WATERLOO -- Her face radiates sweetness in her pictures -- a huge smile that engulfs her face surrounding a body that should be hugging dolls, stuffed animals and kittens.

To think someone could hurt such a beautiful child was unthinkable.

But the unthinkable happened. The kidnapping and death of 5-year-old Evelyn Miller of the small Northeast Iowa town of Floyd captured the attention of the entire state and became the Courier's top story for 2005 for both Courier readers and editors.

By year's end, a statue of an angel had been erected in her town to commemorate the little girl, but Evelyn's killer still was at large. There were no arrests, and a shroud of secrecy from authorities gave no indication that any arrests were imminent.

But so much news swirled around the little girl and her family that attention from her case did not go away.

Readers, who voted online and on ballots placed in the paper between Thanksgiving and the week before Christmas, overwhelmingly selected her murder as the top story of the year. This was one of the few years that both readers and Courier editors agreed on the top story of the year.

The No. 2 story was the Iowa Racing and Gaming Commission's selection of the Isle of Capri for a new casino. No. 3 and moving fast up the chart -- it may have had a chance to become the top story of the year had it not been decided so late in December -- was the incredible journey that the University of Northern Iowa Panther football team took us all on in its post-season run for the Division 1-AA national championship.

Here is a brief synopsis of the top stories as voted on by readers.

1) Evelyn Miller death

The story first broke the afternoon of July 1, a Friday of the Fourth of July weekend. Evelyn Miller's mother, Noel Miller, came home from her third-shift job at a care center and found her 5-year-old daughter missing. The girl had been living in the apartment with her mother and mother's fiance, Casey Fredericksen and Noel and Casey's two sons, Gabriel, 2, and Damian, 1. Fredericksen and the two smaller children were in the apartment, but Evelyn was nowhere to be found.

Hundreds of people from the community turned out to search for the girl. "She wouldn't wander like this," her mother said in the hours after she went missing. "She's a mature, smart little girl."

Evelyn's father, Andy Christie, lived in Waterloo, and helped search for his daughter.

Fear turned to dread when Evelyn's body was found July 6 in the Cedar River five miles east of Noel Miller's apartment. It took another five days before authorities confirmed that she was the victim of a homicide, yet no cause of death has ever been released.

Rewards were issued, press conferences were held and homes were searched, but no arrests were ever made. Floyd County authorities removed Gabriel and Damian from their parents' care and put them in foster care.

Suspicion was raised as to Miller's and Fredericksen's actions in the days following the girl's disappearance. Miller and Fredericksen moved to Charles City by the first of September and authorities searched that residence as well as the one where the girl lived.

On Sept. 22, Casey Fredericksen was hospitalized with a self-inflicted knife wound. The Floyd County Sheriff's Office later took him for evaluation to Mercy Medical Center-North Iowa in Mason City.

In the meantime, a federal grand jury began convening in Cedar Rapids. While the grand jury proceedings were kept secret, family members and witnesses said they were investigating a computer hard drive found in the Floyd apartment. On Sept. 29, Fredericksen was charged with one count of possession of child pornography for images found on his computer hard drive. Prosecutors said they found more than 1,000 images and video clips of prepubescent teens engaged in explicit sexual activities.

Since then, Fredericksen has been charged with 13 more counts of child pornography. His trial is set for April 3 in U.S. District Court.

But none of it answers the question of who killed Evelyn Miller. Floyd County authorities have said that investigation into child pornography case is separate from the murder investigation.

An 8-foot statue at the Floyd Community Center will not let the case of Evelyn Miller be forgotten.

"If anything, it will be a reminder to parents to be more careful," said Floyd Mayor Trevis O'Connell.

2. Racing and Gaming Commission picks Isle of Capri for Waterloo casino

The Cedar Valley carried a trifecta of casino possibilities down to the wire as the Iowa Racing and Gaming Commission determined where to grant new casino licenses this spring.

And it was a real dog and pony show when the commission came to town to see the sites. National Cattle Congress had the dogs with Waterloo Greyhound Park; downtown Waterloo had the ponies in the form of a horse-drawn carriage as commissioners toured downtown; and Isle of Capri Casinos Inc. put on the show, complete with island drums, women in island dress adorning visitors with leis and a throng of boosters and Isle of Capri customers.

