(Council Bluffs, Iowa) – The Pottawattamie County Secondary Roads Department reports the Burlington Northern-Sante Fe (BNSF) railroad crossing at Pott. County Road L-55 (2nd Street) in Neola, will be closed on Tuesday, June 8th, beginning at 8-a.m., to perform maintenance on the crossing. The closure is scheduled to take six hours. The roadway will be back open by end of day.
The Iowa DOT has placed message boards on Railroad Highway and on L55 to warn traffic of the closure.
(Clarinda, Iowa) – The Page County Attorney’s Office has released the outcome of several cases heard in Page County District Court, during the week of May 19th. The following individuals appeared through their attorney and pled guilty to their respective charges, and in addition to their sentences, were ordered to pay court costs, surcharges and court-appointed attorney fees.
Page County Courthouse
The Page County Attorney’s Office said also, 44-year-old Timothy Lee Strange, of Shenandoah, appeared with council and denied violating the terms and conditions of his probation. The Court found he was in willful contempt of court, and sentenced him to 120 in the Page County Jail. Strange was unsuccessfully discharged from probation.
(Radio Iowa) – The Kossuth County Board of Supervisors and the motorcycle riders’ association known as ABATE are discussing the cost of county services during the group’s annual gathering near Algona. ABATE of Iowa’s 2025 “Freedom Rally” is scheduled for July 3rd through the 6th on a property ABATE owns. Dave Duffy, state coordinator for ABATE of Iowa, says the group had been making a donation to the county to cover emergency medical services, but have stopped helping to pay E-M-Ts. “We decided not to do a donation to the EMS just because Kossuth County, now being an essential service, gets money from our taxes now where they were a volunteer before,” Duffy said, “and they also get paid as they take people in.”
Phil Albers is Kossuth County’s director of Emergency Medical Services. “I don’t want to build a wall between us and ABATE. I really don’t,” he said. “The very first year ABATE was here, I worked ABATE. I worked first aid stands for many years as a volunteer…When you guys first came, we were able to staff it with volunteers…Now, we have to do it with full-time staff, so our staff are required to give up their 4th of July weekend every year to provide this service.” Albers says on a typical day, four full-time E-M-S staff are on duty, but adding several thousand motorcyclists means his staff has to double. “Last year we ran 19 calls to ABATE Park,” he said, “Friday and Saturday being our busy days.”
Albers has suggested ABATE cover the costs of two E-M-S staffers being on stand-by during the four day event and he says that’s a similar request to organizations having other events in the county. “We know it’s happening, we have to prepare and we have to cover it properly,” Albers said. “We’re other going to incur the costs ourselves and eat it, or they’re going to help offset the costs. That’s the question.”
Duffy says ABATE had expected their previous donations meant an ambulance would be positioned at the event, but he says that didn’t happen. ABATE has been hosting an annual rally in Iowa for over 40 years. Motorcyclists from as far away as Canada are expected at this year’s event at ABATE Park, which is northeast of Algona and covers about 20 acres.
Former Drake basketball coach Darian DeVries is no stranger to rebuilding a roster and he has done it, again, as he prepares for his first season at Indiana. DeVries took the Hoosier job after one season at West Virginia where he led the Mountaineers to a 19-13 record but missed out on the NCAA Tournament.
Summer workouts began on Monday.
DeVries says summer workouts are even more important with a new roster.
DeVries led Drake to six straight seasons of 20 wins or more and three trips to the NCAA Tournament.
(Radio Iowa) – Volunteers are needed to help compile what’s known as Iowa’s Bumble Bee Atlas, an effort to gauge the state’s populations of the vital pollinators. Stephanie Shepherd, a wildlife diversity biologist with the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, says it won’t take much time and it will be a tremendous help to researchers who study the tiny-yet-important insects. “Volunteers are basically trained and then asked to go out to a natural area that is at least two-and-a-half acres in size that has flowers and habitat for bumblebees,” Shepherd says, “and then spend 45 minutes looking for and catching bumblebees, and then submitting photographs of those bumble bees.” Volunteers don’t have to identify each bee they temporarily net, as experts will be studying the photos to determine the various species. She says there are between 300 and 400 types of bees living in Iowa.
