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Committee welcomes public to meet November 18

The $4.9 million bond referendum to construct a new Allamakee County Jail and Public Safety Center earned the support of the majority of Allamakee County voters Tuesday, November 4, but fell just short of the 60% super majority required for passage. The ballot measure earned the approval of 2,777 voters, while 1,923 opposed the measure and 642 voters made no selection either way.

by Bob Beach

A slight change in local leadership but no change in local facilities is the message Allamakee County voters sent when they went to the polls for the Tuesday, November 4 General Election. Area voters newly elected Dan Byrnes to the Allamakee County Board of Supervisors Tuesday and re-elected Larry Schellhammer to the Board, but came up just shy of approving the proposed bond referendum for a new jail and public safety center in the county. That measure failed to meet the required 60% super majority vote by receiving just under 59.1% approval from area voters.
Further details on the failed referendum and full election coverage will appear in the November 12 issue of The Standard newspaper.

by Lissa Blake

Like many prisoners of war, Private First Class Medic Cletus Unterberger, never talked much about his time in captivity during World War II.
The son of John and Elizabeth Unterberger of Waterville, “Clete” served in the 168th infantry 34th (Red Bull) Division, which had the distinction of being the first U.S. division deployed to Europe during the war.
He was captured by the Germans February 17, 1943 during the Invasion of North Africa, just nine days after arriving on the front. He spent more than two years as a German prisoner of war, during which time he kept a secret diary of his life.

by Bob Beach

Voters will be heading to the polls Tuesday, November 4 for the 2014 General Election, with a wide variety of races being contested across the country at all levels of government. Polling information for Allamakee County is published to the right of this article on this same front page.

by Bob Beach

Allamakee County Economic Development (ACED) held its annual Membership Meeting Thursday, October 9 at Turner Memorial Hall in Postville. The business meeting was conducted by Executive Director Laura Olson and ACED Board President Mike Kruckenberg.
Announcement was made of the results of the Board of Directors election, and both Val Reinke and Sharon Kubitz retained their seats for another three-year term. After a brief summary of the year’s activities, Olson introduced guest speaker Mary Neubauer, Vice-President of the Iowa Lottery. Neubauer talked about the use of lottery funds, how they benefit Iowa, rural Iowa and Allamakee County. She also provided a short history of the lottery, revealing that Julius Caesar, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson all had lotteries.
Neubauer then presented four attending members a packet of lottery tickets. She also presented ACED with an official lottery check awarding ACED “Priceless” status.

by Bob Beach

Allamakee County Sheriff Clark Mellick recently led employees at the Allamakee County Courthouse in an afternoon of training and instruction on how to handle what Mellick called a "single-killer situation." Mellick said that such situations had previously been referred to as "single-shooter situations," but recent attacks with knives changed that. He told the group that until recently, the standard response to a mass shooting situation had been to lock everyone down, hiding under desks, until law enforcement could arrive.
Mellick said that the training given to courthouse employees takes into account the motives of mass killers, the natural instincts of bystanders and the reality of law enforcement response time. The result is a response system (as opposed to response plan) to reduce casualties. The training program has been named ALICE, which stands for Alert, Lockdown, Inform, Counter, Evacuate.

Tara Nichols, a 2008 Waukon High School graduate and the daughter of Rod and Diane Nichols of Dorchester, lived out a dream come true this past summer when she climbed Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, the highest point on the continent of Africa. Following graduation from high school, Nichols completed a teaching degree at Wartburg College in Waverly in early 2011 and two months later began her career as a middle school math teacher in Loveland, CO. " It was the best decision I’ve ever made for my life," Nichols said of her move to Colorado.
Nichols was no stranger to Colorado, as she had done her student teaching there prior to graduating from Wartburg. It was during that student teaching stint that she also took her first steps, literally, toward an ever-since developing passion for mountain climbing, summiting one of the highest mountains in the United States just two weeks after first arriving in Denver.