News Center newsletter

Anna Mary (Sunstrom) Gearhart, 89, of Waukon passed away into the loving arms of her Lord and Savior Sunday, December 11, 2022 at the Good Samaritan Center in Waukon. Memorial services will be held Monday, December 19 at 11 a.m. at St. John’s Lutheran Church in Waukon with Pastor Bryan Robertson officiating. Burial will be at Linwood Cemetery in Boone.

Friends may greet the family from 9:30 a.m. until the time of services Monday at the church. Martin-Grau Funeral Home in Waukon is handling arrangements. With heartfelt love and appreciation for all the compassion, care and spiritual guidance for Anna, memorials may be designated to Good Samaritan Society, Veterans Memorial Hospital or St. John’s Lutheran Church, all in Waukon.

Katy Maker, Nurse Midwife and Nurse Practitioner, joined the Veterans Memorial Hospital (VMH) Birthing Center team delivering babies, including waterbirths, last summer. She also cares for maternity and family practice patients in both the Waukon and Postville Clinic locations. Maker joins Dr. Dave Schwartz and Halie Ruff, Nurse Practitioner, as the hospital’s maternity care team.

Maker has over 30 years of experience as a nurse midwife and has assisted in nearly 2,000 deliveries.  She continues to add to that number, assisting moms with their baby’s birth in the Veterans Memorial Hospital Birthing Center.   Maker is also proficient in and encourages water births.

by the American Institute for Cancer Research
                
Do the holidays tend to impact your wallet and your waistline? Well you’re not alone. The good news: despite feeling several pant-sizes larger post-holiday season, such exaggerated weight gains are not typical. According to a study in the New England Journal of Medicine, most of us pack on far fewer pounds than we think. Now the rub: Although our annual holiday gains may be small, many people fail to lose the additional weight from year to year.

Veterans Memorial Hospital (VMH) will be offering free blood sugar testing and blood pressure checks with immediate results at the Waukon Chamber’s Holiday Hop Thursday, December 8. Free chair massages will also be offered. The hospital is joining The Copy Shoppe in its downtown location and will be serving energy bars and giving away prizes and coupons as well from 4-7 p.m.

Angie Mettille, RN, Certified Diabetes Educator and Juli Viet, RN, Community and Home Care Nurse, will be performing these free tests. Both of these checks take just a few seconds to perform and are free of charge. Massage therapist Shannon Bernatz, LMC, will be offering the free chair massages.

For additional information, call Veterans Memorial Hospital at 563-568-3411.
 

Veterans Memorial Hospital Clinic in Waukon will be closing a half-hour early at 6:30 p.m. Thursday evening, December 8. The clinic will reopen at 8 a.m. Friday morning, December 9.

The regular clinic hours for the Waukon location are Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. with early access Monday mornings at 7 a.m. and late access Thursday evenings until 7 p.m. Same-day appointments are usually available. Again, the clinic will need to close a half-hour early Thursday, December 8 at 6:30 p.m.

For questions or to make an appointment, call the Veterans Memorial Hospital Clinic-Waukon at 563-568-5530 or the Clinic in Postville at 563-864-7221.
 

The Veterans Memorial Hospital Diabetes Support Group will not hold a regular meeting during the month of December. They will begin holding their regular monthly meetings again in January.

For more information on the Diabetes Support Group, call Angie Mettille, RN, Diabetes Educator at Veterans Memorial Hospital at 563-568-3411.

KJ and Ashley Medberry of Waterville announce the birth of their daughter, Braeley RaeAnn Medberry, born November 17, 2022 at Veterans Memorial Hospital in Waukon. She weighed 8 lbs. 6 ozs. and measured 21-1/2 inches in length at the time of her birth. She joins siblings, Ava (10), Carleigh (6), Tucker (4) and Ledger (2).

Grandparents are Russ Medberry of Wadena and Dave and Melissa Fish of Waukon. Great-grandparents are Arnold Gibbs of West Union, John and Lois Adam of Waukon, and Dave and Charlotte Fish of Waterville. Great-great-grandparents are Dolores Fish of Rossville and Mary Ann Duffy of Waukon.

Upcoming Deadlines/Dates
December 9: Dairy Margin Coverage Program
December 15: Crop Reporting for Fall-Seeded Small Grains

Farm Loan Presence in Allamakee County
The USDA/FSA Farm Loan team will have a Loan Officer in our office every Tuesday during normal business hours (8 a.m. - 4:30 p.m.). If you would like to visit with the loan officer, feel free to call or stop in.

2023 Dairy Margin Coverage Program
Sign-up for the 2023 Dairy Margin Coverage Program began October 17 and runs through December 9. Signup is voluntary unless you locked in coverage at the initial signup. A decision tool has been created and can be found at https://dairymarkets.org. This tool provides forecasted estimates of feed and milk prices through 2023, historical analysis of the program for the past 5 years, and remaining 2022 projections.  

Research from Iowa State University shows periodically projecting randomly moving, dot-sized laser lights on the floor of broiler pens stimulates birds’ predatory instincts and encourages them to be more active. This is especially important as broilers approach market weight and become more sedentary, which can negatively impact their quality of life.

Elizabeth Bobeck, associate professor of animal science, and Anna Johnson, professor of animal behavior and welfare, partnered with Signify, a livestock lighting company, to create a second-generation novel laser device for this research. With support from the U.S. Poultry and Egg Association, USDA and its National Institute of Food and Agriculture, they conducted a study to assess how these devices influence animal behavior.

To the Editor:

This should have been part of my last letter, but it got too long. RINO (Republican in Name Only) Mike Pence is not telling the truth, he knows Trump would never approve a riot. I think and believe it was a few bad Democrats that ignited the riot.

The January 6 trial is a fiasco, as was the Russian collusion. The Democrats spent two million dollars producing the fake document, and the disgusting FBI and CIA lied about it. Congress spent millions of our tax dollars on the January 6 Kangaroo Court. No wonder the approval of Congress is near 10%, and that’s sad.

Donald J. Trump is a proven, get-things-done person who did more good in four years, and he will do it again. RINOs Pence and Cheney will disappear, and good riddance. If Gov. DeSantis would help Trump, we would have a red swing.

We sure need better management in Washington. We are 30 trillion dollars in debt. That is very bad management on both sides. I really despise RINOs.