THURSDAY |JULY 9, 2020|VOLUME 96| ISSUE 28 $100

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SUPERVISORS Page 2

By: ROBERT MAHARRYThe Grundy Register

GRUNDY CENTER- The Grundy County Board of Super-visors approved the use of the courthouse grounds for an event on July 14 and made several ap-pointments to boards and com-mittees during Monday morn-ing’s regular meeting.

The Iowa Bible Reading Marathon, which already held its annual event in late June on the courthouse grounds, has requested to use them again for an event to be held on July 14 at 7:14 a.m. for one hour to “proclaim the word of God.” A motion to approve the request carried unanimously.

The board appointed Doug Kruse of Conrad to the Grun-dy County Memorial Hospital Board of Commissioners to fill a seat vacated by the departure of Helene Wirtz. John Schull-er was also reappointed to the INRCOG Regional Housing Council, and Jim Mutch was reappointed to the conservation board.

County Engineer Gary Mau-er brought more right-of-way agreements to the board for the Grundy Road project and re-ceived unanimous approval, and he also reported that shoulder mowing has been finished.

Board Chairwoman Barb Smith told the supervisors that she and fellow supervisor Heidi Nederhoff have been working together on developing a plan for new part-time employee Grace Maitland, who will be as-sisting County Custodian Mark Jungling with cleaning duties. Smith also noted that the total number of COVID-19 cases in Grundy County is up to 39 with

Supervisors approve courthouse grounds use, board appointments

The Grundy Register

Local sportsA productive first inning was enough for

Dike-New Hartford to settle in and win an 11-1, five-inning contest with Aplington-Parkersburg on Tuesday, June 30. Read complete article and all the other sports stories on pages. 10-12.

Page 12

GC council discusses pool restrictions, upper story housing project

By: ROBERT MAHARRYThe Grundy Register

GRUNDY CENTER- The Grundy Center city council heard from a concerned resi-dent about the aquatic center and discussed progress on the upper story housing project at the former Frederick’s building during Monday night’s regular meeting.

As the current max occupan-cy restriction is 125 due to the COVID-19 situation, Grundy Center resident Amber Sly told the council she had tried to come to the pool twice last week and could not get in because it was full. She said she noticed sever-al out of state license plates and recommended that the city take steps to limit who can attend.

“I think for the safety of our kids, we should consider lim-iting it to Grundy Center kids who attend our school district,” she said.

The council considered her comments later in the meeting but did not take any official action, as members opined that it would be too difficult for pool staff to keep track of and could create issues because they would have to decide whether to allow city residents only or school district residents from Holland and rural areas.

It was also noted that the pool had only hit the 125 capac-ity twice.

COUNCIL Page 2

By: ROBERT MAHARRYThe Grundy Register

BEAMAN- Most longtime residents of Beaman remem-ber the old community store fondly along county highway T-29 fondly, but it’s been near-ly 30 years since it closed its doors. That all changed last month when locals Pat Jackley and Rhonda Rego opened Wolf Creek Antiques inside the new-ly restored facility.

“It had been vacant and in increasingly bad repair, so we decided we needed to kind of address the overall state,” Jack-ley said. “Once we got into the renovation thing, we thought ‘Well, we’ll have a shop. We’ll have arts and antiques.’… We tried to do a couple of nods to Beaman.”

Jackley and Rego had previ-ously sold antiques on Ebay and felt that a brick and mortar loca-tion would be good both for the business and the community. They’ve also hired Ellie Capu-to on to join the staff, and since they opened at the same time that Highway 14 was shut down from Highway 175 to Highway 96 for resurfacing—with T-29 as the official detour—they’ve also received a surprising boost in foot traffic by a bit of good luck.

The old Beaman Communi-ty Store sign is featured prom-inently above the cash register, and the retrofitted lights that illuminate the interior come from the old high school gym. There’s a deep appreciation for the history of the town at play,

both in the store’s offerings and the building itself, which was remodeled by local contractor LJ Kopsa over a period of about five months. They’ve also re-vived some products from an old toy factory that used to op-erate in an adjoining building that’s since been torn down.

