Parents will be able to use a new gadget at the Iowa State Fair next month that’s designed to help them keep closer tabs on their kids at the large, crowded venue. Chris Holbert is the inventor and CEO of what’s known as SecuraPAL — PAL for personal automated locator — and it’ll rent for just under ten bucks a day.

“It gets its location from the satellite systems and relays that location to parents or other caretakers, or in the case of the Iowa State Fair, to a group like SecuraTrac,” Holbert says. “If a child goes missing, we know exactly where they are and we can find them quickly.”

The small device can be placed in the child’s pocket, strapped onto an ankle or arm, or laced into a shoe. “There’s also a little panic or SOS button on the device that if the child is scared or lost, they can push,” Holbert says. “In about five to ten seconds, our network will be notified of their location and that they’re missing or they’re scared and we’ll go and find them quickly.”

If the parent becomes separated from the child or just wants to check on the kid’s location, he says it’s a fast, easy process using the parent’s existing cellular phone.

“If they have a web-based phone that can get to the Internet, then they can actually see on the screen a map of the fair and a little dot of where their child would be,” Holbert says. “Or, if they have text or email capability on their phone, they’ll get a read-out, an email or a text, that will say this is where your child is.”

The device can also be set so the parent is notified if the child enters or leaves certain areas, for example, if they leave the fairgrounds. The Iowa State Fair runs August 12-22. It will mark the first time the California-based SecuraTrac will be renting the devices at an event in Iowa.

Learn more at www.securatrac.com

While many Iowa kids are off enjoying summer camp, Council Bluffs is hosting a free camp this week exclusively for children with physical disabilities. Many of the campers are in wheelchairs. The kids at the Junior Wheelchair Sports and Recreation Camp range from kindergarten-age to high school.

Laura Burk, of Omaha, says her 15-year-old son, Logan, is attending the camp for the sixth year. Burk says, “Being exposed to wheelchair sports has been a great benefit but it’s really the friends he’s met.”

This is the 21st year of the program, which is being held at the Iowa School for the Deaf. Recreational therapists help campers in several sports, including basketball, archery, tennis, golf and softball. Burk says making the decision to send her son to this camp was easy.

She says, “Able-bodied sports were becoming much more difficult for him so going into camp, I was really hoping he could find something he would enjoy doing recreationally.” Burk says Logan didn’t want to get out of the car the first day but on the second day, he told her not to come until the last minute to pick him up as he had so much fun.

Burk says, “As they experience those sports and have success with them in camp, it just builds on their positive self esteem.” Logan now plays competitive wheelchair basketball and Burk says he’s looking forward to becoming a mentor and a counselor at the camp when he is too old to attend as a camper.

More than 50 campers from Nebraska, Iowa and Missouri are attending the camp.