The Atlantic Parks and Recreation Department and the YMCA announced on Tuesday (Today), the Sunnyside Pool in Atlantic will open this Thursday, June 17th. Dan Haynes, Director of the Nishna Valley YMCA, says “We continue to work through mechanical issues as well as staffing shortages but we are excited to get things moving. Below you will find the pertinent information that will be helpful for you and your family.” The pool opening had been delayed from the original date of June 1st, while crews worked to investigate a leak that was causing the water level to drop daily, and the search for pool staff was undeway.

Haynes says the daily fee rate of $3.00 per visit per person will still be in affect however, there is a season pass option. “Since we are opening late in the season,” Haynes says, “we have decided to sell a season pass for individuals for $70 and a Family (immediate members) pass for $90. Closing day will be approximately August 15th or as lifeguards are available. When there is rain or inclement weather and the outdoor pool becomes closed, those with an individual or family pass may use the indoor YMCA pool. Pool passes may be purchased at the outdoor pool during regular business hours.”

The hours of operation will be: Monday – Saturday 1-7pm and Sunday 1-6pm. Family hour is 5-6pm.

Haynes adds, “As we have all learned over the past few years and especially this year, our community and surrounding service area are certainly in need of an upgrade for our pool facility to include a splash pad. During our last community recreation meeting, one of the top desires of those in attendance was a Splash Pad and pool upgrades. We would like to take this time to invite those interested in this specific topic to join us for an input session. This brainstorming and input session will be on Tuesday July 13th at 6:00pm at the Lincoln/Wickman Center gym.”

For further information you may contact the Park and Recreation Office at 712-243-3542 or Kyle at the YMCA at 712-243-3934.

The Mills County Sheriff’s Office, Tuesday (today), reported nine arrests over the past week. On Sunday, June 13th, 28-year-old Tabitha Lynn Madsen, of Glenwood, was arrested on two counts of Assault with Bodily Injury, with bond set at $2,000. 26-year-old Dylan Ray McKeown, of Council Bluffs, was arrested for being a Fugitive From Justice. He was being held without bond in the Mills County Jail. And, 23-year-old Erick Rodriguez, of Omaha, was arrested Sunday, for OWI/1st offense. Bond was set at $1,000.

Last Thursday, 42-year-old Jason Alexander Houston, of Omaha, was arrested on a warrant for Violation of Probation, with bond set at $2,500, and, 26-year-old Matthew Elza Anthony Campbell, of Omaha, was arrested for Possession of a Controlled Substance (Bond $1,000).

On June 9th: 23-year-old Adrianna Celeste Collins, and 45-year-old Christopher Kyle Swope, both of Omaha, were arrested for Conspiracy with the intent to deliver a controlled substance. Swope was additionally charged with Felon in control of a firearm. His bond was set at $30,000. Bond for Collins was set at $25,000; 42-year-old Heath Douglas Tilson, of Omaha, was arrested for being a Fugitive from Justice (No bond); and, 59-year-old Curtis James Hansen, of Beatrice, NE., was arrested for Driving Under Suspension and Open Container (Bond $600).

(Radio Iowa) – Protesters disrupted and prompted the suspension of last night’s Des Moines City Council meeting shortly after it started. Black Liberation Movement protesters unfurled a banner that read “Defund DMPD” — the Des Moines Police Department. Chelsea Chism-Vargas was among those asking the council to reject spending $10,000 to send a Des Moines Police officer to a training exercise in Florida.

“Y’all know it’s not right,” Chism-Vargas said. “…We do not support free vacations for Des Moines police officers when they’re in our communities violating us, brutalizing us on the streets and y’all don’t say nothing about it.”

After the council approved the trip, the protesters stood and began chanting. The Des Moines City Council tried to conduct business over the shouting, but then decided to suspend the meeting and reconvene online Wednesday morning at 7:30. Mayor Frank Cownie called last night’s incident “alarming.” The council had limited the audience to 25 people for its first in-person meeting at the Des Moines City Council chambers in 14 months.

(Radio Iowa) – A writing assignment for a University of Iowa honors class turned into a novel that caught the attention of movie producers and resulted in all 19 students signing a film option with two Hollywood studios. U-I Professor Harry Stecopoulos says he’s delighted by the development and while he couldn’t disclose the terms of the contract, says his students were thrilled with the deal they brokered. “There was a little bit of wrangling, as you might expect, and I should say, to the students’ great credit, they did their own negotiations with a little bit of advice from an Iowa alum who works for an agent in Los Angeles,” Stecopoulos says. “The undergrads all did their own negotiations and did them very well indeed.”

