Otley

• Charlotte Bowden, of Otley, has been awarded a beekeeping scholarship from the Iowa Honey Producers Association. Bowden will receive a bee hive, beekeeping equipment, honeybees, a mentor and beekeeping classes. In late APril, Bowden will receive her bees and install them into her hive with the help of her mentor. Throughout the spring and summer, she will check on and monitor the progress of her bees. In the fall, there may be some honey to harvest. The goal of the first year is to get the hive through an Iowa winter. — Monroe Legacy

Prairie City

• The Prairie City-Monroe school board, by a 6-1 vote, has approved a major change in the 2018-19 school calendar, granting teacher’s and administrator’s request for a weekly 90-minute late start on Mondays. The extra time will be set aside for teachers to have a consistent block designated for collaboration every week. — Prairie City News

Washington County

• Washington County 4-H County Council invited Kindergarten through fourth grade girls and their special man to a Night on the Town Father Daughter dance held in the Dallmeyer Hall basement. Sixty-eight couples came, each posing at the photo booth for a framed keepsake of the evening. This night of special memories included dancing, refreshments, door prizes, corsages and fun. — The Clarion-Plainsman

Swedesburg

• The Swedish-American Museum at Swedesburg has many unique items including a featured melodeon, an early instrument in immigrant churches and schools. The melodeon on exhibit was originally made for Magnus Munter (1841-1884), an organist at the New Sweden Lutheran Church. Munter had only one flexible leg, the result of an injury he received while in the Swedish army. Most melodeons were made with two pedals, so he had this one made with just one pedal so he could play it. Most likely, Munter’s melodeon was made by John Magnus Levendahl who also built the church organ in New Sweden. — Winfield Beacon – Wayland News

Winterset

• Winterset city utility officials say it will cost thousands of dollars, and perhaps several tens of thousands of dollars, to reroute water lines near the Winterset Junior-Senior High School complex if an April bond issue is approved by voters to, among other things, build a new gymnasium. The city water lines feed not only the east side of the high school, but the west side of the junior high with six-and eight-foot pipes. The gym location is atop several water lines, meaning the lines would have to be moved. — Winterset Madisonian