Our top 10 for 2011

It?s been said that everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it, That maxim certainly applied to Marion County in 2011. In fact, we talked so frequently about the weather over the past 12 months that we decided to give Mother Nature the top two spots in our annual list of top 10 news stories for the year.

As usual, the key criteria for the list are short-term impact and potential long-term effect. You?re more than welcome to talk about our selections for 2011, but don?t bother trying to do anything about them.

1. Drought. We received just enough precipitation in spring to reap a passable wheat harvest, but the prolonged dry heat of summer pretty much baked the fall crops. The best investment for grain producers in 2011 may have been crop insurance. One thing remains true about our local economy: As farmers go, so do the rest of us.

2. Weather extremes. From a 20-inch snowfall in February to a record number of 100-degree days in summer, Mother Nature was seldom mistaken for Mother Nurture.

3. Crime and punishment (1). Let?s start with punishment. In April, county voters ended one of the most heated and enduring public debates in quite some time by giving 64 percent affirmation for the proposal to build a new county jail. To pay for it, we?re locked into a half-cent sales-tax increase with little hope of early release.

4. Health-care transitions. The best news occurred in Marion, where St. Luke Hospital opened Phase I of its renovation project. In Hillsboro, meanwhile, a doctor resigned, a doctor signed. Ditto for nurse practitioners. One family practice clinic closed, another one opened. A hospital CEO was fired, a replacement hired. And did we mention the hospital owners filed for Chapter 11? We?re unqualified to diagnose, but we?re thinking that queazy feeling in the pit of our stomachs isn?t from the flu.

5. Stately Trojan girls. The year began with a third-place finish at the state basketball tournament, and ended with this year?s team being undefeated and ranked No. 2 in 3A. In between, the Hillsboro High softball team made it to state for the third straight year, Callie Serene won a bronze medal in the state 800 and the doubles team of Courtney Weber and Allison Weber took sixth in state tennis. Then, on the same magical Satur?day in October, freshman Emily Sechrist became the first Trojan to win a state cross-country race and the volleyball team completed a 5-0 run to a state championship. Suffice it to say their fans made it to state, too?a state of euphoria.

6. Crime and punishment (2). On the crime side of the equation, the list of lowlights for 2011 sickened us: a trial, guilty verdict and life sentence for the kidnapping and sexual assault of a minor in Peabody; a former Hillsboro resident found murdered in a burned vehicle at Marion Reser?voir; the attempted abduction of a minor in Ramona, and the raid on a marijuana-growing operation in southern Marion County worth an estimated $2 million. If decency can?t prevail, then pray that justice will.

7. School funding. After yet another huge budget cut in spring, news that our county school districts would actually see a modest increase in state funding next fall if the governor?s recent financing formula is approved was like being promised a walking cane to compensate for an amputated leg: We?ll move ahead on sheer determination, but over the long term it will be hard to keep up.

8. Muscling those mussels. With the exploding population of zebra mussels at Marion Reservoir officially entering the ?menace? stage, city officials in Marion and Hillsboro were staggered to hear initially how much it would cost simply to develop a strategy to combat them. And so it begins.

9. Lake tragedies. If zebra mussels and blue-green algae weren?t tough enough, Marion Reservoir also made headlines in 2011 for the worst of reasons: In three unrelated water accidents this summer, two retired pastors drowned?one of them local?and 12-year-old boy nearly suffered the same fate. We comfort the grieving, and we thank lake staff and law enforcement for their gallant efforts to save lives.

10. Celebrating 150. Marion and Kansas both marked a century and a half of progress in 2011. That?s a great achievement to be sure, but 150 years simply doesn?t have quite the pizzazz as 100 or 200 years, as celebrations go. For many of us, the biggest wa-hoo about 150 was learning to spell ?sesquicentennial.?

May all of our best efforts spell ?success? in the year ahead. ?DR

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