In 2004 the Iowa Legislature had authorized the commission to grant new gambling licenses for floating casinos in the state. The commission set up an extensive review period which extended the process into the spring of 2005. Cruising requirements were eliminated. The only requirement was that the gambling facility be on a body of water, making it easier to locate casinos at previously landlocked sites.

While everyone was smiling when the commission came to town, at times it was anything but civil at times among proponents of the three local competing proposals -- the Isle of Capri's and Black Hawk Gaming Association for a site near Lost Island Adventurepark south of Crossroads Center; Catfish Bend Casinos Inc. and Cedar Valley Gaming for a site downtown; and the National Cattle Congress, the Meskwaki tribe of Tama and a group of gaming consultants led by Waterloo native and Las Vegas casino president Lorenzo Creighton for a revival of closed Waterloo Greyhound Park.

The bad blood carried over from 2003 when Isle of Capri and Black Hawk Gaming, led by former mayoral candidate Don Hoth, persuaded then-Mayor John Rooff and a majority of the City Council to back an agreement to work exclusively with Isle of Capri at the Lost Island site, then the only proposal on the table. Downtown and NCC proponents, their proposals still in the formative stages, cried foul. The council vote occurred a week before a countywide referendum to allow a gambling boat, which the factions all had agreed to support.

Tim Hurley voted for the agreement as a council member and continued to endorse the site after being elected mayor.

The commission's final vote occurred in May. Waterloo was not guaranteed a license until the last commissioner voted, giving Isle of Capri three votes of the five-member commission. One commissioner voted for the downtown site and commissioner Michael Mahaffey of Montezuma opposed granting any new licenses.

Grading work on the casino site began in late summer, with a 2007 opening date anticipated.

3. Northern Iowa Panthers run for the football championship

Fans of the University of Northern Iowa football team won't need to visit any amusement parks this spring.

The 2005 Panthers took them on a thrill ride that may never be matched.

Following a mid-season free-fall at Illinois State when UNI suffered its worst Gateway Conference loss in history, 38-3, the Panthers began a steady and determined climb that carried them all the way to the program's first Division I-AA national championship game.

Appalachian State finally pulled the plug on UNI's twisting, turning, break-neck ride through the Top 15 to the final two of 2005, but not until the Panthers reached the precipice in Chattanooga, Tenn. It took a pair of unanswered touchdowns in the second half for the Mountaineers (12-3) to end UNI's ride, 21-16.

While that finish was disappointing for the Panthers and the 9,000 fans who joined them in Tennessee, it can't diminish what a determined group of players accomplished during an 11-4 season.

UNI rallied from a 4-3 record with seven straight wins to reach the finals and climb to a No. 7 national ranking. Three of the opponents during that streak -- Western Kentucky, Southern Illinois and New Hampshire -- were ranked No. 1 during the season. Six of the seven were rated among the top 15 nationally, including four at No. 6 or higher.

In five of those games, UNI rallied from fourth-quarter deficits to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. Two games went to overtime.

The Panthers won their first ever quarterfinal-round playoff game on the road when they upset No. 1-ranked and top-seeded New Hampshire, 24-21. The following week, they broke down the semifinal barrier after five failed attempts by winning a 40-37 shootout at Texas State.

"I've been on a lot of good football teams," said senior Darin Heideman. "But something like this? No. This is unbelievable, just the emotions that have been going with this season. It's been a heck of a ride."

It was a season that served as a testament to a team's will to succeed and the determination of 18 far-sighted seniors.

"I think it shows that if you set your heart on something and play with your heart, it will take you real far," noted senior John Hermann.

It was a season that brought tears to the eyes of UNI alum and fifth-year head coach Mark Farley.

"I am so proud of this football team," he said. "To do what they've done speaks to their character and who they are as people and as football players."

It was also a season that brought a campus, the communities of Cedar Falls and Waterloo and the state together like no other.

"Through football, we got a chance to bring together thousands of UNI people from years past and put a little hop in their step because of the pride," said Farley. "And we did it, I think, through how we played and how we never gave up.

"I said all along that this team was special."

4. Daina Deery fights off would-be kidnapper after being shot

The daughter of a prominent Cedar Valley auto dealer bravely fought off a gun-wielding would-be kidnapper who shot her in the foot outside College Square mall Nov. 1

The tableau ended when officers found the gunman, Michael Lee Hruska, 33, of Waterloo, dead in his vehicle in a Waterloo park the next morning.

