Week in Review: Santa Arrives, Ankeny Teacher Gets Award and More

1)

Long lines couldn’t deter the Christmas spirit in Ankeny on Dec. 3 as hundreds of kids waiting in line for a chance to whisper into Santa’s ear.

Santa’s arrival at the  headquarters, 120 N.W. Ash Drive, complete with plenty of cookies and a gaggle of brightly lit trees to ogle, convinced plenty of area parents to brave the nasty weather outside.

2)

Members of the Ankeny school board decided at their last Monday night meeting to hire an additional contractor to trim construction expenses from phase two of Southview Middle School. Who they hire has yet to be determined.

3)

The Ankeny City Council voted last Monday night to approve a mowing contract for 2012-2014. The contract, which splits the city into three zones, will yield a substantial cost savings for the city of Ankeny.

4)

In this week's installment of Parents Talk, we asked parents when they start to tell the truth to their kids about about Santa Claus. There's still time to weigh in!

5)

Gone are the days when P.E. class was spent killing time playing dodge ball and crab soccer.

Jodi Larson spends her days teaching Ankeny middle-schoolers lifelong lessons on staying healthy, and her efforts recently earned her big honor.

6)

Each week Ankeny Patch will post a collection of links to some of the stories in the area you may have missed. Check out who and what made this week's roundup!

7)

Families will get only three days worth of food for the month, rather than five days, said the Des Moines Area Religious Council earlier this week, which supports several food pantries in the metro area. The number of needy families is outpacing donations.

8)

Read this week's summary of incident reports with individual charges provided by the Ankeny Police Department.

9)

Each Friday, Ankeny Patch will feature an animal from the Animal Rescue League of Iowa waiting to be adopted into a good home. This week, we introduced you to Velma, a female shepherd mix.

10)

If anybody was questioning whether Newt Gingrich's frontrunner status would lead him to play nice in Saturday's GOP presidential debate, the answer came about 30 minutes into the evening: No.

The evening in Des Moines was far from the all-out debate brawl that could have been expected given Gingrich's surge in the polls and the dwindling prospects of the five opponents on stage with him before the Jan. 3 Iowa caucuses.