Iconoclast View

 Q: How many individuals viewed the Bluffton Icon in 2015?
A: Would you believe 138,203? That’s the answer, according to Google Analytics. 
 
The analytic program tracks more statistics that we know what to do with. Needless to say, it reveals lots of significant information.
 
We’d like to share some of our 2015 facts and figures with viewers. For starters, those 138,203 viewers clicked on the Icon almost one-half million times, or an average of 1,220 total visits per day!
 
2015 viewer summary
 

By Fred Steiner
First posted on the Icon Dec. 30, 2010 - revised for 2015
To best understand our community, it's helpful to appreciate the musical gene of those who carry a Bluffton birthmark.

Growing up in a household bursting of Swiss traditions, this truth became obvious early on in the shaping of my own attitude toward events swirling around me.

A case in point is the David Rothen New Year's caroling folklore. My parents' reference to this event centered on their teen years in the late 1920s.

As a youngster, Robert Kreider lived in Bluffton from 1926 to 1935 when his father pastored First Mennonite Church. After moving away, he returned Bluffton  as a professor, academic dean and later Bluffton College president. In the 1970s he moved to Kansas. Click here for his obituary.

In an opening 1968 school year convocation, Bluffton College President Robert Kreider compared the height of the campus water tower to the timeline of earth’s history.

In the seventh year in the reign of Obama, legislation passed that all U.S. citizens be counted in the county where their ancestors had settled. This unusual census was when Kasich was governor of Ohio and Jordan was fourth district representative.

Jose from Lebanon, Ohio, with his young housekeeper, Maria, who was nine-month’s pregnant with someone else’s child, and who Jose had intended to marry, drove to Bluffton in Jose’s 1996 Mercury Cougar. This was because Jose was a great-great-great-grandson of Swiss immigrant, Jesse Zurflugh, in Richland Township.

"Peace, happiness and content to thee and thine." 

This Christmas card was mailed to Bertha Althaus, Bluffton, Ohio, from her brother, Andrew of Toledo. We can't read the postmark date, but Bertha was married in 1899, and after that was Bertha Hahn.

For the address side of the card, check the photo below. There's no street address and no zip code required on this one cent post card.

Bertha Althaus Hahn is the grandmother of Fred Steiner, of the Icon.

 

Here's a portrait of the King sisters. Milena is on the lap of older sister, Madelyn. They are the daughters of Kevin and Allison King, Bluffton.

The photo is taken by Kerry Bush of Elysian Fields Photography, Bluffton, 419-581-9242.

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