You can help the Crawford County Hospital

Siemens is giving an MRI scanner away free. This $1.5 million scanner could be won by CCMH if they receive enough votes for the video they made. Go to www.winanmri.com to vote. You may vote once a day until Dec. 31st.

Veteran's Day Tribute

During the WW I years, Arthur S. Mole and John D. Thomas made some incredible human pictures by using thousands of sailors or soldiers in uniform to create images. This was taken at Camp Dodge in Iowa and involved 18,000 men!
Say a prayer for all of our service men and women and their families this Sunday at 11 AM. And please pray for peace. Remember, the armistice ending WWI was signed at 11 AM on 11/11/1919.

Rush Hour Traffic in Iowa

This is my commute. For my friends and relatives in Phoenix and LA, and scattered elsewhere around the country. I remember taking an hour to travel 4 or 5 miles on the Freeways on the way to work in the morning and on the way home in the afternoons... That was year round. Here in Iowa in only happens a few weeks out of the year, but it can sure be a drag having to crawl along at 5 or 10 MPH. Fortunately there's not much oncoming traffic, so you can pass on the downhills. In case you're wondering, that's a ice-scraper/snow brush for the windshield that's sitting on my dash in the top picture.

New Mayor

Connie Bridgmen was elected Mayor of Ricketts Iowa yesterday by a vote of 47-7.
Mind you, this is a preliminary result- I'm not the best journalist, my only source on this is my wife's grandmother, Laura Langholdt, a long time resident of Ricketts. I've tried the Crawford County website and Iowa's Secretary of State, even the Denison Bulletin/Review but no one has anything posted yet.

You may scoff at an election with only 54 people voting, but remember, the Ricketts population is only 140. When you consider how many of those 140 are children, that's an amazing turn out!

I'd better keep my nose out of it, but I can tell you that it was a rather contentious campaign. Former Mayor Copeland had a long record to run on, but still decided to "go negative" toward the end there. I couldn't tell you whether that was a determining factor or not, but I'm sure that there are plenty of those 54 voters who would tell you if you asked.

Sorry, I don't know anything about who else may have gotten onto the city council, but if you call the number for City Hall on the right side of this website, you can probably find out sooner or later.

Kudos to all you Ricketts voters who came out and participated in our American democracy. Good luck to Mayor-Elect Bridgmen.

You're all welcome to participate in this website by sending me any notices, memos, pictures, ideas, stories, memories or announcements that you'd like to share with your fellow "Rickettosians." Just write me at ted.mallory@gmail.com.

Election Day: Tuesday, November 6, 2007

Polling site: Rickets City Hall

Polling hours: 7 a.m.-8 p.m.

Mayor, two candidates, two-year term: Connie Bridgeman and Wayne P. Copeland

Three council positions, three candidates, two-year terms: Drene Briggle, Jennifer Hennings and Edwin D. Schreiber

Ballot question on changing the use of local option sales tax funds

Not the same Ricketts #18

Lieutenant Milton Ernest Ricketts, USN (1913-1942). Halftone photograph copied from Medal of Honor, The Navy. Lt. Ricketts was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for heroism during the Battle of Coral Sea, 8 May 1942. He was in charge of a USS Yorktown (CV-5) damage control party that suffered many casualties from a bomb explosion. Despite mortal wounds, Lt. Rickets deployed a fire hose and successfully contained the resulting fire before he died.

You guessed it, Lt. Milt here doesn't really have anything to do with the city of Ricketts, a sleepy little village in Western Iowa, but most of the rest of this website does.

Don't forget, if you're from Ricketts, you're invited to their annual reunion, next year it will be on the fourth Saturday in July. If you're Joe Ricketts, maybe you'd like to come too, and bring the team, Ricketts has a ball diamond. Maybe they'd be willing to put on an exhibition. Or play the guys in the Fire Dept? Wouldn't that be great?

As for everybody else, if you have memories or pictures of Ricketts to share, email them to our webmaster: ted.mallory@gmail.com I'll even accept funny, kitsch, or corny "Not the same Ricketts" ideas. Help put Ricketts on the map!

I mean it you guys- I need your help. There are a couple of people who hate when I post these "not the same Ricketts" things on here, well, then send me something better. What's going on in Ricketts? Any announcements? Any great memories or stories or pictures? How about from Ricketts Thanksgivings from days gone by?! Help me out- please!