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I-S-U looks to topple Toledo

August 31, 2006 By

The Iowa State Cyclones open the football season tonight at home with their first-ever meeting with Toledo. The Cyclones are coming off a 7-5 season and have gone to bowl games the past two years. Out of the Mid-American Conference, Toledo was 9-3 last season and won the G-M-A-C Bowl.

I-S-U coach Dan McCarney says they know Toledo will come in with a lot at stake, and he says they’ve had his staff’s attention for a long time. A year ago the Cyclones struggled early in the opener against Illinois State before winning 32-21.

McCarney says they cannot afford a slow start in this game, as he says they’ll have their hands full as this is a much better team than Illinois State. McCarney says Toledo has gotten some big road wins over the years.

The offense is experienced and McCarney says a strong running game will help keep a young defense off the field. He says the longer a game goes the better it is for his offense and he hopes they can have more offensive than defensive snaps. Kickoff in Jack Trice Stadium is seven o’clock.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: ,

Des Moines lawyer and wife talk about finding missing son

August 31, 2006 By

A prominent Des Moines lawyer and his wife talked with reporters today about the emotions of finding their teenage son who had been missing for two days. Stan Thompson, a former republican congressional candidate, and his wife Nancy say they were prepared for the worst after their 16-year-old son Matt turned up missing Monday and efforts to find him failed.

Search efforts intensified Wednesday in the woods near the Thompson’s Des Moines home, and around 11:30 Matt was found after he heard searchers and called out. Stan Thompson got a cell-phone call from police and went to the area — but said he still didn’t get his hopes up.

Thompson says the hardest thing about it as a parent is that you don’t expect it to happen and when it does you just don’t know what may’ve happened. Thompson rushed into the woods when he got the area where searchers found his son. He says his instincts and emotions took over and he just wanted to be with his son.

Thompson says the first thing he did was tell Matt “I loved him and was glad to see him.” Thompson says his son had taken a walk as he thought over the family’s pending move to Waukee and apparently got lost.

Matt climbed a tree to try and get his bearings and was injured after falling. Thompson says Matt broke his right leg between his ankle and his knee and had successful surgery on the leg and has also been wearing a back brace as a precaution.

Thompson says he doesn’t know for sure when his son will come home, but hopes it’s in a few days. Thompson and his wife thank all those who gathered to search for their son.

Filed Under: Human Interest

Sioux County Sheriff’s Deputy under investigation

August 31, 2006 By

The Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation is investigating the Sioux County Sheriff’s chief deputy. Sheriff Dan Altena says he placed his chief deputy, Randy Waterman, on paid administrative leave during the D-C-I investigation.

The sheriff is not disclosing what is being investigated. He describes it as a matter that came to his attention last week. Altena also said the investigation is ongoing and criminal charges are possible. Waterman was appointed chief deputy in January of last year. He’s worked for the department since 1991.

Filed Under: Crime & Courts

Two casinos fined for allowing underage gambling

August 31, 2006 By

The Iowa Racing and Gaming Commission today approved fines of 10-thousand dollars each for two casinos that allowed underage gamblers into their establishments. The commission says an underage male was able to get into the Argosy casino in Sioux City on July 16th, and was in the casino for over an hour, and drank two drinks before he was discovered.

Sioux City casino general manager Frank Quigley told the commission the casino does take the issue seriously. Quigley says they have disciplined the appropriate employees and have re-trained the entire staff with an emphasis of recognizing underage gamblers.

Quigley says they have also made changes at the entrance of the casino. He says at the time this happened, you could walk three or four people abreast into the casino and use the number of people as a screen to get someone in. Quigley says the had several situations where parents were trying to create diversions and sneak minors into the casino. He says they have now narrowed the entrance so people have to come in one at a time.

The Harrah’s casino in Council Bluffs was fined after a minor entered the casino in June of this year and played black jack for an hour before someone checked his I-D. Mike Rich of the casino says they’ve also made changes to prevent minors from getting in. He says Harrah’s takes the issue “very seriously” and says it was an “unfortunate incident where the security officer was disregarding policy, talking to a patron during a very non-busy time where this individual was able to come into our casino.”

Rich says the casino had done some things to try and help the security officers. He says the casino bought the security guards handheld scanners to allow them to check I-D’s to be sure the I-D’s are real, and implemented new procedures that require them to ask questions of anyone who looks like they’re the under the age of 30 to be sure it is the person’s I-D.

