacy and support services, legal systems, and victims/survivors and their friends and family - to better recognize and respond to stalking.

This month, Helping Services invites everyone to join the organization’s efforts to spread awareness about stalking through the theme “KNOW IT, NAME IT, STOP IT.”

The Decorah Genealogy Association will present a showing of the film “Decoding the Driftless: A Film of Science Exploration and Adventure” at 2 p.m. this Saturday, January 27, at the Decorah Senior Center, located at 806 River Street in Decorah. Enjoy popcorn and hot apple cider during the film.
Emmy-winning filmmakers have woven footage of the Driftless Region into a compelling story of the region’s ancient bluffs and rivers and underground secrets. The hour-long film helps audiences understand the importance of the landscape in which generations of families have built their lives. The program is free of charge, and donations are welcome. Submitted image.