The Quasquicentennial

Committee would

like your family histories.

The Westerner Shootout basketball tournament for boys in grades fifth through eighth will be held Feb, 16 and 17 at Akron-Westfield. Friday begins at 6 p.m. and Saturday begins at 8 a.m. Coordinator Jon Harris said there are approximately 20 teams signed up for the contest.

The Westfield Library

is holding its grand opening Feb. 17, 10 a.m.to 3 p.m. They will also be selling kolaches as a fund-raiser.

The Plymouth County

Pheasants Forever are

holding their banquet

March 3 at the Le Mars Convention Center.

Dave Heeren’s annual

Garst Seed Day is Feb. 21 beginning at noon.

Union county is holding a Legislative Crackerbarrel Feb. 17 at the American Legion in Elk Point.

One of Akron-Westfield’s Large Group Speech teams was chosen to perform at the All-State Speech Festival this Saturday in Ames. The talented Readers Theatre group consists of Savanna Bice, Kalib Heeren, Jordan Hohenstein, Jessica Horton, Kyle Hughes, Shelby Johnson, Annie Kjar, Becca Meerdink, Susan Meerdink, Michael Oetken, Kara Reed and Austin Willer. Under the direction of Large Group Speech Coach Susan Anderson, the Readers Theatre performed “Alky.” A performance at the All-State Festival is the highest honor a large group can receive from the Iowa High School Speech Association. There are 487 schools that belong to the Iowa High School Speech Association, and some 40,000 students participate in speech activities across the state. Speech competitions are not classed according to school enrollment but students from the smallest school compete against students from the largest school in the state. The All-State Festival will commence at 8 a.m. Saturday on the Iowa State University campus in Ames with closing ceremonies at 5 p.m. The A-W Readers Theatre team earned the right to perform at All-State from their outstanding performance at the state competition, which was held on Feb. 3 in Fort Dodge. Only three Readers Theatre groups from each state competition site are invited to perform at All-State. Sioux City East and Sioux City West along with the A-W group were chosen from the Northwest State site. Some of the other Readers Theatre groups performing with A-W at All-State are Dubuque Hempstead, West Des Moines Valley, Cedar Falls University High, Grinnell, Des Moines Hoover, and Cedar Rapids Washington. “These young people have now joined an elite group of All-State Speech performers,” said Anderson. “I was very excited and thrilled with the All-State performance nomination. It is a tremendous achievement and one that many Iowa high school speech students strive to achieve their entire careers. The whole All-State experience is a thrill and a huge honor.” A-W’s Readers Theatre team will not only represent their school, communities and families but now they are representing hundreds of students from Northwest Iowa who competed in the area of Readers Theatre, said Anderson. The All-State nominations actually come from state judges, explained Anderson. The three judges at the state site give any group it feels is “truly outstanding” an All-State ballot. Then at the end of the day, each judge ranks the groups it has given All-State nominations with a point system from one to five. The three groups with the highest point totals are the three groups that perform at All-State. Anderson congratulated each member receiving the All-State honor, and gave them “Best Wishes” for an outstanding performance at the All-State Festival.

The Akron-Westfield students have compiled a year of data on the Big Sioux River tributaries to determine if the tributaries contribute to the river’s impaired state. The results of their study will first be revealed to the public at a dinner forum, which begins at 6 p.m. Monday, Feb. 26 at the Westfield Community Center. The water study project conducted by Akron-Westfield students has been supported by the Natural Resource Conservation District, Plymouth County Farm Bureau, Plymouth County Extension Service, Plymouth County Soil & Water Conservation District. The project began after Iowa Department of Natural Resources placed the Big Sioux River on its impaired water list. County officials wanted to see if they could find out what was causing the impairment as well as determine solutions. Water samples were collected every two weeks on Beaver Creek, Indian Creek, Westfield Creek and the Big Sioux River. Testing was done immediately after collection with EPA-approved equipment and methods. All landowners and tenants living or using the land along the four water bodies are encouraged to attend this meeting. A dinner will be served. Please make reservations by calling the Natural Resource Conservation Service at 712-546-8858 ext. 3.

It’s kind of ironic when two teams play all year and it comes down to the final conference game of the year to settle things. Akron-Westfield traveled to Orange City Feb. 9 to play the Unity Christian girls and came away with a 60-52 win. It proved to be a clash of the Titans, leaders, or what have

you. It was a game to write home about - if I wasn’t already at home! A-W played an almost perfect first half as they bolted to a 20-10 first quarter lead. A-W played excellent defense and ran the floor well. The second quarter was more of the first as the Westerners extended their lead to 17 as they took a 32-15 lead to the locker room. By the way, the UC kids put on an outstanding halftime show. Both boys and girls did a routine that drew a standing ovation from both sides of the floor. A-W still maintained a 15 point spread with four minutes to play in the third. Play did get a little ragged the last three minutes of the quarter but A-W still had a 43-30 lead at the end of three. UC tried to double team Tana Colt and Rachel Harris as well as putting on great pressure. The only flaw in     A-W’s attack was that A-W missed some easy shots close in which let UC back into the game.Kendra De Jong, UC’s fine sophomore, led all scorers with 30. She got open in the middle and capitalized a number of times with buckets to whittle A-W’s lead down. With three minutes to play A-W lead by the narrow lead of 46-42. Colt came up with a great play to put it back to 51-44. UC again cut back the A-W lead to three, 51-48. Shelby Johnson and Colt then went to the charity line eight times and they hit seven to build the lead back to nine, 59-50. A-W scoring leaders were Colt, Brittney Miller and Johnson, while De Jong led UC. It was a great high school game!

A-W: 20-32-43-60   UC: 10-15-32-52   Scoring A-W: Colt, 22; Miller, 17; Johnson, 13 UC: De Jong, 30

by Hank Krause

The Akron-Westfield wrestlers got five first place winners and three second place winners in the Class 1A Sectional. Central Lyon of Rock Rapids hosted the sectional tournament Saturday, Feb. 10. First place for A-W were Marshall Koethe, 130 lbs., Brody Verschoor, 140 lbs., Joe Sievert, 145 lbs., David Hecht, 189 lbs. and David Ericson, heavyweight. Josh Taylor, 103 lbs., John Sievert, 152, lbs. and Chad Morehead, 160 lbs. were second place winners and also advanced in tournament wrestling. Hecht, A-W’s fine 189 pounder, pinned his way through the entire tournament. Hecht’s record now stands at 43-1. Hecht also now owns his 100th win in his career. Not bad for a junior to have 100 wins. These young men will take some fine records into further tourney wrestling. There were two ranked teams at Central Lyon plus 14 ranked wrestlers. Thirteen out of 14 A-W wrestlers placed. Tyler Schneider, 119 lbs. - fourth; Cody Reed, 125 lbs. - fifth; Nick Hoffman, 135 lbs. - fifth; Doug Loutsch, 171 lbs. - third; Eric Waterbury, 215 lbs. - fifth. All wrestlers contributed to the team standing plus one opponent who had fine dental work. A-W entered the fray ranked fourth in the state and did nothing to hurt their standing. The eight sectional winners will travel to West Lyon in Inwood for district action Saturday, Feb. 17 beginning at noon. Fifteen schools will be participating at this district event: A-W, Central Lyon, George-Little Rock, Hartley- Melvin-Sanborn, MMC, Sioux Center, West Lyon, West Sioux, Hinton, Kingsley-Pierson, Lawton-Bronson, Maple Valley-Anthon-Oto, West Monona, Westwood, Woodbury Central.