Solon Economist

SOLON– The Solon Community School District (SCSD) is keeping its eyes on the numbers.
Rising COVID-19 infection and quarantine numbers among students and staff came close to closing two buildings in recent weeks, and the district is already looking at possible impacts from the upcoming holiday season.
The school system remains poised to move classrooms, grade levels or even an entire building to online learning while instructing as many students as possible in-person, according to Superintendent Davis Eidahl.

IOWA CITY– Solon’s Dean Moel, a survivor of the sinking of the USS Gambier Bay by Japanese forces during World War II, will be honored by the University of Iowa football program during its Friday, Nov. 27, game hosting Nebraska.
Moel was selected as the Military Hero of the Game and will be recognized during the radio broadcast and social media posts leading up to the gridiron contest.
Moel was born a little bit northeast of Sutliff, in Cedar County, and spent time in Central City, Cedar Bluff and Nevada (Iowa) before settling in Cedar Rapids.

SOLON– “We have had a great two weeks of practice,” Lady Spartans Head Coach Jamie Smith responded. “The energy and effort has been at a high level. We have got better.”
With the COVID-19 pandemic swelling and the promise of a pandemic modified season to contend with, the Lady Spartans under Coach Smith rely on a recurring theme.
The theme under Smith has been “‘Program>>>>Team>>>>Me.’ This served us well the past two years and has been a big part of the growth of the program.”
But the global pandemic has affected the Lady Spartans’ preparation.

SOLON Krista Stramel didnt know where her path was.
For me, the hospitality industry gave me a lot of stability and really allowed me to figure out where I wanted to go in life and what my purpose was, she explained.
Stramel, 32, celebrated her third year as the general manager of Red Vespa, in Solon, with a nomination as one of 40 Women to Watch in Hospitality announced by the Iowa Restaurant Association.
The honorees were recognized Nov. 16 at the Iowa Events Center in Des Moines during the associations annual Celebrating Excellence Awards Ceremony.

IOWA CITY– Johnson County Conservation (JCC) received a $400,000 Resource Enhancement and Protection (REAP) grant to help fund the purchase of a new 100-acre preserve north of Solon, over half of which is native prairie and wetland including a fen.
The site joins JCC’s other conservation wetlands– Ciha Fen, Pechman Delta and Cedar River Crossing– in preserving a variety of once-common wetlands which have disappeared from much of Iowa’s landscape. In addition to providing homes for a variety of native plants and animals, these wetlands help cleanse water, govern its flow, and fight floods.