Forty Years Since Wadena: Four Days to Jerry's Jam

Forty years ago this week Governor Robert Ray declined to enforce a court order banning the Wadena, Iowa rock festival. Thirty thousand people came. The skinny-dipping in the Volga River was the talk of the state.

Four days from now Bill Hertz's friends at Hidden Acres Music Farm south of Laurens will host Jerry's Jam. The two day festival is named after another musician of forty years ago, Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead band.

Sixteen bands are on the bill for Friday and Saturday. Tent spaces are available in the shade! Tickets can be purchased on line at the Hidden Acres website.

Laurens Sun Has Another New Editor

For the second time this year the editor of the Laurens Sun is changing. Saying "I am at a point in my life where I have to think of myself first," out-going editor Brooks Taylor heads for a new job at the Mount Pleasant News in southeast Iowa. Taylor oversaw only ten issues of the weekly newspaper in Laurens.

This spring The Laurens Sun was sold by the children of Dar and Bill Chaffee to Jerry Wiseman, who also owns the Pocahontas Record Democrat where Taylor had previously worked.

The in-coming editors are Kevin and Nancy Verzich. They moved to Iowa from Ohio last winter and currently reside in Pocahontas.