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McCaffery says he’ll bring excitement back to Hawkeye basketball

March 29, 2010 By
Fran McCaffery

Fran McCaffery

The University of Iowa introduced its new head basketball coach this morning. Iowa athletic director Gary Barta says “the person who wanted the job, the person who is qualified for the job, is Fran McCaffery.

McCaffery spent the past five years as the head coach at Siena and led that school to three consecutive trips to the NCAA Tournament. He also led Lehigh and North Carolina-Greensboro to NCAA bids and now looks to rebuild an Iowa program that has suffered three consecutive losing seasons for the first time since the 1930s.

McCaffery says his first job is to retain the current players, as he says they have “a great nucleus of young talent.” He says it’s his responsibility to reach out with them and see that they honor their commitments, and from there he can tell what they need for the future.

McCaffery inherits a team that posted a 10-22 mark this past season, the worst in the program’s history. “I can promise you this, we’re going to compete, we’re gonna play the game the right way, I’m gonna coach with passion, but our players are gonna have fun,” McCaffery says. He says they players will enjoy what they do on the floor and “this place is gonna be rocking again.”

McCaffery also was contacted about coaching vacancies at St. Johns and Seton Hall but felt Iowa was the right fit. He says he went through and prioritized what would be best for his family, and the place that would have the most potential for growth, he kept coming back to Iowa.

McCaffery expects the program to make progress in his first season, as he says his expectation is to show improvement immediately. He says how much improvement depends on the roster. McCaffery says it will take hard work to get the program back near the top of the Big Ten. He says they have to recruit well, coach the right way, and make the building exciting, so teams come in and have no chance.

McCaffery has agreed to a six year deal with a base salary of one-point-one million dollars. Barta says they’ve come to a general agreement, and they hope to have the contract completed in the next few weeks. Barta says McCaffery made it clear from the beginning that he wanted the job. “The first thing he said right out of the gate, was ‘I want to be the coach at Iowa,” Barta says.

(Photo courtesy of Siena athletic department)

Filed Under: Sports Tagged With: ,

Romney back in Iowa, signing copies of his new book

March 29, 2010 By
Mitt Romney signs his book.

Mitt Romney signs his book.

Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney is back in Iowa, talking about his new book and making a few passing references to his 2008 campaign for the White House. 

Romney made a noon-hour appearance at the downtown Des Moines Library, speaking for about 25 minutes before signing copies of his book, “No Apologies.”

“It’s nice to be back, particularly on such a sunny day. I understand it’s been sunny and warm all winter, right?  No, there’s been a little bit of Al Gore falling on this area, right?” Romney said, as the audience laughed and applauded.  “A little bit of global warming has come your way.” 

[Read more...]

Filed Under: Campaign Countdown, Health & Medicine, Recreation & Entertainment, Weather Tagged With: ,

Moratorium on utility shut offs ends April 1st

March 29, 2010 By

Thousands of low-income Iowans who are behind on paying their utility bills could be disconnected this Friday. Iowa’s winter moratorium on utility service disconnections runs through April 1. The moratorium is only extended to households that are qualified for the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program.

There were more than 30,000 LIHEAP certified households in Iowa in January. Rob Hillesland, with the Iowa Utilities Board, says those customers owe around $6.6 million. “For most of these customers, the utilities are more than willing to work out some sort of payment agreement to help them out,” Hillesland said.

“So, I would encourage customers to contact their local utility as soon as possible.” In most cases, customers who arrange to make some kind of monthly payment – even if it’s not for the full amount – can avoid having their utilities disconnected.

Hillesland says customers who have exhausted their utility payment options may need to seek other assistance through their local Community Action Program.

Hillesland says people with questions or concerns can also call the Iowa Utilities Board customer service line at 1-877-565-4450.

Filed Under: Business Tagged With:

Statue honoring fallen Boy Scouts will be dedicated in June

March 29, 2010 By

A statue in memory of four Boy Scouts who were killed in a tornado will be dedicated two years to the day the twister struck their camp in western Iowa’s Harrison County. Fourteen-year old Aaron Eilerts, of Eagle Grove, Iowa, and three Omaha, Nebraska, teens died June 11, 2008, and 48 people were injured, when a large tornado tore through the Little Sioux Scout Ranch.

This coming June 11th, a statue being erected at the Durham Scout Center in Omaha, will pay tribute to the teens. A permanent memorial for Eilerts, 13-year-olds Josh Fennen and Sam Thomsen and 14-year-old Ben Petrzilka, is also being planned at the Little Sioux Camp, but the details have not yet been finalized.

By Ric Hanson, KJAN, Atlantic

Filed Under: Human Interest

U-I launches superintendent licensing program

March 29, 2010 By

A survey of Iowa school superintendents finds more than a third of those questioned plan to retire within the next few years. In response, the University of Iowa is launching a superintendent licensure program. Ann Sullivan, a professor of educational administration policy at the U-of-I, says the two-year program will start this summer.

“The majority of people that will apply to our program will probably be sitting principals who aspire to some sort of district-level leadership,” Sullivan says. “That might be the superintendent’s seat but it could also be business manager, human resources director, curriculum and instruction director, but the focus will really be district-level leadership.”

