(Radio Iowa) – Dusty Hill, the bearded bassist from Z-Z Top who died this week, made one of his last public appearances in Manchester, Iowa. Kurt Palmer is the Delaware County Fair Board’s president. “Our hearts just go out to the family and the band mates and the crew,” he says. “To have him be able to be playing on our stage just a couple of weeks ago, it is mind blowing a little bit and it is hard to kind of grasp that.”

The July 16th concert at the Delaware County Fair was the first stop in the band’s latest tour. Hill died in his sleep Wednesday at the age of 72, just days after he took a leave of absence from the band due to a hip issue. Delaware County Fair Manager Jeannie Domeyer says a survey of fairgoers a couple of years ago found the legendary band was one of the top acts people locally wanted to see. “And so when we told the world we were going to make it happen, there was just a big air of excitement about it,” she says. Domeyer says nearly five-thousand fans were there for Z-Z Top’s performance in Manchester.  “It was actually the first concert that they had done since they had been shut down during the pandemic and so they were excited to get back on the stage. We worked with management quite heavily because they were working through things that you have to work through when you haven’t been on the road in a really long time and so I’m just really grateful that we worked so well together and that hopefully he just had a great experience here being back on the road again.”

ZZ Top bassist Dusty Hill (public domain photo)

Palmer, the fair board’s president, says the grandstand was packed and the parking lots were overflowing. “We had three months to sell tickets and that was a little bit of concern possibly right at the beginning (with) a shorter amount of window space,” Palmer says, “but man, the community really wanted to see this band.” Palmer says the band was great to work with. “They’re a band that’s been doing it for 50 years and most of their crew members have been with them for 30+ years,” Palmer says. “They always just kept on telling us: ‘Hey, we’re here for you guys to just put on a show. you tell us what you want.'”

Drummer Frank Beard, lead vocalist Billy Gibbons and Hill formed Z-Z Top in 1969 in Houston. Their 1983 album “Eliminator” sold more than 10 million copies. It included the hit “Sharp Dressed Man” which was used 30 years later as the theme song for the “Duck Dynasty” T-V series.

(Radio Iowa) – A second person has been charged with murder in the 2020 death of a Lake Park woman. Twenty-four-year-old Justice Berntson was taken into custody and charged with first-degree murder in connection slaying of 25-year-old Angel Bastman. Bastman’s body was found in her Lake Park home on December 22nd but a vehicle listed in her name was missing from the scene which led to a search that ended a few days later when Berntson is said to have been found driving the vehicle and ultimately led police on a pursuit.

Berntson and 26-year-old Allison Decker, who was charged with first-degree murder in the case earlier this week, are both being held in the Dickinson County Jail on one million dollars bond.

The broadcast News at 8:07-a.m., with Ric Hanson.

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The broadcast News at 7:06-a.m., from Ric Hanson.

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(Radio Iowa) – A University of Iowa student and military veteran has won the prestigious Pat Tillman Scholar Award. Fort Dodge native Jake Schillo is working on his P-H-D after serving six years in the U-S Air Force as a nuclear weapons specialist. Schillo says he hopes winning the scholarship will open doors for other veterans from Iowa. “Iowa has a large community of veterans pursuing an education that would have incredible applications for the scholarship,” Schillo says. “I’m fortunate enough that the foundation saw something in me that they wanted to invest in and I hope that being the first scholar at Iowa helps to pave the way for future Tillman scholars within our state.”

The award is named after a former N-F-L player who gave up his pro football career to enlist in the U-S Army following the Nine Eleven attacks of 2001. Tillman was killed in 2004 while serving in Afghanistan. Schillo is working on his doctorate in the field of cancer genetics and hopes to open his own cancer research facility in the future. “I’m really focusing on creating new technologies that allow us to understand why patients relapse in cancer therapies,” he says, “so a lot of my research is just in that technology development.”

Schillo is among the 2021 Class of Tillman Scholars, 60 students who were selected from a group of several thousand applicants. Schillo says he’s on pace to graduate from the U-I in May of 2022. He graduated from Fort Dodge Senior High in 2005, and has a degrees in biology and chemistry from Minot State University in North Dakota.

The 2021 Cass County Fair rolls on in Atlantic. Here’s a list of today’s scheduled activities:

8:00 A.M. – 10:00 A.M …………………………Beef Weigh–In
8:00 A.M…………………………………………..Rabbit Show
9:00 A.M………………………………………. Horse Show
10:00 A.M……………………………………….4–H/FFA Exhibits Open
11:00 A.M………………………………………..Dog Show
3:30 P.M…………………………………………Clover Kids Animal Show
5:30 P.M…………………………………………Share–the–Fun/Style Show
6:30 P.M………………………………………….Mutton Busting
8:00 P.M…………………………………………Bull Ride

Remember, there is no charge to park, and no entrance fee, so come on out to the Cass County Fair and be sure to stop at the Fair Food Stand. It’s open from 6:30-a.m. until 10-p.m. each day through Monday, and from 6:30-until 10:30-a.m., on Tuesday.

