Times are a changing

 Ken Rasing vividly recalls the “old days” of emergency management.A call would go out for EMS personnel, and instead of receiving an address, “they’d tell us to go to the blue silo and turn left.”Emergency management has drastically changed during Rasing’s long career — one that will come to an end next week — with Chickasaw County.“I’m proud of the work we’ve done, and I’m so very grateful for the people I’ve met and been able to work with,” he said, “but the time is probably right to take a new direction.”His career with the county began in the late 1970s when he took a maintenance job at the Chickasaw County Care Facility.He was a sophomore at New Hampton High School, and little did he know at the time but he had found a career that would last for almost 40 years.•••••An open house to honor Rasing will be held from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Friday at the Emergency Management Office, which is located at 1928 N. Linn Ave. in New Hampton.— For more on this story, see the March 24 Tribune