A survey last year by the Iowa Department of Education found more than half of the state’s 337 superintendents were between the ages of 51 and 60 years old, and 26-percent of them were eligible to retire last school year. Of the 208 Iowa superintendents who responded, 77 superintendents – or about 37 percent — indicated they would only work between one and five more years.

“We’re definitely looking at a leadership shortage in Iowa and nationally and actually, globally,” Sullivan says. “There’s been studies done in England that they’re looking for ways to address their leadership shortage. It’s definitely something we want to do. We want to make sure in Iowa we’re growing our own good people to take over the openings that we’re going to have in the state.” This will be the fourth superintendent preparation program in the state, joining programs at Drake University, Iowa State and U.N.I. Sullivan says the version offered in Iowa City will be set apart.

“What makes ours unique is we have a different kind of a delivery system,” Sullivan says. “We have a hybrid between face-to-face, so students will come on campus in the summer for face-to-face course work, and then during the fall and spring semesters, they have to option of distance ed.” She hopes to see at least a dozen students enrolled in the program in its first year. Students must hold a master’s degree in educational administration or a relevant field to apply.

Thirty-two semester hours are required for superintendent endorsement and with five more hours of elective credit, students can earn an educational specialist degree (Ed.S). The U-of-I got the okay to launch the program from the state Board of Education earlier this month.

Filed Under: Education Tagged With:

Legislator airs pet peeve about the Pledge

March 29, 2010 By

A long-time legislator had a long-time wish fulfilled this weekend.

Representative Dolores Mertz is nearly 82 years old.  After serving 22 years in the Iowa House, she’s retiring.  On Friday night, Mertz finally aired one of her pet peeves.  At the start of every work day, members of the House recite the Pledge of Allegiance, and she asked her colleagues to quit pausing at a certain point in the Pledge.  

“It’s one nation under God.  It’s not one nation, under God.  There is no comma, no hyphen, no period.  There is no slash-dash.  There’s nothing!  It’s just one nation under God,”  Mertz said, as some House members laughed. 

Mertz laughed herself later during an interview with Radio Iowa. “They’ve done it incorrectly all these years,” Mertz said.  “And I’ve always said, ‘Before I get out of here, I am going to make sure they say it correctly.’” 

A Baptist minister wrote the original “Pledge of Allegiance” in 1892.  Mertz was 26 years old in 1954 when congress voted to add the words “under God” to the Pledge and more than five decades later, she notes no punctuation was added all those years ago.

“You don’t pause in a sentence unless there’s comma or a semi-colon or whatever so that’s always been a phobia with me — even about people who lector in church,” Mertz said Saturday.  “If there isn’t a comma or a period, you don’t pause in that sentence.  You just read it right on through.”

The grandchildren of a legislator led the House in saying the Pledge on Saturday morning and the kids were coached about saying the Pledge without the pause. ”I was very proud of ‘em,” Mertz said of the kids. 

Now that Mertz has this pet peeve off her chest, has anything else really bugged her about the legislature? “Oh, I’ve got lots to say, but probably not over the radio,” Mertz told Radio Iowa. 

Mertz, a Democrat from Ottosen, served five years on the Kossuth County Board of Supervisors before winning a seat in the Iowa House in 1988.

Filed Under: Human Interest, Politics & Government Tagged With: ,

Study showed problems and promise for hybrid school buses

March 29, 2010 By

An Iowa State University researcher says a study of hybrid school buses shows some promise for decreasing fuel costs and pollution, if mechanical problems with the buses can be fixed. Two hyrbid-electric school buses were purchased for the Nevada and Sigourney school districts and run alongside regular buses.

Shauna Hallmark of the I.S.U. Institute for Transportation, says there were problems with the batteries on the buses holding a charge.

Hallmark says the charging system does some charging from the bus diesel engine, but the majority of the charging has to be done by plugging in the bus. And she says something was not working, so the batter did not charge.

The hyrbid-buses got 30% better mileage in Nevada and 36% better in Sigourney. Hallmark says the savings could help offset the increased cost of buying the specialized buses. She says diesel fuel is occasionally up to $4.00-a-gallon, and a school bus gets about six miles to the gallon.

While she hasn’t done a cost estimate analysis, she believes districts could recoup the cost of the bus in fuel savings. Hallmark says other hybrid systems used in cars and transit buses use only the engine to charge the battery. Hallmark says the type of technology used could be the deciding factor in whether schools would buy hybrids.

She says it depends on the next step for the next generation bus, and that hasn’t been decided yet. Hallmark says if they put the same technology in school buses that’s used in transit buses, then she thinks it would work. Hallmark says it is a promising idea, and there is more to the use of hybrids than saving money.

Hallmark says it’s not just fuel economy, it’s also the emissions put out by the buses. She says buses put out a lot of the small fine black particulates that pollute the air, and the hybrid buses would reduce the amount of pollution the kids are exposed to. Researchers received grants that paid for most of the 217-thousand dollar cost of each bus. The districts each paid about 70-thousand dollars — which is about the cost of a conventional bus.

Filed Under: Education, Environment & Conservation Tagged With:
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