The LeClaire RAGBRAI Committee has won $1,000 from Our Iowa magazine in its Best Bloomin' Towns in Iowa contest. Plans for LeClaire include beginning a "downtown makeover" with barrels along the main street with planted flowers. Barrels with wave petunias will be in place by early June. LeClaire is the ending point for this year's RAGBRAI ride. On Saturday, July 26, more than 15,000 cyclists will be riding from Tipton to LeClaire. For more information about RAGBRAI in LeClaire, visit (http://www.leclaireragbrai.com).

The City of Rock Island now offers customers the opportunity to pay bills online at the city's Web site (http://www.rigov.org). Payments can be made by Visa, MasterCard, or electronic check. No service fees are charged to customers. To get started, customers will need to have a utility bill handy, as a city account number and telephone number are needed to create an online account. Billing history, meter-reading history, usage history, service information, balance history, and water and sewer rates are also available through the service. For more information, contact the City of Rock Island customer service at (309) 732-2000 or (eRock@rigov.org). Customer-service hours are Monday through Friday from 7:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Deann Thoms, president of Quad City Arts, last week announced the appointment of Carmen Darland as executive director of the organization. Most recently, Darland served 18 years as vice president of marketing for Heart of America Restaurants & Inns and was previously with Davenport Bank & Trust Company (now Wells Fargo). The Des Moines native currently serves on the boards of DavenportOne, Goodwill of the Heartland, and North Scott Educational Foundation. Quad City Arts serves six counties in eastern Iowa and western Illinois. For more information, visit (http://www.quadcityarts.com).

Peter Kivisto offers this observation about Augustana College President Steven C. Bahls.

"Somebody'd have a new book, and the next thing you know, you'd have a little letter from him congratulating you," said Kivisto, the Richard Swanson Professor of Social Thought at Augustana and the past chair of the faculty senate. "That's on the cheap, but it meant a lot to us."

It's an admittedly minor thing, but it speaks to Bahls' style, and style counts for a lot in leadership. The Rock Island liberal-arts college is not an autocracy, and the power of its president to create change largely rests with his ability to inspire and guide, particularly the faculty and the board of trustees.