The staff at Cal Elementary School in Latimer are inviting members of the community to their open house on Thursday, Feb. 29, from 5 to 7 p.m. 
There will be a meal, green screen photos, travel brochures from the third graders, a science fair for the second graders, 3-D printed star constellations from the first graders, community surveys and more. 
 

After doing so well last year, Leon Kuehner said he and others on the Franklin County Arts Council were eager to bring back the “We the Many” concert they pulled off last spring.
 
 
According to Kuehner, one main reason for the success of last year’s concert was its star, Mario Arevalo, who’s currently working as a voice teacher at The New World School of the Arts in Miami, Florida.
 
 

A group of local veterans and their partners were treated to a free trip to the Sullivan Brothers Iowa Veterans Museum on Tuesday, Jan. 30, with funding that was donated by a local veteran who passed away several years ago.

Bruce Dohrmann, 77, of Latimer, left thousands of dollars to city and county entities in his will, after passing away on April 27, 2023, according to attorney Art Cady, who’s handling his estate. 

Jacob Grefe, 25, of Hampton, has been serving as an aviation mechanic in the U.S. Marines for the last four years, and he's thriving.
Grefe said he first became interested in joining the Marines toward the end of his high school career, as many of his family members had served in the military before him. 

Clay artist and instructor Nathan Moore — who runs a company called “Nathan & Clay” — taught his first pottery classes in Hampton this weekend, at First and Second Vintage Too! 
Moore said that he was put in touch with Jerre Grefe, the owner of First and Second Vintage and First and Second Vintage Too!, after meeting someone at the Geneva Market, who put them in touch. 

Hampton-Dumont-CAL’s Bulldog Cafe released its spring 2024 menu — featuring cuisine from different countries at each cafe. 
 
Leslie Pralle Osborn, who took over the Bulldog Cafe at the start of the fall semester, said that the students come up with the menu for each semester, and that this time they wanted to push themselves to learn about foods from around the world. 
 

Scott Grummer, Iowa Department of Natural Resources fisheries management biologist, said Beeds Lake can usually be ice fished on until March, but that it looks like ice fishing will have to wrap up early this year.

Britt's Boutique Owner Britt Lumley and First and Second Vintage Owner Jerre Grefe put their heads together for a cookie-decorating (and mimosa) extravaganza on Sunday, Feb. 4 — the first of its kind for the City of Hampton. 

Nine students’ artwork from Hampton-Dumont Middle School have been selected for the MacNider Art Show in Mason City on March 23.
Hampton-Dumont Middle School art teacher Abby Sheeler said she entered 24 entries from her middle school students for the art show, which is hosted by the MacNider Art Museum in Mason City.

Forty-six speech students from Hampton-Dumont-Cal High School performed at the Feb. 3 State Large Group Speech contest at Dubuque Senior High School — with seven of the eleven events earning a Division 1 rating. 

Hampton Youth for Christ Director Tara Friedl encourages one and all to attend the Feb. 16 Youth for Christ Valentine’s Dinner.

Proceeds will go toward helping students from Franklin County attend the annual Castaway Club camps in Detroit Lakes, MN. The higher schoolers will attend from June 9 to July 14 and the middle school students will go from July 30 to Aug. 3.

The Hampton City Council approved a resolution with new fees for peddlers, solicitors and transient merchants at their Jan. 25 meeting.

Staff and board members at the Coulter Public Library raised more than one thousand dollars at their Jan. 28 chili cook-off. 
There were ten types of chili at the event, and everyone who stopped by tasted and voted on their favorite chili. Ryan Hesse’s archaic chili took first, Anne Heinrich’s white chicken chili took second and Val

The Education First (EF) Program — a J-1 student exchange program designated by the U.S. Department of State — is seeking Hampton families to host foreign exchange students from around the world. 
EF international exchange coordinator Kathy Enslin, who places students in local homes for the program, said they weren’t able to find any Hampton families to help them this year, and that they would like to change that.