A 31-year veteran of the Ottumwa Police Department and former state legislator died in a car accident today. Liuetenant Mike McDounnough of the Ottumwa Police Department says Sergeant Galen Davis died from injuries he recieved in an accident on Highway 21 near the intersection with Highway 92 in Keokuk County. Other details of the accident have not been released. Davis joined the Ottumwa department in June of 1974. He also served two terms in the Iowa House of Representatives in 1999 and 2000.
Join the Peace Corps, see the world
February 7, 2005 By
Fed up with the snow? How about two years in the moist jungle climate of Venezuela, or the vast desert of Angola? Alicen Burns is Iowa’s chief recruiter for the Peace Corps and she’s looking for new volunteers. Burns says many people have heard of the organization but are a little fuzzy about how it works. Burns, who lives in Ames, says volunteers go into it based on their education, experience and interests, in areas including: agriculture, business, information technology, construction, health and many other possibilities. Burns says the Peace Corps sends volunteers into 26 different programs in 71 nations, mostly in Africa and Latin America. It’s a 27-month commitment. There’s three months of training in the country, then two years of service as a volunteer with a specific community. Burns says 94 Iowans are currently on Peace Corps assignments across the globe. Of those, 46 are University of Iowa alumni volunteers, ranking the U-of-I 24th in the U.S. in the number of Peace Corps volunteers. While you are a volunteer, Burns says all of your expenses are paid. You don’t have to fundraise or spend your own money to take part. It’s a government program so you get a monthly stipend, full medical and dental insurance and your airfare to and from the country is taken care of by the Peace Corps. There’s also a six-thousand dollar “readjustment allowance” when you return. For more information, surf to “www.peacecorps.gov” or call 800 424-8580.
Iowa coach prepares for Wisconsin
February 7, 2005 By
Iowa Coach Steve Alford talks about filling the void without Piere Pierce and the upcoming game at Wisconsin in his weekly meeting with reporters.
Study shows roadside technology may be helpful to drivers
February 7, 2005 By
Some state transportation departments, including Minnesota’s, have spent several years now installing sensors along the roadside for days like this, so plows out on the rural highways won’t go off the roadway when visibility’s bad. Professor John Lee at the University of Iowa has studied new technologies that affect cars and driving, and he says interactive car-road sensors could make driving safer for motorists when there are few visual guides.He says systems that monitor where your car is — relative to the edge of the road — might help you stay on the road better, though he says they won’t take over the job of driving completely. Lee doesn’t see the day when futuristic drivers plug in a destination and let the auto-pilot do it all. Lee calls driving “an incredibly complicated task,” saying we don’t realize that since we do it every day. There are innumerable distractions and unexpected factors for a driver to consider and cope with, and he says there won’t be a computer that can do all that, at least not for the next twenty years. The professor says some high-tech aids will become part of your car, like a collision-avoidance warning device. It uses radar or other sensors to detect cars ahead and it’ll warn if you get too close. For example, he outlines a situation where you’re looking down at your CD player while doing 75 on the highway, with a car ahead of you going 45 MPH, and the system would beep to alert you, getting your attention back on the road in time to avoid a collision. Lee says that collision-avoidance technology’s being put in cars right now. Lee’s an associate professor of industrial engineering at the University of Iowa, and is working on a current project funded by a grant to study cellphones and driver distraction.
Transportation museum in the works in Grinnell
February 7, 2005 By
A new museum that organizers hope will tell the story of Iowa’s involvement in transportation is under development in Grinnell. John Swanson is the executive director of the Iowa Transportation Museum that’s taking shape in the buildings that once were used to manufacture Spaulding cars. He says they’re going to develope a comprehensive facility that he says will have the museum at its core and include a research facility and a restoration facility that will allow the public to view the restoration. The museum recently aquired what’s believe to be the last existing model of the Spauling cars that were built in Grinnell in the early 1900′s. That car will be one of the exhibits of the museum, but Swanson says there’ll be a lot more. He says they want to tell the complete story from the Native American pathways and waterways that formed the initial transportation system to the stagecoach and railways and the highway development an on to air transportation. Swanson says it’ll take a little time to get things up and running. He says they’ve aquired the buildings, raised a little over one million dollars in funds and are doing building restoration. He says it could be a year to 18 months before they have something ready to open. Swanson says the initial work was made possible by grants from the Iowa Department of Transportation funded by the Federal Highway Administration, U-S Department of Agriculture and the State Historical Society of Iowa plus private donations.
Iowa Falls man dies in accident
February 7, 2005 By
A central Iowa man was killed in a weekend car crash.45-year-old Robert Jessen of Iowa Falls was killed early Sunday in a one-vehicle accident south of Webster City. Authorities say his car failed to make a turn on county road R-21, went into the ditch and rolled.
Students rate Superbowl ads as boring
February 7, 2005 By
Marketing students at the University of Iowa were assigned to watch last night’s Superbowl — for the commercials. U-of-I marketing professor Baba Shiv says the expensive advertisements were, in a single word, tepid. Shiv says it’s possible companies didn’t want to offend anyone after the Janet Jackson debacle in 2004, but what they left the audience with was a bunch of boring commercials.He says last year’s ads, especially some of the beer ads, were taudry, risque and riddled with “frat boy humor.” He says that method of appealing to the lowest common denominator is unnecessary as you don’t need to resort to showing someone’s back side or other potty humor to get a chuckle or to keep an audience interested.Advertisers became overly conservative this year, even though they were spending a record two-point-four million dollars for a 30-second spot, so Shiv says it was a waste of money if they didn’t keep people entertained. Shiv says the students he’s talked with so far liked one of the beer ads the best — a patriotic commercial that was about welcoming home the troops. He says there was a humorous winner too. He says the Fed Ex ad that featured actor Burt Reynolds doing a spoof on Superbowl ads was a humorous departure from the others. Among the losers — Shiv says the M-B-N-A ad about “Daddy’s Night Playing Rugby” made no sense, even after he watched it on tape several more times. He was also puzzled by the “go-daddy-dot-com” ad which he says never really conveyed anything about the company.