“But the bumblebees are a group within there, and they’re a fairly smallish group,” Shepherd says. “We have anywhere between 14 and 17 species, depending on again, this is part of why we’re doing the Atlas, is to figure out exactly what we have here.” Distinguishing bees from bumble bees isn’t hard, she says, with a little training. Bumble bees are typically larger than your standard bee, they’re fuzzier, and they carry pollen in a way that’s obviously different. Shepherd says you should start by watching the first few training videos posted on the Iowa Bumble Bee Atlas website, then consider attending an in-person session. “We have a bunch of field training events around the state,” Shepherd says. “They’re not required, but people can come out and get some hands-on experience catching bumble bees, handling bumble bees, how to take photos, and generally just meet a bunch of other fun people who like bumble bees.”
Rusty patched bumble bee (Photo by Rich Hatfield, The Xerces Society)
This is the second year for the program and Shepherd says volunteers are needed in every one of Iowa’s 99 counties. “Bees are incredibly important pollinators,” Shepherd says. “I think everybody understands the importance of pollination and bees are probably our superstars of doing that. Bumble bees have some unique traits that make them especially valuable for pollination, and the more we know about them, the better we can do at making sure they have habitat available.”
The first of the eight training events is scheduled for June 21st in Peosta, with more to follow through July in: Ames, Waterloo, Dakota City, Anita, Okoboji, Moravia and in New Castle, Nebraska. Registration is free and pre-registration is required.
More information can be found:
https://www.bumblebeeatlas.org/pages/iowa?utm_medium=email&utm_source=govdelivery
https://survey123.arcgis.com/share/2a2cc3da7eb841ac8f5d29718b0c63d8?utm_medium=email&utm_source=govdelivery
(Red Oak, Iowa) – A man and a woman from Red Oak were arrested this (Thursday, June 5th) morning, in Red Oak. According to Red Oak Police, the female, 23-year-old Carrington Jade Jackson was arrested at around 8:16-a.m. in the 600 block of N. Broadway Street. The male, 25-year-old Damon Allen Jackson, was arrested at around 8:45-a.m., in the 200 block of E. Washington Street. Both were charged with Violation of a No Contact Order. The pair were being held without bond in the Montgomery County Jail, pending a court appearance.
GARY PETERSEN, 73, of Elk Horn, died April 25, 2025, at the Salem Lutheran Home. Graveside services for GARY PETERSEN will be held at 11-a.m. on (Thursday) June 12th, in the Harlan Cemetery. Pauley-Jones Funeral Home in Harlan has the arrangements.
Visitation will take place at the funeral home on June 11th, from 5-until 7-p.m.
GARY PETERSEN is survived by:
His step-brother: John (Jane) Kimball, of Pequot Lake, MN.
(UPDATED) – (Atlantic, Iowa) – The Atlantic Police Department is reaching out to individuals and business owners in the community that have surveillance cameras installed in an effort to assist investigating crimes. Atlantic Police Chief Devin Hogue said they had a similar program a couple of years ago. And while it was never forgotten or discontinued, some of the emphasis on the value of such investigative tools fell by the wayside.
Hogue said these days, more and more people and businesses have surveillance cameras, whether it’s something as simple as a Ring doorbell system or a security system with several cameras and a recording device, those devices can be a great time-saving tool that’s useful in solving crimes.
The Atlantic Community Camera program allows anyone that has security cameras, to inform the Police Department how they can be contacted in the event that they may be useful in gathering evidence of a crime that may have occurred near them. Chief Hogue says the program is strictly voluntary.
Some factors to consider:
Chief Devin Hogue says he appreciates everyone who is willing to partner with the P-D and participate in this program. You can find more details and register online by visiting the Atlantic Police Department Facebook page, or sign-up here: https://na4.documents.adobe.com/public/esignWidget…
Des Moines, Iowa – Officials with the Iowa Department of Corrections, today (Thursday, June 5) said a man convicted in Polk County of Burglary in the 1st Degree, and Assault on Peace Officers, failed to report back from Work Release to the Fort Des Moines Correctional Facility, Tuesday. 46-year-old Richard Elmer Steil was admitted to the facility in Oct., 2024.
Richard Elmer Steil
Steil is a white male, 6-feet 3-inches tall. He weighs about 281-pounds. Persons with information on Steil’s whereabouts should contact their local police department.
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