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Davis County baseball team starts season 23-0

July 1, 2010 By

The Davis County baseball team continues to win and climb the rankings. The Mustangs are 23-0 heading into tonight’s matchup with Clarke of Osceola and they are up to fifth in 2A in the latest Radio Iowa/ Coaches poll.

Davis County coach Todd White says winning that many ballgames is quite and accomplishment. He says their pitching depth has paid off tremendously. White says he has five kids he feels comfortable putting on the mound each night.

White says the players on his team have had success in other sports and that has carried over to the baseball diamond. He says they play with a lot of confidence, are “good fine young men” and get along well with each other.

While perfect to this point White says the Mustangs have plenty to work on. He says they have little things and fundamentals that he keeps harping on every day.

Filed Under: Sports Tagged With:

Waverly Shell-Rock looks to lock up conference title

July 1, 2010 By

The Waverly-Shell Rock softball team will try to lock up the Northeast Iowa Conference title this evening at home against Decorah. Coach Merle Whitcher’s team has a five game lead in the standings with six remaining.

Whitcher says most of the team has been in place the last three years and they have grown and built each year and taken advantage of the experience with some close wins.

Whitcher says two years ago they made it to the state tournament and it was thought they had done so early. Whitcher says the Go-Hawks power hitting lineup put a lot of pressure on opponents. He says a lot of teams have to bunt because they don’t have power, and the threat of his team scoring runs can keep other teams away from the bunting game.

Whitcher says their depth and power makes the threat of the long ball a constant factor that other teams have to face.

Waverly-Shell Rock is 26-1 overall.

Filed Under: Sports Tagged With:

Creighton survey says midwest economy remains strong

July 1, 2010 By

The economies in Iowa and the Midwest remained strong during the just-ended month of June, according to a survey of business leaders across the nine states in the region. Ernie Goss, an economist at Creighton University, says the first half of 2010 saw many indicators of a solid recovery, though he’s less confident about the rest of the year.

“Growth that I expect for the next six months is not going to be as good as what we’ve just seen the past six months, but it’s still positive,” Goss says. “The real problem point for the economy is the uncertainty that we’re seeing, the uncertainty about tax increases, uncertainty about cap and trade, uncertainty about what’s going to happen in terms of health care reform.”

He says the Creighton survey shows Iowa’s economy expanding for the sixth straight month, while the leading economic indicator for the Midwest dipped slightly but is still in positive territory.

“It was a good report, probably a lot better than what I expected,” Goss says. “I think it’s going to show up as a lot better than what a lot of people expected.” A major report on the nation’s employment rate is expected Friday from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and Goss predicts it won’t be an encouraging report.

He’s projecting national unemployment to rise, perhaps as high as 10%. Goss says even many of the people who have jobs aren’t optimistic about their salaries. Goss says, “That’s part of the troubling picture, that all workers are seeing their pay prospects not very good in the months ahead, not very good in the next year and that’s particularly the case for government workers.”

Goss says one element that will elevate jobless numbers is the letting go of thousands of U.S. Census Bureau workers, a move that was expected as the head counts conclude but which will still spark a rise in unemployment figures.

Filed Under: Business

Print of Declaration of Independence unveiled for public display at State Historical Building

July 1, 2010 By
State Historical Building views a copy of the Declaration of Independence.

A visitor to the State Historical Building views a copy of the Declaration of Independence.

A rare print of the document that launched this country 234 years ago will be on display at the State Historical Building through Saturday.

The copy of the Declaration of Independence was printed in 1843 from a copper plate that had been commissioned by former President John Quincy Adams earlier to give copies to the signers of the document.

This copy had been stored in obscurity in state archives until a box of Civil War love letters was found on the porch of a home by historical researcher Bob Johnson of Altoona. Johnson asked Senator Dennis Black of Lynnville to write a book based on the letters, and along the way they made another discovery.

[Read more...]

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

State collectes $5.5 billion in taxes over past 12 months

July 1, 2010 By

The State of Iowa collected just over $5.5 billion in taxes for the 12-month period that ended Wednesday, June 30th.  Jeff Robinson, a senior analyst for the Legislative Services Agency, says overall state tax receipts for that 12-month period were 4.1 percent lower than they were the previous fiscal year.

“Which is, in normal times, a very bad year, but it’s better than the negative 8.7 percent for the whole fiscal year that was projected,” Robinson says. “So we’re going to finish the fiscal year better than projected, probably quite a bit better.” 

Personal income taxes account for the largest share of tax payments to the state and the higher levels of unemployment combined with reduced hours at many worksites reduced overall personal income tax collections by nearly 3 percent.  Robinson looked at the personal income tax returns individual Iowans and farmers filed this winter.

“I was surprised by the tax return season, although it wasn’t good, it was not near as bad as I thought it would be,” Robinson says.

Sales tax collections for the past 12 months were down slightly. ”Sales tax being down 1.5 percent is better than projected because it was projected to be down 3.8 percent,” Robinson says. “So it’s contributing tens of millions to that overage for the year.” 

In the month of June, overall state tax collections were more than 8 percent better than June of 2009.  But Robinson says about half of that increase can be attributed to state income tax returns that got deposited in June rather than in May.

“They usually are done depositing by the end of May and they didn’t. It took them a couple of weeks in June to finish, so there’s $21 million of the $40 million of the growth which is not really growth for the monty,” Robinson says. “But it’s still a positive month and we take positive months when we can get them now.” 

State tax collections were higher in three of the last four months compared to the same period in 2009.

Read the LSA report on state tax collections.

Filed Under: Agriculture, Business, Politics & Government Tagged With: , , ,

Parkersburg man faces prison time after threat to girlfriend

July 1, 2010 By

A northeast Iowa man faces time in a federal prison after he threatened his girlfriend with a gun in March. Authorities say 45-year-old Kevin Dann threatened to kill his girlfriend and fired a rifle in his home in Parkersburg on March 16th.

Dann has a criminal past. He was convicted on a domestic abuse assault resulting in injury in 2000. Dann also spent time in prison on a felony charge of operating while intoxicated. Dann has pleaded guilty to being a felon in possession of a firearm and ammunition.

He could be sentenced to up to 10 years in prison and a fine of up to a quarter-of-a-million dollars.

Filed Under: Crime & Courts

Anamosa man pleads guilty to child pornography charges

July 1, 2010 By

An Anamosa man is facing prison time after pleading guilty today to federal child pornography charges. Thirty-six year-old Christopher Heggebo reached a plea agreement where he admitted that in January he engaged in sexually explicit conduct with an eight-year-old girl and video-taped the activity at his home.

He also admitted possessing pornographic images of a 13-year-old girl on his cell phone. The case involved investigators from Anamosa Police, the Jones County Sheriff’s office and the Iowa Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force.

Heggebo now faces a sentence of 15 to 40 years in prison and a fine of $500,000. He remains in custody. A sentencing date has not been set.

Filed Under: Crime & Courts
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