(Creston, Iowa) – Police in Creston, Thursday night, arrested a man on an assault charge. 39-year-old David William Fister, of Creston, was arrested at his residence for Domestic Abuse Assault/1st Degree. He was later released from the Union County Jail, on a $300 bond.

Des Moines, Iowa – An eastern Iowa family whose son died in an accident on a water ride in Altoona, has filed a wrongful death lawsuit associated with his death. The suit filed in state court by David and Sabrina Jaramillo, of Cedar Rapids and three of their children, alleges Adventureland Park failed to properly maintain and repair its rides.

The family, including 11-year old Michael Jaramillo, were on the Raging River ride at the park on July 3, 2021, when the raft carrying all six family members flipped over trapping them beneath the water. Michael Jaramillo drowned and other family members were injured.

The family seeks to recover monetary damages for negligence. An attorney for the park says safety has always been a priority and a number of extraordinarily unusual factors came together to cause the accident.

The Department of Natural Resource’s (DNR’s) Derelict Building Grant Program (DBGP) has awarded grants to the Cities of Carson and Griswold. The program was created by statute to help rural communities with populations of 5,000 or less, remove environmental hazards, improve community appearance and minimize costs by recycling and reusing building materials through deconstruction or renovation of abandoned, derelict buildings that have sat vacant for at least 6 months. Established in 2011, the program has assisted 56 communities, diverted over 35,000 tons of materials, and saved over $1 million in landfill disposal costs.

The City of Carson (Pottawattamie County) was awarded $69,891 and $66,884 to abate asbestos and deconstruct old commercial buildings at 119 Broadway Street and 121 Broadway Street. The city plans to develop the space into a new daycare center.

The City of Griswold (Cass County) was awarded $94,625 to abate asbestos and deconstruct an old commercial building. The city plans to develop the space into a new daycare center.

Other grants were provided for the following communities in western Iowa…

City of Mapleton (Monona County) – $22,900 to abate asbestos and deconstruct an old commercial building. City plans to have a new space for commercial redevelopment.

City of Sac City (Sac County) — $80,275 to abate asbestos and deconstruct an old commercial building. City plans to develop the area into a trail head and green space for farmer’s market.

DBGP funding is awarded annually on a competitive basis with cash matches required. Applications for the next funding round will be due on Feb. 24, 2023.

(Radio Iowa) – Iowa’s only national cemetery, created by President Lincoln during the Civil War, is said to be a beautiful, peaceful place, but the street leading to the manicured graveyard is a pot-holed moonscape. Keokuk Mayor Kathie Mahoney is making an appeal for money to replace the eight blocks of road, sidewalks and infrastructure that leads from the town’s Main Street to the federal landmark. “Basically what today is, more than anything, we are trying to create awareness,” Mayor Mahoney says. “We’re asking our government, we’re asking state, federal and our county government, too, and our local government, to help in this project.”

Keokuk National Cemetery (Photo provided by Mayor Mahoney)

The $3.2-million dollar price tag is a small sum to pay, she says, to honor the six-thousand-plus veterans and their family members for whom it’s the final resting place. “In that group of people is one U.S. Supreme Court justice, Samuel L. Miller,” Mahoney says. “There are 600 Civil War veterans buried in our cemetery. There are eight Confederate soldiers buried in the cemetery and there are 11 unknowns. And there are five Civil War generals buried there, too.” During the Civil War, the federal government opened five military hospitals in Keokuk. The sick and wounded were transported to them by riverboats on the Mississippi.

The Keokuk National Cemetery is one of 12 original national cemeteries designated by Congress and it’s on the National Register of Historic Places. The white headstones are all uniform and in neat rows, as it was modeled after Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia. “It’s an amazing place. I mean, it takes your breath away,” she says. “We have a ceremony every Memorial Day, Veterans Day, and if you have to speak, it brings you to tears to think about what those people, those soldiers, did for us and how they died for us and then here we are honoring them and the place is just beautiful — and the road is just crappy.”

That road is Keokuk’s South 18th Street, but in a ceremony today, it was renamed “The Road of Honor,” the first step toward renovation.

