69ÂÜÀò

Synopsis: Maureen Hanauska, affectionately known as Mo, lost her husband, Harold, at the start of 2024. The Hanauskas have over 200 acres that Harold, their friends and their children normally worked together to plant each spring and harvest each fall. Moe was happily surprised when her cousin and other local farmers came together to help her harvest this fall.

My Thoughts: I did not have a whole year of stories to pick from.

I started at The 69ÂÜÀò about a week before writing this story about Mo. She gave our office a call, hoping we would be interested in highlighting the wonderful neighbors who’d helped her.

This instantly drew my attention. What a wonderful introduction to what life is like here in the Rock County area. Her story opened my eyes, and the doors to many others, that had a similar base line of, “around here, neighbors help their neighbors.�

Mo’s willingness to be vulnerable and share her thoughts and feelings about her situation, alongside introducing me to the neighbors who helped her, really allowed me to write a story I felt proud to share with the community that touched my heart — and I hope many others.

Side note: they let me ride around in the combine they were using to harvest the corn, which was wicked cool. I’ve been in every array of helicopter and combat vehicle you can imagine thanks to my time in the U.S. Marine Corps, but adding combine to my list was exciting.

I’ve been able to meet and connect with so many people thanks to this job and to share their stories, and that is my favorite part — hearing and sharing your stories.

I hope that as we go into 2025, more people will reach out to our office with stories like these — but also with stories that challenge us as reporters with tougher issues that you feel the community needs to know about.

I aim to be your ear to listen and your voice to boast about the community — or scream about the issues at hand.