Features

More than 130 quilts were on display Saturday at Hillsdale United Methodist Church as part of a fundraiser that’s become a tradition at the rural Glenwood church.

“We have a quilt show every two years,” Barb Sell said. “We’ve been doing this about 20 years and interest just keeps growing.”

If you’re curious about what’s going on inside the Loess Hills Maker Space shop on the south side of Glenwood’s Town Square, just picture your junior high shop classroom equipped with 21st Century tools and technology.

“Our motto is, ‘Where old shop meets new shop’” Loess Hills Maker Space founder and co-owner Rich Dickeson said.

Glenwood-area residents are encouraged to attend a public meeting concerning the proposed $3.2 million Glen Haven Village project and capital campaign on Tuesday, July 12, 7 p.m., in the fellowship hall at Trinity Lutheran Church, located at Second and Locust St.

The meeting will be an opportunity for residents to learn more about the project and get their questions answered. There will be a legacy quilt auction and refreshments and hors’ d’oeuvres will be served.

The third annual Blues & Brews festival will take center stage Sunday in Glenwood.

The celebration of Blues music and Iowa craft beers has become an Independence Day tradition and is expected to attract hundreds of visitors to Glenwood Lake Park.

“It’s a fundraiser for the Mills County Trails System,” organizer Randy Romens said. “It’s been a success, but we couldn’t do it without the volunteers and the corporate sponsors we get. The sponsors make it possible.”

MALVERN - Stop in for lunch over the noon hour at the Classic Café in Malvern and there’s a good chance you’ll catch pianist Bill Gilbert playing a familiar show tune or easy listening number.

Gilbert, 85, comes by the café three or four times a week (usually during the lunch hour) to play the piano perched on a loft near the front window.

Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella, the 2013 Tony Award-winning Broadway musical from the creators of South Pacific and The Sound of Music, will play Omaha’s Orpheum Theater Tuesday, March 15, through Sunday, March 20. The touring production is part of the Omaha Performing Arts Broadway series.

By Daisy Hutzell-Rodman

Adahmariyah Kelley sits in a rocking chair away from other people in the room and braids her hair into two plaits, quietly surrounded by books. She has patiently answered questions for nearly an hour, when suddenly one question about pets captures her attention.

“I know it’s weird, but I had a pet grasshopper,” Kelley said. “He lived in a huge fish tank in my room.
Her mother, Melissa, smiled to herself.

“Well, it was a terrarium, not a fish tank,” Adahmariyah said.

The late Elvis Presley, who would have turned 80 Thursday, has been an integral part of Craig Florian’s life for as long as the 46-year-old Glenwood city councilman can remember.

Florian’s first exposure to the king of rock and roll came as a child in the 1970s  when he often listened to his mother’s Elvis Presley record albums. In high school, Florian had an Elvis-related role in “Bye, Bye Birdie.”

Kenny Spencer admits he never envisioned his career in professional football leading to a prominent role on a reality TV show or personal friendships with rock-and-roll music legends Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley of KISS fame.

Spencer, a 2005 Glenwood Community High School graduate, is the place kicker for the LA KISS, an Arena Football League (AFL) team partially owned by the two band members from KISS and the focus of the 10-week 4th and Loud docu-series that began airing in August on Tuesday nights on AMC (9 p.m. CDT).