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Iowa State nears goal for football season tickets

May 24, 2006 By

Iowa State is nearing its goal of selling 30-thousand season tickets for the upcoming football season. Cyclone ticket manager Jared Sturtewagen says more than 28-thousand-200 season tickets have been sold, that’s an all-time record for ISU football.

Sturtewagen says there’s a lot of excitement in the returning players and the upcoming schedule. He says there are a couple of different season ticket packages that are still available, with the 99 dollar endzone tickets the only packages that’re sold out.

Sturtewagen says single game tickets will be available for all games but Nebraska on July 10th.

The Cyclones have a seven-game home schedule for the upcoming season. It begins with an August 31st matchup with Toledo. The Cyclones also have home games against U-N-L-V, U-N-I, Nebraska, Texas Tech, Kansas and Missouri.

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Grand View softball headed to national tourney

May 24, 2006 By

The Grand View College softball team closed out the season by making its first trip to the NAIA National Tournament in Decatur, Alabama. The Vikings won their final game over William Woods of Missouri but did not make it out of pool play. They finished the season with a record of 34-24 after a slow start.

Grand View coach Lou A. Yacanich says their March record was 4-13 and since then it’s 30-11. Yacanich says his team got better as it gained experience. He says last fall they had all kinds of new players to put together.

Yacanich says this is the kind of season that can build momentum for a program. He says it will be nice to talk to the new recruits and returning players and say they finished at the national tournament. With only two seniors on this year’s team the Vikings expect more success in 2007.

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ICLU jumps into phone records debate

May 24, 2006 By

The Iowa Civil Liberties Union has joined with A-C-L chapters from 19 other states to urge state officials to investigate whether phone companies turned over call records to the National Security Agency.

Ben Stone, executive director of the Iowa Civil Liberties Union, is asking Iowa’s Attorney General and the Iowa Utilities Board to investigate. “It’s really hard to know what exactly has happened because there’s been so little oversight of this issue both locally and nationally,” Stone says. “We’re hoping that this campaign the ACLU’s, that the ACLU of Iowa’s playing a role in, will help to initiate greater oversight so we really can learn what has been going on, what kind of information sharing, what kind of snooping has been going on.”

Stone says it’s not an effort to “obstruct legitimate law enforcement activities” but he says there’s no reason for a citizen’s telephone records to be divulged without a warrant, notice or consent. A Des Moines businessman and attorney who’s been an A-T-&-T customer for 45 years is the first Iowan to file a complaint with the state utilities board, according to Stone, who urges other Iowans to consider similar action.

Qwest is the dominant local phone service provider in Iowa, and Stone praises the company for refusing to release such information. “Qwest has really done well to stand up for the privacy of their customers, but we need to also send messages to other phone companies,” Stone says. “We’re really hoping that a few complaints filed with the Iowa Utilities Board will generate that kind of oversight.”

On Tuesday, the Federal Communications Commission declined to investigate complaints that the spy agency was culling through millions of phone call records in an attempt to trace terrorist activities, and that some phone companies had voluntarily turned over customer records to the National Security Agency.

President Bush has refused to confirm or deny the complaint, but has told reporters the spy agency’s actions have been legal and the government is not trying to pry into private citizens’ lives.

Filed Under: Politics & Government Tagged With:

Boswell part of stolen veterans information

May 24, 2006 By

Iowa Congressman Leonard Boswell finds himself right in the middle of the controversy over the theft of personal information on millions of veterans from a Veterans Administration employee. Boswell is a Vietnam vet.

Boswell says his retirement came in 1976, “So I guess my records are out there along with everybody else’s.” Boswell says he’s concerned about all the veterans involved. Boswell, a democrat, says he’s trying to do something to help prevent any damage to veterans from identity theft.

Boswell says the V-A “screwed up badly” and he’s cosponsoring legislation that will require the V-A to provide information to veterans along with free credit information and two years of free credit reports as well as money for implementation of the program.

Boswell says he’s not happy that the V-A delayed letting veterans know about the information theft. He says, “We’re gonna make sure we don’t like it. That was inappropriate.” The data covered some 26-million veterans, most of whom left the service in the last 30 years.

