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UNI quarterback’s solid play in wake of injury gives coach confidence

November 5, 2008 By

UNI coach Mark Farley says the play of Zach Davis will keep them from rushing quarterback Pat Grace back into the lineup before he’s ready. Davis has led the Panthers to consecutive road wins after Grace went down with an injured knee, including an impressive 30-6 victory at Western Illinois this past weekend.

Farley says Davis scrambled this week, showing more confidence, and he says he now calls Davis his other quarterback, not his second team quarterback. Farley says it’s good to know that the team has two quality quarterbacks.

Farley is not sure if Grace will be ready to play this weekend against Missouri State. He says they have the luxury of making sure Grace is healed with the good play of Davis, so Grace can come back at full strength and not be rushed.

Missouri State has been inconsistent but Farley says the Bears are a dangerous team. He says they have more talent then they’ve had in years past and have been in every game. Farley says the only thing they are missing right now are the last few plays that finish games. The Panthers are 7-2 overall and 6-1 in the Missouri Valley Conference.

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Iowa basketball coach sees improvement in team

November 5, 2008 By

The Iowa basketball team has an exhibition game this weekend. Todd Lickliter is getting set for season number two on the bench and thinks this team will be much better offensively. Lickliter says they are eager to pass and share the basketball, which makes it harder to defend them.

He says they are at the "consciously confident" stage as they understand what they need to do, but need to think about it when it comes to defense. Lickliter says they’re striving to become unconsciously confident on defense and are moving in that direction.

The Hawkeyes will take on Wayne State Sunday afternoon and he says he’s familiar with the coaching staff having played them while he was at Butler.

Lickliter says he likes the potential of this team, and he is confident in the group. He says they need to find out the combinations that work together. Lickliter says he has seen progress in all the different phases of the game. He says the improvement hasn’t been dramatic, but it has been steady.

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S.B.A gives out record amount of loans in recovery effort

November 5, 2008 By

Rebuilding thousands of Iowa’s homes and businesses after this year’s weather disasters is a very expensive venture. Joe Folsom, district director of the U.S. Small Business Administration’s Iowa office, says the S.B.A. has loaned out a record amount of more than 236-million dollars in disaster loans to help Iowans recover from the widespread flooding and tornadoes.

Folsom says: "It is a record in dollar volume. I believe in total (loan) numbers, it’s still slightly below the 1993 flood but the dollar amount is more than double. We were at 112-million in 1993." The S.B.A. offered two types of loans to help in the recovery process — economic injury disaster loans for small businesses and small agricultural operations, and physical disaster loans for homeowners and renters.

Folsom says the final numbers on the loans from this year’s rebuilding efforts are staggering. "We ended the fiscal year with 35-hundred total loans approved for 236-million," Folsom says. "About 580 of those were to businesses and 2,922 of those loans were for homeowners and renters." The 236-million dollars is being split between 85-million for Iowa businesses and 151-million for home loans.

Folsom says the S.B.A. offered loans of up to $200,000 to repair or replace damaged homes and up to two-million to rebuild or replace businesses, machinery and inventory. "Those loans provided a very valued service for those who had been impacted by this past summer’s disasters," Folsom says. The deadline has passed for homeowners and renters, but Iowa businesses can still apply for economic injury disaster loans through February. For more information, visit the S.B.A. website   or call 800-659-2955.

 

Filed Under: Business, Fires/Accidents/Disasters

Gas prices at lowest level in years

November 5, 2008 By

This week, the statewide average price for a gallon of gas dropped under two dollars for the first time in three-and-a-half years. The Iowa Department of Natural Resources says gas prices have dropped to their lowest level since May of 2005. Some motorists say the recent plummet at the pump won’t change their driving habits. Allen Postel of Cedar Rapids says he’s still going to conserve gas.

"I used to do some shopping in the Quad Cities, or Dubuque or Waterloo, but I pretty much quit doing that," Postel said. Most small businesses owners welcome the lower gas prices, but don’t expect it will last. Rollie Pierson, owner of Pierson’s Florists in Cedar Rapids, says he did not add a delivery surcharge when gas prices spiked and he won’t make changes now that they’ve dropped.

