This week, I am returning to RAGBRAI some 24 years later.

Don’t be silly. I am not riding the whole thing. I am tackling one day of the Register’s Annual Great Bike Ride Across Iowa — a rite of passage for every Iowan. Can you really live in this state without at least experiencing some part of RAGBRAI? I think not. But the closest I have come to it in the past 24 years is covering it for the Courier when it came through Waterloo in 1985 and serving beer near the UNI-Dome when it came through Cedar Falls in 2007.

But my ski girlfriends — high school friends who all live in the Des Moines area — have been tackling portions of it for a couple of years. They talked me into coming along this year.

With a new bike and helmet and some practice under my wheels, I am riding a whole 44.4 miles on Wednesday from Indianola to Chariton. It is being considered one of the shortest mid-week rides ever on RAGBRAI.

To me, it’s obviously not about distance. It’s about being a part of the ride again.

My memories of my first one-day ride included the party atmosphere surrounding the event. There were plenty of stops to eat and drink.

This year, I’m taking it a little more serious, mainly because I’ve got to listen to my body a lot more. I’ve been out on the recreational trails in the metro area, paying attention to where I get aches and numbness. Biking enthusiasts in the area have told me it doesn’t matter how much padding I put on my hind end, it’s going to ache during RAGBRAI.

But with only 44 miles to go, I plan to take my time and take in the sights and people along the route in southern Iowa. Hills? There will be plenty of them. You don’t ever realize how hilly Iowa is until you get out on a bike. And in the Indianola area, it’s pretty rolypoly.

Check back to see how I did.

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If you haven’t gotten your tickets yet, don’t miss the Waterloo Community Playhouse summer production of “High School Musical.” The show concludes July 25.

It is a funny and energetic show that appeals to all ages. You’ll love Chase Miller’s character of “Randy Evans” who practically steals the show with his splits during one dance number.

For tickets, call the box office at 291-4494.

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I’ve stayed in the metro area nearly the whole summer, so wanted to take a minute to give notice to some of the great things that have been going on for those of us staying close to home. Kudos to the fireworks displays at My Waterloo Days and the Jaycees’ Fourth of July celebrations. But also great have been Friday’Loos (there was an incredible crowd at the July 10 event I attended) and Live to 9 (its counter-part in Cedar Falls).

I enjoyed an evening at the Cedar Basin Jazz Festival and attended the College Hill Arts Festival this weekend.

And for something fun and inexpensive, don’t underestimate the fun and beauty of our recreational trails. I love riding my new bike on them.

They aren’t too hilly and my hind end is grateful.

Still having a hard time trying to process all that has happened in the last week, in which has turned out to be one of the biggest news weeks in the Parkersburg tornado.

Last week started with a tornado near Dike. We next were hit with a major “gustnado” that blew through Cedar Falls, damaging trees, etc.

But the stunning events of Wednesday, June 24, make those stories seem so routine.

We were preparing for a normal day at the office that morning, and were preparing for our final work on getting the June 24 paper “put to bed.” Being an afternoon newspaper, our deadlines are much different than most newspapers that come out in the morning.

I received the initial tip on the shooting of Ed Thomas about 8 a.m., which is only about 15 minutes after it reportedly happened. We sent two staffers toward Parkersburg immediately with notebooks, cameras and a video camera in their hands. Then we had other staffers begin working the phones in an effort to confirm the tip.

It was confirmed almost immediately. The shock was immediate, but we had a job to do and it was to try and get a story for that afternoon’s paper and on our Web site. Through phone interviews we were able to do that.

Covering grief is a difficult job for a reporter as they walk the delicate balance of respecting people’s wishes yet trying to get information on a story that quickly went to a national story because of who was killed.

Many thanks go out to the school officials, friends and law enforcement who also quickly understood the magnification of Thomas’ death, and called press conferences in order to get accurate information out quickly.

Our coverage of the funeral Monday was an example of the way journalism is now being tackled with social networking. We first used Twitter (twitter.com/NancyNewhoff) to tell people about the sights and sounds of what was going on in Parkersburg leading up the funeral. We were then able to take those tweets and make an initial breaking news story on our Web site, wcfcourier.com. From that we were able to rewrite a story for the next day’s newspaper.

Here are some fresh pictures taken by Tom and Carrie Pontzius in Dike:

Did you step outside last night (June 17) to watch the spectacular light show from Mother Nature?

A brilliant lightning show went on for some time to the north of the Cedar Valley. We capture some of it in a video seen here: http://www.courierwebcasts.com/play.php?vid_id=1601&file=lightning061709.flv

Tornadoes were threatening in northern Iowa last night, but we heard of no damage except a downed tree in Winneshiek County.

If you have pictures or know of more, please send them our way: nancy.newhoff@wcfcourier.com.

We may not be done with this weather pattern yet. More is expected today…

The year anniversary of the killer tornado that struck NE Iowa is now over, but the memories are still so fresh.

I think back to that day often and where I was and what I was doing when I learned of it. I’ve talked to many others who have their own memories.

It changed the community of Parkersburg forever, and the lives of so many. In the Courier building alone, we had two employees who lost their homes to the tornado and another woman whose grandmother died in the tornado.

We’ve received some good responses to our coverage of the tornado 1-year anniversary. But then there is always those that have their problems with it.

Like this e-mail we received: “Enough already! Don’t you have anything to write about except the tornado and the flood of last year? Of course I have empathy for the people who lost family and possessions, but do we need this every day? I think these people would like to focus on something else.”

