ABOVE: A rendering of the proposed Martin County Public Safety and Justice Center, which the Board of Commissioners terminated in March of this year after years of planning. Photo courtesy of Wold Architects and Engineers

FAIRMONT– In 2025, the Fairmont area saw some large building projects come to fruition, but it also saw some long-planned projects fail. Other big stories in 2025 included new businesses opening, administration challenges and discussion centered on the Fairmont Chain of Lakes. What follows are the Sentinel’s top 10 news stories of 2025.

No. 1– Work ends on FACC community center

After making the top 10 in past years as stories of advancement came about, the proposed Fairmont Area Community Center is making the list this year for a different reason as the Fairmont Area Community Center Foundation (FACC) announced in November that it would end its work on a YMCA-operated Community Center in Fairmont.

This news came after more than a decade of work on the project, which most recently was estimated to cost about $30 million and would be paid for partially with voter-approved Local Option Sales Tax funds, which passed in 2016 and which about $7.5 million had been collected for so far. It would also be paid for with privately raised funds, which the Foundation had collected more than $8 million in. The Fairmont City Council has yet to determine what it will spend the LOST funds on.

No. 2– Work ends on Martin County Justice Center

The proposed Martin County Public Safety and Justice Center project was also halted this year as the Board of Commissioners voted by majority in March to stop pursuing the project. A new justice center had been discussed and pursued on and off for more than a decade and the most recent project, which was coming in north of $50 million, was set to go out for bid when the board, in a special meeting, decided to not put the project out to bid, disband the core committee and stop work with all contractors. Findings on a needs assessment of the current 50-year-old facility, and the costs associated with them, are expected to come before the board in early 2026.

No. 3– Fairmont’s administration struggles

In September the Fairmont City Council interviewed five candidates for the open city administrator position, which had been open since November of 2024. After posting the position, the city received about 30 applications and after initial interviews, the council extended second round interview opportunities to three of the candidates. However, all three ended up withdrawing from the process, including Pat Oman who was the city’s Community Development Director at the time. Then, in October, Oman resigned from his role and ended up leaving in November. Currently the city does not have an interim city administrator or acting city administrator.

No. 4– Lakeview finishes new Building Blocks

One project that was several years in the making was completed in 2025 as Building Blocks Learning Center and Child Care just recently moved into its new space inside Lakeview Methodist Health Care Center in Fairmont. The project had started back in 2019 and faced several delays and challenges but ultimately the needed funds, about $1 million, were raised from private donors along with a forgivable loan from the Martin County EDA. The new location just about doubles the capacity meaning Building Blocks now has space for nearly 100 children which is seen as beneficial for families and businesses alike.

No. 5– Ground breaks, work starts on new Martin County West school

On May 28 a groundbreaking ceremony took place for a new K-12 school building for Martin County West (MCW) in Sherburn. The school building came as a result of a $64.7 million bond referendum that had passed in May of 2024 after an earlier attempt that failed in November of 2023. Physical work on the new school building began soon after the ground breaking with the first walls going up just recently. It is expected that the project will be completed for the 2027-28 school year, but the current high school will need to be demolished to make room for the parking lot of the new school. The MCW School Board also has to determine the fate of some of its other school buildings which are currently in use.

No. 6– Bravo Zulu House opens

Also on May 28, the Bravo Zulu House in northern Martin County celebrated its grand opening with a well-attended ceremony. The sober living home for veterans with PTSD is one of the first of its kinds and had received support from local, regional and national organizations. The grand opening took place about one year after its groundbreaking ceremony and the facility currently has several residents going through the program though it is still fundraising for its dog kennel program.

No. 7– Area sees new businesses, ownership

Several new businesses opened up in the Fairmont area in 2025. A lot of these were in the downtown Fairmont area including DaVinci’s Barbershop, Rickway Carpet, Tienda Latina, Analog Games, Rose’s Nails and Shoe Merchants. Other new businesses include Tangle Tamers, Prolific Memories and Tuttle Lake Bait in Ceylon. There were other businesses that saw new ownership including Goodnews Collective, which was formerly Good News Bookstore in Fairmont and Steuber Collision Center in Truman, which was formerly Nick’s Body Shop.

No. 8 — Fairmont launches Lakes Management Committee

A new Lakes Management Committee began meeting in Fairmont in July and its first order of business was to discuss a new Curly Leaf Pondweed (CLP) disposal service that the city began on June 16. In the first year, the city’s contractor, Water’s Edge, collected several tons of CLP from properties in Fairmont at no cost to the residents. Along with CLP, other issues the committee discussed in its first few meetings of 2025 included invasive carp, a new wakeboat impact study, grant opportunities and rock arch rapids.

No. 9– House fire in Fairmont claims one life

A large structure fire in Fairmont on Dec. 1 resulted in the death of 43-year old Jared Donnelly. Multiple area agencies responded to the fire and battled it for over nine hours. Several other residents, along with a few police officers, were treated for minor injuries or smoke inhalation. The cause of the fire has yet to be determined.

No. 10– Dead geese litter area lakes

In December of 2024, locals started to notice many dead geese on frozen lakes in Martin County, which the DNR had said was part of a big mortality event across the midwest. Locals began calling on the city of Fairmont to clean them up and dispose of them, but the lakes are the DNR’s jurisdiction and the DNR had advised no one to touch the animals as they would naturally be scavenged.

Later on, in March of 2025, members of Fairmont’s public works department began removing some of the carcasses from the shorelines of Fairmont’s lakes. It was around that time confirmed by the DNR that the geese died from Avian Influenza. The disease, commonly referred to as ‘bird flu,’ also affected local farmer Andrew Moeller who shared at a Fairmont Area Chamber of Commerce Agri Business meeting in March that Avian Influenza had cleared out a lot of his flock as in chickens, the mortality rate is 100 percent. Unfortunately, Moeller also had emus and his operation was the first outbreak that affected emus that the USDA was able to study.

The Avian Influenza was also likely responsible for an increase in egg prices that the region faced over the spring of 2025.