by Elaine Rassel

Monday at 4 p.m., WesTel representatives Robin Jenness and Bob Gannon were at the MMCRU High School gym with a check to give to the MMCRU High School Basketball girls for $1,000! This check was very much appreciated by the girls. These girls were going to STATE in hopes of getting the championship trophy! History was made by MMCRU (known as the ROYALS) when they were back-to-back going to state to play. The last time Marcus was at State was 1986!
A 2:15 p.m. send-off was on Tuesday for the girls. Good-well wishes were made to the team and then they boarded a chartered bus headed for Des Moines led by police car, ambulance, firetruck, and the fire dept.’s grass pickup. After the bus were several cars.
The Royals (MMCRU) girls won over Exira-EHK (Elk Horn and Kimballton) by a score of 50-39. They had lost their chance to go to state last year because of Exira-EHK winning. This year they knew this team, knew the floor at the Arena and were out to win!
Friday, the Royals probably caused the biggest upset that week at the Iowa high school girls’ basketball tournament on Friday when they beat Class 1A top-seeded Newell-Fonda by a score of 66-62 in the semifinals. We were able to sit at home and watch this game. We wondered why we couldn’t see Heelan’s game that was supposed to be played on Friday evening. Later we found it was on Channel 27-1. Heelan lost 40-54 with Cedar Rapids Xavier being the winning team.
Saturday there was a weather problem that Channel 27-1 was having so we didn’t get to see not much of the Central Lyon’s game with Dike-New Hartford winning 59-52.
It was 7 p.m. and time for MMCRU to play their final game for MMCRU for the championship against Bishop Garrigan. I did see the last game that Bishop Garrigan had played and won in order to play in the finals. They had a girl, #55 that would be hard to get past if we got close to the basket. She was “built” for her position. The previous game she was in was when she got over 20 points. Her team depended on her being in her position.
The MMCRU girls played their best over the circumstances they faced. Mia Holmes was sitting for awhile as they were out to get her. When she did come in, she made a 3-pointer followed by a cheering section of people. Then, she did it again! These 6 points helped. If Bishop Garrigan they thought they were going to win this game big-time, they were wrong! We started to narrow the score down much to their dismay. When the final buzzer went off, MMCRU had lost by 3 points. No matter the outcome of the game, we are PROUD of these girls. It had been 36 years since Marcus had been to State!
Sunday at 1 p.m., there was a coming-home welcome for the MMCRU basketball girls. A couple of the girls and the coach spoke to the group that had gathered in the gym. There were people wearing shirts with the basketball girls’ names and the fact they were qualifying to go to State on the back of the shirt. (Check with the school if you are interested in this apparel to see who made these.) Pictures were taken including the runner-up trophy. Congratulations, girls.
Thursday night Zachary and Bethany went to the Martina McBride concert at the Orpheum in Sioux City that had been cancelled earlier because she was ill. It took three years and four dates to finally get her to come back to Sioux City. She was dressed in knee-high boots and a black sequined jacket, top and shorts as she sang some of her favorite songs. I didn’t know until the last minute that they were going. I called Steve and said if he liked waffles, he should come down. It is not very often I get to have waffles with anyone as the two in the household don ‘t care for waffles or pancakes. Anyway, we watched a game that was played at the Des Moines Arena after the waffles were eaten!
Recently there was an article on the responsibility of a driver in a car that was “robot” driven. The other day it was reported that an older woman had parked her car parallel to the curb, got out of the car and had just reached the sidewalk, when a “robot” car sideswiped her car. She was lucky she was out of the car. The driver is thought to have been on a phone/game and not paying attention as to how the car was being driven. (If the driver is to be paying attention, then why isn’t he doing the driving?)
The 1.000 pound bronze bell that was forged in 1834 by Paul Revere’s son, Joseph Warren Revere, was pictured getting ready for shipping on February 8 in Chino Hills, Calif., for transport to the Paul Revere Heritage site in Canton, Massachusetts.
This bell is finally coming back to where it belongs. Nearly two centuries ago, it went cross country by oxcart to churches in Ohio before it was left for decades in a California garage.
In 1984, real estate agent became the bell’s accidental owner. She’d helped broker the sale of what once was First Congregational Church in Vermilion, Ohio, to a fitness center. However, the gym didn’t want the heavy bell, and the real estate agent didn’t think it should be scrapped so she made a $1,000 donation to the church in exchange for the bell. When she and her husband retired in Chino Hills, they took the bell with them. Every July 4th. their family would open the garage doors and ring the bell.
Then the real-estate broker and her husband died, their daughter and her brother, moved the bell to her garage where it has sat since 2009. She had been offered $50,000 for it which bears Revere’s imprimatur. But he casually mentioned he would melt it down, that did it! She did some online inquiring and decided it should go back “home”. Police in Canton planned early Friday were to escort the truck carrying the bell to the Paul Revere Heritage Site (a 9-acre facility that preserves Revere’s legacy.)
A large barn in Sioux Center was moved a few miles to its new home for the Sioux County city’s Heritage Village. The barn was dismantled into three sections for the move so the structure could navigate city streets. The it was reassembled at Tower Fields. The barn was the last in a series of historical buildings that Berghorst & Sons of Hull has moved in the past few months. The Heritage Village buildings were raised up from their previous site at Seventh Street Northeast to make room for an $8.5 million, 120,000 square foot indoor sports complex. The domed structure will feature indoor turf. It is a joint project between the city and Dordt University.
This week there are two pop concerts Tuesday the band pops is at Marcus and Thursday, the musical pops is at Remsen.
Remember in your thoughts and prayers those who have lost loved ones to death, are dealing with health problems of which some are terminal, are struggling to make ends meet even though they have a job, encourage others to go to work, and encourage those who have distanced themselves from friends and family to build a bridge instead of a wall. Count your blessings.
I will leave you with this quote from John F. Kennedy (1917-1963): “Too often we…enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.”