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Six teams have a shot at the Iowa Conference baseball title

April 26, 2011 By

Six teams remain in the hunt for the regular season title as the Iowa Conference baseball race enters the final stages. Coe College sits at the top with a record of 12-6 and coach Steve Cook’s team controls its own destiny. Cook says that’s the position you want to be in as you chase for a title. He says the players realize they control what happens with every play and every pitch.

Coe returns to action on Wednesday with a doubleheader against arch rival Cornell. Cook says they always have a good series no matter how strong or how weak each team is. Four other teams also have six losses, including Buena Vista which has a 9-6 record. The Beavers won last year’s championship with just four losses.

Buena Vista coach Steve Eddie says the talent in the league overall is much better this year. He says this season one bad weekend won’t knock a team out of the race. And he says it you worry about yourself and play good baseball, you will have a chance to win.

Buena Vista returns to action at home on Wednesday against Central. At 8-7 the Dutch are sixth in the league race.

Filed Under: Sports Tagged With:

Woman charged in Eagle Grove girl’s death

April 26, 2011 By

An arrest has been made in connection with the January 8 death of a 5-year-old girl from Eagle Grove. Iowa Department of Public Safety spokesperson Jessica Lown says the Iowa D.C.I. and Eagle Grove Police have been investigating the case for more than three months.

“And today, they executed an arrest on 20-year-old Kara Crapser,” Lown said. Crapser is charged with first-degree murder.

Lown describes Crapser as the “significant other” of the child’s father, Robert Valentine. Crapser was arrested at 11 a.m. today in Lehigh.

The victim in the case, 5-year-old Mikayla Valentine, was taken by air ambulance to University of Iowa Hospitals in Iowa City on January 7. “The child was found unresponsive and taken to the hospital where she died the next day,” Lown said. “An autopsy was performed…and the cause of death was determined to be abusive head trauma.”

Additional charges in the case are pending, according to Lown.

Filed Under: Crime & Courts

Farmers waiting for skies to clear up

April 26, 2011 By

Farmers seemed to race through the fields with their planters last year, but continued wet weather so far this spring has kept them waiting for the sun. Iowa Agriculture Secretary, Bill Northey, says the latest crop report showed only 3% of the state’s corn crop is in the ground, while the normal planting rate for this date is 28%.

Northey says even with some forecasts calling for some dry days ahead, it’s going to take several drying days for farmers to even get back in the fields. Northey says the big worry comes after the calendar turns from April to May. He says it seems like May fifth for central and southern Iowa and May 10th in the northern part of the state is the time when you can start losing yield if the crop isn’t planted.

Northey says there could still be a warm summer and a late fall, but he says historically, you start to lose yield if the crop isn’t planted by those May dates. Northey says a long dry and warm spell would make it much easier on farmers who’re waiting to get seeds in the ground.

Filed Under: Agriculture, Weather

Webster City expecting summer impact from Electrolux closing

April 26, 2011 By

It’s been almost a month since Electrolux shut down its washer-dryer plant in Webster City and social service workers there are bracing to handle the flood of people needing help. Patti Triebel, director of the Hamilton County Social Service office, says they’re at the ready.

“We haven’t seen a big influx of people yet,” Triebel says. “We’re seeing the tail end of people that are running out of unemployment but the people that were just recently laid off, they’re on unemployment.” The latest unemployment rate for Hamilton County was at 9% for March, while Iowa’s jobless rate for the month was 6.1%.

Triebel says her staff is ready to offer assistance to those who were displaced. “I’m expecting by middle of summer, end of summer that our numbers will pick up,” Triebel says. “There are people that come in that just don’t know what they’re going to do next. We really do try to help them come up with a plan, figure out housing situations, things like that.”

About 500 workers lost their jobs when the 74-year-old Webster City facility closed on March 31st. Electrolux shifted production to a plant in Juarez, Mexico.

By Pat Powers, KQWC, Webster City

Filed Under: Business Tagged With:

Senate President Kibbie to retire

April 26, 2011 By

The president of the Iowa Senate says he does not plan to seek reelection and will retire next year at the conclusion of his current term.  

Jack Kibbie, a Democrat from Emmetsburg, began telling colleagues last year that he would not run again, but Kibbie didn’t make his decision public until today.

“The map had nothing to do with the decision,” Kibbie said. “…My age is most of the reason why I’m doing what I’m doing.” 

Kibbie, who will turn 82 in July, had been paired in a newly-drawn senate district with a Republican senator and Kibbie would have had to campaign against a fellow incumbent in that new district, which has a Republican voter registration edge. Kibbie served in the state legislature in the 1960s, then sought reelection to the state senate in 1988.  

“I’ve won nine times and none of them have been very easy,” Kibbie says.

Kibbie helped guide a bill through the legislature in 1965 that created Iowa’s community college system and he still considers it among his most significant contributions to the state. Kibbie admits leaving the legislature will be tough. 

“This process — you’ve got to love it,” he says.

Kibbie’s mother was active in Democratic Party politics and Kibbie was elected chairman of his county’s Democratic Party shortly after he returned from serving in the Korean War. Nearly six decades later, Kibbie is the oldest member of the state legislature.

“When I first came here in the ’60s, there were a lot of 80-year-olds here and I told (Senate Majority Leader) Mike Gronstal back probably 10 years ago, you know, that when people get 80 years old, it’s time for them to get out of here. That’s long before I was 80.  Now that I’m 80, maybe I ought to stay,” Kibbie told a couple of statehouse reporters today, with a laugh.

Kibbie and his wife have two adult children who live in Florida, and Kibbie said if his health holds after he retires from the legislature, he’ll be spending the winters in “some southern state.”arm.  Kibbie also owns 600 acres in northwest Iowa and raises cattle with his two sons.

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

Updated: Republican legislators ask Regents to delay Harkin Institute decision

April 26, 2011 By

All but one of the Republicans in the Iowa House and Senate are calling on the Board of Regents to delay action on a proposal to create a public policy institute named for Democrat U.S. Senator Tom Harkin at Iowa State University.

Senator Sandra Greiner, a Republican from Keota, first raised concerns about the proposal late last week in a letter to the Board of Regents President David Miles.

[Read more...]

Filed Under: Education, Politics & Government Tagged With: , , , ,

Open meetings bill passes the House, now on to governor

April 26, 2011 By

The Iowa House has sent the governor a bill that significantly hikes the financial penalties for public officials who violate Iowa’s open meetings and open records laws. Representative Vicki Lensing, a Democrat from Iowa City, had hoped the bill would include more, but she still urged her colleagues to support the measure.

“It’s a first step, and you know how slowly things move in the legislature, so this could be a huge step forward,” Lensing says. Under current law, an employee of a government agency — from school boards to state government — who “knowingly” violates the state’s “Sunshine” Law could be fined up to five-hundred dollars.

The bill would increase that potential penalty to a maximum of $2,500, a five-fold increase. Representative Kevin Koester, a Republican from Ankeny, says the goal is to increase transparency in government. “Significant change to the expectation of public officials who knowingly hide an open record,” Koester said.

The bill passed the Senate on March 8th by a 48-0. On Monday afternoon, the proposal passed the House on a 96-0 vote. It now goes to Governor Branstad for his signature or veto.

Filed Under: Politics & Government Tagged With: , ,
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