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Iowa teacher honored

May 6, 2006 By

An Iowa teacher was honored in Washington, D.C. this week. Danielle Spaete of Pleasant Valley High School won the 2005 Presidential Award for Math and Science Teaching. Spaete got to meet President Bush. She says the President was very personable, he thanked them for teaching, made a few jokes and took a picture with the teachers.

Spaete says new teachers can learn from their peers. She says she learned a lot from teachers through the years, and says her advice to others is to look around and see who’s doing a good job. Spaete says her profession continues to change.

She says there’s probably a technology upgrade in her future as the technology used to teach has changed quite a bit. Spaete was the only Iowa teacher to receive the science award.

Filed Under: Education

Western Iowa church moving

May 6, 2006 By

A western Iowa church with a history that dates back to the 1880s will temporarily close its doors this weekend. After Sunday’s services, Trinity Lutheran Church near Manning will undergo preparations for being moved about ten miles to Manning Heritage Park.

The process is being filmed for the Discovery Channel. Ruth Hansen’s father, William Kanning, was a minister at the church for more than 25 years. Hansen says her father was installed as pastor there in 1946 after serving as an Army chaplain to U.S. soldiers and prisoners during World War Two.

Hansen says her family moved to the Manning area in 1946 after she graduated from high school in Minnesota. She says if she hadn’t gone with her family, she would have never met her husband, Robert. The Audubon couple has been married over 55 years. Their six children were all baptized and confirmed at Trinity. Hansen says in its early days, a lot of children were baptized there.

Quoting old records, she says in 1891, there were 17 babies baptized there. In 1900, there were 27 babies baptized there. Since then, the congregation’s numbers have dwindled to about 25 members. The ornate white building has a 90-foot tall steeple, an organ with over 300 pipes and 20 stained glass windows. Hansen says Sunday’s final service will be bittersweet for the congregation, but it will be done in traditional country style.

There’ll be a 10 A.M. service for the 125th anniversary, followed by a pot luck dinner, then one final service at 2 P.M. The church was organized under the Missouri Synod in 1881. The first church was built in 1884. It was destroyed by a tornado in 1913 and rebuilt. After it’s placed in its new home in mid-June, Trinity will no longer offer regular church services but will continue to serve as a place for weddings and other community events.

Filed Under: Religion

State Veterinarian prepares for bird flu

May 6, 2006 By

Iowa’s new state veterinarian says the state’s making preparations for any outbreak of bird flu. Acting State Veterinarian David Schmitt says the Iowa State Department of Agriculture has a plan in place, including outreach to the state’s chicken producers.

Schmitt says they inspect the state’s chick dealers and hatcheries, put up posters and tell operators about Exotic Newcastle Disease as well as “high-pathogenic” avian influenza, and make sure they know that if there’s a sign of disease outbreak they’re to call his office and the U-S-D-A state veterinarian in charge.

He says there’s an Iowa poultry emergency disease plan in place, created with input from the industry, to deal with bird flu and Exotic Newcastle, another serious poultry ailment. The U-S-D-A has also recently issued a draft plan the state’s reviewing, and the state vet has met with other agencies.

Schmitt says the D-N-R’s looking at proposals to try and monitor migrating birds that might carry the virus, but that’s not the focus of the agriculture department.
Schmitt says the agriculture department’s involved with the livestock industry, and says it’s been pro-cative in bio-security. The state has procedures in place to sample birds in large turkey, broiler and egg-laying operations.

Schmitt says they’ve been taking test samples for the last couple years. He says as of last November, more than 19-thousand samples had already been collected from Iowa’s commercial poultry operations and all had been negative for the strains of avian influenza considered dangerous in the current outbreak in Asia.

Filed Under: Health & Medicine

Boswell investigates lost baggage

May 6, 2006 By

Iowa Congressman Leonard Boswell, a member of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, this week held hearings with the federal D-O-T, the Transportation Security Administration, and major airlines on why they lose 30-Million suitcases a year.

Iowa’s only Democrat Congressman, Boswell says they got promises the travel industry would take a look at staffing levels during the busy season, and would also review its measures to hold down theft of baggage. He says before long he’s tackling another project…letting private planes fly again to the nation’s capital.He says a closed hearing’s coming up on how to get general aviation back into the Washington National Airport, where those craft have been shut out since September 11, 2001.

