The broadcast News at 8:05-a.m., from Ric Hanson.

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(Atlantic, Iowa) – The Atlantic Area Chamber of Commerce, Cass/Atlantic Development Corp. and Cass County Extension have partnered together to offer a county-wide leadership program, “Leading Cass County”, that focuses on cultivating the next generation of community leaders. Bailey Smith, Executive Director at the Atlantic Area Chamber of Commerce, says “Leading Cass County is a program developed by ISU Extension and Outreach and the University of Wisconsin Extension. It’s designed to seek out emerging leaders within your county and teach them skills they need for interacting and working together to promote sustainable community development while also preparing them for positions of public influence and decision-making.”

The program, launched in the fall of 2019, is an 8-month course, meeting the second Tuesday of each month, that focuses on a different topic each session. Participants will interact with local leaders and learn about Cass County resources during community tours and presentations. Class sessions and tours will rotate around the county, showcasing the diversity of services the county has to offer. Class sessions will be held from 8:30 AM – 11:30 AM, followed by lunch and community tours from 11:30 AM – 2:30 PM. A certificate will be awarded to participants who successfully fulfill the requirements of the leadership program.

Topics include: Community Leadership; Agriculture & Conservation; Economic Development; Local Government, Crime & Safety; Healthcare & Social Services; State Government, and a Graduation ceremony. Tuition is $350 per participant and will cover the entire program, tours and lunch.

By the end of the program, four core skill sets will be learned:

• Understanding community leadership and your community
• Identifying issues and framing ideas
• Building social capital
• Mobilizing resources for community action

Smith says “We were really pleased with the support we received, county-wide, from businesses and participants in 2019. We graduated 18 students in March of 2020 and look forward to having a full class again for the 2021-2022 year. The goal of this course is to mold young leaders that may be “hiding” throughout the county and give them the resources and confidence to become an active member of their community, stay here for the long haul and work towards making Cass County a great place to live and do business in.”

More information and a detailed list of monthly topics and tours can be found at www.atlanticiowa.com. Applications are due by noon September 15, 2021 by email to keolson@iastate.edu. Applications can also be found at the Extension, Chamber and Cass/Atlantic Development offices. “Leading Cass County” is sponsored by Atlantic Municipal Utilities, Camblin Mechanical and Cass County Health System.

The Creston Police Department reports two arrests from over the weekend. Authorities 62-year-old Gerald Knorr (Who has no known address), was arrested 8-a.m. Friday at 200 W. Howard Street, for Disorderly Conduct and Simple Assault, stemming from an incident on Sept. 9th. Knorr was cited and released from the Union County Law Enforcement Center, on a Summons to Appear on both charges.

And, Sunday afternoon, 29-year-old Richie Rodriguez, of Creston, was arrested on a Polk County warrant for Failure to Appear on an original Violation of Probation, charge. Rodriguez was being held without bond in the Union County Jail, pending a hearing, and while awaiting transfer to Polk County.

The 7:07-a.m. broadcast News from Ric Hanson.

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DES MOINES, Iowa — Des Moines Police are working to solve the city’s seventh homicide of the year. KCCI reports officers were called at around 8:35 p.m. Sunday, to the 900 block of Randolph Street to investigate a report of a dispute. Arriving officers found the body of a 42-year-old woman.

“Observations at the scene indicated that this was not a death due to natural causes,” Des Moines police said through a news release. Police said witnesses are being interviewed and evidence is being examined in the case.

This is the seventh homicide investigation of 2021 in the city.

(Washington, D-C) – First Lady Jill Biden will travel to Milwaukee, Wisconsin and Des Moines, Iowa on Wednesday, September 15th. In Des Moines, the First Lady will join Rep. Cindy Axne at Des Moines Area Community College and highlight how the Biden Administration is supporting families through the American Rescue Plan and its Build Back Better agenda.

Dr. Biden is (Tentatively) set to arrive at the Des Moines International Airport at 2:45-p.m., Wednesday. About an hour later, she Representative Cindy Axne will visit Des Moines Area Community College, in Ankeny.

(Radio Iowa) – The Iowa Department of Corrections has begun photocopying all legal mail sent to inmates, due to concerns the originals could be infused with drugs. Mail has been found that’s been soaked in the synthetic drug K-2, and the inmates then smoke the papers. University of St. Thomas law professor, Gregory Sisk, says he has never encountered a policy like Iowa’s.  “In general, the states’ correctional systems have been very protective of legal mail and recognize that the right to confidentiality in correspondence between a prisoner and a prisoner’s lawyer is to be protected,” Sisk says. “The Ninth Circuit has described this right as nearly sacrosanct.”

