On election night, Bettendorf Mayor and Democratic candidate for Congress Ann Hutchinson declared that absentee ballots would determine the outcome of her race with Jim Nussle. It turned out she was wrong - Nussle won re-election with 57 percent of the vote, a margin of more than 28,000 ballots - but Hutchinson had good reason to make her statement.
• A number of controversial races apparently drove a record number of voters to the polls for the November 5 election, with 52,942 of the 112,073 registered voters (or 47 percent) in Scott County casting ballots.
• Four Davenport firefighters headed this past weekend to Deerfield Beach, Florida, to compete in the National Firefighters Combat Challenge. Darrel McKittrick, Gary Crookshanks, Ron Burchette, and Jim VanVlymen have competed in two challenges this year with times so good they have qualified for nationals twice.
"The best way to explain natural (bio-identical) hormone-replacement therapy is to compare it to the history of insulin," explained Lisa Ploehn, clinical pharmacy specialist and owner of Main at Locust Pharmacy in Davenport.
• By the time you read this, the roundabout at the intersection of 53rd Avenue and Middle Road will be completed and open to all traffic except 53rd Avenue west of Middle Road. The roundabout has been under construction for the past six months in conjunction with the approaches to the 53rd Avenue Bridge just east of Devils Glen Road.
• Bi-State Literacy board member Beth Oerman is planning to open a Reading Center at the Friendly House in Davenport that will be available to kids who attend activities and programs at the center, as well as students who attend Jefferson Elementary in that same neighborhood.
The term "film" usually means a moving image in a rectangular shape, with sound. You watch them at home or at a movie theatre. Dietlinde Stephan has helped create a new form for the moving image, though.
Brad Shellady first saw The Texas Chainsaw Massacre when he was about 13 years old, at Milan's Memory Drive-In. You, too, would probably remember where you first saw seemingly dead Grandpa feebly try to crack the skull of some poor young woman with a hammer.
• The Bettendorf Public Library Information Center is ranked seventh nationwide in its community's population range, according to Hennen's American Public Library Ratings (HAPLR). A total of five Iowa libraries were included in the top 100, each in a different population category.
People who attend MidCoast Fine Arts' ninth-annual Great Mask Auction are used to people in strange outfits and wild hair - usually elements of attendees' costumes. But at this year's event on Saturday, October 19, Storm Design Team will feature avant-garde fashion and hairstyles in its runway show, a new addition to the MidCoast fundraiser.

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