Features

By Daisy Hutzell-Rodman

Summertime to many people equates with thoughts of eating grilled corn on the cob and fresh rhubarb pie made from home-grown produce. The modern lifestyle, however, may mean fewer people actually pick the produce from their own gardens and are more often turning to farmers’ markets.

By Daisy Hutzell-Rodman

Laura Millar of Glenwood kept bending her fingers backwards as she sat in front of a plate of rice. She sat with her left leg tucked under her, then with her right leg tucked under. Then she sat flat on the chair and pushed both legs straight out in front of her.

 Since the first of January, the Mills Masquers have been preparing their 34th annual Winter Musical – “Annie Jr.”

Craig Florian returns to the director’s chair for the first time since 2012’s “Bye, Bye Birdie” and once again Florian has assembled a talented and diverse cast that combines both seasoned theater veterans and fresh newcomers. 

Starring in her first production, Sydney Major steps into the well-worn shoes of the iconic rags-to-riches girl, Little Orphan Annie. 

MINEOLA - Do a Google search for the word “Mettwurst” and you’ll be guided to Wikipedia, the popular online encyclopedia.

Three paragraphs into its definition of the German pork sausage, Wikipedia has this to say:

“The town of Mineola, Iowa, which was settled almost exclusively by immigrants from Schleswig-Holstein, hosts an annual heritage dinner with “Schoening-style” cold-smoked Mettwurst known in the Low German dialect as “Metvuss.”

While many Mills County residents were ringing in the new year in the comfort and warmth of their own homes, a Glenwood man was roughing it in a tent outside Grace United Methodist Church (GUMC).   

Jeff Mitts spent New Year’s Eve camping in the tent to fulfill a promise he made to members of the church congregation for surpassing its “Blankets +” missions project fundraising goal.   

By Daisy Hutzell-Rodman

Temperatures outside have fallen into the single digits on several occasions this month, but six residents at Linnwood Estates assisted living in Glenwood are sleeping warmly under new quilts. Everett Shaw, Carl “Lee” Anderson, Roger Orrin Lonnevik, John Matula, Marvin E. Meggison and Eugene A. Murdock were presented “Quilts of Valor” in a special ceremony Dec. 7.

Quilts of Valor is an organization that presents veterans and service members with handmade quilts as a way of thanking them for their military service.

By Daisy Hutzell-Rodman

People walking in the door of the Glenwood Pet Lodge are often greeted by a tan and white Jack Russell terrier named Gracie.  Gracie, the unofficial operations manager, sniffs at patron’s hands and wags her tail back and forth.

MALVERN - Artist Zack Jones has worked in various mediums.

Digital animation, watercolor, film, pen and ink, oil on canvas.

Nowhere on that list does “139-year-old former Presbyterian church” appear.

But that is exactly the “medium” Jones is working in with his Art Church Project.
 
Jones bought the former Presbyterian church just off Main Street in Malvern on the brick-lined street corner of Prospect and East Fourth Streets from the Malvern Historical Society last May.

A Glenwood preschool teacher and single mother of two children is making a name for herself as a blogger for a San Francisco-based website geared toward issues of interest to women.

“The website is Lipstick and Politics and I’m not the lipstick” Bobbi Jo Rohrberg said during a recent interview.

“I’m not into fashion and entertainment. The politics is what I like most, but I’m also a single mom who’s been through divorce so I also like to write things for co-parenting and general parenting.”