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Cart your laundry to Maytag to save money, time Taking your clothes to Maytag Laundry and Tanning is a good life choice. The attendants are friendly and helpful, and the room is well lit, well organized, nicely decorated and brightly colored. Since all the machines go through a deep cleaning each night, they all work well and are mold- and mildew-free, so your clothes get really clean. Maytag Laundry and Tanning features a warm and friendly atmosphere to laundry-washers. Photo taken by Avery Rowlison. In Maytag Laundry and Tanning, there are twenty commercial washers that can wash one load of clothes at a time and cost $2 per cycle, six maxi-loaders that wash the equivalent of four loads at once and cost $4.25 per cycle, and two mega-load washers that wash the equivalent of six loads at once and cost $5.50 per cycle. There are twenty small commercial dryers that are slightly larger than those in Grinnell residence hall laundry rooms and five large commercial dryers that are enormous. The cost of drying for both types is $.25 for six minutes. There are also two tanning beds, if you happen to be seeking the T in GTL. The large capacity, high efficiency washing machines get clothes spotless without the damage of a top-loading machine. They also finish a cycle in less than fifteen minutes. The time per cycle of their commercial grade top-loading machines is comparable to that of the machines in residence hall laundry rooms. The dryers usually take thirty minutes to dry a load, even in the large commercial dryers that can accommodate a lot more clothes than the normal sized dryers can. There is also little to no competition for the machines at Maytag. They have an adequate number of both washers and dryers to fulfill the needs of a busy clientele. The turnaround is fairly fast, so even if you have to wait, which is unlikely, it isn’t for long. Though the Laundromat is two miles away from campus and it takes time to pack up your laundry and get there, the time to wash and dry is much less than it takes to launder clothes in the residence hall laundry rooms, and your clothes end up much cleaner. However, you will probably need a car to get there since laundry can be heavy. Once you’re there, though, it is well worth the effort. The laundromat offers some great amenities besides laundry. There is free wireless internet, arcade games, television, a change dispenser, a soap, bleach and softener dispenser, magazines, clean counters on which to fold your clothes, tables at which to relax, drop-off and ironing services and a student discount rate for college students. The drop-off service is great for students with busy schedules. For a certain rate, students can drop off their laundry and they can pick it up that same day, at which point it will have been washed, dried and folded for them. The Laundromat provides all of the necessary materials, including soap and softener. Luckily for students, the discount rate is significant. They offer $.50 off a cycle for the one-load machines, so instead of paying $2, Grinnell students pay just $1.50 a load. If students drop off their laundry, they pay $.79/pound rather than the full $.99/pound rate. The free wireless internet and tables are conducive to doing homework while waiting for a laundry cycle to finish, and the Laundromat offers a relaxed and quiet atmosphere. In addition, Maytag will soon be offering a laptop bar that will host ten users, complete with outlets for each person. Darren Saunders, a Maytag customer, says he does his laundry there because it’s clean, quiet and he doesn’t have fight for machines. He also likes the security of having an attendant present to watch over the Laundromat. “Even if you have to step out to run some errands, you know your laundry is safe,” he said. This location has been open for about seventeen years and under its current owners for nearly six of those. Historically, it hasn’t received much business from the College. Recently, Ashley Rubendall, the manager of the Laundromat, has been trying to advertise more at the college to increase business. “I think that if college students knew more about the services we offer, they would want to take advantage of them,” she said. The Laundromat is open seven days a week from 8 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. and is located at 805 West Street, right next to Fareway. Arts Center hosts local student show Throughout the month of March, the Grinnell Area Arts Council is hosting a show at their newly renovated building downtown. The gallery exhibits works done by Grinnell Middle School and High School students. The Arts Director of the Grinnell Area Arts Council, Judy Arendt, welcomed visitors to the show. “This is our first time hosting this show … it has traditionally been in the Mayor’s Art Gallery, which used to be up in the Community Center,” Arendt said. “When we opened this space about a year ago, we took a lot of the shows that were in that gallery and hosted them.” Gallery space is comfortably divided, with the middle school art to the left and the high school art surrounding the main space. The works featured throughout the exhibit vary in theme. Students from the high school were each allowed to submit one piece, after approval from their instructor. Students from the middle school were allowed more freedom in what they could submit. Media that were used include paint, pastel, photography, ceramics and pencil. The middle school students’ display includes many color wheels and grayscales, along with more personal pieces from their sketchbooks. Themes that run throughout the work of the high school students are pastel pieces of feet and hands, photographs of nature, and self- portraits. One particularly interesting piece hangs on the far wall. This drawing features blue feet with green toenails, and the piece plays with perspective, proportion and foreshortening. Around the high school art exhibit are other, similarly drawn hands. Another interesting aspect of this gallery show is a photography collection that combines many small square images to form three photographs of leaves, with colors moving from greens to autumn reds. Ceramics pieces of seashells, alphabet letters and pots lined the walls and are set on white podiums throughout the area. Overall, the gallery space does a great job of exhibiting young, local talent and is an aesthetically pleasing and free downtown detour for cash-strapped college students. The Arts Council has refurbished this space in the old Stewart Library building downtown in hopes of exhibiting as many of the town’s arts and theatre events as possible. “When Drake Community Library [was] built, our board was in conversation with the city of Grinnell,” Arendt said, “and they negotiated the Grinnell Area Arts Council to rent us this space. We have been in existence in this building since December of 2009.” Current offerings include after-school art classes for children from kindergarten through fourth grade, summer arts camps, foreign language courses and adult workshops. Additionally, the Center hosts shows and readings from resident artists, as well as other local and regional artists and performances. Molly Rideout ’10 is currently the Residency Coordinator and Administrative Assistant for the program. “This space is used for all sorts of things. You can hear the kids screaming downstairs, so that’s our Studio 4 class. We have the art shows. You see the remnants of the Waiting for Godot production. I personally run the Grinnell Artist Residency,” Rideout said. “So we encompass all number of activities.” The Arts Council is planning an elementary art show this coming May. “We’ve had a few more [projects] recently such as Community Band, which is soon going to be under our umbrella,” Rideout said. This art show featuring local students will remain in the gallery until Mar. 24. Gallery hours are 12–4 p.m. Tuesday through Friday, 1–4 p.m. on the weekends or by appointment. Local high schooler finds no limits at the College Even though Patrick Lopatto, son of Professor of Psychology David Lopatto, is already well known in Grinnell College’s Math department, he is just a senior at Grinnell High School, set to graduate in May. Lopatto has applied to a variety of colleges, including Grinnell, but hasn’t heard back from any of them yet. Although he isn’t sure about where he will find himself next year, he does know that he wants to pursue a degree in math. Professor Marc Chamberland and Grinnell High School senior Patrick Lopatto researched together last summer and co-authored a paper of their findings. Lopatto is one class away from completing a math major at Grinnell College. Photo taken by Avery Rowlison. “I want to go to a four year university and study math,” he said, “I just don’t know where yet. I’ll get my letters in two or three weeks.” Here at the College, Lopatto has taken Calculus I, Calculus II, Linear Algebra, Differential Equations, the Putnam Problem-Solving seminar and Foundations of Abstract Algebra. Currently, he’s taking Field Theory and Foundations of Analysis, which are both 300-level courses. “Yes, I am one class away from finishing the math major as a high school senior,” Lopatto confirmed. Lopatto said he began taking math classes at the College as a sophomore in high school, when he ran out of classes to take at his high school.

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