PHOTO BY ROSEBERRY PHOTOGRAPHY

Sun Courier/North Tama Telegraph reporter Ruby McAllister and her partner Soren Peterson of rural Garrison welcomed a special edition at 7:08 p.m. on Friday, January 20 – their daughter Flannery Iona Peterson McAllister.

Flannery Iona made her debut on her due date weighing 6 pounds and 9 ounces – about a pound more than what a typical Sunday edition of a major national newspaper would weigh – and measuring 20 inches in length. She was born at St. Luke’s Hospital in Cedar Rapids.

She was named after her late maternal great-grandmother Iona Helen Seydel Voeltz.

Grandparents are Marlene Peterson of Vinton, and Hope and Jerome McAllister of Stone Lake, Wisconsin. Flannery’s paternal grandfather, the late Rev. David Peterson of Palmer, Iowa passed away in 2004.

Flannery Iona joins siblings Coralee Bodeker, 20, Merritt Bodeker, 17, June Bodeker, 11, and Harmon Bodeker, 7.

No word yet on whether young Miss Flannery will make an appearance at an upcoming city council meeting, high school soccer game, or other newsworthy events, but she’s already making her mark on the paper by (happily!) requiring her mother to type this birth announcement mostly one-handed.