We are having crispy fall color this autumn in Platte County due to drought. If the trees are suffering in your yard or neighborhood, here’s a tip, considering watering, and to catch some color take short rural road trips on the county’s blacktop and gravel roads. 

Three farmer’s markets have operated in Platte County this summer, and it’s to my regret that I’m visiting them late in the season. Because there are two very good reasons to visit the vendor stalls in Parkville, Platte City, and Weston. For one, the good tasting food like the delicious sweet corn and tomatoes my partner and I picked up a few weeks ago at Parkville. Secondly, you meet nice people doing interesting things with everything from pretzels and coffee to squash and cabbage.

This summer is a test of patience for berry pickers, drivers, and political watchers in Platte County. Abundant rain is boosting the blueberry and blackberry crops and picking them is something only patient people do. 

The Platte County Citizen has provided readers with a county-wide overview for more than 60 years. That’s a lot of change to witness.

I want more history and fun things in the front portion of a remodeled Platte County Courthouse, a post Civil War structure that everyone agrees is historic.

If you enjoy a community that’s a mix of houses, businesses, and rural scenery, consider yourself lucky in Platte County. 

Well Platte County, what’s in it for us if Kansas City Royals baseball team owner John Sherman gets his wish for a new stadium? Baseball nirvana? Well I doubt it. But the new stadium proposal is the most talked about Royals subject this summer, in part because the team is one of the worst in Major League Baseball. 

Spring is bringing more than flowers and greenery to Platte County.

The sale of marijuana related products for recreational use began this month in Missouri. But also, a revival of a related pre-Civil War agriculture staple for Platte County, hemp, is underway.

In hearts and minds, a Silent Night with heavenly peace is more difficult to find during some Christmas seasons, even in a place so blessed as Platte County.

The stomach may think turkey, but the heart thinks of thankfulness on Thanksgiving.

My name is Bry Weltz and I am newly interning here at the Platte County Citizen newspaper. I am currently a senior in high school in the Park Hill School District.

It is time to cheer for and support the people on an important front line. Our children are heading back to our public schools, a backbone of American democracy and economic health. Teachers will be teaching them how to think, not what to think, but rather how to evaluate facts and discern truths.

I notice two important things amid the horror and valor within Russia’s war on Ukraine — local government service and press freedom.

What a difference a month makes. The sub-zero cold spell and worries that we would ever get COVID-19 vaccine defined February.

Several letters to the editors in the last several weeks have had pretty harsh tones. It has occurred to me that during these stressful times, we need more perspective and compassion before publicly criticizing others.

It’s beginning to feel a little more like Christmas, and just in the Saint Nick of time.

When you live in a midwestern county with small towns, and a chunk of big city that feels like a small town, and farms still being farmed, you feel pretty insulated from worldly problems that make the news.

We started this week with snow on the ground. Pure white was added to the green and scarlet leaves of slower turning trees, like the sugar maples and oaks.

Chickens can be pampered pets and providers of blue, green, brown and white eggs. Their origins are from around the world. Enterprising youngsters taught us this at Saturday morning’s poultry competition during the 157th annual Platte County Fair.

I am pretty sure I have started this column multiple times and it seems every few hours the past few days, I had to redo it.