(Radio Iowa) – Iowans are warned every Fourth of July about the risks of losing fingers or hands to fireworks, but explosives can also do serious damage to eyesight, even causing blindness. Doctor Rao Chundury, an ophthalmologist at the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha, says last Independence Day they treated dozens of people who came through the emergency room. “We see many different types of injuries from fireworks, from minor injuries to ocular burns and sometimes rather severe injuries,” Chundury says. “Personally and unfortunately, I also took care of several individuals who lost their eye completely because of fireworks.”

Some fireworks, including sparklers, can burn at temperatures up to 22-hundred degrees. Even brief contact with the delicate tissues of the eye can cause devastating burns. The injuries are preventable and he urges Iowans to wear safety glasses to protect the eyes when using fireworks. “If you or your loved one has an ocular injury from fireworks, the most important thing that you can do is seek medical attention,” Chundury says. “We really don’t want individuals to remove the foreign body or the fireworks, apply ointments or rinse it out. That may actually cause more harm than good.”

The Consumer Product Safety Commission reports fireworks are involved in more than 15,000 injuries treated in U.S. emergency rooms every year, with about 15% of those injuries involving the eyes

(Radio Iowa) – Iowans are encouraged to attend next week’s funeral for a World War Two veteran who worked as a funeral director more than five decades — and who’s only living relative is on the East Coast. Hugh Bell of Shenandoah died June 2nd at age 98. Staci Shearer, a funeral director with the Hackett Livingston Funeral Home, says Bell shared many stories with her about his time as a civilian mortician for the Army Mortuary Service in the late 1960s. “Kind of the heartache and the tragedy that he had to deal with during that time,” Shearer says, “but he felt it was such an important calling for him to be able to offer his services in order to prepare the casualties of the Vietnam War, to be able to go back to their families and back to their homes.”

Shearer met Bell some 15 years ago when he came into Hackett-Livingston with information regarding his own funeral arrangements, including an obituary he’d written for himself. She says Bell’s personality had a lasting impact on the facility’s caregivers. “As I took him back to the funeral home, there was just a lot of tears shed, and you could definitely tell a piece of an important resident was no longer going to be at the facility,” Shearer says. “He was definitely a very loved guy.” Bell’s only relative is a nephew in Warwick, Rhode Island, so Iowa Funeral Directors Association Communications Manager Taylor Teays wants as many people as possible at Bell’s funeral. Teays says it’s the last chance to honor his military service and 50-plus years as a funeral director.

Hugh Conklin Bell

“It means a lot when people can turn up and show up and just take a half-an-hour of their day to honor someone,” Teays says. “Even though he’s not here to see it, it just as a whole, is really awesome to be able to say that we took the time to honor someone like him.” Born in McCook, Nebraska, Bell was a 1942 Shenandoah High School graduate. He was drafted into the U-S Army in 1943, earned his pilot’s wings and an officer’s commission in 1944, and trained pilots in the A-20 and A-26 light bombers. After the war ended, Bell became a troop carrier pilot visiting 33 countries and flying across 25 others before being released from the Air Force in 1953. After his time in the military, Bell spent 55 years as a licensed funeral director in Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas and Arizona.
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The graveside service for Bell will be held at the Rose Hill Cemetery at 11 A-M on July 8th and will include military honors conducted by the Shenandoah American Legion Color Guard. Memorial donations are welcome at People for Paws or the American Legion Color Guard.

(Radio Iowa) – Fourth District Iowa Congressman, Randy Feenstra, held his second annual family picnic fundraiser Thursday. The Republican from Hull got emotional as he addressed the crowd. “Between us collectively, we have achieved so much In the last year and a half. With your help and your prayers, this kid from Hall Iowa made his way to the U-S Congress to the U-S House of Representatives. And I take that responsibility very seriously. And I cherish every day I’m there, so thank you,” Feenstra says.

Randy Feenstra Twitter feed photo.

Feenstra says he is proud to be a conservative and talked about the recent U-S Supreme Court decision overturning legal abortion. ” I think about generations and decades that, you know, we’ve marched in the parades. We’ve gone to Sioux City and Sioux Falls to march around the abortion clinics,” he says. “We’ve advocated. We’ve put people up and down the ballot, that were pro-life. Last week, we got to celebrate.” Feenstra says it is some they have wanted for the last 50 years. “That is amazing, isn’t it? Something we all wanted,” he says. Feenstra says he wants to remain in Congress to keep fighting for fiscal responsibility, support law enforcement, and continue fighting for agriculture. Feenstra says Republicans are going to win big in Congress and the Senate in November, and says they need to have a plan that will make a difference and make sure that their conservative conservative agenda gets passed.

