Our Favorite Stories from 2018

Maryalene LaPonsie, Tina Dickerman, and Amanda Schrauben

Last week, we told you the ten articles that were most popular with Lowell’s First Look readers. Today, we want to share our top picks. These are stories that either touched our hearts, shared valuable information or were just plain fun to write.

Take a look:

Amanda’s Favorite Stories from 2018

A Look Inside Perseverance Stories

Each summer, we publish a series of articles provided by Pink Arrow Pride that document the experience of local families affected by cancer. This year, Amanda was asked to help write the story for one family and had a chance to go behind the scenes on how the Stories of Perseverance come together. She found it to be a powerful experience. She appreciated having the chance to hear directly from those going through a cancer journey and connect with community members on a more personal level.

Lowell Community History Series: Recreation Park

This article is hopefully the first in a series of articles Amanda would like to write about the community’s history. With the youth fair set to leave Recreation Park soon, this seemed like a good place to start. She loves learning about how Lowell evolved over the years, and you should see more articles like this on Lowell’s First Look in 2019.

Kindergarten Students Participate in Wilderness Immersion Week

If you have children at Bushnell or Cherry Creek Elementary School, you might recognize Amanda’s name from the PTO. She’s a past president, remains an active part of the group and is a strong supporter of all things Lowell Area Schools. So it’s no surprise that one of her favorite articles from 2018 focuses on a school activity. She picked this one – about some of the district’s youngest students getting a hands-on education at the nature center – because it represents the type of creative, out-of-the-box learning that make our local schools so special.

Maryalene’s Favorite Stories from 2018

Alden Nash: Man of Mystery

Alden Nash (right) and his wife Olive

This article was something of a white whale for me. I spent more than a year searching for information on the elusive Mr. Nash until finally I discovered the answers I had been seeking were just down the road in Bowne Township. I was almost as happy to clear this article off my to-do list as I was to shed some light on one of Lowell’s lesser known early settlers.

Student Walk-Out Causes Controversy

Annelise Kolp holds up one of the flyers for the Lowell High School Walk-Out.

I selected this article not so much for its content but rather because it represents how we hope to address difficult topics on Lowell’s First Look. When students at the high school decided to stage a walk-out in response to a school shooting, the TV media seemed focused on the fact that a county official took the school district to task on social media over the event. No one seemed interested in talking to the students involved for their take on the situation. We wanted to change that. Did we have a political agenda in publishing this article? Nope. Our only agenda was to make sure Lowell residents heard all sides of the story so they could make up their own mind on the appropriateness of the walk-out.

Fair Community Rallies to Honor Alto Boy

Joanna Link and the dairy steer she auctioned in honor of her uncle, Freddie Oesch.

It was an honor to write this story about Freddie Oesch, who died at age 10, and the niece he never met who was raising money to put his name on a barn at the new fairgrounds. While I’ve always loved the fair, as a city girl, I have no personal experience with 4-H. Writing this article left me doubly impressed with both the work ethic of the kids involved in the program as well as the deep compassion found within this tight-knit community.

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