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Apartment where Evelyn Miller lived to be torn down

June 5, 2006 By

The apartment complex where a slain five-year-old Floyd County girl was last seen alive is being torn down. The building in rural Floyd will be demolished after the South Dakota-based ethanol company Vera-Sun Energy purchased it as they plan to build a new ethanol plant next to the site that will produce 110 million gallons of ethanol per year.

The nine-apartment complex was sold to Vera-Sun by David and Shanna Litterer of Charles City for about $225-thousand last month. The Litterers say every apartment had been filled before Evelyn Miller vanished on July 1st from the complex, but after her disappearance, it was hard to rent out any space.

The Miller case is still not solved, and Floyd County Attorney Marilyn Dettmer says the building’s demolition will not hinder the investigation.

Filed Under: Crime & Courts Tagged With:

Deadline approaching for Iowa Games open basketball

June 5, 2006 By

The deadline is fast approaching for the adult open basketball competition at this summer’s Iowa Games. Executuve director Jim Halihan say the postal deadline is Wednesday and the on-line registration deadline is the 12th.

The open division is a large one at the Iowa Games in part because there are not that many tournaments for adult teams to play in.

Halihan says teams qualify for the summer games by taking part in one of several regionals being held. June 17th they’ll be in Cedar Falls and June 24th in Des Moines and Iowa City with the regionals.

Halihan says teams can choose which regional they want to play in. He says they haven’t limited the teams to a specific regional, and have given them a couple of weekends to choose from. The Iowa Games are July 13th through the 16th and the 21st through the 23rd in Ames.

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Democrat candidates for Governor make last campaign push

June 5, 2006 By

The three leading Democratic candidates for governor are making their final appeals for votes heading into Tuesday’s primary election. The trio spent the weekend busily criss-crossing the state, trying to pump up supporters and attract new converts.

Early Sunday afternoon, Chet Culver spoke to about 60 supporters gathered in a union hall near the Firestone plant in Des Moines. “I first of all want to thank you for your commitment, for your support, for your friendship, for your loyalty,” Culver said. “Number two, I need you — each and every one of you, literally, here — to do everything you can between now and nine o’clock on Tuesday.”

Meanwhile, rival Mike Blouin spent his Sunday at stops in eastern Iowa. “This is a very, very close election. It will be decided by a handful of votes in a handful of counties,” Blouin said. “Every vote matters more than anybody can imagine because it’s likely to be a low turnout.”

Blouin has an explanation for the low voter interest in the gubernatorial race. “People in a primary show up for courthouse races, the local legislative races and while they’re there they’ll vote for a governor or a congressional candidate,” Blouin said. “In those counties that have courthouse races, there’s a lot of interest. In those counties that don’t, there’s not much interest.”

Candidate Ed Fallon made stops in eastern Iowa, too. His last appearance Sunday night was at a picnic in Iowa City where he played his accordion. “I’m not pretentious. I’m not afraid to be who I am,” Fallon said. “I think people are finding that refreshing.”

Fallon’s final pitch to voters is the same pitch he’s been making for the past three years. “The only way to beat Jim Nussle is with a Tom Harkin-style campaign that focuses on issues,” Fallon said. “I’ve always stuck up for people who don’t have a voice in government. That includes a growing number of Iowans.”

A Des Moines Register Iowa Poll conducted in the past week found Culver holding a lead in the race. Thirty-six percent of those polled said they’d vote for Culver. Blouin got the backing of 28 percent. The margin of error was four percent which means the race between Culver and Blouin could be nearly dead even.

Fallon was favored by 21 percent. Fourteen percent of those polled said they still hadn’t decided which candidate they’d vote for.

Filed Under: Politics & Government Tagged With: ,

Iowa Caucuses used as example for Tuesday election

June 5, 2006 By

The last statewide “election” for Iowa Democrats was in 2004, when John Kerry won the Iowa Caucuses. What did the three leading Democrats running for governor learn from that night? As you may recall, John Kerry staged a furious rally in the closing days of the campaign — surging ahead of perceived front-runner Howard Dean to finish first. Dean faded to finish in third, behind second-place-finisher John Edwards — another hard-closing candidate.

Patrick Dillon, one of the architects of the John Edwards campaign in Iowa is Chet Culver’s campaign manager and Culver claims to have a Culver supporter in nearly every precinct in Iowa to work for his campaign on the local level. “We learned in that caucus that whoever had the best ground-game on Caucus Day won,” Culver says.

Mike Blouin’s campaign manager is Matt Paul, who worked on the Howard Dean campaign. Blouin says the lesson of John Kerry’s 2004 Caucus triumph is that a candidate can make up a lot of ground in a hurry. “Tom Vilsack’s primary with Mark McCormick showed that,” Blouin says, citing Vilsack’s come-from-behind win in 1998. “Iowans don’t make real strong commitments in a primary unless they really know somebody personally and they’re usually pretty open to movement if you give them reason.”

Candidate Ed Fallon suggests there’s a lesson in the 2004 Iowa Caucuses for those who doubt whether he has a shot at winning. “Polls often don’t show the true sentiment of the electorate,” Fallon says. “Certainly back in 2004 there were a lot of folks who hadn’t made up their mind or some who switched their allegiance and a lot of people who hadn’t been polled because they weren’t expected to go to the Caucuses and I think that’s the case this time around, too.”