In discussion unrelated to the fines levied today, the Racing and Gaming Commission asked staff to proceed with a plan to changes the rules to double the fines against casinos for underage gambling. The current fines of 10-thousand dollars for the first offense and 15-thousand for the second offense in the same year will be doubled at the recommendation of two commission members who have been studying the issue. Commissioner Kate Cutler says the amount of the fine has not been changed in about 10 years.

Filed Under: Crime & Courts, Recreation & Entertainment Tagged With:

Atlantic student gets perfect score on math test

August 31, 2006 By

A student from western Iowa’s Cass County has distinguished himself among his peers, in the area of mathematics. Williams Cord of Atlantic was one of three students in the country who had a perfect score of 40 on a SIGMA Test, when he was an eighth grader last year.

Atlantic math instructor Bruce Henderson explains. He says SIGMA originates out of Lincoln, Nebraska. The organization provides problem-solving math tests to middle school students five times each year. The students took five very hard 8-question tests.

William got every single question right on each of the five tests. Only two other students, one from Silver Springs, Maryland, the other from Hilo, Hawaii, had equally perfect scores.

Four students nationwide scored 39, and 16 had scores of 38. Henderson said two other Atlantic students placed 100-th, which is “pretty good,” considering six-thousand students took the test. He says what’s really amazing is what you see when look at where the top scorers come from.

Henderson says only the best students are allowed to take the tests, and if they’re good enough to get even half the answers right, they (meaning the students and school) are happy. Cord will receive a medal for his academic efforts.

Since he’s a freshman this year…and only eighth-graders can take the test…he will not be able to repeat the remarkable performance.

Filed Under: Education

Swastikas on Wall Lake water tower raise concern

August 31, 2006 By

The town of Wall Lake is working to smooth over some bad feelings about racist symbols that are all too public — a couple of Nazi swastikas on the town’s water tower. City Manager Tom Schoeder says the scene was set earlier this summer when someone was circulating racist flyers.

Local cops and deputies say flyers handed out in parking lots in nearby Denison and Storm Lake purported to be from the Klu Klux Klan. “They did trace it back to possibly some kids from the Wall Lake, Lake View area,” Schroeder says.

He says nobody’s come forward to admit they have a connection with the white-supremacist group, but the Nazi symbol of the swastika was painted on the town’s water tower. Both Wall Lake and Lake View have meatpacking plants that employ a lot of Hispanic workers. “We had a couple of swastikas painted on the water tower approximately three weeks ago,” Schroeder says. “We went up the next day and tried to remove them with a paint remover and got most of them off.”

The city manager believes the swastikas were painted by a couple kids looking for notoriety, and he says it wouldn’t be the first time. He’s pretty sure that before the new tower was in place, in the 1960s or early 70s, “there was a few girls’ names painted up there.”

Schroeder says before long the last traces of the hateful graffiti will be gone for good. In September, the tower’s scheduled for annual maintenance that’ll include repainting the outside of the water tower, and reconditioning the inside of the tank. He says the water will be safe to drink during the work.

Wall Lake is a town of about 850 people in Sac County and some townsfolk want the swastikas removed more quickly.

Filed Under: Crime & Courts

Sex offender claims cemetery as home

August 31, 2006 By

A 22-year-old eastern Iowa man who is a convicted sex offender has told authorities he’s living among the dead.

Convicted sex offenders who’re out of prison are required by state law to report their living address to their county sheriff and David Eberle has told authorities he’s living out of his car, and parking it overnight in a Cedar Rapids cemetery.

Mt. Calvary Cemetery manager Carol Hochstetler says no one’s authorized to stay overnight at the cemetery and she hasn’t seen any evidence that someone’s living on the property. “We will double-check from now on out here,” she says. “There won’t be a problem, I’m sure. Nobody has to worry. We’ll make sure the cemetery is taken care of and there’s no problems.”

Eberle, the man who’s claiming to live in the cemetery, was convicted of indecent contact with a child in 2002. By law, he must list his address with the sheriff and live at least 2000 feet away from daycare centers and schools. Some sections of the cemetery would meet that distance requirement.

Some individuals on the state’s sex offender registry routinely give fake addresses. Currently, slightly more than 6000 people must register. One state official says up to 25 percent of addresses listed each year must be investigated because of questions about residency rules.

Linn County Sheriff Don Zeller says now that he’s confirmed Eberle gave a fake address he’s in the process of filing legal papers. Deputies will be able to arrest Eberle on a violation whenever — and wherever — he’s located.

Filed Under: Politics & Government
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