Looking at the weather recordbook, February 2012, didn't follow the pattern. Here's some figures on the weather provided by Guy Verhoff, Pandora weather observer.
The 2012 average temperature was 33.7 (normal average is 27.2). The 2012 precipitation was 2.16 inches (normal is 1.9). The 2012 snowfall was 8.7 inches, all in the first 15 days of the month.
February's maximum temperature of 69 on the 29th brought some plants out of hibernation. The monthly low was 10 on Feb. 11th.
Willis (Bill) Boutwell, 87, died at 4:14 a.m. on March 6, 2012, at Hilty Memorial Home, Pandora.
Mr. Boutwell was born May 26, 1924, in Lafayette, Ohio, to John and Ethel Shrider Boutwell, who preceded him in death. On Oct. 16, 1948, he married Wanda Mae Claypool and she survives.
Mr. Boutwell was a member of Riley Creek Baptist Church, Bluffton, where he served as a deacon and as a member of numerous committees.
Bluffton High School student Brooke Heinz won Best of Show in this year's Kewpee High School art invitational at Art/Space Lima. Additional Bluffton students had works accepted to the show. Click for more details.
Mark your calendars now to attend "A Victorian Tea," sponsored by the Friends of the Bluffton Public Library. The tea will be held Thursday, April 12, at 5:45 p.m. in the Richland Room of the library at 145 South Main St., Bluffton.
Bluffton High School junior Brooke Heinz won best of show in this year's Kewpee High School art invitational at Art/Space Lima, according to Vickie Garmon, BHS art teacher.
The show is held at Lima Artspace and the works will be on display now until April 14. Brooke Heinze won the best of show with a mixed media piece titled "Kylee." The model in the work is Kylee Barnett, also at Bluffton High School junior.
One of Bluffton's most important decisions of the decade will be decided on March 6. Bluffton voters will decide the fate of a proposed one-quarter percent income tax.
The Icon supports this issue and urges voters to vote "Yes."
For the first time in perhaps a voter's lifetime, Ohio Republican votes really count in a presidential primary election. Six presidential candidate names are on the March 6 primary ballot, although some have already dropped out of the race.
The local results will be interesting to watch to see the leanings of Bluffton Republicans. Presidential names on the ballot are:
o John Huntsman
o Ron Paul
o Rick Perry
o Mitt Romney
o Rick Santorum
o Newt Gingrich
In the cemetery at Rockport Colony, South Dakota, are the small, rectangular grave markers for Joseph and Michael Hofer, each bearing one of the brothers' names, his birth and death dates and, in capital letters beside each brother's name, the word "MARTYR."
The Hofers were so designated by their fellow Hutterites-a communal branch of Anabaptists-following their imprisonment at Alcatraz and what the church regarded as torture and death at the hands of the U.S. Army in 1918, at the close of World War I.
