The Hartley Sentinel-The Everly/Royal News - Serving O'Brien & Clay Counties

Voters have busy lives – families to care for, jobs demanding their attention, bills to worry about. So, they can be forgiven if they do not closely track their government leaders’ statements and act...

One of the fallacies of politics these days is the notion of simple solutions. Regardless of whether the problem is immigration, the homeless, gun ownership or transgender people, too many leaders or...

A few months ago, I bumped into a former aide to Gov. Robert Ray. As we reminisced about the governor, our conversation turned to his nearly daily meetings with journalists. The aide said yes, those...

Many decades ago, Mrs. Gentry and Mr. Halferty put up with an inquisitive kid’s classroom questions about American democracy and the workings of government. I did not imagine back then how the meaning...

There were more disclosures in recent days in the ongoing saga involving the ethical standards of justices on the U.S. Supreme Court – or, more accurately, the lack of ethical standards. With each n...

Silly me. I thought I had been paying attention to the issues about which Iowans feel strongly. You know, things like inflation, taxes, government spending, the war in Ukraine, a new farm bill, water...

These are challenging times for Iowa’s 327 public school districts. They are being watched closely by state officials and lawmakers, by parents and by others in the community. These eyes are l...

The Iowa Legislature and Gov. Kim Reynolds cannot seem to make up their minds whether they support parental rights or are against Mom and Dad being the decision-makers when it comes to their...

In politics, having a “trifecta” in government is a good thing for a political party – until the trifecta’s inaction on some popular issue starts to haunt the party. Iowa Republicans served up an e...

Few people like being told what they must do. Lorie Smith is one of them. The suburban Denver, Colo., business owner, a devout Christian, builds websites for customers. She wants to expand her...

It won’t be long before empty parking spaces near the Iowa Capitol will be as hard to find as a compromise between Democrats and Republicans. The Legislature returns to Des Moines on Jan. 9, more f...

I try to stay atop the day’s news. But I must have dozed off last week, because I missed the response from Iowa Republican leaders to the Biden administration’s announcement of $1.3 billion in deb...

President Joe Biden’s decision to cancel up to $10,000 in federal student loans for many borrowers is fair game for vigorous debate – and disagreement. Americans have been debating and dis...

People in the health care field have worked their tails off since the COVID pandemic hit Iowa with a vengeance in 2020. Doctors, nurses and all manner of technicians and support staff have performed h...

What is happening to us? What passes for public discussion these days certainly is not civil or thoughtful. Nor is it really much of a discussion. If you read the comments from some supposed leaders,...

Many years ago, I sat at the kitchen table of a pots-n-pans salesman from Pleasant Valley. We didn’t talk about cookware. He was laying out with lots of precision why the United States government had...

Des Moines Superintendent Thomas Ahart has been a lightning rod during the past three years over the way Iowa’s public schools have responded to the COVID-19 pandemic. Ahart announced last week that h...

I stumbled across a statistical tidbit the other day that probably will surprise many people. U.S. Census Bureau figures show that between 1900 and 2000, the state that grew the least in population, o...

The news out of Afghanistan last month about the terrorist bombing at the airport in Kabul brought fresh heartache – and old memories – to Iowa. A native of Red Oak, Marine Cpl. Daegan Page, 23, was a...

It is hard to imagine Norman Borlaug ever joining in singing “Jolene” or “9 to 5.” I can’t picture him harmonizing in a heart-tugging rendition of “I Will Always Love You.” This is not a knock again...

Controversy, of sorts, arrived in my driveway last week. There was no commotion. There were no protesters. No picketers. No chants about destroying the economy or caving in to China. In fact, there...

It’s hard for those of us of a certain vintage to realize it has been 39 years since Robert Ray was Iowa’s governor. In spite of the passage of so much time, his name was on the minds of many peo...

The decision last week to cancel the Iowa State Fair was a reminder of the seriousness of coronavirus and the consequences of many people's anxiety about returning to activities that normally are an...