“General aviation” means just about everything that’s not scheduled airline service — private planes of all kinds from a farmer’s single-engine Cub to business jets.
He says with today’s technology there’s no reason not to let them back in. A lot of business travelers have to fly to the capital and he says they ought to be able to use that airport.

Boswell’s a private pilot himself, and has said he sometimes flies his small plane when he’s back in Iowa. During his 20-year military career Boswell spent a couple years piloting a chopper in Vietnam.

Filed Under: Politics & Government Tagged With:

Bus tour provides prescription drug information

May 6, 2006 By

A bus traveled the state this week as part of a nationwide tour of the Partnership for Prescription Assistance. Wanda Moebius is a spokesperson for the partnership.
who says they’re going across the country looking for low-income or uninsured people who need help with their prescription drugs.

Moebius says a big part of their mission is getting out information. Moebius says they hold education events and let people know that there are 475 different programs to help lower the cost of their medicine. She says a lot of people don’t know about those programs.

Moebius says this partnership helps people cut through all the information. Moebius says prior to the partnership there were too many programs to sort through and she says this gives people one place to go. Moebius says there’s a great need for this help. She says two-point-two million people have signed up across the country — including 22-thousand Iowans in the last year. Moebius says if you missed the tour you can call toll free: 888-477-2669 or surf to:www.pparxia.org

Related web sites:
Partnership for Prescription Assistance website

Filed Under: Health & Medicine

Old Capitol reopens in Iowa City

May 6, 2006 By

Following a destructive fire a few weeks after the September 11th attacks, the centerpiece of the University of Iowa re-opens to the public today (Saturday) after four and a half years and millions of dollars in restoration work.

U-of-I President David Skorton hosts a five-minute on-line video that reveals a sneak peak of the renovated Old Capitol and encourages people to finally return to the grand, historic building.

Skorton says this is the first time Old Capitol will be opened “since the terrible fire in 2001 that destroyed the dome and caused so much interior damage. The designers and architects and contractors and all of those who’ve been part of this project have made this treasure for the state of Iowa better than ever.”

Sandy Boyd was the U-of-I’s president in the 1970s and is now director of the Old Capitol Museum. Boyd says he’s thrilled to have the ornate building again opening its doors. Boyd says “This wonderful, stately, elegant building symbolizes the pioneering spirit of Iowa and that of the University of Iowa, but Old Capitol has always been about more than just the University of Iowa. For years, Old Capitol has been one of our state’s most recognizable landmarks, a living symbol that instills pride in all Iowans.”

The building includes many unusual architectural features, including a reverse spiral wooden staircase. Boyd says the focal point of what’s now known as the Pentacrest played a pivotal role in shaping Iowa’s early days. Boyd says Old Capitol doesn’t lack for history as the first territorial legislature met there in 1842 and celebrated Iowa’s admission to the Union there in 1846. Ansel Briggs was inaugurated Iowa’s first governor there and it’s where the state’s Constitution was drafted and approved and where the first six Iowa general assemblies convened.

The reopening celebration begins at 9:30 AM (Saturday) with formal ceremonies and continues all day with self-guided tours, musical performances and other festivities. For more information, surf to: “www.uiowa.edu/~oldcap/”.
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Filed Under: Human Interest Tagged With:

Osceola man charged with creating child pornography

May 6, 2006 By

A man arrested in Osceola this week was charged with creating child porn, and using his computer to store and share the pictures of children. Tim Counts with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency says anytime a crime’s committed using the Internet, it makes it a federal case — and a matter for worldwide prosecution.

The federal agency takes it seriously and he says local communities should also take pornography investigations very seriously. The Customs agency is going to prosecute, he says, “to the fullest extent of the law.” The man arrested on Wednesday is identified as 37-year-old Terence Edgington of Osceola.

The case announced by the U.S. Attorney’s office this week is apparently not related to an arrest in mid-March of an Osceola woman charged with using her computer to host a group of child-porn users. Counts calls that one a “particularly disturbing case,” and says ICE did investigate that one, too.

In the March crackdown, a ring of people were sending each other live video of child molestations over the Internet. He says “obviously, they weren’t keeping it to themselves — our agents were able to infiltrate the ring.” He says several prosecutions are underway following that crackdown.

The arrest this week was part of a federal program dubbed “Operation Predator,” which was begun in July 2003. Counts says they’ve used Operation Predator to arrest 7-thousand, 856 people nationwide for engaging in some kind of child exploitation. He says that includes 103 people in Iowa.

Filed Under: Crime & Courts