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Washington restaurant known for its pie is closing

June 30, 2006 By

One of the oldest family-run restaurants in Iowa is closing its doors today (Friday). Winga’s restaurant has been serving their famous homemade pies for 78 years in the town of Washington, south of Iowa City.

John Winga was born in Holland and started the restaurant in east-central Iowa in 1928. His son, John Winga, Junior, has been running it with his wife Carol for years now. A lot of people he’s serving today are third-generation customers and he remembers serving their grandparents.

“I’ve seen a lot of folks grow up in this community, and I’ve enjoyed being with all of them.” The diner’s also been host to a “Coffee Club” that began in 1935, which boasts over 65-hundred members including Hayden Fry and Colonel Sanders.

Filed Under: Recreation & Entertainment

New veterans clinic on the way

June 30, 2006 By

Iowa will get another clinic to serve the needs of military veterans. Patrick Palmersheim is Executive Director of the Iowa Department of Veterans Affairs and says the new facility will open in Spirit Lake. He says this site was selected before and ready to build when it got put on hold because of budget issues. He says he’s fighting to get five to seven more clinics, too, but “every time we get one more, that’s …more than what we had.”

Palmersheim says several other clinic plans have been approved and then been put on hold, so there could be more coming in the future when funding’s available. The V.A.’s goal is to have a medical facility within fifty to 75 miles of everyone, but Palmersheim says it’s a challenge because the veteran population’s spread thinly in rural areas.

Soldiers returning from the war in Iraq are beginning to increase the number of vets eligible for V.A. medical care. They’re coming in at a record rate, partly because the V.A.’s staging an outreach program to contact every returning vet and get them signed up for medical benefits.

The states are delegated money according to how many vets they have signed up for medical benefits, so he says, “We need every veteran in the state of Iowa signed up.” Even though some will be ineligible for aid because of income guidelines, he says signing up will get them into the system and help the state get all possible funding to run VA hospitals, clinics and outpatient centers here.

Filed Under: Military

Final scenes in the works for "The Final Season"

June 30, 2006 By

Producers of the movie “The Final Season” are setting up for their final scenes that’ll be shot at midday today (Friday) at the old baseball field in the Benton County town of Norway. Casting producer Eric Freese is putting out an appeal for extras and their cars. He says they need 300 fans at the Norway ballpark at noon to recreate the culmination of the team’s successful season for a big celebration.

Freese says the movie makers also need to recreate the big parade that leads up to that on-field bash — and they need several dozen pre-1991 cars for the motorcade. They need about 50 vehicles for the procession that follows the champions as they pull into the ballpark and celebrate their victory.

Freese says they’re not quite ready to call it a “wrap” and end all shooting in Norway, but after several weeks of filming, they’re almost done. He says today’s the last big day of filming but there will still be a few small scenes that need to be shot with small crews and no extras will be needed. The real-life 1991 Norway High School baseball team won the state championships that year, their “final season” since funding was cut for the team the following year by the Benton Community Schools.

Filed Under: Recreation & Entertainment Tagged With:

Wartburg softball player wins academic award

June 30, 2006 By

Wartburg senior softball player Cari Kinzenbaw of Ladora is the only woman from the Iowa conference to win an N-C-A-A spring postgraduate scholarship. Kinzenbaw is an engineering science major with a 4.0 grade-point average. She graduated in May and has been accepted into Iowa State University’s engineering graduate studies program. She helped lead the Knights softball squad to a school-record 40 wins, the program’s second Iowa Conference championship and regional runner-up honors this year.

Wartburg athletic director Rick Willis says there’s no question the postgraduate scholarship is very prestigious and is the epitome of the combination of great academics and athletic achievement. Willis says it’s a tough scholarship to win. He says it’s a competitive process that requires letters of support form across campus and there’s stringent competition from all across the nation.

Willis says the award shows how you can be a “student athlete.” Willis says it’s important for people to realize that being a great athlete and a great student aren’t mutually exclusive.

Willis says it takes someone with special skills to play a sport and still finish at the very top of the academic ladder. He says the most important thing is having great time management skills. Willis says there are a lot of talented athletes that are very bright, but might not achieve as much because they don’t have the ability to manage their time.

