Jackson County IA Archives News.....At 93 he'll run again December 14, 1974
************************************************
Copyright.  All rights reserved.
http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm
http://www.usgwarchives.net/ia/iafiles.htm
************************************************

File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Ken Wright wright@prestontel.com November 24, 2012, 10:36 am

Jackson Sentinel December 14, 1974
Maquoketa, Iowa, December 14, 1974 

AT 93 HE'LL RUN AGAIN 

Ninety-two year old Ben Jacobsen has served seven terms as Maquoketa's mayor, 
and he says he will be running for an eighth next year when he is ninety-three 

Maquoketa, population about 5,700, sprawls over 2,800 acres in east central 
Iowa. 

Jacobsen got his first taste of politics when he was elected to the city 
council in 1920. 

He bowed out in 1924 when he purchased the hardware store he still operates, 
then got into the thick of things again in 1954 when he was elected mayor at 
72. He's tossed his hat in the ring intermittently since then, and his last 
two year term ended Dec. 31, 1973. 

Jacobsen says complaints from citizens today are essentially the same as those 
of the early 1900's and center on stray cats and dogs and increases in water 
and electrical rates. 
Jacodsen was involved in the formation of the Maquoketa Municipal Light and 
Power Company in 1919. 

He says if he wins another term as mayor next year he will "give the city 
light plant back to the people. We don't have to raise the rates all the 
time." 

Another campaign promise is to abolish the "blooming parking meters." He said 
farmers of an earlier era never complained when they had to pay 10 cents to 
park a horse and buggy in a local feed barn. 

One reason Jacobsen isn't in office today may be his friendship with Mayor 
Edward Myatt, 71, a retired farmer whom Jacobsen supported in the November 
1973 election. "We wouldn't run against each other," says Myatt, who adds that 
he won't oppose Jacobsen next year. 



File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/ia/jackson/newspapers/at93hell139gnw.txt

This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.org/iafiles/

File size: 2.2 Kb