The first reaction of many people who have visited the Kalona Streetscape project inside the Wahl Museum at the Kalona Historical Village is to say, “This is awesome.”

They are right. It is an awesome display depicting the history of the Kalona business district.    With the guidance and help of Edwards Creative of Moline, IL, Janet Ferry and other members of the streetscape committee have developed a great venue that everyone in Kalona should see as well as all their friends and relatives. This exhibit is worth the price of admission let alone all the other historical buildings and museums at the Kalona Historical Village. It is a place you can be proud to take your visitors to see. 

You can tell that Terry Miller and his crew at Miller Builders constructed the project with great skill and love for what they were building.  Gary Beckley of Beckley Electric also did a great job. Volunteers put in endless hours to get the project ready for the ribbon cutting and open houses the first weekend in August as well.  

Much credit should go to Tim Wren and his crew from Edwards Creative for providing the vision to create an “awesome” display of Kalona history.

This week’s issue of The News features a special 4-page section on the various storefronts that are in the Streetscape project.  Share it with friends and relatives and plan to visit the Village soon. 

While the fabrication work is close to being done, much work remains to raise money to pay off the loan from Hills Bank that the Kalona Historical Society has had to take out to finance the project. Steve Reif, executive director of the Historical Society, told Rotarians Tuesday, August 15, that $250,000 needs to be raised to pay off the loan.

We challenge you  to please donate some funds to help pay for this “awesome” project.  

Visitors from Smithsonian 

The Historical Village quilt collection and Streetscape are already attracting visitors from outside Iowa.

Tuesday Mary Savig and Sarah Morris of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, which is just across the street from the entrance to the White House in Washington, DC, visited the Kalona Historical Village and were impressed. They noted it is unusual to find such a quality display of quilts and the Streetscape as well as other displays in the Wahl Museum. 

Savig is the Lloyd Herman Curator of Crafts at the Renwick Gallery.

Savig and Morris were in Iowa doing crafts and quilts research and were planning to spend Wednesday researching crafts at the Iowa State Fair as well as visiting the Kalona booth there. Monday they spent all day at the Grant Wood museum. Morris also toured the Czech Museum in Cedar Rapids. 

Fall Sports also inside, thank you advertisers

This week’s issue of The News also features a special Fall Sports Preview for Mid-Prairie, Hillcrest Academy, Pathway, Highland and Lone Tree schools. The section features photos and schedules for football, cross-country and volleyball. Not all schools offer all sports.

Sports editor Giovanni Coronel and sport reporters Paul Bowker and TJ Rhodes have worked hard to produce a quality publication. 

We thank all the coaches and athletes for their cooperation. 

We also want to thank all the advertisers from Kalona, Riverside, Lone Tree, Wellman and Nichols for helping to make this special section possible. 

Weeds cut

We were pleased to see that the Mid-Prairie School board noticed the out of control weeds on the two dirt piles at the construction site between the Middle School and East Elementary and to see the weeds cut. Hopefully the construction crew will keep them under control during the long construction period. 

The work crew also cleaned up the weeds along the drive entrance off H Avenue and seeded down both sides of the driveway.