by Jeremy Leitz, Allamakee County Executive Director (563) 568-2148
Upcoming Deadlines and Important Dates
• May 15-August 2: Primary Nesting Season. No MCM Activities on CRP Acres
• May 31: Marketing Assistance Loans for Prior Year Harvested Corn and Soybeans
• May 31: Final Planting Date for Corn
• June 1: Margin Protection Program (MPP) Signup
• June 15: Final Planting Date for Soybeans
• July 15: 2018 Crop Reports
• August 1: ARC/PLC Sign-up
Secretary Perdue Names FSA Administrator
U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue announced today the appointment of Richard Fordyce to serve as Administrator of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Farm Service Agency (FSA). In his role, Fordyce will provide leadership for FSA and its mission to support agricultural production across America through a network of over 2,100 county and 50 state offices.
There will be a lot of familiarity on the field for the 2018 Waukon softball team, but a brand new face will be leading that familiarity. First-year head softball coach Shane Schellsmidt will be taking the reins of the Lady Indian softball program this season and will be welcomed by 15 players returning with enough experience from last season to have earned a varsity letter.
Although new to the Allamakee Community School District teaching staff this past year and new to coaching the Waukon softball program, Schellsmidt is anything but new to the fundamentals and finer points of a ball diamond and being able to coach all of those, and certainly familiar to the local area. An extensive baseball resumé for the first-year softball coach begins with his All-State player accolades in helping Kee High School win a State Championship and finish as State Runner-Up in two other seasons from 1992-1996.
The 2018 Waukon baseball team will benefit from the return of 14 letterwinners from a squad last season that played to a 7-23 record that included only a single win in 18 Northeast Iowa Conference tries. That veteran group will include a group of six seniors who will provide the greatest share of that leadership for this season’s 45 players on the eighth-12th grade team roster, many of those seniors sporting multiple varsity baseball letters to their credit.
That group of seniors includes Evan Armstead, Garrett Garin, Abe Schwartz, Colin Waters, Isaiah Welch and Mitchell Snitker. “We have a group of seniors that will provide valuable leadership to the younger players,” Waukon baseball coach Jerry Keenan said.
The 2018 Waukon boys track season came to an official end at every team’s and athlete’s ultimate destination, the Iowa High School State Track and Field Meet held at Drake Stadium in Des Moines Thursday-Saturday, May 17-19. The Indian track boys had five team members qualify in three events among this season’s Class 2A track and field elite.
A pair of field event efforts accounted for the Indian track boys’ Thursday efforts at the season grand finale, each ending up short of qualification for the eight-competitor final rounds of their respective competitions. Senior Isaiah Welch’s return to the State Meet in the long jump yielded a best effort of 19’8.5” that left him short of the eight-jumper finals and in 14th place in the Class 2A 24-jumper field. Carroll Kuemper senior Miles Rupiper claimed the Class 2A long jump crown with a leap of 22’1”.
The 2018 Memorial Day Observance Program being held at Oakland Cemetery in Waukon Monday, May 28 will begin at 10 a.m. this year. In the event of rain, the program will be held at the Waukon Banquet Center.
The program at the cemetery has typically followed the annual parade, but this year’s Memorial Day observance will not include a parade, according to local officials. A joint decision was made by the local American Legion and VFW organizations to not hold the parade this year, citing reasons of “lack of participation” and “too much commercialization taking away from the true meaning of what Memorial Day is supposed to be about.”
Volunteers will still be needed to help set up the Avenue of Flags Saturday, May 26, beginning at 7 a.m. Those efforts will begin at the Allamakee County Courthouse in Waukon.
Over the past 50 years, the world has repeatedly heard about the more than 58,000 Allied soldiers who died in Vietnam.
But on this Memorial Day, and every day, Waukon’s Gwen Brainard wants to remind everyone that each of those soldiers has a story.
“I want people to know what war is really like, and that I really feel my husband died in vain,” said Brainard of the death of her husband, Terry Miller.
HER STORY
Next year will mark 50 years since Terry Miller died in Vietnam. A young newlywed, almost finished with college and with a baby on the way, Miller was drafted because he wasn’t able to secure a student teaching assignment in the summer of 1968, which voided his education exemption.
A fallen Allamakee County soldier from the Korean War never had the proper burial or closure to his passing, but he was one of many honored at a ceremony held last fall in Waterloo at the Sullivan Brothers Iowa Veterans Museum.
Roy Martin Vickery, a native of Post Township of Allamakee County, was captured as a Prisoner of War (POW) during the Korean conflict and died in captivity. His remains, however, were never returned and he and 139 other Iowans are still listed as “Missing in Action” (MIA).
National POW/MIA Remembrance Day was observed September 15, 2017 with that ceremony held at the Sullivan Brothers Iowa Veterans Museum in Waterloo. The ceremony focused special attention on servicemen and women who were listed as missing from the Korean War era, noting that “As the frontlines rapidly changed in 1950 and 1951, many fallen heroes were unable to be recovered due to the hostility of the enemy.”
Alexz Grampovnik and Colin Waters, 2018 graduates of Waukon High School, were both awarded the $1,000 Hammel-Zoll Scholarship Sunday, May 13 following the Baccalaureate Mass at St. Patrick Catholic Church in Waukon.
Grampovnik, the daughter of John and Anne Grampovnik of Waukon, plans to attend Northeast Iowa Community College (NICC) in Calmar for two years to complete her RN degree and then transfer to Upper Iowa University in Fayette to complete her BSN degree.
Waters, the son of Tim and Sarah Waters of Waukon, plans to attend Hawkeye Community College in Waterloo and then transfer to the University of Northern Iowa in Cedar Falls to major in Education.
The Allamakee Community School District (ACSD) school board members met for two meetings Monday, May 21. Board members first met for a special meeting Monday morning for a public hearing on the sale of public school property in Waterville. No written or oral comment was given. The board then opened bids on the LP gas tank located at the Waterville Elementary School property. Three bids were submitted, including one from the City of Waterville for $5,000; one from Distant View Farms for $20,070 and one from Hovey LP Gas, Inc. for $27,500. The board chose to accept the bid from Hovey LP Gas, Inc.
The board then met for its regular monthly meeting Monday night. Prior to the meeting, a tour of the Waukon High School Construction class home was given.