(Radio Iowa) – Another Democrat intends to seek their party’s U.S. Senate nomination and the chance to challenge Republican incumbent Chuck Grassley in 2022. Minden City Councilman Glenn Hurst is a physician who also chairs the party’s Rural Caucus. Hurst says Democrats can win over rural voters.

“They want to be able to buy groceries in their town. They want to be able to have good, stable jobs and live in safe communities and we have to give people the opportunity to do that,” Hurst says. “We have to tell them: we value a rural lifestyle and we’re willing to fight for it.” Hurst, who specializes in general and family medicine, works in Minden and two other clinics in western Iowa. He says health care access is a key issue.

Glenn Hurst

“I stand firmly on the believe that to save our rural communities we are going to have to invest in Medicare for All,” he says. “That is the solution for rural Iowa, that along with other components, such as supporting our labor movement.” Former Congresswoman Abby Finkenauer of Cedar Rapids and former Crawford County Supervisor Dave Muhlbauer are also planning to run in the Democratic Primary. Grassley has said he’ll announce this fall if he plans to run for an eighth term.

(Reporting by Iowa Public Radio’s Kate Payne)

(Radio Iowa) – Governor Kim Reynolds is among a dozen GOP governors who’re urging the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn previous rulings on abortion and give states the authority to regulate the procedure.

Reynolds signed onto a legal brief that argues the court’s 1973 Roe v Wade decision is an “unwarranted intrusion” on states’ rights. Reynolds also released a written statement, saying the ruling has “stymied” state efforts to enact abortion restrictions. An Iowa-based spokesperson for Planned Parenthood said it’s clear the governor’s goal is to ban abortions in Iowa.

Reynolds is among about 250 Republican office-holders from around the country who’ve expressed support for Mississippi’s law that bans most abortions after the 15th week of a pregnancy. The Supreme Court has scheduled legal arguments over Mississippi’s law during the court’s next term, which begins in October, with an opinion expected by next June.

(Radio Iowa) – Senator Joni Ernst says a bipartisan proposal to help Afghan civilians who worked with the U-S military is included in a security-related bill that easily cleared the House AND Senate yesterday (Thursday). There’s money for processing special immigrant visas as well as travel and housing assistance in the bill.

“This will help us move some of those Afghan interpreters, if they get cleared through the state department, then we can start moving them out of Afghanistan,” Ernst says. Congresswoman Mariannette Miller-Meeks of Ottumwa worked on the proposal in the House. Miller-Meeks says transferring authority to the Afghan government to protect Afghans who helped the U-S military over the past two decades would be a moral failure. The bill’s main purpose, however, is to ensure the budget for the Capitol Police doesn’t run out of money after the unexpected expenses of responding to the January 6th attack on the Capitol.

“With all of the additional overtime that they had, it puts them in a position the way they’re paid here, they would have to start furloughing workers,” Ernst says. Ernst says the 100 million dollars in the legislation prevents that and not only covers overtime, but mental health support for Capitol Police officers as well. Another 300 million in the bill is for new security measures in the Capitol complex.

“It’s additional repairs to the Capitol from January 6,” Ernst says. “It’s a different type of glass that they will be using in the glass at the Capitol building, things of that nature.” There’s also money in the bill to reimburse National Guard units, like Iowa’s, that were deployed to Washington to provide security.

(Radio Iowa) – A central Iowa man who’s been a member of the Iowa House since 2013 has died. Seventy-one-year-old John Landon of Ankeny was reelected to a fifth term in the Iowa House last November. A post on Landon’s Facebook page announced he was surrounded by his family as he passed away Thursday afternoon.

Landon, who grew up near State Center, enlisted in the Navy Seabees and served in Vietnam before a career in agribusiness. Landon had managed grain elevators before joining a farm management and ag real estate firm called the Peoples Company in 2002. Landon retired in 2012 when he first ran for the Iowa House.

John Landon (Photo from Iowa Legislature)

Landon, a Republican, won reelection in 2020 with 53 percent of the vote. House Speaker Pat Grassley issued a written statement calling Landon a humble public servant who was dedicated to his work in the Iowa House all the way until his final day. Governor Reynolds described Landon as a trusted, genuine and caring person.