Robins News

Ray Sullivan had an idea after his wife of nearly 50 years died: Build his own coffin from a huge walnut tree.

A former Calamus man won't be prosecuted again on a charge that he threatened to put a psychotropic drug in the eastern Iowa town's water supply.

"The saying is, you can't take it with you," says Ray, 81, "but I am going to take it with me." He built the walnut casket from a tree that grew on his neighbor's land.

Linn County Auditor Joel Miller delivers a report Wednesday to the Board of Supervisors about work a friend of his did for the Auditor's Office.

The site plan for a new Hy-Vee Food Store west of C Avenue NE and south of the proposed Tower Terrace Road NE, near Cedar Rapids' border with Robins, won unanimous backing Thursday from the City Planning Commission.

In the cold, damp stillness of the early morning - the sky filled with stars and the sea dark as midnight - Barbara and Ron Ritchie of Robins felt a chill race up their spines.