Filed Under: Politics & Government Tagged With: , ,

First Lady, Governor dress up for last "Spring Fling"

June 5, 2006 By

Iowa’s first couple hosted their annual “spring fling” on the grounds of Terrace Hill, the governor’s mansion, on Sunday. In “spring flings” of the past, First Lady Christie Vilsack has had her husband wear a Winnie the Pooh outfit, and one year he was the Scarecrow from the “Wizard of Oz.”

This year, Governor Tom Vilsack was dressed as “the ringmaster.” “This was the outfit that Christie picked for me,” Vilsack said, laughing. The costume was chosen because it’s one of the characters in a Dr. Seuss book. “This is an opportunity for us to focus on the circus,” Vilsack says “Most youngsters love the circus and we’ve got clowns and animals…It’s a continuation of our efforts to promote reading.”

Mrs. Vilsack was dressed as an equestrian acrobat — but she had no horse. “Somebody asked me the other day where my horse was or if I’d been practicing with the horse,” Mrs. Vilsack said. “Maybe on one of these little ponies that’s around here, I might be able to get up on one of those and ride around.” Mid-afternoon, Iowa’s First Couple read the Seuss book, “If I Ran the Circus” to the crowd. “I did go to the circus when I was young and loved all of the acts. I just love people and all of the festivity that goes along with the circus,” Mrs. Vilsack said. “And life sometimes is a three-ring circus, especially for us, so I thought this was very appropriate.”

The governor agreed with that, but denied a desire to win the title of political ringmaster. “I’ve enjoyed the circus but never wanted to be in charge of the elephants and the horses and the trapeze people,” Vilsack said. “You’ve never wanted to be in charge of the elephants and the donkeys?” Radio Iowa news director O. Kay Henderson asked. Vilsack replied: “No. No. No. No. Nice try.”

Governor Vilsack was festooned in a black suit, with a brightly-colored satin vest and a black, stove-pipe hat like President Abraham Lincoln used to wear. While Lincoln often carried speeches in his hat, Vilsack’s hat contained no political speech for the day.

Filed Under: Education, Politics & Government, Recreation & Entertainment Tagged With:

Iowa part of farm fraud scheme

June 5, 2006 By

Farmers in four states, including one in Iowa, have been defrauded out of more than a million dollars by a bait and switch scheme based in Central Missouri.

Missouri Attorney General Jay Nixon has filed a lawsuit against five mid-Missourians who Nixon says scammed at least 12 people around the Midwest by promising healthy, pregnant cattle but delivering sickly cattle instead.

Nixon says this case does damage to an industry where most deals are conducted with a smile and a handshake. “If people don’t live up to that handshake and smile, then they know those of us in law enforcement are going to work with the Cattlemen’s Association and others and farmers to make sure that continues to be the way we operate in Missouri,” Nixon says. He says it is difficult to uncover a scam like this.

“A lot of these folks don’t want to come forward. They feel like they’ve been duped or whatever and they don’t want to admit they’ve been ripped off,” Nixon says. According to Nixon, Job Keltner — a farmer from Wapello, Iowa — was ripped off by the five Missouri cattle traders.

The Missouri Attorney General says the five defendants are associated with M-J-L Cattle Company in New Franklin, Missouri. At least a dozen Midwest farmers were scammed. “As the Cattlemen’s Association has told folks, watching the cattle you buy be unloaded and then following quickly if you don’t get what you paid for is very, very important because it is a business that does operate on a handshake,” Nixon says. The Missouri Attorney General says the scam defrauded people not only in Missouri, and Iowa, but also in Kansas and Nebraska.

Peggy Morrow of Rocheport, Missouri; Jason Hackman of New Franklin, Missouri; Lance Neff of Napton, Missouri; Ben Leonard of Bunceton, Missouri; and Robert Simmons of Boonville, Missouri all face jail time on the criminal charges and are being sued in civil court, too.

Filed Under: Agriculture, Crime & Courts

Farmhouse sought for film

June 5, 2006 By

Wanted: a farmhouse with a porch near a cornfield. Iowa Film Office manager Tom Wheeler says a filmmaker is looking for a traditional family farm on which to shoot some scenes and Iowans are encouraged to submit photos of their homesteads for consideration as a real-life movie set.

Wheeler says the filmmakers want a farm with corn in large flat fields as far as the eye can see and a farmhouse with a porch from which the corn can be seen. He couldn’t provide any details about the movie or its plotline — just that it’ll be a movie to be shot this summer.

The Los Angeles-based filmmaker is a former Iowan who would very much like to shoot this project and others back home. Wheeler says the director and producers have certain elements in mind they’d like met.

The filmmakers want the two-story farmhouse to be lived-in and maintained and that the porch be a wrap-around style. It would also need to be available for shooting three times during the growing season — shortly after the corn has emerged, about mid-way through its growth and at harvest.

Wheeler says the owners of the house would likely be compensated for the use of the property, though he’s unsure how much money would be involved. He says filmmakers sometimes want to shoot inside the home. Not in this case, though. He says it would be all exterior shots and the use of the porch only during the daylight hours. He says there’d be no need to get inside the house, except for the crew to occasionally use the bathroom. For more information or to submit your farmhouse for consideration, contact Wheeler at (515) 242-4726 or via “www.filmiowa.com”.

Filed Under: Recreation & Entertainment
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