“There is a time for everything, and a season for every type of activity under the heavens: a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance.” Ecclesiastes 31-3-4 (NIV)

When I think about that scripture, my mind immediately skips to thankfulness in our community. Like how glad I am to live in a good town with doctors and fine medical staff to care for us. How grateful we are to have county officials and employees, and people to drive the county transit van to medical appointments in the other towns. Those who are drivers that I know of are Tim Weeks, Eunice Weber, Jamie Salisbury, and Liz Hulteen. There may be other drivers that I do not know of. The same is true of our ambulance staff of volunteers. I do know that Ken Flory is the full-time driver in Eads. Robert Adamson, who is also on the Weisbrod nursing staff, will drive the ambulances, and does that often. We do so appreciate these compassionate folk who work and serve our community, and I am sure I speak for all the other communities who are so fortunate to have ambulance services and reliable medical clinics and hospitals in their communities.

Last Thursday afternoon, there was a coffee hour at Prairie Pines Assisted Living Community in remembrance of our loving friend, Lola Igou. Lola was a resident at Prairie Pines for the past few years. Her burial was in her home community near Karval. If you haven’t read her obituary, I think it is delightfully written to reflect her personality. I too, along with the family, want to express my thanks to the caring staff at Prairie Pines during her last years.

We are enjoying our 90-year-old friend, Betty Crow, and her daughters, who we get to see a lot. Kim, her eldest daughter who operates the Kiowa County Abstract Office, is always busy. She comes every evening and at other times to help care for her mother’s needs. Another daughter, Tammy, comes on weekends. Saturday, she brought a stack of fine sturdy tea towels for the Eads Senior Citizen Center. It was so kind of her to donate them to our center. We have been surprised that so many people rent our facility, so all those towels are needed for clean up after the showers, reunions, parties, dinners, and business meeting groups that use our lovely center.

There are so many people looking for housing in our town. They probably have heard that this is a good town to live in or near. When we returned from a medical trip from Pueblo Wednesday, Gail Voss drove me by a new tiny house recently set between the former home of Ray and Lucille Crow on Luther Street. Then she showed me where two more tiny houses are set, or will be soon, behind the former Larry Watts home that Brandon and Angela Hoffman and their two teenage sons have recently remodeled inside and out!

This weekend, some of us have been so interested in watching the Eads High School basketball games on television in our dining rooms at Weisbrod Extended Care. Weisbrod Health has purchased an app subscription to NFHS so we can watch our home games. Some other schools also are participants on the app, so that helps us to see more games. That is such a blessing to us who want to see our grandchildren or nieces and nephews or friends. On the other hand, the convnience of this app may cut down on the number of spectators in the gym. That is sad to me. I also miss watching pep clubs and cheerleaders. That is probably because I enjoyed being a Pep Club sponsor for many years.

We will be celebrating Edith Koeller’s birthday February 8. We are looking forward to Brenda Leon’s Valentine’s parties for us also.

My nephew, Shane Lessenden, of Haswell, came to visit me Friday while Pam and Wanda were in the doctor’s office. It was good to hear about his cattle and horses, and his job with the county roads. He is pleased that the county has hired a full crew now to care for the roads at the west end of the county.

There will be a lunch and memorial time for our friend, Tim Hier, February 7 at the Eads Senior Citizen Center. The Hier’s had moved to Denver from Nebraska, where they worked for years, then to Eads. Before his wife, Lonni, died, she made many silk decorations for the senior center, and donated many silk arrangements to us. As our director, Gail Voss, says, we were their friends, their people, so come and have lunch with us and his sisters.

Do watch for the news about discussions on the future plans for our school district in the case of buildings, parking lots, and academics, and the involvement of state government rules for the welfare of our students and teachers.

Grandparents Tim and Sylvia Weeks and Marie Watts, and the Eads and Wiley communities, celebrated with Wiley junior student Landon Weeks last Friday when they were able to go to Denver to see Landon “ring the bell.” This was at the hospital where he was treated, and which announced that he was cancer-free! They stopped at the Eads ball game on the way home, where a group of Eads girls gave Landon a special poster and greeting.