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Aplington-Parkesburg looks to move ahead with football

August 28, 2009 By

A national television audience will be watching as an emotional evening unfolds in Parkersburg. ESPN will televise the season opener for the Aplington-Parkersburg football team as the Falcons host Dike-New Hartford. It was just over two months ago long-time coach Ed Thomas was shot and killed while monitoring the school’s weight room.

Long-time assistants Al Kerns and Jon Wiegmann are leading the team as co-coaches and Kerns says the players have done a great job of in the wake of such a tragedy. He says it sometimes seems like a long time ago and sometimes seems like just yesterday, but he says they wanted to move ahead with the schedule and now are ready to play football.

Kerns says there is no way to replace Thomas. He says things happen on a daily basis and he is reminded that he misses Thomas every day. Kerns says they know as a coaching staff that they will all have to do a better job.

Dike-New Hartford coach Don Betts says the death of Thomas was much more than just a local tragedy. He says it’s “an unspeakable tragedy for Aplington-Parkersburg” and also a tragedy for the entire state of Iowa. “He was a very good man and anytime a good man goes down, it’s a tragedy for all involved,” Betts says.

Betts says a lot of the kids know each other and that creates some of the most competitive games you can have.

Filed Under: Sports

Mason City man found guilty of murder

August 28, 2009 By

It took a jury about two hours Thursday to find a north-central Iowa man guilty of first-degree murder and first-degree robbery in the death of a man last August. A Hardin County Jury has found 18-year-old Damion Seats of Mason City guilty of first-degree murder and first-degree robbery.

Seats was accused of shooting Isidoro Erreguin five times at Erreguin’s home on Mason City’s north side last August. Seats was one of three people charged in the murder. Andre Wells Junior is scheduled to have his trial start on December 1st.

Jamie McFarland, who testified for the prosecution in the Seats trial that he drove Seats and Wells away from the crime scene, is expected to enter into a plea agreement with prosecutors to have the first-degree murder charge dropped. When sentenced at a later date,

Seats faces the mandatory sentence of life in prison without the opportunity for parole.

 

Filed Under: Crime & Courts

Coon Rapids remembers Khruschev visit

August 28, 2009 By

Nikita Krushchev visits the Garst farm. Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev never could have envisioned the impact his visit to Roswell Garst’s Iowa farm 50 years ago had — and is still having.

The town of Coon Rapids is holding a host of activities through the weekend, including a Khrushchev-Garst look-alike contest. Rachel Garst, Roswell’s granddaughter, is helping organize it all.

“We’re going to have a ceremony at the Garst farm which was just placed on the National Register of Historic Places,” Garst says. “In the afternoon, we’re going to have an agricultural progress parade.” Garst doesn’t remember any of the original visit as she was only one-year-old at the time, but visitors to the west-central Iowa community on Saturday will be treated to something of a repeat, in addition to seeing all sorts of agricultural advancements.

“We have a major, major display of farm machinery, the most high-end, cutting-edge equipment,” Garst says. “We’ll have antique farm machinery displayed, an original play written for the occasion, with real dialogue between Khrushchev and Garst. And in the evening, we’ll have a beer garden put on by the Coon Rapids Fire Department.”

Garst says her grandfather was on the ground floor of the hybrid seed corn industry and the 1959 meeting helped bridge the political divide between the communist nation and the U.S. She notes they shared a common interest in food production at a time when both countries cared more about stockpiling nuclear weapons. Garst says the friendships that were forged five decades ago still live on today in many different forms.

“All types of Iowa-Russian relations sprang up all across the state,” Garst says. “There were banking exchanges, sister city programs. We have a sister state program with Stavropol, even our National Guard has an exchange with the national guard of Stavropol.

There’s a long history by now of friendship and most importantly, personal direct contact between the people of Russia and the people of Iowa.” For more information on this weekend’s events, visit this  site .  

Filed Under: Agriculture, Human Interest, Politics & Government

Mosquitoes still pose a threat

August 28, 2009 By

State Health Department officials issued an advisory this week that mosquitoes are still active across the state and tests from Black Hawk County have confirmed the dangers those mosquitoes pose.

Three state laboratories have confirmed encephalitis and West Nile virus in mosquitoes in the county. Black Hawk County environmental health program director, John McNamee, says the viruses were found in a flock of sentinel chickens.

The beauty of this is the chickens themselves do not get the disease, they don’t transmit the disease, but what they do do is create antibodies to the disease that we can find, so what we’re basically doing is seeing if there are mosquitoes in the area that are capable of transmitting any of these viruses," McNamee says.

