Iowa's Radio News Network
Medal of Honor winner Sal Guinta speaks at the state capitol. (file photo)
The Iowan who was awarded the Medal of Honor last November is now a college student, occasionally traveling the country to give paid speeches.
Sal Giunta, a Hiawatha native, was awarded the military’s highest honor for his bravery during combat in Afghanistan. He has left the military. He chose not to re-enlist in June. Giunta is now a student at Colorado State University.
It’s only a few days into fall and already Iowa forecasters are talking about the chances of a nasty winter ahead. Iowa, and much of the globe, are again under what’s called the La Nina weather pattern, which state climatologist Harry Hillaker says usually means a snowier and more frigid winter is in store.
“La Nina slightly favors a little bit cooler, a little bit wetter-than-normal for Iowa for the midwinter season,” Hillaker says. “The further north you get in the state, the better the odds are in that regard.” Last winter, under the pattern, Iowa averaged nearly 41-inches of snow statewide and an average temperature of just under 19-degrees, both well beyond the norm.
“It’s been 12 of the last 20 La Nina events have brought us a colder-than-usual winter,” Hillaker says. “Also, 12 of the last 20 have been wetter than usual. Not that we’ve had all La Nina winters but we’ve actually had four consecutive colder-than-normal winters in Iowa already and five in a row that have been snowier than usual.”
Even if parts of the state do get buried in snow drifts, he says the odds favor a variety of weather based on geography, though it stands to reason that the farther north you go, the greater the chances of being colder and snowier. He says last winter is a good example of that.
Hillaker says, “Northeastern sections were far above normal, thanks especially in some cases to a record snowy December in northeastern Iowa, but southern parts of the state didn’t see nearly as much snow and not nearly as much duration of snow cover as we’ve seen in recent winters.” While Hillaker says he doesn’t put much stock in the prognosticating abilities of the Old Farmer’s Almanac, some Iowans may prefer the tome’s forecast.
The almanac is predicting a mild, dry Iowa winter ahead.
Luther College in Decorah is now offering a 12 week course called “Mental Health First Aid.” A study by the American College Counseling Association found the mental health of freshman students at a record low in 25 years of surveys. Luther counselor Stu Johnston says that’s one of the reasons he decided to teach the course.
“One of the goals of Mental Health First Aid is to increase mental health literacy… so people are using appropriate language,they know what the signs and symptoms are,” Johnston says. He says it allows the students to talk with their friends about the issues and where they can get help, and says he believes that it helps de-stigmatize mental health issues. Stress over a new environment and pressure to do well in sports and academics, are just some of the issues new students face. Johnston says the course includes role playing and simulations and he was a little worried about how that would go over with students.
He says they were worried that students are very busy and would be excited at the start, but then the 12-hour commitment would seem too daunting. Johnston says they addressed that by making it a one credit course.
Making it a course for credit has a couple of benefits. Johnston says the course shows up on their transcript as a class and they can also list it on their resume as they get certified. He says students have been committed to the class as he has not had any drop out.
The class address the risk factors and warning signs of specific illnesses, including: anxiety, depression, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and substance abuse. Amy Smith helps students deal with these issues at the Student Life Center on campus and says she took the course along with other staff members to refresh some of their training.
Smith says the assessments in the class really laid everything out in a low-key way how to help her further understand all the things encompassed in the health concerns.
The Mental Health First Aid course has also been taught at the Iowa Law Enforcement Academy and counseling centers in Cedar Rapids, Davenport, DeWitt, Dubuque, Iowa City and West Burlington are offering the course.
Find out more about the course here: www.mentalhealthfirstaid.org
A Des Moines native is getting some attention for a website she’s created that helps college students keep track of what’s going on around campus. Brittany Brody founded the site “Fampus” after leaving Iowa to attend the University of Wisconsin.
Brody says she was excited to go to college, but also frustrated and confused in trying find out what was going on at the school and decided to develop the website. She got help from her dad to get things started and says it evolved over three years and has become a great tool for students.
Republican Congressman Tom Latham held a town-hall meeting in Waukee Monday afternoon, fielding questions and comments about topics like term limits and the prospect for a federal government shut-down. Kevin Brodbeck of West Des Moines urged Latham to quit making spending concessions to Democrats and, instead, to “shut the dog-gone thing down.”
