Tag: Iowa
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Girl on Fire: Why celebrations are good for local communities
[As seen in Creston News Advertiser October 2, 2014] During the last weekend in September, Centerville hosts a local festival called Pancake Day. It’s similar to Creston’s Balloon Days in that there’s a parade and it focuses on one unique thing. In Centerville’s case, that unique thing is pancakes. Pancake Day was started in 1949, […]
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Girl on Fire: The best advice is to enjoy life
[As seen in Creston News Advertiser, July 31, 2014] Monday night I spent three training hours in the company of several other Creston firefighters practicing hooking up to a fire hydrant and laying hose in the event of a structure fire. After training we met at the station and washed fire trucks, then I left […]
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Girl on Fire: Coming to realizations through the help of the media
[As seen in Creston News Advertiser, July 3, 2014] Recently, United States Supreme Court voted on a very controversial issue revolving around women’s health and religion. I’m not going to comment on the decision. As a reporter, I realize the media has to be as unbiased as possible, especially within the workplace and pages published […]
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Girl on Fire: Challenge accepted
[As seen in Creston News Advertiser, June 5, 2014] Recently, Kate Padilla, a friend of mine who is also a staff reporter for Spencer’s newspaper Spencer Daily Reporter, started an all-things blog (www.katepadilla.net) that includes do-it-yourself projects, recipes and notes about her life with her husband in Iowa. I was perusing the site, looking at […]
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Girl on Fire: Progress made to equal rights
[As seen in Creston News Advertiser, April 3, 2014] Last week, I found a story written by an employee of Al Jazeera America, an international broadcaster headquartered in Qatar, titled “Former President Jimmy Carter’s call to action.” Carter gave a speech about his new book, “A Call to Action: Women, Religion, Violence and Power,” during […]
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Girl on Fire: How meth has slowly changed the firefighting game
[As seen in Creston News Advertiser, February 20, 2014] Sitting in a classroom full of firefighters from across the state of Iowa, I watched as John Ticer, special agent with Iowa Fire Marshal’s Office, flipped through a PowerPoint slideshow explaining the recipe and how to make methamphetamine. Ticer taught Meth Lab Awareness, a class available […]
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Girl on Fire: A trip to sunny Phoenix in the dead of winter
[As seen in Creston News Advertiser, February 6, 2014] Over the weekend I took a short vacation in Phoenix, Ariz., a nice break from the snow and bitter Iowa cold. While I was there, I saw Russel Finehout, my boyfriend, and my aunt and uncle, who winter there. My flight from Des Moines to Chicago […]
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Girl on Fire: Appreciating what firefighters do
[As seen in Creston News Advertiser, October 3, 2013] I climbed the ladder and stepped onto a roof of wooden shingles and moss. The slant made it hard to climb, as did the uncertainty of whether the wood would give. I followed firefighters Lee Freeman and Jake Winkler up near the peak, and Jake and […]
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