Allen Mehlhaf clears snow from his driveway Thursday morning following another round of winter — this time a 6 1/2 inch snowfall locally that came overnight. With more than a foot of snow already blanketing the community, the latest even only adds to the challenge of snow storage, visibility at intersections and scheduling. The Freeman Public Library and Heritage Hall Museum & Archives are both closed, there's no school and tonight's boys basketball game between Freeman and Menno in Menno has been moved to tomorrow in Freeman as a doubleheader with the girls.

JEREMY WALTNER  - EDITOR & PUBLISHER The Freeman Public School Board learned early this week that an advisory committee tasked with looking at an athletic partnership is continuing to meet and is exploring whether to expand the Phoenix cooperative with Marion and Freeman Academy into other sports.

JEREMY WALTNER - PUBLISHER Those seeking election or re-election to a local governing body may take out a nominating petition beginning Friday, Jan. 27. The deadline to collect signatures and file those petitions is 5 p.m. Friday, Feb. 24. The 2023 city/school election is Tuesday, April 11. The following vacancies in the tri-city area are as follows:

JEREMY WALTNER - PUBLISHER The coldest of the four seasons officially began just three weeks ago, but already it feels like the area has received an entire winter’s worth of weather.

This week's issue of The Courier includes our annual In Memoriam, which features a list of those who passed away in 2022 and whose obituaries we published. It will be available online early Wednesday afternoon and in print on Thursday.

The first meeting of the year for the Freeman City Council looks to be a short one, with a relatively light agenda. The meeting will begin at 6:30 p.m. and can be live-streamed by using this link.

The superintendent/PreK-12 principal from the Rutland School District will be coming to Marion. Meeting in regular session Monday night, Jan. 9, the Marion School Board voted to offer the position of superintendent to Brian Brosnahan. The action came on a 6-0 vote and Brosnahan has accepted the offer.

Heritage Hall Museum & Archives has been posting a “Main on Monday” photo weekly since last fall, and this is the photo that appeared on the museum’s Facebook page today. In includes the following description:

This was the scene inside the Freeman Junior-Senior High School gym early Sunday afternoon as more than 300 young grapplers — ages 4-12 — from more than a dozen schools gathered for the Marion/Freeman Little Rebels Wrestling Tournament. Wrestlers will compete in four divisions: Novice (2010-12), Midget (2013-2014), Bantum (2015-2016) and Tots (2017-After). Action was scheduled to start at 1 p.m.

Saturday morning was another frosty one across the Freeman community, adding beauty to an otherwise tough stretch of winter weather.