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.
In the first full year after the pandemic, roughly 6.5 million students were missing 10 percent or more of the school year, a report shows.
Lighten up and enjoy your neighbors’ creativity, many readers said. Others said blood and guts may be too much for young trick-or-treaters.
![Halloween Is For Fun; Haters Should Hide In Their Homes [Block Talk]](https://patch.com/img/cdn20/shutterstock/790386/20231012/065712/styles/patch_image/public/shutterstock-2225305373-1___12184955381.jpg)
It will cost less to heat the 60.1 million households using natural gas, according to a new winter fuels forecast from the government.
Older Americans are still feeling the pinch at the grocery store and gas station, “making every dollar important,” AARP top executive says.
Time stands still on the Sunshine Protection Act, which would replace the twice-a-year clock changing with year-round daylight saving time.
In areas outside of the 125-mile-wide annular solar eclipse path from Oregon to Texas, the moon will appear to take a “bite” out of the sun.
These were built before or at the turn of the 20th century. Two are fixer-uppers. A three-story Queen Anne mansion is move-in ready.
Pumpkins are delicious fun for zoo animals, and help keep billions of pounds of the gourds out of landfills, where they become methane gas.
Candy corn has been around since the 1880s. Is it getting stale, or is it still what trick or treaters want in their Halloween buckets?
Pay it forward now, reap rewards for generations; “conduit to a blessing”; the right place, the right time and the right people, times two.
Communities work when people step up. This collection of stories illustrates what’s going right in towns all across America.
Lottery players across the country test their luck against long odds as they snap up tickets for 2023’s second $1B+ Powerball jackpot..
Why have a normal, human-sized Halloween skeleton when you can get one that towers 20 feet? How big is too big, and how scary is too scary?
![From Gore To Huge Skeletons: What’s Too Much Halloween? [Block Talk]](https://patch.com/img/cdn20/users/790386/20231005/083316/styles/patch_image/public/img-0792___05202815292.jpg)
MacArthur Fellows are “a community of extraordinary thinkers and doers,” says John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation official.
You may be able to squeeze more life out of your gardens and ornamental plants after the first killing frost of fall.
Skunks like the creature comforts of cities and suburbs, too. They’re doing the “fall shuffle,” increasing your pets’ odds of being sprayed.
A caulk gun and natural repellents are the best defenses against an army of bugs marching into your house right now as temperatures fall.
Art Deco is distinguished by bold geometric lines and rich materials, such as marble and gilding, to convey elegance and sophistication.
America’s 400 richest people have not proven themselves to be overly generous, with only 11 giving away 20 percent or more of their wealth.
Only about 1 in 5 Americans are worried they’ll get seriously ill with any of the three respiratory illnesses, according to a new survey.