Kinzenbaw is one of 29 women nationwide to receive the scholarship of 75-hundred dollars. Winners must have an overall grade-point average of three-point-two, distinguished performance in the sport, and behavior on and off the field that brings credit to the student, the institution and intercollegiate athletics.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With:

Iowa commander serves with son in Iraq

June 30, 2006 By

A 44-year-old Strawberry Point man and his 22-year-old son are serving in the same National Guard unit in Iraq. Lieutenant Colonel Ben Corell is the commander of six-hundred-40 Iowa National Guard soldiers, including his 22-year-old son Tyler. Corell says a “unique aspect” of the Guard is that many soldiers are related. Within the First Batallion, one-33rd Infantry soldiers Corell is leading in Iraq, there are 15 sets of brothers and another father and son. Corell has three sons.

Twenty-six-year-old Wade and 23-year-old Travis are also part of his Guard unit, but Corell and his family talked about this latest deployment and decided only one son would make the journey into Iraq under dad’s command. “I believe that it comforts my wife (Beth) somewhat knowing that if her son is over in the war zone, at least I’m here and I’m able to be present in the same vicinity at the same time,” he says.

During a previous call to active duty, father Corell and all three of his sons did serve together in Egypt. “I think that I am probably harder on them than I would be on someone else if I feel that they’ve made a mistake,” Corell says. “I err on the side of being tougher on them just so there is no perceived favoritism involved.”

Corell and his youngest son have precious little one-on-one time in Iraq these days. “There’s a time when he can come in and close the door and sit down….but those are few and far between because we’re so busy here,” the elder Corell says.

All three of Corell’s sons asked to be deployed on this latest mission in Iraq.
“My wife and I had a discussion that we did not want…all three…to deploy and so we settled on bringing one of the sons over here to do this mission,” Corell says. “They have all deployed in the past, so we were able to do that.”

Tyler had just graduated from Hawkeye Tech in Waterloo and planned to go enroll at Iowa State University last fall, but his unit was mobilized in September of last year for training at Camp Shelby in Mississippi before being shipped overseas to Iraq.

The two Corells and the rest of their Iowa Guard units have been in Iraq since April and are expected to rotate off active duty sometime in the middle of next year.

Filed Under: Military Tagged With:

More charges could be filed in Evelyn Miller case

June 30, 2006 By

A Charles City man who was one of the last people to see Evelyn Miller alive one year ago was arrested Thursday for making false statements to investigators. Dan Slick of Charles City was indicted for knowingly giving a false statement to federal agents. Floyd County Attorney Marilyn Dettmer says while it is a federal case, it’s linked to the Miller murder investigation.

State and federal authorities arrested Danny Slick on a federal indictment charging him with giving untruthful information to a federal agency. Dettmer says it stems from information he gave during the Evelyn Miller investigation, so while it’s linked to the case in that respect it’s a federal charge and “separate from anything that we do.”

An indictment released Thursday by the U.S. Attorney’s Office says Slick admitted to lying to investigators after 5-year-old Miller disappeared last July first. Dettmer says she feels the investigation has turned an important corner with the arrest. She says the public now knows, at least in part, why the investigation’s taken so long. She adds it helps make clear they’re investigating several other people in the case.

Dettmer says despite the arrest of Slick, authorities are still continuing to seek information from the public. There’s still a reward and she’s still hoping for more information. Dettmer says she can’t predict any time frame for moving the case forward, “because we’re dependent upon what other people do.”

Dettmer says they’ve identified other people questioned in the Miller case who have not been truthful, and more charges could be filed in the near future. This is the only charge so far, but though they haven’t gotten to the point of making a decision to file more charges yet, they’re under investigation and Dettmer says, “it’s certainly possible.”

Slick and another man, Randy Patrie, said they were at the child’s home the night she disappeared and Slick later told investigators he’d lied to them about the whereabouts that night of a companion referred to as “R-P.”

Filed Under: Crime & Courts

Senator to hold hearing on intellectually disabled

June 30, 2006 By

Iowa Senator Tom Harkin will return to Iowa for the Fourth of July holiday and will also hold a subcommittee hearing Sunday during the Special Olympics National Games. Harkin says the hearing will give an up-to-date status report on people with intellectual disabilities. He says they’ll also explore “real world” solutions to the problems those with the disabilities face.

Harkin says the World Health Organization estimates this is the largest disabled group on the planet. Harkin says the group is also the most underserved, although he says that’s changing. He says more adults with intellectual disabilities are receiving appropriate educational services and opportunities and are living independently and working.

Harkin says there is still a long way to go. Harkin says there are still many barriers to overcome. Harkin says its “an appalling fact that some 90 percent of adults with intellectual disabilities are not employed. They want jobs, but employers are often reluctant to hire them.” Harkin says he’s also concerned that many of the intellectually disabled do not have access to health care. Harkin’s hearing will be Sunday at 1 p.m. in Ames.

Filed Under: Politics & Government
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