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Five Allamakee County young ladies are vying for the title of 2014 Allamakee County Fair Queen. That crown and all the honors and responsibilities that accompany it will be bestowed upon one of those candidates Tuesday evening, July 15 during the Allamakee County Fair Queen Pageant being held at the Allamakee County Fairgrounds Pavilion.
The pageant event will begin at 7 p.m. with a Youth Showcase, as members of the Future Farmers of America (FFA) chapter from Waukon High School will make presentations, as will top entrants from the 4-H Expressions Day held recently in Allamakee County.
This year's event will also feature an Allamakee County Royalty Showcase, featuring introductions of the 2014 Allamakee County Dairy and Beef Royalty.

A fire declared electrical in origin resulted in a pair of visits from the Waukon Fire Department to the upstairs apartment portion of the Howards Home Furnishings building located at 40 West Main Street in downtown Waukon during the middle of last week. An initial call was received just before 4 a.m. Wednesday, June 25 when an occupant of one of the apartments housed above the furniture store discovered smoke in her residence toward the rear of the building, with Waukon firefighters having to open both the ceiling below and roof above a hallway attic space near the back of the building to douse the flames. The Waterville Fire Department and the aerial truck from the Decorah Fire Department were also summoned for availability as precautionary measures.

A line of severe thunderstorms that plagued eastern Iowa Sunday evening, June 29 left behind some tell-tale destruction in Waukon and the surrounding area. The National Weather Service declared a Severe Thunderstorm Warning for Allamakee County at around the 9 p.m. hour for the storm that produced brief torrential rain, reported quarter-size hail and high winds, including some straightline winds believed to be responsible for much of the damage left in the storm's wake. Much of that damage included downed trees, such as this series of trees pictured at right on the Makee Manor property north of Waukon along Highway 9 that also took down a power line pictured in the center of the photo. This photo and more can be viewed in the Photo Gallery.

by Bob Beach

A pair of National Dairy Conventions held last week brought busloads totaling several hundred visitors to a pair of Waukon area family dairy farms Thursday, June 26. The National Holstein Convention held in Dubuque June 24-28 featured a "Cream of the Crop" bus tour the morning of June 26 that included a stop at Regancrest, the Regan family dairy operation located northeast of Waukon on Highway 9. As depicted in the photos at left above, a half dozen charter buses and several private vehicles transported just shy of 500 people to tour the Regancrest operation. "We feel things went very well," said Sheri Danhof of Regancrest about the tour that involved the single largest group hosted by the facility in just an hour-plus timeframe. "It was an opportunity for people to see not only the genetics of our animals but also how our facility operates, so that they know that it is truly the genetics of our animals that allows them to produce like they do and not some specialized treatment.

The annual New Albin Days Past and Present celebration that was held June 13-14 celebrated the community of New Albin in all its past history and present glory, with the youth that represent the future of the community being very involved in the annual event through a wide variety of activities. Lydia Strong, daughter of Jason and Stacie Strong of New Albin, was crowned Little Miss New Albin at the Friday, June 13 pageant. The youth of the New Albin community and also those visiting during the annual New Albin Days celebration helped leave their mark on this year's event by contributing throughout the weekend to the mural now created annually during the celebration. Photo courtesy of Lori Darling. Additional photos can be found in in this week's print and e-editions of The Standard as well as by clicking on the Photo Gallery link.
 

by Bob Beach

It was nearly a case of very unfortunate deja vu this past week for Waukon and the surrounding Allamakee County area, as heavy rains Wednesday and Thursday, June 18 and 19 brought some of the same results as almost exactly one year ago - although not to the same overall degree.
National Weather Service data reported rain totals of between eight and nine inches in the few days prior to and including a Thursday, June 19 storm that topped off that total with a frequency of one to one-and-a-half inches of rain per hour during a two-hour period in the early afternoon hours. It was that same type of rain total frequency, both overall and per hour, that brought flash flooding destruction to the downtown Waukon community and the greater Allamakee County area during the June 22-23, 2013 time period.

This summer Dave and Pam Kruger, owners of Empty Nest Winery of Waukon, are gaining recognition not only for their successful, expanding wine business, but also for their work in the Local Foods movement being selected as one of the “Faces of Northeast Iowa’s Farmers Markets”.
In the Spring of 2013, Northeast Iowa Resource Conservation & Development (RC&D) opened an application process for a project to highlight farmers market vendors.  The organization received funding from a USDA Farmers Market Promotion Program grant secured by the Iowa League of RC&Ds.  The project, a collaborative effort involving individual RC&Ds across the state, charged Northeast Iowa RC&D with selecting 10 applicants from its seven-county region to be profiled as the face of northeast Iowa’s farmers markets. These applicants were then interviewed and photographed by a professional photographer to capture each producer’s unique story.

by Bob Beach