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ISU holds on to beat UNI

September 30, 2006 By

Northern Iowa gave up a touchdown with 1:05 to go in the game and then missed a 51-yard field goal with six seconds left as the Panthers failed in their bid to upset Iowa State 28-27. Panther kicker Brian Wingert had made 19 straight field goals, but said he knew immeidately the game-winner against I-S-U was going right. Wingert says that’s the position ever kicker wants to be in.Wingert was emmotional, saying his team played so hard and deserved to win, and said he appologized to his teammates and the U-N-I fans.

U-N-I defensive back Dre Dokes had and interception for a touchdown that gave U-N-I a 14-7 lead in the second quarter. A lead they didn’t give up until the Cyclones’ last drive. But Dokes says the defense wasn’t tired, he says the Cyclones just found some holes in the defense.
Dokes says it’s tough to lose a game they led most of the way, as he says he’s waited a long time to play I-S-U.

Cyclone coach Dan McCarney credited the Panthers with playing a great game. “This was a really impressive U-N-I team that we beat out there tonight. I was extremely proud of our kids to come away with a victory. We made some crtical errors tonight. I challenged our kids at halftime and we were fortunate to come back and win the game,” McCarney said.

Iowa State moves to 3-2 overall and returns to Big 12 play next Saturday in another night game against Nebraska. U-N-I is 2-2 and hosts Missouri State Saturday in the UNI-Dome.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: , ,

Former Iowa First Ladies talk about their experiences

September 30, 2006 By

Four women who’ve carried the title “First Lady” talked about their experiences this past week during two separate events in Iowa. Laura Bush, the First Lady of the United States, spoke at a fundraiser in Des Moines on Thursday and told the crowd she wasn’t the sort who sought the spotlight.

“When your spouse is in politics, you’re involved whether you want to be or not,” Mrs. Bush said. “It makes a huge difference for the candidate and the office-holder if his family supports him and if they stay with him and stand with him.” Three women who’ve stood by the state’s past three governors gathered Wednesday afternoon at Terrace Hill, the governor’s mansion, and talked about their experiences as First Lady.

Former Iowa First Lady Chris Branstad was 30 when her husband was elected in 1982 and she had two young children. A third child was born the next year. “My first goal was to make sure that my children grew up normal…I mean, I drove carpool,” Mrs. Branstad said. “As they got older, it got a little bit easier.” Former Iowa First Lady Billie Ray said she decided when her husband was elected governor in 1968 that she would try to give her teenage girls as normal a childhood as possible. “I went nearly always with Bob if I could,” Mrs. Ray said. “But I said the girls came first and if they had some function, then I stayed for that.”

Current Iowa First Lady Christie Vilsack’s experience in the governor’s mansion has been different because one of her sons was in college and the other was nearly done with high school when her husband was elected in 1998. “Doug was a senior in high school when (her husband was inaugurated as governor in January, 1999) and I literally left him at home in Mount Pleasant with family and friends and came to Des Moines and went back and forth between the two places for that semester,” Mrs. Vilsack said. “I found the answer to empty nest syndrome and that is that I left my empty nest and started a whole new life here.”

Mrs. Vilsack said the three First Ladies would offer whatever advice the next First Lady might want from them. “When people say ‘Well, what do First Ladies do anyway?’ I say ‘Whatever they want because we’re not elected and we’re not paid,’” Mrs. Vilsack said. “I will defend, and I’m sure these two will as well, the choice that the next First Lady makes, whatever those choices are, we will defend them because we’ve all found ourselves here in different circumstances.”

Mari Culver, the wife of Democratic gubernatorial candidate Chet Culver, is a lawyer and Karen Nussle, the wife of Republican gubernatorial candidate Jim Nussle, is a college professor. Chris Branstad put it this way. “First Ladies definitely are in a club all of our own,” Chris Branstad said. “I’m just glad that I could have been part of that.”

Filed Under: Politics & Government Tagged With: ,

Lady bugs late in arriving

September 30, 2006 By

Just one week into fall, the harvest has begun, but there’s something missing — the multi-colored Asian Lady Beetle. In some years they’ve already started invading towns and houses by now, though Iowa State University Professor of Entomology Donald Lewis advises patience.

The reason we’re not seeing them is that they haven’t started migrating. While shorter days are their cue to do that, the sunlight isn’t yet brief enough to convince them to leave the gardens and trees where they’re living, and feeding on aphids. This year there are fewer aphids in the farm fields, and Lewis says that may have limited the number of ladybugs.

Professor Lewis says there’s also a set of temperature cues that’ll send the lady beetles into their migration. For a time he thought it was specific: the first 80-degree day after autumn’s first freeze. It isn’t always that precise, but he says it seems to happen when temps get up into the 70s and 80s the ladybugs will be more active than during our chill days of early fall. He figures we’ll see them taking off “on a hot, sunny day in the middle of October.” He says they have no natural predators – and he says there’s a good reason. They smell bad.

