April 2013

Humboldt High School’s spring play will be Woody Allen’s comedy, “Don’t Drink the Water.” Performances are Thursday, April 4, and Saturday, April 6, at 7:30 p.m. each night in the R. Wesley Carlson Auditorium at Humboldt High School. General admission tickets are available at the high school office for $5 each. Directed by Mike Terwilliger, playing the principal roles in the play are Jake Helvick and Sarah Rasmussen as Walter and Marion Hollander, American tourists in a communist country who are accused of espionage. Andra Niles plays their daughter, Susan, who becomes the love interest of Axel Magee, played by Sam George. Axel is the son of Ambassador Magee (Jacob Miller). Other members of the cast are Scott Carver, Keegan Christensen, Jonathon Schaffer, Jenifer Bentz, Will Dunscombe, Josh Weisbrich, Abby Naeve, Kait Daisy, Jeremiah Larrabee and Tyler Dahl.

Humboldt and Dakota City residents will have a big bill to get rid of water, something that has been in short supply for the past 18 months. During Monday night’s Humboldt City Council meeting, the council, acting as drainage district trustees for Drainage District No. 13A, heard from Drainage Engineer Rick Hopper with Jacobson-Westergard and Associates of Estherville. The five-member group approved the reclassification report for 13A, and set Monday, June 3, at 5:30 p.m., as the date and time for a public hearing on the report. Hopper provided the trustees with a breakdown for work in Drainage District No. 80, most of which was completed in 2009 in Dakota City. That large tiling project took 104 acres from the DD 80 watershed and diverted it east to the East Fork of the Des Moines River, and away from flood-prone areas in northern Humboldt. Because of flooding in 2007, ’08 and 2010, about $362,000 in repairs have been made in Drainage District No.

April is National Pecan month. This week’s column is going to explore the history of the pecan and provide some unusual pecan recipes. The pecan is the only major tree nut that grows naturally in North America and is considered one of its most valuable nut species. Native Americans first cultivated the pecan tree and it was used in the U.S. and Mexico as a major food source during autumn. In the late 1600s or early 1700s Spanish colonists and Franciscans cultivated pecan tree plantings. These documented plantings preceded the first recorded plantings by U.S. colonists by about 60 years. On Long Island, NY in 1772, the first U.S. pecan planting took place.

NORMA J. WATTS, 90, Sioux Falls, SD, formerly of LuVerne and Humboldt, died Thursday, March 28, 2013, at the Sanford Medical Center, Sioux Falls, SD. Those wishing to send online condolences can send them to mason@goldfieldaccess.net and we will see that it gets to the family. Be sure to put the deceased’s name in the subject line.