Former South Carolina Governor and U-N Ambassador, Niki Haley, spoke at the event. She echoed Feenstra — saying it is important to win Republican majorities in the House, Senate, and in the 36 governor races across the country. “If we ever saw the importance of a governor, all you had to do was think about COVID and the right governors and what they did. And as we’re looking at that, there was no way we weren’t going to come here for Randy Feenstra,” Haley says. ” I mean, first of all, the guy is so normal, right? We need normal people in D-C, we really need normal people in D-C.” Haley criticized the Biden Administration policies she says have put a strain on Americans.

“Here you have families, and they’re having to pay more money at the gas pump. And that’s how they get to work. They’re having to pay more money at the grocery store. And that’s how they feed their families. What you’re seeing right now is the average American family is having to spend more than six-thousand dollars a year than they did last year,” Haley says. Haley says the federal government now has to borrow to pay the interest on the national debt. “We now have more debt than we have in our economy. And we haven’t had that since World War Two. You know what? Randy Feenstra sponsored a bill to say we had to stop and that we’re not going to spend more than we make. He’s fighting for a balanced budget. Give him a hand he’s knocking it out of the park,” according to Haley.

Congressman Feenstra will face Democrat Ryan Melton of Nevada in November.

(Radio Iowa) – With inflation at its highest rate since 1981, financial counselors in Iowa are hearing from more families who are worried about their household budgets. Emily Bezdicek, a HUD-certified financial and housing counselor with Catholic Charities, says to compare how much your family is spending now compared to last year. “Pull those credit card statements, pull those bank statements. See how much you actually spent on things and see what that difference is,” Bezdicek says. “Everyone’s going to feel this inflation a little bit differently.” She suggests the best way to combat inflation is a complete understanding of the family budget and how it compares to spending.

Bezdicek says it can be difficult for some people to step up and admit they need help making ends meet. “We really commend people for reaching out because finances are a really personal thing,” she says, “and for someone to be brave and to reach out, in our eyes, is always great but we always start looking back to those basics: budget, budget, budget, budget.” Food prices are up more than 10-percent from last year, used vehicle prices are up over 15-percent, and energy costs are up 30-percent.

(Red Oak, Iowa) – Police in Red Oak report a woman was arrested late Thursday night, for Driving While Suspended. Authorities say 27-year-old Aniessa Rae Baylor, of Red Oak, was taken into custody at around 11:03-p.m. and transported to the Montgomery County Jail, where she was being held on $491.24 bond.

(Radio Iowa) – Fireworks are legal to buy in Iowa — but most cities have restrictions on their use or outright bans. Locally, fireworks may be used in Atlantic from July 2nd through the 4th, from Noon until 11-p.m. each day. Police have been issuing warnings to violators of the Ordinance for at least the past two weeks.

In Sioux City, Police Sergeant Jeremy McClure says the sounds of bottle rockets and other fireworks are already being heard there, even though they are not yet legal to shoot off. Mcclure says the number of complaints about fireworks is not as high as in previous years. “So far in the month of June here we’ve had about 94 complaints come in and that’s down about 42 percent from the previous year,” he says, ” and it’s down pretty significantly from 2020 where we saw over 600 complaints in about the same timeframe.” He says there have been no citations issued — as officers have to answer other calls first.

“We’re still getting the same number of calls that we get for everything else, whether it’s crimes or accidents and other emergencies,” according to McClure. “We have to prioritize our calls. And we’re going to respond to crimes in progress involving, you know, assaults and thefts and accidents and such. And then try to get to the fireworks when we can. Do the fact that we can’t always respond to fireworks right away. We don’t always catch people in the act. Mcclure says if they do catch you in the act, it could cost you.

“It’s 250-dollar fine if you’re discharging outside of the legal times and then if you discharge in city parks and the such it can be up to 500-dollar fine,” he says. McClure says the department hopes people will follow the law and be respectful of people who may be affected by the loud blasts such as some military combat veterans or pet owners. You can shoot off fireworks in Sioux City from 1 p-m until 11 p-m on Sunday, July 3rd, and from 1 p-m until midnight on Monday, July 4th.

You should check with your local officials to determine when you can legally use fireworks.