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Linn-Mar and Des Moines East will play for 4A title

March 5, 2010 By

Top ranked Linn-Mar is headed to the class 4A championship. The Lions got 24 points and 14 rebounds from Kiah Stokes to hold off cross-town rival Cedar Rapids Kennedy 58-53. Senior guard Kayla Klopfenstein also had a big game with 16 points as Linn-Mar improves to 25-0.

The Lions will try to earn their first state title since back in 1985. Klopfenstein says it feels good after being knocked out in the semifinals the past two years. But she says they are not done and have one more game to win.

With the loss the season comes to an end for Kennedy which finishes 21-3. Standout forward Jade Rogers says she didn’t want the season to end and still thinks they are the best team in the state. Rogers finshed with 11 points and 11 rebounds.

Second ranked Des Moines East erased a four point deficit in the final 30 seconds to edge third ranked Waukee 50-49 in a 4A semifinal. It included a wild finish that saw Waukee inbound the ball twice under its own basket in the final ten seconds without even getting a shot off. East coach Sam Powell says he can’t explain what happened and says they have a sixth man out there somewhere that looks out for them.

East takes a 25-0 mark into the title game. Powell says the girls do what they need to do and believe in each other and work hard as family to get this reward.

It was a heart breaking loss for Waukee which appeared headed to the championship in the final minute. Waukee coach Chris Guess says it’s unfortunate for the kids to try and explain what happened. He says they have to tip their hat to East as they did what they had to do to win the game.

Filed Under: Sports Tagged With:

U-I economist believes Iowa economy has bottomed out

March 5, 2010 By

A University of Iowa economist says Iowa’s economy has bottomed out and Iowans’ personal income has started growing again. Charles Whiteman of the U-of-I’s Institute for Economic Research, is a member of the Governor’s Council of Economic Advisors.

“We turned up Iowa in personal income in terms of growth in the fourth quarters, but employment still hasn’t turned up, so we’re waiting for that,” Whiteman says. “Our forecast suggests that’s going to happen about mid-year. so we’re still losing jobs — not as rapidly as before — and we think that’ll turn around in the next few months.”

State tax collections — another economic indicator — were down about 6.5% in February compared to the same month a year ago. Whiteman says three months ago, he thought state tax receipts would have started growing by now because December was a pretty good month in terms of state tax collections, but January and February weren’t.

[Read more...]

Filed Under: Business Tagged With:

Webster County investigating suspicious death

March 5, 2010 By

Authorities are investigating a “suspicious” death in Webster County. The body of a 29-year-old Fort Dodge woman was found inside her home on Thursday night. Police discovered the body of Abby Hankel at her residence.

Hankel lived alone. The cause of death is under investigation by the Webster County Medical Examiner. The Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation is assisting Fort Dodge Police in the investigation.

By Pat Powers, KQWC, Webster City

Filed Under: Crime & Courts

Apollo astronaut visits Iowa college

March 5, 2010 By

An Apollo astronaut who walked on the moon is in Iowa to talk with students at Des Moines Area Community College for the school’s “Innovation Week” activities. Alan Bean was part of the second lunar landing on the Apollo 12 mission in November of 1969. Bean talks to college students about the preparations involved in being the fourth man to walk and the moon, and his later mission to the Skylab space station.

Bean says he tries to bring up things he had to learn to be able to accomplish the missions and says it’s related to meeting your goals and fulfilling your dreams. For most college students Bean’s moon walk was two decades before they were born, and he says there are many who don’t understand why the U.S. went to the moon.

Bean says they don’t hear the reason for going to the moon, and compares it to the Civil War, as you don’t understand why our country would have a Civil War until you read about it and learn why. He says there is a small percentage of the students that understand it and want to be astronauts and want to go to the moon, and think it’s something the country aught to do. Bean says the astronauts in the first space missions had a lot of luck to be where they were at the time when he program was starting — but today’s students can plot their own course.

He says young people can now adjust their career to be a pilot in the military, or be a geologist or meteorologist or doctor and use that as a path to get into the space program and become an astronaut. President Barrack Obama has decided to pull money from the budget for future moon missions — something Bean does not agree with.

“I think it’s sad, I think what’s occurring is…I don’t think Mr. Obama, the president is at all an explorer, at all interested in doing the things that other presidents wanted to do,” Bean says, “like he would never send out Lewis and Clark to explore the west. He would say to the congress ‘look there’s just a bunch of Indians out there and we don’t need to go’, so he’s not a guy who’s interested in any of this.”

Critics of the space program says it spends a lot of money at a time when the country is in huge debt and needs money for other things.