Daina Deery, 17, the daughter of auto dealer Dan Deery, escaped the ordeal with a shot through the foot and was home with her family the next morning.

Deery said she was joining her family for dinner at Texas Roadhouse near the mall food court, when a man later identified as Hruska pulled up in his SUV in the mall crosswalk.

"He had the window down and points a gun at me and says, 'I'm going to shoot you,' " Daina Deery said. "I think it's a joke, because it's something you don't hear every day." She and her brothers, who met her outside, turned to go in the restaurant.

Hruska then opened fire. "He starts shooting the gun like five times, and the second shot hits me in the foot," Deery said. "I'm laying on the ground and my brothers ran into the store" to get help, not realizing she had been hit in the confusion.

"There's people all over. No one knows what's going on, and I'm laying on the ground," she said.

"And he comes up out of his car and grabs me by the elbow and says, 'Don't fight. Get in the car and don't fight me, otherwise, I'll kill you.'

"I said, 'Why would you do this?' Then he said, 'Because I'm going insane,'" Deery said, "I said, 'Please don't kill me, I'll give you any amount of money you want.' He said, 'I don't want that.'

"If I get into the car with him, either way, I'm going to die or he's going to shoot me there. I decided to try to save myself," Deery said.

She was halfway in the vehicle. "Half my body was on the (car) seat, and he's trying to push me in. We were fighting over the gun. I grabbed the gun. I tried to point it away, and he picks it up and he shoots it, but it goes in the air," because Deery was struggling with him for the gun.

Deery's assailant then "starts hitting me in the back of the head, trying to knock me out so I wouldn't fight any more," she said. "He hit me five or six times," but not hard enough to knock her out. Deery said the assailant was about her height, but not as strong as her. Deery is an athlete at Cedar Falls High on the golf team.

At that point, about several minutes into the struggle, Deery said Jean Firman, the wife of Cedar Falls pharmacist Steve Firman, came up to the car. "She looks in the window and says, 'What's going on here?' I tell her that he said he's going to kill me."

Her assailant, apparently not wanting witnesses, then relented. "He lets go of me, then drives off, and that's the end of it," Deery said.

Deery expressed her gratitude to everyone else at the scene who helped her. "It was a team effort," she said.

"I prayed to God" through the ordeal, Deery said. "I said, 'There's so much more I want to do with my life.' I was ready to fight him forever."

"I am amazed at how well she did," said Cedar Falls Police Capt. Jeff Olson,.

5. A week of mourning

If bad luck comes in threes, the Cedar Valley received it in early 2005 -- right out of Iraq

Staff Sgt. Eric Steffeney, 28, formerly of Waterloo, died Feb. 23 while serving with the U.S. Army in Iraq, the victim of a roadside bomb. He was a 1994 graduate of Waterloo West High School and was survived by a wife, two sons, and a daughter.

Two more lives were claimed as the result of a Feb. 27 attack on a convoy between Karbala and Ar Ramadi which included members of the Iowa Army National Guard's 224th Engineer Battalion

Second Lt. R. Brian Gienau, 29, a 1994 graduate of Tripoli High School, died at the scene. Spc. Seth Garceau, 22, of Oelwein, was critically injured in the same attack and died March 4 at a hospital in Germany. An explosive device hit their Humvee between Karbala and Ar Ramadi.

Three other soldiers were injured in the incident-- Sgt. Timothy Shay, 22, of Muscatine; Spc. Justin Edgington, 23, of West Burlington; and Spc. Dennis Smutzer, 32, of Moline, Ill.

The 224th officially returned home Dec. 17.

In addition to those Iraq combat deaths, a total of four local people died in two separate traffic accidents in Cedar Falls and Shell Rock the same week as Steffeny, Gienau and Garceau died.

Seven fatalities in one week.

It was, indeed, a week of mourning in the Cedar Valley.

6) Jason Gage murder

On March 11, Jason Gage was out with a group of friends partying at downtown bars. Sometime that night he headed back to his apartment in the Russell-Lamson building. Something happened inside that apartment and Gage ended up murdered. He had been hit twice in the dead with a bottle and stabbed in the neck with a piece of glass.