“We’re in this eternal loop of every two months, three months we’ll have the big broughaha, and someone’s holding up the budget for a mere couple billion here and the Democrats say, ‘We’ll pay for it later! We’ll pay for it later and we have to get this done.’ No, we don’t,” Brodbeck says.
“This country did very well for a couple hundred years without having all these payments and we’re quickly going down the route of Europe and the former communist countries. I’ve been there. It isn’t pretty.” Iowa National Guardsman Scott Schulte of Perry told Latham the threat of a government shut-down this past spring damaged morale among soldiers who were deployed in Afghanistan.
“Now the leadership, the military leadership, said, ‘Listen: everything’s good to go. We’re still in a war. Nothing stops because there’s no financing,’” Schulte said. “But the young people, it weighed on them because the young people don’t have a lot of assets to support their family while they’re deployed and this spooked a lot of the people.”
Latham says he understands why people are “angry” with the way Washington operates these days. “I feel the same way because it has become dysfunctional,” Latham says. “The people don’t want to work for solutions. The partisanship that has come along here in the past few years is just simply wrong. People are not working for the good of the American people. They’re working for their own reelection and it’s unfortunate.”
Latham says he’s holding five town hall meetings this week to give Iowans an opportunity to share their frustrations. Latham, who is moving from Ames to Clive, intends to seek reelection from Iowa’s new third congressional district and will likely face Democratic Congressman Leonard Boswell of Des Moines in 2012.
The summer-long flooding will be the primary topic of talks as members of the seven-state coalition that tackles Missouri River issues open their fall conference today in South Dakota. Mike Hayden is executive director of the Missouri River Association of States and Tribes, or MoRAST.
Hayden says the months of flooding in the basin caused tens of millions of dollars damage. Hayden says, “The states will be anxious to hear from the Corps of Engineers, what their plans are, particularly next year’s annual operating plan to make sure adequate flood protection and flood plain management is included in the upcoming operations.”
Most of the governors from states in the basin met last month in Omaha and agreed flood control should be the highest priority of the Corps of Engineers in managing the river. Hayden says while that resolution is fine, it’s up to Congress to direct or re-direct the Corps.
“Congress set out the authorized purposes and they did not, when they set that out in 1944, prioritize those purposes, and of course, a lot of things have happened in the basin since,” says Hayden, a former Kansas governor. He notes, plenty of court cases have focused on the actions or in-actions of the Corps over the decades.
“Judges have ruled that flood control and navigation should be the priorities,” Hayden says. “I can understand where the governors are coming from, but if they want the priorities to be prioritized, really, that’s an issue for the Congress.” Some U.S. senators and representatives have formed working groups to examine this year’s widespread flooding.
Hayden says the river basin should get that type of attention all the time, not just when it’s flooding. States involved in MoRAST are: Wyoming, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Iowa and Kansas. The conference is underway in Rapid City, South Dakota, through tomorrow.
By Jerry Oster, WNAX, Yankton
Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann was back in Iowa today, urging conservatives to stay the course with her campaign.
“Every four years conservatives are told we have to get around a candidate that we’re told is electable, right?” Bachmann asked a crowd in Cedar Rapids. “We’re told the conservative is the candidate who is not electable. We’re told only the moderate candidate in the race is electable, but that isn’t true.”
Bachmann won the Iowa Straw Poll in August, but her candidacy has faded as the national spotlight has settled on perceived front-runners Mitt Romney and Rick Perry. Bachmann, who began pushing this “don’t settle” message last Friday, finished last in this past weekend’s Florida straw poll. That’s not a concern for Jennifer Bioche, one of about 50 people who attended today’s Bachmann rally in Cedar Rapids.
“I wouldn’t rule her out yet,” Bioche said. “I think she’s sort of the ‘Little Engine that Could’ of the Republican Party.”
Bachmann’s “underdog” status is appealing to Bioche.
“Somebody who really represents coming from the bottom up, who isn’t afraid to kind of take on the bigger names,” Bioche said.
The Cedar Rapids rally was Bachmann’s only public event in Iowa.
O.KayHenderson.com