With the objection and withdrawal deadline for county candidates past, the Jefferson County Auditor’s Office has released the official list of candidates for the Nov. 2 General Election.

Fairfield area farm families are invited to the 47th annual Farm Barbeque from 6-7 p.m. Thursday at the Jefferson County Fairgrounds.

The almost 374 students and staff members of Pence Elementary School were evacuated from the building about noon Friday when “staff came across a look-alike incendiary device.”

Long-time Jefferson County Extension Office Manager Lona Harbison was inducted into the 2010 Iowa 4-H Hall of Fame during a ceremony at the Iowa State Fair Aug. 22.

A Batavia man was killed and his wife was injured in a one-vehicle accident near Eldon Saturday.

Freedom, a German shepherd and huskie mix, patiently tolerates the drying part of his Saturday morning bath by Kelly Foreman, left, and Dawn Safrit during the Noah’s Ark dog wash fundraiser at Tractor Supply in Fairfield. A steady stream of pooches got clean during the three-hour event to raise funds for the Noah’s Ark Animal Foundation.

When a passerby found this armadillo on the road near Walton Lake Thursday, he called Jefferson County Naturalist Therese Cummiskey to ask: “What do you know about armadillos in Iowa?” “There isn’t any,” she answered. But when she went to look at the animal, an armadillo killed by a vehicle, was exactly what she found. “[An armadillo in Iowa is] rare, but not unheard of,” Cummiskey said this morning. “One was found on the highway near Wever back in May. … Some people think they are migrating north or it could be someone’s exotic pet that got away. But it’s quite a unique thing.”

The Jefferson County Board of Supervisors will have an empty building on its hands once the Department of Human Services moves into the former Fairfield Clinic next month.

LIBERTYVILLE — When Libertyville Elementary School students returned for the new school year last week, they stepped into a revitalized yard and gardens.

A temporary traffic signal controls one-lane traffic on Second Street, and Hempstead is closed to traffic, as work is being done to repair a storm sewer blockage and set a manhole structure. Dan Myers of Cross Iron Excavating loads digs dirt and gravel from the west lane of Second Street then drops it in a city dump truck to be hauled away.