Both Jackley and Rego were longtime personal collectors of antiques who decided that sell-ing them would be an outgrowth of their personal hobbies, and Rego added that the store makes it easier to sell papers and post-ers because she found it harder to ship them through the mail.

As the business grows and transforms, the owners plan to

New life for an old buildingAntique store opens at site of Beaman Community Store

ANTIQUE STORE Page 2

Area clinics join UnitypointOne clinic in Reinbeck and another just over the

county line in Hudson have officially joined the Unity-point network as of July 6.

Page 3

By: ROBERT MAHARRYThe Grundy Register

GRUNDY CENTER- Dr. Ryan Weaver loves to experi-ment with his 3D printer, and during the COVID-19 pandem-ic, he’s been using it to create plastic respirators for patients.

It started a few years back when he acquired one of the printers to assist with his den-tal implant work, and he heard about the masks from a dentist in Montana who was providing plans for them. He’s already been distributing them to other doctors in the area and around the country.

“I found them, I just tried them out and they work real-ly well,” Weaver said. “Since I didn’t really have anything to do, just like everyone else, I took my printer home, and I printed a mask or two ev-ery day, cleaned them up and shipped them out.”

Weaver says his patients have been understanding of the new guidelines and restrictions that have arisen out of the pan-demic, but the masks and face shields he’s made have helped to restore some sense of nor-malcy.

“There’s a little more that we have to do, but by and large, we seem to be getting closer and closer to normal ev-ery day,” he said. “The whole objective was to try and make it safe for patients to come and make it safe for my staff in this

Getting creative during COVIDGrundy Center dentist creates plastic masks with 3-D printer

environment, and I think we’ve done that.”

As dentistry moves forward through this situation, Weav-er believes that it will become even more digital in the future and plans to continue to work with technology to improve pa-tient care and experience. The Idaho native has been thankful

for the support he’s received from both the Grundy Center community and his patients during a difficult time.

“Things are a little more cumbersome, and nobody’s complained,” he said. “I’m incredibly grateful for how they’ve supported us and kept us in business.”

By: SETH McDUFFEEThe Grundy Register

The 4th of July weekend festivities have come and gone, and because of social strains due to the pandemic and subsequent quarantine, it was rumored that this year, Independence Day hoopla would reach a rowdy and raucous racket. However, despite numerous complaints of celebration impropriety in surrounding counties, Grundy County seemed to be largely at peace through the holiday.

Grundy County Sheriff Rick Penning indicated that there had been no real issues through Fri-day, Saturday, and Sunday and said that the number of reports were just like any other year.

Firework laws have seen some changes since May of 2017 when former Iowa gover-nor Terry Brandstad legalized their use, though with restric-tions. Many Iowans are unclear as to what elements of the laws pertains to whom, and to where even now over three years lat-er. Noise complaints are still fairly frequent, and citizens in neighboring Black Hawk Coun-ty have taken to social media

to extoll the woes of their own neighborhoods’ late-night fire-work fiascos.

According to Conrad city of-ficials, a citizen came forward and asked for an item in rela-tion to the weekend noise to be placed on the agenda for discus-sion on Thursday night. Coun-cilors are meeting to discuss the issue, but there is no action on the table at this time.

The other cities in the county had very few if any complaints of noise, despite restrictions to time. It seems that this particu-lar slice of Iowa made sure to contain their celebratory joy to the hours of 9 and 10 PM.

An issue free Independence Day

At left, Wolf Creek Antiques owners Rhonda Rego (left) and Pat Jackley (right) pose for a photo inside of their recently opened store in Beaman. At right, em-ployee Ellie Caputo (left), Rego and Jackley stand outside of the building. (Robert Maharry/The Grundy Register photos)

Dr. Ryan Weaver stands with his 3D printer at his den-tal office in Grundy Center. (Contributed photo)