The students’ collaboration, “Gilded in Ash,” is a new version of what many regard as the greatest novel of the 20th century. The copyright on “The Great Gatsby” expired last year, so Stecopoulos had his students create a completely new telling of the classic 1925 story by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Never did he dream it would result in a film option. “I had no expectations of this kind whatsoever,” Stecopoulos says. “I hoped they would do a good job and I had no expectations. I’m doing it again with a Hemingway novel in the fall and I fear that the students will expect a similar result, which I can’t guarantee, obviously, but it’s been a wonderful surprise.”

The original plan called for an electronic version of the students’ novel to be released in January through the University of Iowa’s Digital Scholarship and Publishing Studio, with a paperback version this spring. That didn’t happen. “The producers, for understandable reasons, didn’t want a free copy of the book circulating in case, I guess, someone else might want to make a similar film,” he says. “Some of the students are interested in revising, tightening the existing manuscript and then submitting it to conventional publishers, seeing if they can get it in book form.”

The film option was signed with Independent Pictures and Fugitive Films, but there’s no guarantee “Gilded in Ash” will ever become a movie. “The film business is fickle,” Stecopoulos says, but he’s confident the movie will be made — eventually. The characters in the new story are “largely the same but it’s a different plot,” Stecopoulos says. “For example, Gatsby is an African-American woman who is an art forger, so a major change there.” The U-I students’ story is still set in the 1920s and in New York City but he says it’s very much an original account. So what’s the next writing project involve with Hemingway?

“It’s ‘The Sun Also Rises,’ published in 1926, and that copyright expires on January 1st of 2022.” Expiration of the copyright means anyone can publish the book, write a prequel, or adapt it however they’d like. Stecopoulos notes, there is no payday for him with the upcycled Gatsby tale, as the only reward he craves is in his students’ success.

(Radio Iowa) – An immigration amnesty bill is subject of a hearing before the U-S Senate Judiciary Committee today (Tuesday) but Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley says the panel is “focused on the wrong thing.” Grassley, the committee’s ranking Republican, says they instead should be concentrating on finding solutions to the “border crisis.” “It’s this administration’s new policies, promises and rhetoric that have created the crisis,” Grassley says. “You see it every day, hundreds wading the Rio Grande to come to this country in violation of our laws.”

Grassley quoted reports that said on one recent day, people from 35 different nations crossed into the U-S illegally along our southern border with Mexico. Iowan Michelle Root is scheduled to testify during today’s hearing. She’s the mother of a young woman from Council Bluffs who died in an accident five years ago in Omaha. “You may remember that her daughter, Sarah Root, was killed in a car crash by a drunk driving, undocumented immigrant,” Grassley says. “He’d been released by federal law enforcement because of some legal loophole.”

The crash took place on January 31st of 2016, a matter of hours after Root graduated with honors from Bellevue University. Omaha police said 19-year-old Eswin Mejia, a native of Honduras, was drag racing and caused the crash, but he was released on bail and disappeared. Grassley says he probably fled the country and likely will never be brought to justice. New legalization measures with no discussion of border security, Grassley says, are “a recipe for an even-longer crisis.”

“We should be sympathetic to the circumstances of young people who are illegally brought to this country as children,” Grassley says. “That decision wasn’t up to those children. Their parents violated the law.” Such measures, he says, need to be considered alongside legislation that promotes the rule of law and that would prevent future tragedies like what the Root family has endured.

Officials with Guthrie County/ISU Extension and Outreach report the US Sunbeams 4-H Club was the winner of a “Random Acts of Kindness” drawing. The club won $257.50 from one of the members aunt’s workplace.  The club in-turn used the money to “Pay It Forward” with the 15 Summer Activity Bags.

Meredith Arganbright presenting 15 Summer Activity Bags to Rhonda Huggins of New Opportunities Family Development Center in Guthrie Center. (Photo & information submitted)

With Ric Hanson.

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DES MOINES, Iowa —  Eastern Iowa Democrat Representative Ras Smith, Tuesday (today), officially announced his bid to become Governor. He becomes the first person to announce they will challenge Governor Kim Reynolds in advance of the the 2022 mid-term elections. Smith currently represents Iowa House District 62 at the statehouse, which covers the northern part of Waterloo. He’s held that position since 2017 and has run unopposed since the 2016 elections.

Iowa Dem. Rep. Ras Smith, from Waterloo,

State Rep. Smith is expected to make a formal announcement Tuesday at 4:30 p.m.