Story & Photos by Jeremy Waltner | Publisher It’s April 16, 2022 and Mark Johnson is standing under a tent on a concrete parking lot behind the Elks Lodge just off of Interstate 29 in Sioux City, Iowa, along with some of the other best cooks in the world. The ribeye he is preparing has been warmed to between 80 and 85 degrees and the B&B charcoal burning in the basket of his PK grill is heating to his liking — between 600- and 630-degrees Fahrenheit, although some like it hotter — as hot as 700 degrees.

So what does this photo of ribeyes ready to go on the grill have to do with The Courier? Find out in this week's issue available online later this morning/afternoon and in print on Thursday.

The BrickHouse Lounge, the restaurant that has operated near downtown Freeman for almost a year-and-a-half, is closing this week. The final day of operation will be Saturday, April 29, according to a post made last week on the businesses Facebook page. The eatery has been owned and operated by Tobi Duffel, who opened for business in December of 2021. While The BrickHouse Lounge was operated by Duffel, the property had been owned by local real estate agent Christa Helma and her husband, Jordan.

The sign in front of East River Furniture on Freeman's Sixth Street gives those passing by a good chuckle. 

The Sunday morning sun shines on the Heritage Hall Museum & Archives campus and adjacent Prairie Arboretum in Freeman on April 23. Temperatures are expected to be more reasonable today and a warmup is in the forecast for the coming week.

This aerial photo from the 1960s was taken by Willard Waltner, is looking to the north and features the St. Paul Lutheran church not long after it was built. The property in the lower left corner was home to Dr. Irvin Kaufman and is currently occupied by the Mike and Emily Andersen family. The original wing of the Freeman Hospital is partially shown on the far left, with Sixth Street running across the top third of the image. The building identified by the No. 2 was Pine Hill Printery, the Palace Bowl is behind it and Freeman's baseball field is at the very top.  

Students at Freeman Academy examine a sapling being shown by kindergarten instructor Lynnelle Hofer during a special visit from members of Freeman's branch of Tree City USA Friday morning, April 21. The classroom visit by Lance Edwards, Charly Waltner, Micah Graber and Mark Harberts, who all have an association with ecology in the Freeman community, was designed to inform the children about the importance of trees and the management of trees in conjunction with Arbor Day, which will be observed next Friday, April 28.

Those wondering if that antique clock or that rare tool or that obscure lamp fixture that’s been sitting in their attic is worth anything will have the opportunity to find out when an Antique Road Show comes to the Big Red Barn on the Pioneer Acres grounds on the north side of Menno next week Sunday, April 30. The event will be free and open to the public and will begin at 2 p.m. the final Sunday of the month. Those wishing to have items examined and assessed by a panel of experts may start lining up at 1:30 p.m.

How do you measure a life well lived? Is it by service in the military before marriage and the 14 months he spent on a Navy ship in World War II without once setting food on land? Or what about all those quilts she made years later, first for their three children and then for their eight grandchildren, sometimes staying up until 1 a.m. threading the needle, long after he had gone to bed?

This was the view of the Merchants State Bank front entrance from The Courier office Thursday morning, as a wet morning turned from rain to snow. The cold, windy and wet weather was expected and prompted Freeman Public to cancel its Flyer Invitational scheduled to begin today at 1 p.m.