Iowa's Radio News Network
Terry Branstad at IBNA debate Saturday.
Former Governor Terry Branstad, the Republican who’s seeking a fifth term as governor this year, underwent an “elective heart procedure” today.
“The governor went in for a routine angiogram and in the process of that procedure they located a partially-blocked artery in his heart and the doctor performed a procedure where he inserted a stent,” said Jeff Boeyink, Branstad’s campaign manager.
Drake University officials say tickets are now being sold for the U.S. Track and Field Championships that will be held in Des Moines June 23rd through the 27th. Troy Anderson from the Drake ticket office says it is a much longer meet than the annual Drake Relays.
Anderson says the championships are extended over five days and the pricing is similar to the Drake Relays. Anderson says single day seats are for sale as well as two different packages. The all-session package is $100, the weekend package is $50, the first day is $20, Thursday is $25 Friday is $30, Saturday and Sunday are $30 each.
Anderson says they are getting orders from all over the country, including Hawaii, Texas and Florida. He says people come from all over the country for the Drake Relays, but more so for the U.S. Championships.
Anderson says the process for ordering tickets is the same as the Drake Relays, you can order on-line at: www.godrakebulldogs.com and click on the ticket link. Or call 515-271-3647.
The Iowa Conference softball tournament opens Thursday in Indianola and the top three seeds are hoping to move on to the NCAA division three regionals. Top seeded and host Simpson won the regular season crown while second seeded Luther and third seeded Central were nationally ranked the entire season.
A year ago, the Iowa Conference sent four teams to the regionals and Central coach George Wares believes it will most likely be three this year. He says that could depend on who wins the conference tournament, and they could possibly get four teams.
Central is 26-9 on the season after finishing third in the regular season. The Dutch open against sixth seeded Loras. Wares says they feel good if they make a respectable showing that they will still get a regional bid. He says you get a boost on your strength of schedule by playing conference teams, even if you lose.
Last year Coe won the tournament as a three seed and Wares hopes history repeats itself. He says Coe played well, but there could easily have been a different winner, as the conference is very competative. Fourth seeded Coe opens the tournament against fifth seeded Buena Vista.
The Iowa Department of Public Health is investigating an outbreak of mumps in northwest Iowa linked to a private college. State medical director, Patti Quinlisk, says the outbreak is in Sioux County. She says there are eight confirmed cases and other people being tested. All the cases are young adults who are associated with Dordt College in Sioux Center.
Quinlisk says they’re trying to locate everyone who may’ve come into contact with those who’ve already been confirmed to have the disease. Quinlisk says they are concerned because all the cases are happening at the same time, which indicates one or more people exposed the others to mumps. She says they don’t want to see the cases become widespread like the outbreak a couple of years ago. They’s now working with everyone to stop the disease from spreading.
Quinlisk says everyone needs to be sure their vaccinations are up to date, especially people in northwest Iowa. She says you need at least two doses of the M.M.R. (measles, mumps, rubella) vaccine, with the only exception people who were born before 1957 and had mumps as children.
Quinlisk says the symptoms of mumps usually start out with a fever, you can get a headache, aches and pains and loss of appetite. Quinlisk says the symptom people most often think about is a swelling of the glands in front of the ear or below the jaw. She says other glands can also swell too, and you should think they symptoms are mumps until your doctor tells you otherwise. Quinklisk says mumps used to be a major health concern.
Quinlisk says prior to the use of the vaccines, mumps was a major cause of deafness, it caused sterility in men and could in some cases cause death. Quinlisk says the disease is often brought in from outside the country, although there are cases in Iowa and Nebraska has had some recent cases.
For more information about mumps the health department’s website:
www.idph.state.ia.us/adper/mumps.asp.
The health department has identified these locations where exposure to mumps may’e occurred in northwest Iowa:
April 12 through May 5, 2010 – Dordt College (Sioux Center)
April 22, 2010 – Spirit Lake vs. Hull-Western Christian soccer game (Hull)
April 23, 2010 – Hull-Western Christian Prom
April 24, 2010 – Student dance at Dugout/Events Center (Granville)
April 25, 2010 – Covenant Christian Reformed Church worship service (Sioux Center)
April 25, 2010 – Emmanuel Christian Reformed Church worship service (Sheldon)
April 26, 2010 – Hull-Western Christian School
April 27, 2010 – Sweet 16 Lanes (Le Mars) – evening hours
April 27, 2010 – Sibley Ocheyden School
April 29, 2010 – Tofer’s Bar (Sioux Center) – evening hours
April 29, 2010 – Root beer kegger at South View Apartments (Sioux Center)
May 2, 2010 – Emmanuel Christian Reformed Church worship services (Sheldon)
May 3, 2010 – Hull-Western Christian vs. Spencer soccer game (Spencer)
A western Iowa man was killed Tuesday when he was crushed by a trailer. Authorities say 26-year-old Steven Schulte of Arcadia was attempting to jack up a flat bed trailer with bottle jacks, in order to get a tractor underneath, when the trailer fell – trapping Schulte.