Filed Under: Crime & Courts, Military, Politics & Government Tagged With: ,

Truckers on the lookout in nationwide campaign

May 24, 2006 By

While safety officials push a buckle-up campaign and law-enforcement reminds us to drive with care during the long holiday weekend, the drivers of big rigs are already watching out for you. Brenda Neville, vice-President of the Iowa Motor Truck Association, says professional truck-drivers’ groups in all fifty states are now part of “Highway Watch.”

The program, offered through Homeland Security and other agencies, helps train drivers who are out on the roads in ways to be observant and be “the eyes and ears on the road” for safety and security issues. Neville says you don’t have to be a trucker to take the training, and you don’t have to become a firefighter or E-M-T.

Any driver who’ll be out on the road can take the training for Highway Watch” and they’re taught how to spot situations that might pose a hazard and how to contact the proper agencies that’ll respond — not to try and handle it themselves. Neville says the training helps them spot situations that might cause problems before they happen. She cites an erratic driver, for example, or something that poses a safety hazard. She’s heard of a truck driver who went by a van pulling a trailer that had a load that wasn’t properly secured, with things flying out of it onto the road.

The trucker called authorities who stopped the vehicle and found out the driver not only didn’t have the load properly tied down, there were illegal drugs in the vehicle as well. A trucker hauling hazardous materials may notice a vehicle traveling alongside with someone videotaping his rig and load; Neville says it’s happened. The trucker would call that in to the national Highway Watch hotline, which in turn would notify local authorities to check into it. She explains there’s been discussion of the threat that a tractor-trailer could be used in a terrorist style attack.

The Highway Watch program has passed on Amber Alerts to over-the-road drivers, and at times has issued a “Be on the Lookout” alert to members to watch for people who’ve been reported engaging in suspicious behavior.

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Students compete in Odyssey of the Mind in Ames

May 24, 2006 By

At a time when most students are thinking about getting out of school, ten-thousand young people from around the globe headed for Iowa State University this week. Ames is hosting the World Finals of Odyssey of the Mind, a competition that focuses on creative problem-solving. NASA backs the event and Claire Parkinson, a senior scientist for the space agency, says students from dozens of countries will take part.

Parkinson says there are several different competitions taking place in various categories and age ranges. Students prepare for months with a number of local, state, regional and national competitions leading up to this world finals matchup.

The contest opened at I-S-U today (Wednesday) and runs through Saturday. She says the teams have up to seven students and there are limits in terms of how much money they can spend, which is a small amount as the contest emphasizes the use of creativity.

The Odyssey competitions have been running for nearly 20 years and pose students with a problem to solve or some issue to brainstorm. In one event this year, Parkinson says students are working on skits called “The Jungle Bloke.” She says the bloke, or person, is going to try to convince others that he can talk with animals. Part of the performance will take place in an imaginary jungle and the bloke will apparently talk with animals about a problem in the jungle and he’s supposed to help them out.

Presentations have to include an original song and dance. For more information on the competition, surf to “www.odysseyofthemind.com”.

Related web sites:
Odyssey of the Mind info

Filed Under: Education Tagged With:

Appeals Court refuses to release Hiatwatha man from prison

May 24, 2006 By

A man found guilty of strangling a Hiawatha convenience store clerk to death has lost his attempt to get released from prison. Christopher Wheeler’s defense attorney argued Wheeler was too drunk to know what he was doing when he strangled Shelley Razor-Markwell to death. Wheeler, who was 21 at the time of the crime, was living with the 36-year-old woman.

Razor-Markwell was found dead in their Hiawatha apartment. She was a single mother of three children and a jury found Wheeler guilty of first degree murder, which carries a life prison sentence.

The Iowa Court of Appeals has rejected his claim that the district court judge erred when the judge “tersely” refused to dismiss the charges against Wheeler. Wheeler’s complaints about his lawyer must be laid out in a separate appeal, according to the court.

Filed Under: Crime & Courts
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