The Fort Dodge wrestling program’s dual meet at Mason City next Thursday night will carry an important level of historical significance into the New Year. Iowa’s first-ever high school wrestling meet — featuring the Dodgers and the Mohawks — happened 100 years ago next month. The ...

Fitting, wasn’t it? The Iowa State football team staked claim to a piece of school history Friday, securing at least a share of its first regular-season conference championship in over 100 years on the field of a program expected to do just that annually. The Texas Longhorns are known as ...

I was experiencing a bout of pandemic fatigue during Fort Dodge’s Homecoming week in early October — wishing things would just get back to normal and frustrated by all of the relatively minor inconveniences we’d been experiencing for months on end — when a brief moment of clarity ...

Young wrestlers are working in rooms across Iowa right now, with dreams of becoming the next Drake Ayala. And parents everywhere are pondering a similar notion: “if a kid from Fort Dodge can do this, why can’t mine be next?” The Dodger senior reached an almost-mythological level of ...

I remember walking off the Newton high school football field in 2017 and thinking to myself, “I will never see a game like that again.” Twenty touchdowns. A total of 1,326 yards from scrimmage. A combined 141 points, with Fort Dodge losing to the Cardinals, 71-70 in regulation. The ...

Sports journalists keep odd, often dysfunctional hours. Nights. Weekends. Holidays. Never really “off” the clock. Always on the road. As we research, conduct interviews, cover games, keep records or put the paper to bed and walk out of the office in the early-morning hours on a ...