Iowa's Radio News Network
Flooding in Colfax.
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has awarded Iowa just over $84 million in disaster recovery funds linked to the floods and storms of 2008.
Governor Chet Culver took part in a conference call today to make the announcement.
“We will put this money to good use,” Culver said. “It will help us potentially save lives and protect businesses all over the state of Iowa, which has really been our focus as we rebuild from the 2008 floods.”
One person was killed during a two-vehicle crash Wednesday night in western Iowa’s Crawford County. The Iowa State Patrol says 57-year old Thomas Eldon Foreman of Manilla died when the 1989 Buick he was driving collided with a pickup truck near Vail.
Officials say the accident happened when Foreman’s car met a pickup driven by 31-year old James Patrick Lally of Vail on the crest of a hill. The vehicles collided head-on, just before 10 p.m. on 350th Street, a little over a mile north of Highway 141. Foreman was taken to St. Luke’s Hospital in Sioux City, where he died. Lally was injured during the crash and taken to the Crawford County Hospital.
The Patrol says Lally was suspected of being under the influence of alcohol. The accident remains under investigation.
By Ric Hanson, KJAN, Atlantic
A jury has convicted an Iowa City woman for illegally accessing President Obama’s student loan records. An investigation of Department of Education employees and contractors to see if the records of celebrities, sports figures or politicians were being viewed found nine workers at a Coralville company had looked at Obama’s records.
Seven of the accused have either pleaded guilty or intend to do so. Two of those accused pleaded not guilty, including the Iowa city women found guilty by a jury yesterday after about an hour of deliberations. The other accused former worker is set to go to trial. The Coralville company, called Vangent, is a U.S. Department of Education contractor, advising student loan applicants and collecting delinquent loans.
Dr. Beth Triebel and patient.
As tens of thousands of Iowa children start kindergarten, many will be taking basic vision screening tests.
Dr. Beth Triebel, an optometrist in Urbandale, says there’s a clear tie between vision and learning. “It’s amazing how many parents don’t get their children routine vision care,” Dr. Triebel says.
“Eighty-percent of learning is conducted through the vision system so it’s really important these children get checked out to be sure everything is on the level they need for school.” A national study finds 60% of students identified as problem learners have undetected vision problems.
Triebel says those vision screenings done in school are not enough and kids need to have a comprehensive vision exam performed. Triebel says: “The screenings usually just check for distance vision and acuity, but we need to look for other skills for school, such as how do the eyes track together? How do they focus up close? Do they have good depth perception? A lot of those just aren’t checked in screenings. You might feel a false sense of confidence that your child is okay because they passed the screening, but there could be some other issues there.”
Triebel says every child should have a comprehensive eye exam before starting school and every one to two years afterwards, depending on the findings. She says parents should be on the lookout for certain warning signs that may indicate their child has a vision problem.
“The most common things would be avoidance of wanting to read or look at things up close for long periods of time,” Triebel says. “Their eyes may water. You might see them rubbing their eyes frequently, closing an eye when they’re reading, holding things really close or excessively far away — those are things that parents can look for.” She says parents can help to protect their child’s vision, too.
“One of the big things is watching where the child is reading,” Triebel says. “A lot of times kids will lie on the floor, on their stomach, the book will be too close or they won’t have good lighting in the room. Make sure they are able to sit up appropriately to have a good working distance. Having good lighting is also really important as well.”
Other tips: a child watching TV should sit six-to-eight feet away from the television set; children should take periodic breaks to rest their eyes when reading, working on the computer, or playing video games; kids should wear appropriate eye protection in school activities where there is a risk of eye injuries.
Wet weather this summer slowed construction on a “cool” new attraction in Dubuque. Now, crews are getting some free help as they scramble to finish the Mystique Community Ice Arena in time for the Dubuque Fighting Saints’ first hockey game on September 11th. More than 100 volunteers are working on the multi-million dollar project – including hockey fan Barb Block.
“We’ve laid coil. We’ve laid sand. We’ve laid tubing. We’ve laid brackets,” Block said. “I want this rink to be done and I want everybody to come in and be happy and have a smile and say, ‘wow.’” Block and dozens of other volunteers have been at the arena every day for the past month helping any way they can.
“I’ll tell you, you get a lot of self pride out of it too. You can look at this place…we built this center by hand,” Block said. Arena Manager Greg Samms put out the call for help last month, when the mountain of work seemed more than construction crews could handle. The volunteers are also helping control costs.
“I would guess that we saved over $50,000 to date with volunteer labor,” Samms said. The Dubuque Fighting Saints are part of the United States Hockey League which also has teams in Waterloo, Cedar Rapids, Des Moines, Sioux City and Omaha.
By Katie Wiedemann, KCRG-TV, Cedar Rapids
The Iowa Western Community College football team opens the season at home on Saturday against Highland of Kansas. This will be the Rievers second season of football after posting a 5-4 record in the program’s first season in 2009.
Scott Strohmeier says they were close in several games they could have won and he is pleased with their first year result. He says the expectations are much higher for this season as they have some guys returning and that experience will help this year.
Strohmeier says with a more experienced team this season there is better leadership on the team. He says that’s probably one reason they started 0-3 last year as they were making a lot of changes early on. Strohmeier hopes to utilize the leadership of the experienced players as they head into the new season.
University of Dubuque football coach Stan Zweifel says for the Spartans to take the next step the special teams will need to be “special”. Dubuque won its final two games of 2009 to finish with a record of 5-5 but Zweifel says it could have been better. He says they were the worst in the conference in many areas last year and they believed that held them back and led to lots of lost field position.
Zweifel hired a new coach in the off season who will handle the special teams, an area that he says offers game changing plays and field position. He says they had an average starting position for their opponents in 10 games of their own 44 yard line, while their average starting position was their own 22. He says their opponents were playing arena football while his team was playing regular football and it made a big difference when his team had to go the whole field and the opponents only had to go half the field.
A number of key players are back from an offense that led the Iowa Conference in passing in 2009. One exception is at quarterback where Colton Hansen graduated after passing for more than 27 hundred yards and 24 touchdowns. Sophomore Wyatt Hanus served as the backup in 2009 and will start the first game.
Dubuque opens at home on September second against Rockford.
O.KayHenderson.com