On the evening of March 31 in southeast Ames, concerned parents gathered at Kate Mitchell Elementary School to discuss growing tensions attributed to allegations of student misconduct and an emotionally charged e-mail that had spawned in their presence. Some of the claims – a pack of fifth graders bullying classmates, for instance, and books gone [...]

[Read more →]

Two years ago, the second floor Gallery Room at Iowa State’s Memorial Union hosted a show featuring a series of photographs of Iowa musicians. The title and description of the show suggested that the photographs would represent the range of Iowa music, yet almost all of the photos were of artists based in Iowa City. [...]

[Read more →]

Jordan Zantow is a painter, cartoonist, and musician who grew up in Boone and currently lives in Ames. He has a distinct visual style that is characterized by an eye-popping barrage of colors and shapes that are loosely arranged around psychedelic cartoon characters. His work has been on display at Stomping Grounds in Campustown for [...]

[Read more →]

My father’s cousin grew up on a grain farm with his big sister and their parents, who were two generations off the boat from Sweden. They named him Harle.
When he was a teenager, his father Joe died. His sister had already married and moved away. He stayed and farmed the family’s acres and took [...]

[Read more →]

A conversation with Mitchell Squire, creator of Spoonful – a temporary space installation on the east end of Main Street.
Last month Jerrod Jordahl and I made our way to one of the most interesting and small spaces we had encountered on Main Street. Mitchell Squire, a professor of architecture, had invited us to see [...]

[Read more →]

Man, I can’t begin to tell you the many steps it took for The Atudes’ debut album Rumor Has It to end up in my mailbox! Let’s just say there is some fortunate person in east Ames who was lucky enough find an advance copy of the record in their mailbox. So I will write [...]

[Read more →]

Long ago, more years than I care to acknowledge, I went to see a show at the Maintenance Shop. I don’t even remember what show it was, to be honest, but I recall that Keepers of the Carpet were the opening band, and I was struck by how damn poppy, happy, and upbeat they were. [...]

[Read more →]

Rick Lem is a cartoonist who lives in Kelley, Iowa. He founded his weekly publication Toons in 1987, which is distributed in and around Ames bearing his “Lemco Productions” business name. Since Toons began, Lem and his publication have become an important and well-recognized part of the Ames community. The Ames Progressive recently sat down [...]

[Read more →]

Every few days, Ben Hull descends the stairs at 303 Main Street to toil amid sheets of drywall and piles of sawdust, renovating a tiny suite of basement rooms. Hull’s no stranger to this kind of work. He’s been a construction worker of one stripe or another for the past decade. But come April 2010, [...]

[Read more →]

On the afternoon of February 17, the Iowa Board of Pharmacy voted unanimously to recommend that the state Legislature revise its cannabis laws to allow for the plant’s medical use. The board’s decision was the expected end result of four public forums held across the state last fall, which convened following a lawsuit spearheaded by [...]

[Read more →]