He says the policy threatens prisoners’ rights to confidential correspondence with their attorneys.  “Setting up a system like this in which confidentiality could be severely compromised puts lawyers in the position where they may not be able to continue representation,” Sisk says.

An attorney within the State Public Defender’s Office has called on the DOC to rescind the policy, which the lawyer argues prevents them from fulfilling their ethical duties.

Iowa small business owners are encouraged to take a little time away from running those businesses this week to learn about ways they might improve their operations. Bailey DeVries, associate administrator of the U-S Small Business Administration, says this year’s National Small Business Week Summit is being held virtually with a host of learning and educational sessions. “We’ll include representatives from small businesses across the country as well as representatives from Fortune 500 companies,” DeVries says. “Small business is big business and forging those relationships that are important for strategic partnerships, customer relationships, all of this is so important in helping entrepreneurs on their path to success.”

The three-day summit opens today (Monday) under the banner “Celebrating Resilience and Renewal.” She says it will zero in on subjects that concern small businesses owners — like the outlook for the economy and how to better serve small businesses in underserved and under-invested communities. “There will be tailored events specific to different types of businesses,” DeVries says. “There will be sessions focused on access to capital for women entrepreneurs. We will also have sessions dedicated to resilience and recovery in this pandemic environment and how small businesses can adapt to the trends transforming the workforce.”

More than 95-percent of Iowa’s businesses are small businesses, which DeVries refers to as the “lifeblood” of the country. “There are over 32-million small businesses operating across the United States and they continue to be the drivers of massive amounts of job creation within the private sector,” DeVries says. “Two out of every three new jobs are with small businesses and more than half of our workforce either works for or owns a small business.”

It’s free to attend the summit, which she says will celebrate small businesses for their perseverance, ingenuity, triumphs and creativity. To register, visit http://www.sba.gov/NSBW.

(Radio Iowa) – Fall enrollment is down at the three state universities The University of Northern Iowa has been trying to get its numbers back up for several years. Vice President for enrollment, Kristin Woods, says they do have more new students coming in. “Our new freshman class for fall 2021 is one-thousand554 students. And that is an increase over last year by about five percent,” she says. “Overall, our enrollment is nine-thousand- 231, and that is down about 291 students from last year.” In-person classes are back after going online for a time during the pandemic. Woods says they aren’t sure how the pandemic impacted enrollment. “That’s something we are still learning about and continuing to dig into. We do know that it had an impact on our international enrollment,” Woods says.

She says things haven’t gotten back to normal for international students. “Students continued to have challenges to obtaining visas and that was tied to student’s often inability to get visa appointments with embassy closures and so on. So, that certainly has had a continued impact on international enrollment.” While the overall enrollment is down slightly, she says there are positives. She says they are excited about the increase in the size of the freshman class and the record graduation rates — with one-in-14 students graduating in three years.

Iowa State’s fall enrollment is 30-thousand-708 — which is down by 11-hundred-17 students. The university saw a six percent increase in new first-year students The University of Iowa’s total enrollment is 31-thousand-206, down 394 from fall 2020. Iowa has four-thousand-521 first-year students, up 11 from fall 2020.

(Radio Iowa) – Events were held throughout Iowa to mark the 20th anniversary of the September 11th attacks. While many have vivid memories of that day, it’s all history to students in elementary and high school school who weren’t born yet. Jordan Pollack, a teacher at West Delaware High School in Manchester, shares his own recollections to engage with seniors in government class. “I was actually in 8th grade when it happened, so I was a student,” he says. “So I kind of talk to my students about (being) on the bus and I heard something and then we got to school and then we basically watched footage of it the rest of the day.”

Pollack also talks about the junior high football game that Tuesday night 20 years ago. “I remember feeling kind of weird, like something huge happened,” he says, “but we’re still doing this really normal thing, like going to a middle school football game.”

Corey Coates, who’s also a social studies teacher at West Delaware High School, says he has a distinct memory about football practice for the high school team that afternoon, as they all realized there were no planes or contrails in the sky. Coates says he starts a class conversation about 9/11 by showing some short videos of the attacks. “Many students have never actually just watched any footage from the day,” he says. “So many of them are just so surprised to actually see a plane hitting the building and so then we debrief about those things and that’s usually then when I go into my conversation about my experience.”

On September 11th, 2001, Coates had just started his 6th year of teaching and was gathering with students in the school annex as classes were about to start on that Tuesday. “I just remember some of my students coming in and saying: ‘Mr. Coates, what on earth is going on?’ and I just grabbed a yellow (legal) pad…and I just started to write,” he says. “…I just tried to process with the kids as the whole day went on.”

Coates and Pollack say students understand something monumental happened and some compare 9/11 to Pearl Harbor, but both teachers say it’s hard for students who weren’t alive in 2001 to fully comprehend the magnitude and scope of the attacks.