The state has a dozen of so of the flocks of sentinel chickens. He says the discovery of the viruses in Black Hawk County does not mean they are widespread.

"We may have some here that are capable of transmitting encephalitis and you go one county or even a township over and there may be none there," McNamee says. He says the chance of getting encephalitis from mosquitoes is rare even less if you take the right precautions.

The state health department says precautions include: use insect repellent; avoid outdoor activities at dusk and dawn when mosquitoes are most active; wear long-sleeved shirts, pants, shoes, and socks whenever possible outdoors; eliminate standing water around the home because that’s where mosquitoes lay eggs.

Empty water from buckets, cans, pool covers and pet water dishes. Change water in bird baths every three to four days. Iowa has had just one confirmed case of West Nile virus this year and no cases of encephalitis. For more information about West Nile virus, visit the Iowa Department of Public Health webpage .

Filed Under: Health & Medicine

King uncertain how Kennedy’s death will impact health care progress

August 28, 2009 By

Some Democrats are hoping the death of Senator Edward Kennedy might serve as a rallying point to help push ahead action on health care legislation. Iowa Congressman Steve King, a Republican from Kiron has been critical of the health care bill, and says he’s not sure what impact Kennedy’s death will have.

King says Democrats obviously think it will make a difference, or they wouldn’t be talking about possibly naming the health care bill in honor of Kennedy, but he doesn’t know how it will play out in the long run. King says even though he was on the other side of the aisle from Kennedy, he respects the commitment, effort and deep conviction Kennedy brought to the job.

King says the loss of Kennedy will leave a void in the Democratic effort to push the health care issue. King says Kennedy could give a speech that was prepared or extemporaneously, that was compelling and many times emotional.

"I’ve often wished we had people that had that ability that are on our side of this argument," King says, "but if they use his name to try to advance something that I fear will become socialized medicine, I think it may leave a legacy for Teddy Kennedy that they don’t want to leave and I’d caution against that if I were inside the doors making the decisions where they are."

King said Thursday he would not run for governor so he can continue to focus on national issues like health care.

 

Filed Under: Health & Medicine, Politics & Government Tagged With: ,

DNR launching household hazardous materials campaign

August 28, 2009 By

The Iowa Department of Natural Resources is preparing to launch a statewide Household Hazardous Materials (HHM) education campaign . Tom Anderson, with the D.N.R.’s Land Quality Bureau, says the effort will focus on four key messages.

“We’re going to begin with proper disposal and then reading the label, proper storage and proper use would be future pushes for the education campaign as a whole,” Anderson said. The campaign, which will begin in the spring of 2010, is being financed by the Groundwater Protection Fund.

The D.N.R. has partnered with a Cedar Falls based advertising and consulting company (ME&V) to develop the campaign. The contract is not to exceed $120,000. Anderson says H-H-Ms are obviously useful and beneficial for use around a home or business, but they’re potentially dangerous if disposed of improperly.

“Throwing the materials into the trash puts the sanitation worker at risk as well as his or her equipment,” Anderson said. “Pouring them down a storm sewer…most storm sewers lead directly to the local river or lake, which then impacts the aquatic life.” Anderson says Iowans can find out where they can properly dispose of H-H-Ms by calling their local solid waste agency.

“There are currently 88 or 89 counties in Iowa that have some level of HHM collection and disposal support,” Anderson said. Most counties in the state also schedule cleanup dates once or twice a year so residents can dispose of HHMs at little or no cost.

 

Filed Under: Environment & Conservation, Fires/Accidents/Disasters Tagged With:

U.S. Supreme Court hearing arguments in Iowa murder case

August 28, 2009 By

Oral arguments have been set before the U.S. Supreme Court for a case out of western Iowa. Two men, whose murder convictions were overturned after they served more than two decades in prison, are suing former Pottawattamie County prosecutors. Curtis McGhee and Terry Harrington served 25 years in prison for the killing of a retired police officer.

Evidence came to light that the prosecution knowingly used false testimony coerced from a 16-year-old witness and the Iowa Supreme Court set aside the convictions. University of Iowa law professor Todd Pettys says the U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to decide whether the men can seek damages.

"The issue that’s in front of the court is simply deciding whether the prosectors are immune from liability," Pettys said. The nation’s highest court will hear the case on November 4th. Pettys and his students are following the case. "As the law stands now, what a prosecutor does during trial can not be a basis of a lawsuit against that prosecutor," Pettys explained.

But, he says the Iowa case differs because the testimony was obtained long before trial as part of a law enforcement investigation. Pettys expects a split decision. He says there’s nothing in the record of the new Justice Sonia Sotomayor to indicate how she might rule in the case.

Filed Under: Crime & Courts
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