The Altoona School District saw a small dip in average ACT exam scores last year but remained above the state average of 22.3 and well above the national average of 21.1, according to a district official and the ACT website.
   The district also saw an increase in the number of students taking the exam, giving school officials here one more reason to celebrate.

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   As students head back to school this week, one familiar face will be noticeably absent at Altoona Middle School: that of sixth-grade science teacher Linda Olson, who retired in June 2008.
   “I feel like I was dropped into this universe at the right time and the right place to nurture who I was meant to be and what I was meant to do,” Olson said of her 30 years teaching fourth and sixth grade in the Altoona School District. “The only thing I wasn’t blessed with was the ability to stay forever young, so that I could continue to do this forever, because I don’t know that it would ever be something that I would choose not to do. But, I’m ready to move on.”

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   Six months after Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama first visited the Eau Claire area, he returned to address a crowd of roughly 300 invited guests at Eau Claire’s Rod & Gun Park on Sunday, August 24. Attendees included campaign volunteers, local officials, and citizens from throughout Minnesota and Wisconsin, including Altoona resident and Wisconsin’s 68th Assembly District candidate Kristen Dexter.

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   The debate over payment of contract overages incurred during a storm water management analysis project is over. The decision to pay the full amount followed discussion at the Town of Washington Board meeting on Thursday, August 21.

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   On Tuesday, August 26, the Eau Claire County Parks & Forest Committee approved a goose hunt at Lake Altoona County Park to address public health concerns pertaining to the contamination of the lake and surrounding grounds from an overabundance of goose feces. Officials believe the hunt will help to control the goose population in the park and lessen their negative impact.

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   What began as a simple idea to put on a picnic for roughly 3,000 troops undergoing pre-deployment training at Fort McCoy has drawn support and encouragement from dozens of VFW members across Wisconsin, including several members of the Altoona VFW.

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   My homestead was demolished on Thursday, August 14. Born in Altoona in July 1941, I spent all my growing-up years in that home at 719 3rd Street West.

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1. What do you consider to be the top three issues facing Americans in the November election and why?
   The three most important issues facing Americans today are mounting national debt due to entitlements and runaway spending, the corresponding tax and regulation burden on productive Americans, and the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as American Jingoism around the globe.

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1. What do you consider to be the top three issues facing Americans in the November election and why?
   The biggest issue this year, even more than in 2006, is THE WAR. And it isn’t a war on terror. It isn’t a war on Iraq or Afghanistan. It’s a WAR ON OUR ECONOMY. It’s a war to the death against the American middle class. The neoconservatives and the international bankers behind them are bleeding our economy dry in their attempt to take over the world. They want a one-world global empire, and they are trying to use the U.S. military to create it. These people have absolutely no loyalty to the U.S.A. They want to turn us into just another Third World banana republic so we’ll be slaving for pennies along with the other peons on their New World Order global plantation.

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   Not all general election candidates’ positions are being contested by people in the same political parties. In fact, only two of them are being sought after by multiple people within the same party and therefore truly “up for grabs” in this partisan primary election.

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