This month has been an exciting one for us at The News, as some of us were able to attend the Iowa Newspaper Association’s annual convention in Des Moines on Feb. 8. The convention offers various seminars on topics of interest to those writing news stories and designing and selling advertising; I myself attended a thought-provoking one on AI in the newsroom and another on open records law. I find learning how other Iowa newspapers do their jobs both interesting and insightful.

We also left the convention with six awards for our work, which is pretty cool. We’re looking forward to displaying them in our office.

Recently I was taking with Tonia Poole, director of the Kalona Chamber of Commerce, about the upcoming Kalona Home Show, which will be a big event for our communities on March 22-23. She mentioned that for this year’s Kalona Days 5K Fun Run coming up in June, the race will be a fundraiser for Parkinson’s Disease.

“It has really hit our community,” Tonia said, so 50% of the proceeds from the race will be donated to the Parkinson’s Foundation.

Last year was the first year the Fun Run served as a fundraiser, and the community was very supportive. Four of us at The News walked or ran it, and we all had a great time.

While talking to director Carrie Geno for this week’s story about the Wellman Library, I asked about the library’s name. Sometimes it’s Wellman Public Library, sometimes it’s Wellman-Scofield Public Library. Which is correct? I asked.

“We are branding ourselves as Wellman Public Library to make it a little clearer because there’s been some confusion in the past with the Scofield in there,” Carrie said.

Legally, the name remains Wellman-Scofield, but publicly, Wellman Public Library is how you will see it referred to. Hiram Scofield will continue to be honored by the naming of a study room in the library and a display of books from his collection.

The donation of a large collection of books from the Scofield estate founded the library in 1908. At that time, Scofield, a Civil War general, had one of the largest private libraries in the country.

Looking at what the Wellman Library has done to make the library spacious and welcoming, Wellman residents may find themselves with a new favorite ‘third place.’