He would not be found until the evening of March 14, when his apartment was entered after friends became concerned about his whereabouts.

The murder of Gage, 29, touched off concern that his death was because of his lifestyle. Gage was an admitted homosexual.

The man arrested for his murder, Joseph M. Lawrence, 23, of Cedar Falls, had only lived in the area a short while and there was discussion in the community that Lawrence may have killed Gage because he was gay.

The real reasons for the slaying may never be known. On Dec. 16, Gage entered an Alford plea to second-degree murder. In doing so, he didn't admit any guilt in the homicide but acknowledged he likely would have been found guilty of first-degree murder had the case gone to trial. He was sentenced to 50 years in prison.

"We can't say for sure that Jason Gage was killed because he was gay. We may have our theories as to what happened, but we can't say he was killed because he was gay," said County Attorney Tom Ferguson.

The evidence showed that Gage and Lawrence had met weeks before his death through mutual friends. That night the two arrived separately at the same Waterloo bar. After the bar closed, they went to Gage's apartment. Two glasses were out, suggesting they were drinking and watching television, Ferguson said.

Gage's body lacked any defensive wounds that would suggest he had warded off an attack, Ferguson said. The fatal blows came from blunt force trauma to the head.

Whatever caused the attack may never be known.

Nevertheless, Gage's sister, Michelle Gage, expressed her anguish at Lawrence in court.

"You are a murderer, and you robbed my family of a precious gift," she said.

7. Proposed $1 billion power plant comes to Waterloo

On Dec. 1, a New Jersey-based company proposed what would be the biggest economic development project in Cedar Valley history -- a $1 billion, 600-megawatt power plant in northeast Waterloo.

LS Power, based in East Brunswick, N.J., with offices in St. Louis, proposes building the massive facility on 320 acres of land along Newell Street east of Eagle Ottawa tannery. The land is currently in Black Hawk County but would be annexed into the city of Waterloo, pending approval by the City Council and the Board of Supervisors.

Pending state and federal regulatory approvals, construction of the coal-fired power plant would begin in 2007 and be completed in 2011.

The plant would employ up to 1,200 construction workers over the four-year period at a total payroll of $200 million. It would employ 100 people at an annual payroll of $7 million, an average of $70,000 per permanent employee. LS Power would hire a private firm experienced in power plant operations to staff and run the facility.

The plant would pay about $2 million a year to the city, county and Waterloo schools in taxes. Utility companies do not pay property taxes, but pay a "replacement tax" determined by the state based on the volume of power generated and other factors.

The independent power plant would sell electricity to utilities and cooperatives. "We've talked to a number of (potential) customers," said Robert Colozza, project manager for LS Power Development.

He said the Waterloo site stood out because of access to rail and a high voltage transmission system; ample water supply; and a large tract of land near an existing industrial area.

"I think this is a great fit" for the community, Waterloo Mayor Tim Hurley said. "The assets of our community have spoken for themselves -- the transportation, the rail, the work force and the market."

Neighbors had mixed emotions.

"I guess the bottom line is, it's a great opportunity for Waterloo -- $70,000-a-year jobs," said Deb Miller. She and her husband, Doug R. Miller, live on a farm which would be part of the plant site

Other said the plant would be a good thing if it happens the way LS Power officials promise.

"If they stick to what they said, I think it'll be beneficial," Clint Oberhauser said. "The power company claims they're going to be good neighbors and they want to be good neighbors to us. They really have done nothing wrong yet. We'd just feel a lot more comfortable if they'd come out and put this stuff in writing."

LS Power doesn't want to cause "any hardship to our future neighbors through annexation," Colozza said.

8. Area military units return from the Middle East

2005 was marked with numerous homecomings and sendoffs for local troops headed for and returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.

At the second anniversary of the start of the Iraq war in March, of the 9,500 Iowa Army National guard and Air National Guard members, about 4,200, had been called to serve for an extended period. Almost the entire 650-person Waterloo-based 1st Battalion, 133rd Infantry Division was activated over the preceding year, including 100 members who were being shipped to Afghanistan.

Numerous members of the Army Reserve's 445th Transportation Company at the Hultquist-Fry Armed Forces Reserve Center in Waterloo were mobilized just before the war started. The soldiers didn't go as a unit but were assigned to other understaffed companies. That's not counting Marine Corps and Navy reservists or members serving in units out of the area.

