This year was the first time in a very long time that I had not spent the Fourth of July up in Clear Lake, Iowa. It was the first time ever that I had not celebrated it with much of my family.
I graduated from Mason City, and Clear Lake is the next town west of there. My dad grew up in Clear Lake, and my grandma still lives just two blocks from downtown. Every early July growing up consisted of using my Grandma Tina's house as “home base” in between all the trips to the beach, carnival or fireworks.
I'm sure some of you have been up to Clear Lake before. It's kind of a little Okoboji, and there's “The Day the Music Died” and all of that history. But for the longest consecutive running Fourth of July celebration in the state, the town of 7,000-plus swells up by 50-60,000.
This year, though, my fiancee Morgan, our golden retriever Duke and myself spent time in Harrison County. Each week we have to figure out who's doing what in the newspaper office – sports editor Matt Gengler and I are usually the two people having that conversation, and sometimes others enter the mix. For this year's Independence Day coverage, Matt took care of Logan and I took care of Dunlap.
Although I wasn't the one taking photos in Logan, I did drive through and check out what the Fourth looks like in the county seat. Flags lined up on the street outside the courthouse, chairs and blankets set all about the town, kids dressed in red, white and blue taking in all the excitement – it looked the way the Fourth of July should look in small town Iowa.
I did write a story on Bruce and Brianne Niedermyer being awarded Volunteers of the Year by the Logan Chamber of Commerce – you can check that story out on the Times-News website or in the June 26 edition of the paper. You can also find a photo of them in the parade taken by Matt on social media at the time I'm writing this, and I'm sure in the paper and on the website by the time you're reading this.
I also wrote a story on Gretchen and Virgil Peterson being named Grand Marshals of the Dunlap parade for the Dunlap Reporter, which is where I would eventually place my lawn chair and take photos on the Fourth. My SD card is now packed to the brim with all of the smiling faces I saw through my lens that day.
Although I wasn't around for the fireworks that night, as I spent time with my soon-to-be sister-in-law and her fiance in Omaha watching the Omaha Symphony and the fireworks over the RiverFront, I also saw plenty of great photos from Aerial Tech Solutions of the spectacular fireworks put on in Missouri Valley by a small group of volunteers. How impressive it is when people care enough to put their minds to something and make it happen.
One thing you don't really think about when you set off on your own path in life is that, some years, you're going to need to celebrate holidays away from family. Especially in the journalism industry, where there is almost always work to be done that you can't get away from.
Although I finished the day in Omaha, Harrison County was a great place to kick off the celebration of that first Fourth away from home. Thanks to everyone in the area who helps promote and put on these events – it truly does not go unnoticed.
And maybe people who are reading this in the Times-News don't care to hear about Dunlap, and maybe people reading this in the Reporter don't care to hear about Missouri Valley and Logan. But the reality is that this is my column and I write for both papers, so I get to do what I want.
Only kidding!
The real point is that, as a newspaperman in this county, I spend a lot of time driving Highway 30 and the roads that branch off of it, and I think that, no matter where you live in Harrison County, it's pretty cool to see these small towns get together and celebrate year after year. Here's to America, and to the small towns that help make it great.
