September 2019

Rick Smith and Melody Hoy officially became the two newest members of the Grundy County Memorial Hospital board of directors on Monday morning after the board of supervisors voted to approve their confirmations.
           
Smith, a Grundy Center native who is now back in his hometown, is the vice president of Grundy Center Chamber-Main Street and a member of GCMH’s foundation board. Because he is the son of Grundy County Supervisor Barb Smith, she abstained from voting, and his appointment was approved by a 4-0 measure.
           

Raymond James Freeman, 72, of Grundy Center passed away on May 3, 2019, at Mercy One Hospital in Waterloo while under the care of Cedar Valley Hospice. A private inurnment service will be held at Rose Hill Cemetery in Grundy Center with military honors. Memorials may be directed to the family to be donated to a cause of their choosing at a later date.

Even as he spent his final days lying on a hospital bed in Iowa City, Court Koch could only think of his students.
           
The 31-year-old Dike-New Hartford high school special education teacher passed away early Sunday due to pneumonia and complications with a rare blood disease known as thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura (TTP), and since then, tributes have poured in. Koch will be remembered by co-workers, family members and friends as a dedicated educator, husband and new father—his daughter, Emery, is just 13 months old.
           

One of my favorite pastimes when any big news story breaks is gauging the way people react to it, especially when it involves the release of a publicly available document they couldn’t be bothered to read themselves. In this regard, the Mueller Report is the granddaddy of ‘em all—a 400-page summary of two years and $30 million worth of work—and yet, I feel like I could’ve hired a group of high school kids to investigate the 2016 election and arrived at roughly the same conclusion.