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1 week ago | 
globegazette.com | Jason W. Selby
When Ben Levinson, CRNA, NSPM-C, is not relieving pain at the Mitchell County Regional Health Center, he is flying. He commutes to Osage from Decorah, where he lives with his wife and two children, Eleanor, 4, and Vivian, 2. “I’ve been coming here and helping out with anesthesia for six years,” Levinson said. Levinson is originally from Mason City, where he graduated from high school in 2008. His father was a physician, but Levinson never expected to go into medicine.
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2 weeks ago | 
globegazette.com | Jason W. Selby
There are two extremes I have faced in life, outside of the normal tragedies of death and loss, of feeling in tune and as if there is a pattern inherent in the universe, to the second extreme, what is often referred to as "the dark night of the soul." In that condition, there is no sense to be made of the random events that only weigh us down and get heavier with age. It is a slot machine with no jackpot. There are numbers and reason, but the lights dim, the music stops.
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2 weeks ago | 
globegazette.com | Jason W. Selby
On July 1, County Social Services and its 19 employees will be a part of history. That is because all 19 employees, 17 of which are full time, will be out of work. In turn, that is because the Iowa Legislature, signed into law by Gov. Kim Reynolds, passed a bill (HF2673) in 2024 eliminating mental health and disability service regions in Iowa.
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3 weeks ago | 
globegazette.com | Jason W. Selby
Another birthday has passed. I have discovered I am only getting older, and not the other way around. I have known this for some time. In 2019 it was a good year for birthdays. My almost seven-year-old son Grant informed me I was now old. That made it official. He is now almost 13, but in my mind, no matter how old he gets, he will always be seven.
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3 weeks ago | 
globegazette.com | Jason W. Selby
At the June 3 Mitchell County Board of Supervisors meeting, Mitchell County Engineer Rich Brumm reported that rock runs are proceeding in the north part of the county. On the Echo Avenue bridge, they are waiting on a guardrail. “Over a mile and up a little ways is another bridge on the same stream,” Brumm said, “that we’re looking at getting redone, too.”The Board of Supervisors approved a professional services agreement for Rock I-152 bridge.
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4 weeks ago | 
globegazette.com | Jason W. Selby
It took a little over three hours to drive from our farm to the University of Northern Iowa. From here to there and back, it was mostly side highways and backroads, nothing over 55 miles per hour, therefore patience and a good stereo system were virtues. There was usually one necessary pit stop for restroom duty and to buy a Red Bull. This was around the time Hurricane Katrina hit — Aug. 29, 2005 — therefore gasoline cost almost as much as an energy drink purchased from a convenience store.
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1 month ago | 
globegazette.com | Jason W. Selby
This fall, Greg Adams will be flipping the script, becoming the Osage Community Middle School principal, while current middle school principal Bill Carlson will take over Adams’ position as Lincoln Elementary School principal. Both Adams and Carlson needed a change of scenery. “It’s something we were talking about,” Adams said. As well, before being hired by Osage, at Riceville Community School District, Adams was principal for second through 12th grades. He has done it all.
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1 month ago | 
globegazette.com | Jason W. Selby
This is the season of submission for writers like my wife and me. We love the punishment. Literary magazines with affiliations to colleges and universities open up with the start of fall classes. These are small presses. Some pay only in copies of the review, if you’re lucky enough to get an acceptance. More people will read my work in the Mitchell County Press News than most of these small publications. That’s one of the things I like about this job. I have a readership.
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1 month ago | 
globegazette.com | Jason W. Selby
“These facts and opinions look so similar.”Those are Joy’s words from a scene in the animated movie “Inside Out,” as she inadvertently dumps crates of both while riding the Train of Thought into an unsorted puzzle at her feet. It is a joke for adults. When she was younger, my daughter Jasmine picked this Sunday evening film. When I needed subject matter for my column, she sensed it, and she made it about her, which is the four-year-old mentality most of us never outgrow.
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1 month ago | 
globegazette.com | Jason W. Selby
Brent Jennings is a winner. He has led Osage to multiple state championships. He has also led his industrial arts students to professional fields they can be proud of. This May, Jennings will be stepping down. It is not the first time. He left the Army National Guard in 2009. He leaves a legacy of success. Jennings is originally from Clarinda. He graduated from high school in 1986. His mother was on the school board. He grew up with three sisters. “I was a typical teenager in the 1980s,” he said.