The 445 returned to heroes' homecoming in September. Under the cover of darkness, the 445th rolled back into town, but it was hardly a covert operation.

With a police escort -- complete with lights and sirens blaring -- the charter bus full of troops arrived at the Hultquist-Fry Armed Forces Reserve Center on Burton Avenue just after 8 p.m..

In June, members of Waterloo's Charlie Battery, attached to the 1st Battalion, 14th Marines, headed to two Marine bases in California to prepare for a 12-month deployment in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Their predecessor unit, Waterloo's Delta Battery, served with distinction during the 1991 Persian Gulf War and brought back a captured Chinese-made Iraqi howitzer.

In September, some 600 member of the 1/133, back from a peacekeeping deployment in the Sinai less than two years earlier, shipped out for training in Camp Shelby, Miss. and eventual deployment to Iraq to conduct "close combat with enemy forces and provide security of key terrain, facilities and installations."

The Cedar Valley came through with support for its troops.

In November, 455 priority packages from Iowa's Bravest -- a group of John Deere workers and area residents who have sent gift packages to local troops since the Iraq war started in March 2003 -- were sent from Waterloo to Baghdad. The group previously had sent out a more than 700 appreciation packages to troops since the Iraq war began.

In three weeks troops' families, friends and businesses raised $78,000 to pay bus fare to bring the 1/133rd home for the Christmas holidays. The bus line dropped its fare by half to make up the difference. Some 180 troops rolled in to Waterloo to reunite with friends and family.

Next Christmas, they are scheduled to be in Iraq.

9. Telecom vote

The city of Waterloo took its first steps into the business of providing television, Internet and phone service last year following a show of confidence from its residents.

Fifty-three percent of the voters in a Nov. 8, 2005, referendum rejected a million-dollar opposition campaign waged by private telecommunication companies, including Mediacom and Qwest, and authorized their city government to set up a municipal telecommunications utility and a five-member board of trustees to oversee it.

Opportunity Waterloo, a group of local business leaders, had petitioned for the election after saying private companies were falling short of meeting the high-speed Internet needs of area businesses. And they pointed to the major industrial growth in neighboring Cedar Falls -- and Cedar Falls Utilities' municipally owned fiber-optics telecommunications system -- as a key example of how city-owned utilities can benefit a community.

With communication systems becoming as important as railroads and highways to business enterprise, Opportunity Waterloo pushed for approval to provide at least the threat of a competing system to ensure the city would not be bypassed by the information superhighway.

Heading into election day, referendum supporters were filled with doubts after watching pervasive television commercials and reading mass mailings from Property Taxpayer Protection -- a political action committee financed by private companies -- telling voters municipal telecommunication utilities were money-losing ventures destined to raise their property tax bills.

Mediacom, the city's key provider of cable television and Internet service, launched telephone service soon after the municipal utility push was announced, while company officials countered the city's business community was already well-served by their services.

City Council members in December appointed the five-member utility board to investigate options for a city-run communications service. But no plans to construct infrastructure for the utility currently exist.

10) Pipac announces shutdown, then stays open under new leadership

Convention hostees became nervous and brides became jittery when Greg and LeaAnn Saul, owners of the Pipac Centre on the Lake, announced in July the event center would close by the end of year. The center was considered one of the premier wedding and convention spots in the Cedar Valley.

At the same time, the Sauls also closed Bena's Restaurant, which was operating in the same building as the event center.

The primary reason behind the announcement was simply weak business. "When you look at the revenue it takes to support this facility, it's just not there," LeaAnn Saul said at the time.

After the announcement was made, Saul received several phone calls from people in the community. Most people were offering condolences, but one phone call in particular went further. Darin Beck, owner of Barmuda Corp., asked Saul what he could do to help.

The two initially worked out a deal to allow people with gift cards for Bena's Restaurant to use them at certain Barmuda locations, but talks didn't end there. Eventually, Beck reached an agreement with the Sauls to lease the Pipac Centre and restaurant, meaning the center would not close.

"It just made sense for their company and our company to come to this arrangement," Beck said.

Since taking over as management, Beck has reopened the restaurant as Ferrari's Ristorante and changed the name of the event center to Park Place Event Centre.

Sports Editor Doug Newhoff and staff writers Tim Jamison and RC Balaban contributed to this article.