"We might be more inclined to (deliver) to some of the smaller surrounding towns a little more often, but as a rule, we’re keeping our policies in place cause I don’t think (gas prices) will stay that low," Pierson said. Energy experts with the DNR agree with Pierson. They expect prices will increase again closer to Thanksgiving and when the slumping economy picks up.

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Farmers continue working to get corn out of fields

November 5, 2008 By

Iowa farmers have been working to get more corn out of the fields before colder wet weather moves in. That includes Iowa Ag Secretary Bill Northey who spoke to Radio Iowa while harvesting corn Tuesday on his farm near Spirit Lake.

Northey says we’re now in November, and farmers know anything can happen with the weather. About 50-percent of the corn has been harvested. Heavy winds in the last week caused some problems in the fields. He says the wind did knock some corn down and some farmers have had to combine only one way, though others found no problems.

Northey says the wet weather that delayed planting definitely has impacted yields across the state. Northey says yields are 180 to 160 bushels and acre in his area, while in other parts of the state they’ve been 150 to 230 bushels. The corn harvest has been running about two weeks behind average.

 

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Obama won majority of younger voters

November 5, 2008 By

Polling data indicates younger voters overwhelmingly favored Barack Obama over John McCain. "Young voters" are classified as the 18- to 29-year-old crowd and that group accounted for 18% of the votes cast in this year’s election.

Iowa State University political science professor Dianne Bystrom says youth turnout in 2004 was 17%. "They did increase their share of the electorate but just by one percentage point because everybody got out to vote," Bystrom says. "The other thing we know is that 66 percent of young voters voted for Barack Obama."

In the Reagan era, back in the 1980s, a majority younger voters chose Republican candidates according to Bystrom. "I’m not sure we’re at the cusp of a liberal era," Bystrom says, "but we can say that young voters are registering Democratic and they’re voting for Democratic candidates not only for president, but also for congress."

Bystrom, the head of I.S.U.’s Carrie Chapman Catt Center for Women and Politics, says Sarah Palin — the first Republican vice presidential nominee — may have helped McCain win the votes of some women. "Women that are usually defined by the media as ‘soccer moms’ or ‘security moms’. Those are usually white, suburban women with children. They tend to vote Republican. They voted for George Bush in 2000 and 2004. The last time they voted for a Democrat was in 1996 for Bill Clinton," Bystrom says. "That’s a group that (Palin) may have helped deliver for McCain, but it wasn’t enough."

Bystrom says Palin also energized the social conservative base of the Republican Party, but that wasn’t enough either when confronted with the gains Obama made among other groups of voters.

Filed Under: Politics & Government Tagged With: ,

Voter turnout totals revised, lower than first thought

November 5, 2008 By

Obama supporters at Democrat headquarters in Des Moines. More Iowans voted in this year’s election, but the total is not as big as initially calculated. Just after 1 a.m., results from the Secretary of State’s website showed over 1.7-million Iowans participated.

But now, Michael Mauro says roughly 1.52-million Iowans went to the polls out of 2.1-million registered voters.

That means 72% of Iowa’s registered voters cast a ballot this year. That compares to 75% four years ago, but the total number of Iowa voters this year increased slightly from 2004. Early indications show the national figures for voter turnout near 64%. Mauro says all of the numbers are unofficial.

"There’s still going to be absentee ballots added to this total because everything that was postmarked the day before (election day) has to be added to the total," Mauro said. "And there’s still provisional ballots…special precinct committees will meet and make determinations what provisional ballots will be allowed into races. So, any number…is a preliminary unofficial number and it should get higher from here on out."

Across the country, there were polling sites Tuesday where voters waited in lines for several hours to cast their ballot. It doesn’t sound like there were any lines quite like that here in Iowa. Mauro says, from what he’s heard, the longest voters had to wait in line in Iowa was about 45 minutes.

That was reported on the campus of Iowa State University in Ames. Mauro says he has not heard about any major problems at Iowa’s polling sites, though he is checking out concerns with absentee ballots in Woodbury and Poweshiek Counties. 

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