The incident was first reported to law enforcement at 3:52 p.m. The Crawford County Sheriff’s Office, Westside Fire Department and the Crawford County Medical Examiner all assisted at the scene.
By Michael Earl, KDSN, Denison
Republican candidate Terry Branstad says if he’s elected to a fifth term as governor, he’d work to expand the state’s open meetings and open records laws to cover nonprofit groups that get government funding. Branstad’s proposal would cover groups like the Iowa State Association of Counties and the League of Cities as well as the Iowa Association of School Boards which is under investigation after whistleblowers raised questions, leading to the firing of the group’s executive director.
Branstad says Iowa has always had a reputation for “clean, honest and open government,” but this scandal and others are tarnishing that image. “This is not Illinois,” Branstad says. “…I have some ideas in how we can restore integrity and openness and provide sunshine that will prevent these kinds of things from happening.”
Branstad would not create a new state agency, but he’d establish a new division in the state attorney general’s office to give the public and the media a place to pursue complaints about the operations of private, nonprofit groups that operate with government funds. “Those are things that I think we can do to restore public confidence in the openness, honesty and integrity of government,” Branstad says. “I think that’s critically important.”
Branstad made his comments during a meeting with The Des Moines Register’s editorial board. Branstad cited recent controversies ranging from the salary scandal at the Central Iowa Employment Training Consortium to the investigation of contributions to Governor Culver’s reelection campaign that came from gambling interests.
“We have seen too much…corruption and inside deals and things like that,” Branstad said. “People are very skeptical about it and I think the best way to correct that is to have…sunshine, openness and I’ve always tried to err on the side of making things as open and public as possible.” The chairman of the Iowa Democratic Party shot back, saying “Branstad’s administration was one of the most cozy, back-scratching operations in the history of state government.”
Iowa Democratic Party chairman Michael Kiernan also ridiculed the idea of a new division in the attorney general’s office to police nonprofit groups that spend taxpayer dollars. Kiernan said the last thing government needs is a “whole new raft of lawyers reviewing documents.”
Pella’s Tulip Time opens Thursday and organizers say they’ll set a world’s record at the 75th annual festival of flowers. There’s already a world’s record in the Guinness book for most dancers wearing wooden shoes all dancing at one time, and Tulip Time’s Karen Eischen says they’re going to beat that record on Saturday morning.
“The record is 475 so we were going to shoot for a thousand,” Eischen says. “We’ve had sign-ups over the last couple of months and right now, we are at 2,500, so obviously, we are going to shatter that record and we’re still taking more registrations.” She says dancers can sign up that morning and buy wooden shoes on-site, if they don’t already have a pair of their own.
“We have a special Dutch song,” Eischen says. “It is a very easy dance consisting of 16 different steps. It will be taught that morning. It’s also available on YouTube if anybody would like to learn it ahead of time.” She is thrilled with the projected turnout and says it’ll be more wooden-shoe-wearing dancers than Pella’s ever seen.
“We are going to line them up all the way around the square in a double line and we will also be using two other blocks, so we will have six full blocks of dancers in double lines,” Eischen says. “It’s going to be quite a sight to see.” The festival is expected to draw 175-thousand people over its three-and-a-half day run.
Eischen says one focal point of the event is, of course, the fragrant flowers. She says they planted 350,000 tulip bulbs throughout the small south-central Iowa community for this year’s gala, and tens of thousands are still in bloom. “They have held on incredibly well,” Eischen says. “We’ve had almost a month of color right now. We plant three varieties so that always helps with our bloom time, extend that out. We’ll probably have about a third of those left by this weekend. They still look fabulous. We just won’t have as many as what we had planned to.”
The traditional Tulip Time events are also planned through the weekend, including twice-daily parades, a street-scrubbing, Dutch foods and a craft show, all under the shadow of the authentic 126-foot tall windmill from Holland. For details, visit “www.pellatuliptime.com“. See a five minute instructional dance video below.
O.KayHenderson.com