Bean says those people are right to some degree, but he says if a company doesn’t invest money in research and development, it may own the market now, but won’t own the market in the future. Bean cites computer giant Microsoft as an example, saying if Microsoft stopped explorer new ways to make computers and software, they would eventually fall out of the top spot in the industry. Bean says that’s true for the U.S. and it’s exploration of space.

Bean will turn 78 on March 15th. He retired from NASA in 1981 and took up painting full time. Find out more about Bean here.

Filed Under: Education, Human Interest

Many taking spring break trips with a purpose

March 5, 2010 By

Even Iowans who aren’t students are taking Spring Break trips this month, but many people are looking for more substantial journeys, beyond just basking on a beach. Travel consultant Jeanenne Tornatore says some Iowans are leaping into volunteer vacations, where they spend at least part of their adventure abroad doing charity work.

Plenty of groups and organizations make it really easy to find these sorts of opportunities, she says. “The United Way, for example, has on the home page of their website, a tool where you can just type in the ZIP code for the area in which you want to volunteer and they will populate that with a number of opportunities to choose from.” Tornatore says you could spend a day or two, or an entire week, as a volunteer worker in a warmer climate. She says Habitat for Humanity is touching many lives in that manner.

“They have a program called Global Village where they offer opportunities both here, in areas within the United States and abroad, where you can take a vacation, help rebuild homes and then spend part of your vacation actually vacationing,” Tornatore says. “There are those opportunities out there for people that want to do this and give back during their Spring Break.” For another change of pace, she suggests baseball lovers in Iowa make a pilgrimage to Florida or Arizona.

“In Florida, there are 11 venues where they host spring training games, and also in Phoenix, there are 15 venues where they host spring training for a number of teams as well,” Tornatore says. “It can be an affordable option because ticket prices for these games start at about $10 which is far below what you pay these days for any of major league baseball games at some of the major stadiums.”

 She says the economy is bringing down prices on package vacations, with hotel-airfare-car deals dropping more than 20% from Spring Break last year.

Filed Under: Human Interest, Recreation & Entertainment

Top Democrat says schools won’t get as much money as promised

March 5, 2010 By

A top Democrat in the legislature says K-through-12 public schools in Iowa won’t get as much general state aid as lawmakers promised last year. Senate Democratic Leader Mike Gronstal of Council Bluffs says legislators expect there will be “some level of underfunding” for schools.

“We also believe, generally speaking, we’re above where they expected us to actually get,” Gronstal says. According to Gronstal, legislatore are likely to extend something in the neighborhood of 350-million more dollars to K-through-12 schools for the academic year that begins this fall. Schools will still have the authority to make up the shortfall by raising local property taxes. Gronstal says Democratic legislators are “strongly discouraging” school administrators and school boards from choosing that option.

“We’re encouraging school districts to do the same that we are doing and that is make cuts, real cuts in state government, so school districts can make real cuts at the local level and find ways to save money to the tune of five percent,” Gronstal says. “They can do that and they can also dip into their reserve funds, just as the state has done.” School advocates argue school budgets are mostly teacher salaries and instructor layoffs mean class sizes will grow and there’ll be bigger reductions in areas like art and music.

Gronstal says legislators are making “tough decisions” in a tight budgeting year. “Everything that state government’s engaged in will see some cuts and we’re trying to do our best to preserve our kids’ opportunities to a better future in education, so we’re going to do the best we can on that front,” Gronstal says. “It isn’t going to be perfect. Everybody knows that and while all Iowans are tightening their belt, we’re tightening our belt and K-through-12 education is going to have to tighten theirs as well.”

In 2009, legislators and the governor promised schools a two percent increase in general state aid for the next academic year. This January, Governor Culver asked legislators to provide schools $100-million extra to help cover the effects of the 10 percent across-the-board cut he ordered in the current year’s state budget in October. Culver called the $100-million a “short term shot in the arm” for K-through-12 schools.

Filed Under: Education Tagged With: ,

DNR delays water quality standards for nutrients in lakes

March 5, 2010 By

The Iowa Department of Natural Resources is pulling back on proposed new water quality standards for nutrients in lakes used for fishing and boating and other recreational activities. The D.N.R. says 85 to 90-percent of the nutrients come from water runoff into the lakes and they can harm the quality of the water.

D.N.R. spokesman Jerah Sheets says they held public hearings and took input on the standards, and decided they needed to do more work. He says they felt they could not move forward with the rules package they have and need to do more research, get more help from stakeholders and then come back to the commission. The rules were to come before the Environmental Protection Commission at their meeting later this month. Sheets says they don’t know how long it will take to get more information together.

Sheets says they might need to wait for another season of laboratory samples, they might need to bring in the federal E.P.A. He says they want to work with the people involved and then determine a schedule of when they might bring the rules ahead. See the D.N.R.’s website for more information on the water quality standards.

Filed Under: Environment & Conservation, Politics & Government Tagged With:
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