How to contact me: beth.dalbey@patch.com
Beth Dalbey, a longtime award-winning community journalist, is Patch’s national editor. She has been with Patch since 2011 when she launched sites in Iowa and provided national Iowa Caucus and swing-state general election coverage. She worked as a regional manager before moving to the national desk in 2017. Throughout her time at Patch, she has reported and written about local topics of national interest and is currently focusing on exclusive Patch content, including Block Talk, an only-on-Patch neighborhood etiquette column for which readers supply advice.
Dalbey and the newspapers she has edited have earned numerous awards for news, feature and government coverage, editorial and column writing, and overall general excellence from the Iowa Newspaper Association, the National Newspaper Association and the Associated Press Media Editors. In 1992 in Iowa, she led the weekly Dallas County News to win the INA's prestigious Newspaper of the Year award, competing against metro newspapers many times its size. She was the youngest recipient ever of the INA’s Distinguished Service Award in 1994. At Patch, she received the Todd Richissin Award for Excellence in Reporting and Writing for the “Menace of Bullies” project.
In Iowa, Dalbey’s byline has also appeared in the Fairfield Daily Ledger, where she was editor for five years; and in the Des Moines Business Record, Cityview, dsm magazine and other publications under the umbrella of Business Publications Corp., where she was the editorial director for several years. Dalbey also freelanced for the Des Moines Register and other print and digital publications
Dalbey grew up in Missouri and majored in journalism at Northwest Missouri State University. Except for a three-year stint as communications editor for a scientific institute doing ape language research, she has spent her entire career in community journalism. At the former Great Ape Trust of Iowa, she wrote about the world-famous resident bonobos Kanzi and Panbanisha.
2025 has been a brutal year for retail businesses. Here’s a look at what’s behind the closures and shrinking store footprints of 20+ brands.
The cancellation of projects is seen as an escalation of Trump’s use of executive power to punish Democratic-leaning states
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Local offices will remain open during the federal government shutdown, but with thousands of workers furloughed, services will be limited.
A second wave of at least 2,000 “No Kings” protests against the Trump administration will take place across the country this weekend.
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Eeyore the dog “practically dragged” deputy to a woman who had fallen while walking him; escaped prisoner tried to hitch a ride in the nude.
Americans are going large this year with realistic illusions and other extreme Halloween displays. Are you thumbs up or down on them?
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The head of the air traffic controllers union, Nick Daniels, stayed away from political comments, but he urged Congress to end the shutdown.
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An international team of scientists and astronomers, including those from NASA, predicted that 2025 could be an outburst year.
CDC says blanket recommendations of the past stopped a frank discussion of individual risks and benefits between patients and their doctors.
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A protracted shutdown could inflict economic cost, fear and confusion across the country, but there’s no easy off-ramp to prevent it.