One of the things that many people forget is that a newspaper is a chronicle of our daily living. To pass May 25, 2009, by without talking about the tornado would have been doing a great disservice to our readers.

To me, this was a no-brainer. And we will give similar one-year look back stories to our readers at the anniversary of the flood.

The summer of 2008 was unlike no other in my years of news coverage — back to back to back major news stories in Northeast Iowa. We will be looking back at the events of that summer for years as we talk about where we’ve come since then.

I have encountered a couple of incidents over the past few days involving other drivers who are writing text messages on their cell phones as they drive.

Something has got to be done about it. This isn’t just teens or young people who are doing it. I have seen men and women in their 30s and moving toward middle age who are doing the same thing.

On Tuesday I was driving home from work on Highway 218 near George Wyth State Park when I encountered a vehicle that was driving slower than the speed limit. I moved to another lane and started to go around the woman when her car began drifting into my lane. I was able to avoid her and she caught herself and got back in her lane. As I passed I looked over and she had her left hand on the steering wheel and her right was attempting to type or dial on her cell phone.

Her attention was clearly distracted from the roadway.

It happened to me again on another day driving on Hudson Road in Cedar Falls as a young man speeding went back me. As I looked over at him, his eyes were down on his cell phone, typing.

In both cases, these were accidents waiting to happen.

 While driving and talking on a cell phone is not the best, it still has the driver’s eyes on the roadway. Attempting to send a test message while driving 65 mph is insane. You have a couple of things going on — your eyes are diverted down to see the keyboard and the depth perception problems that you encounter by going back and forth from that tiny keyboard to the roadway is also difficult.

On March 4, the Courier ran a story and the Iowa Senate beginning work on a proposal to expand the offense of careless driving to include driving while distracted, but the bill failed to clear committee and died in this year’s legislature.

One of the problems probably is enforcement. How can an officer prove at the scene of an accident whether it was caused by someone text messaging on their cell phone. An eyewitness account would help, of course, but that’s not usually going to be the circumstance.

What do you think? What’s the best way to pass this legislation?

Happy spring day to you. How was your Mother’s Day weekend?

Mine was very nice. I spent the weekend in Minneapolis where I attended a Minnesota Twins game and shopped at Mall of America. The most fun was probably Saturday night when we attended a children’s cancer research fundraiser at the boat house in downtown St. Paul listening to the Barbary Coast Banjo Band reunion concert. A dear friend of the family played in the banjo band from 1967-1972. The group reunited for this benefit, playing to a packed house. We sang along to the old greats (Bicycle Built for Two and Bye Bye Blackbird) and had lots of laughs.

We returned home Sunday where I feasted on fresh walleye my husband caught Thursday on the Mississippi River near Red Wing, Minn.

In the news this week, there will be considerable attention given to the first half of the week to the 1st anniversary of the Postville raid. There will be a march in Waterloo Monday night and a march in Postville Tuesday.

This is also the last week for UNI baseball, so there will be some sadness there. The series against Bradley kicks off Thursday night. Watch for lots of coverage and reaction from these final games.

Next Sunday we will have the third in our series of “Hidden Treasures,” showing the inside of old buildings in downtown Waterloo. This Sunday will be The Brown Derby night club.

Tornados, flooding, the economy, crime. Recent history shows that some of the news we are bombarded with can be a bit overwhelming, even right here in the Cedar Valley.

We’re looking for positive, feel-good stories to include in an upcoming special section, “It’s All Good.”

Do you know of a person or group doing great things in the Cedar Valley? Is there someone you consider an unheralded hero or has overcome great odds? Share their story with us.

Send your story ideas, along with contact information, to Holly Hudson, Waterloo Courier, P.O. Box 540, Waterloo IA 50704 or e-mail holly.hudson@wcfcourier.com., or attach them right here.

Deadline for submissions is May 22.

Good Morning!

We have been receiving mostly positive comments on our print product’s new look, unveiled Monday.

To recap, we narrowed the paper slightly, but the biggest change to many is the change in our type face.

We’ve received calls from seniors and many others telling us that the paper is easier to read.

We’ve had a tweak a couple of things. We have moved the horoscopes to the weather page and a new person is in charge of them. We had a mixup on whether to include horoscopes from today’s date or the next day, as we did before. But we have cleared that up and now will be including the horoscopes for the next day.

We had a mini-phone campaign from some people who wanted us to bring back the weather in Ashville, N.C. On our weather page, we previously listed the temperatures from about 100 U.S. cities. But as of Monday, we have trimmed that number down and included some international cities. Many of our readers have family abroad or in the military. We will do out best to accommodate requests for specific cities, but it will mean a replacement for another city.

Keep letting us know what you think of the new printed look.

For those getting the paper product Monday, you may have noticed a new look. We went slightly narrower to help with paper costs, but changed the type face, which should make it easier on the eyes of us aging readers. (Frankly, I think it is much easier to read).

 Our designer Jordan Hansen also changed the titles of the pages, including the type face. We also strategically moved our columns (called “rails”) on the Sports and Living covers to the righthand side of the page, but we kept the Call the Courier “rail” on the lefthand side.

With the changes, we are making good use of every available spot of news space we can to keep all of the features, columns, comics, puzzles, TV grid and weather like before and continue to keep our local pages as newsy as possible.

Hope you like it. Let me know what you think.