“They just taste bad,” he declares, as bad as they smell to predators like birds and frogs. That protects them against some natural enemies, and though there are some small ones — tiny parasites that live in their bodies — the ladybugs beat them off by reproducing too fast, during the two generations they manage in the length of one summer. Lewis says while homeowners may dread their fall invasion, the lady beetles eat other pests and are what he calls “ecologically beneficial.”

Filed Under: Environment & Conservation Tagged With:

Algona and Clarinda host band festivals

September 30, 2006 By

Two Iowa cities are hosting marching band festivals this weekend, but the largest event is today (Saturday) in Clarinda. The 51st annual Southwest Iowa Band Jamboree is one of Page County’s biggest events of the year, according to Pat Davison at the Clarinda Chamber of Commerce.

Davison says the parade will start things off at 9 AM and it’ll be the largest-ever event in Clarinda with 60 bands from Iowa, Missouri and Nebraska. It’s middle and high school bands with about 35-hundred to four-thousand students taking part. She says the bands, all decked out in matching uniforms with shiny instruments, are competing of a variety of levels.

Davison says in the parade competition, each band will march into the town square where a panel of four judges will rank them based on execution of the marching and their playing of music. Clarinda is the hometown of the late “big band” leader Glenn Miller and hosts a festival in his honor every year too. Davison says this high school marching band event may be even bigger than the Glenn Miller Fest, as this Band Jamboree is all on one day.

The four-thousand students number doesn’t count the band directors, helpers, parents, siblings, grandparents and more, so Davison says the town’s population grows significantly just for this weekend. Events in Clarinda are expected to last all day and into the evening. Also this weekend, Algona is hosting its 58th annual Band Festival, featuring up to 30 bands from that region of the state.

Filed Under: Recreation & Entertainment

New ACT test looks at workplace skills

September 30, 2006 By

The most important skill in today’s workplace isn’t brute strength, the ability to swing a hammer, or even hand-eye coordination. Don Carstensen says the top three things you need on the job are things you should have learned in school. Applied mathematics, reading for information, and locating information — all of which have strong problem-solving dimensions to them.

Carstensen is a vice-president in A-C-T’s Workforce Development Division. He says it became apparent more than a decade ago that there was a “skills gap” between the needs of the workplace and the abilities of new workers, and his company’s been working on ways to score those work skills, just the way they score the American College Tests taken by college-bound high-schoolers.

Employers told the ACT company while it was designing the system that they wanted individuals who had those core skills, and people who could, within a workplace context, solve problems. ACT’s ready to roll out a National Career Readiness System, created after analyzing the skills of more than 12-thousand jobs. The system will assign a prospective worker not a score but a “readiness certificate” that shows any employer just how well they perform those key job-related skills. He says it doesn’t mean they come pre-trained for a certain job.

What it’ll mean is that the person who’s earned a certificate is prepared to enter the workplace, and to learn within the workplace setting the job-specific skills they’ll need to be successful. So if you’ve taken the job readiness test and gotten a certificate, would you clip it to your resume? Absolutely, Carstensen says.

If he were hiring people for some job and found an applicant had taken the initiative to credential themself by getting the certificate he says “they certainly would go to the head of my line, because I would have a confirmed statement of their readiness.”

He says the National Career Readiness System certificates are already accepted at companies including Citigroup, Northrop Grumman, and Rockwell Collins. The “Work Keys” exams to get the certificate can be taken at hundreds of A-C-T “partner organizations throughout the country.

Filed Under: Education Tagged With:

Utility warns against outdated pipe connectors

September 30, 2006 By

One of the state’s utility companies is asking you to check for a certain type of pipe connectors that may lead to problems. Alan Urlis is the spokesman for MidAmerican energy. He says uncoated brass connectors for natural gas appliances are the ones you need to worry about. Urlis says the connectors haven’t been manufactured since the 1970′s, but may’ve still been on appliances.

Urlis says you should check for the connectors when you have your furnace checked. Urlis says if you discover the uncoated brass connectors, you should have a professional remove them an install new connectors.

Filed Under: Fires/Accidents/Disasters Tagged With:

Regatta rows along in Des Moines

September 30, 2006 By

Hundreds of athletes from Iowa and a half-dozen surrounding states are taking part in today’s 23rd annual Rowing Regatta in Des Moines. Julia Martinusen, president of the Des Moines Rowing Club, says it promises to be a great competition.

Martinusen says clubs, high schools, colleges and professional teams are taking part from all over Iowa, Nebraska, Minnesota and as far away as Boulder, Colorado. They’re rowing in 60 races along a three-mile course on the Des Moines River near downtown, from the Botanical Center to Prospect Park. They’re rowing in four- and eight-person shells, doubles, pairs and singles.

Martinusen says rowing doesn’t just exercise your arms — it’s a full-body workout. Martinusen says some people take up rowing to get in shape or to stay in shape, others like the team sport for its camaraderie while others just like being on the water. The first race is scheduled to start at 8:30 a.m. and the last race is at 5:00 p.m. For more information, see the website “www.desmoinesrowing.org”.

Filed Under: Politics & Government
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