(Radio Iowa) – (Corrects date of the show) – An Iowa native actress is returning to her home state later this month to take the stage as part of the touring Broadway production of the musical, “Parade,” which will have a one-week run in Des Moines, the show’s only Iowa stop. Alison Ewing, who grew up in Mason City, says it’s a love story, a topical tragedy, and more.

“Parade is a beautiful, beautiful musical,” Ewing says, “which has some deep and heavy themes of racism and antisemitism, and Southern patriotism.” Set in Atlanta more than a century ago, it’s the musical dramatization of the trial, imprisonment, and lynching of a Jewish American man. Ewing is playing the role of Sally Slaton, who’s married to the governor of Georgia.

“He and I kind of represent the good people,” Ewing says. “She is a cut and dry, sort of wonderfully honest woman who helps her husband to do what they feel is the right thing to do in the end, and it feels really great to play a role like that.” The musical premiered on Broadway in 1998 and won Tony Awards for Best Book and Best Original Score, while this incarnation won the Tony in 2023 for Best Revival of a Musical. It’s based on a true story from many decades ago, but Ewing says it carries important lessons for today’s audiences.

Alison Ewing and Chris Shyer in Parade (Photo by Joan Marcus)

“It is kind of unbelievable that this show happened in 1913, but yet still the same types of things are happening now,” Ewing says. “It’s just a reminder for us to reflect on why these kinds of things happen, why they’re still happening 100 years later, and why do we need to have this sort of mob mentality?” Ewing lives in New York, and when she’s not on tour, she’s also an audiobooks narrator. While she likely won’t have time during this Iowa visit to stop in Mason City, she says she does plan to seek out someone selling sweet corn from the back of a pickup to share that summer favorite with other members of the cast.

“Parade” runs at the Civic Center of Des Moines from July 29th through August 3rd.

(Omaha, NE) – Officials with The Community Foundations of Southwest Iowa have announced applications are now being accepted from organizations providing charitable services in seven counties: Audubon, Cass, Fremont, Harrison, Mills, Montgomery, and Shelby. Page and Crawford counties participate in proactive grantmaking during the fall rather than accepting applications. More than $430,000 is available across the seven listed counties in this grant cycle, and those interested in a breakdown of the funding can learn more at swiowafoundations.org.

Application details, a fact sheet, and a link to the application form can be found on the website. Applications will only be accepted through the online system. Only organizations providing services in each county are eligible to apply. They must be able to demonstrate broad community/county support and be an IRS-approved 501(c)(3) public charity, a local municipality, or a fiscally sponsored project.

Community Foundations of SW IA

The Community Foundations of Southwest Iowa aims to improve the quality of life in each county by supporting community needs in the areas of civic engagement, culture, health, education, and social services. The objective of the grant program is to fund projects that will have a lasting impact.

Grant funds are made possible by Iowa’s County Endowment Fund Program and the generosity of local donors. Please contact Sarah Beth Ray, Iowa Foundations Advisor, at 402-704-7245 or sarahbeth@omahafoundation.org with application-related questions. All completed grant applications will be considered at the October Advisory Committee meeting, with applicants being notified of funding decisions by the end of October.

For general questions about the Community Foundations of Southwest Iowa, please contact Sunni Kamp, Southwest Iowa Director, at 402-342-3458 or sunni@omahafoundation.org.

(Atlantic, Iowa) – The Atlantic Police Department has issued a report on arrests/citations that occurred from July 1st through the 12th: Beginning with the most recent arrests/and-or citations:

On July 12th, 18-year-old Talon Lajeuness, of Atlantic, was cited for Theft in the 5th Degree (shoplifting), and released at the scene.

On July 10th, 19-year-old Dereck Myers, of Detroit, MI, was arrested in Atlantic for Theft in the 3rd Degree (shoplifting). he was booked into the Cass County Jail.

18-year-old Markes Mark, of Atlantic, was cited July 9th for Theft in the 5th (Shoplifting), and released.

44-year-old Heather Ott, of Atlantic, was arrested July 6th for Violation of a No Contact Order.

On July 5th, Atlantic Police arrested 54-year-old Brenda Osborn, of Atlantic, for Theft in the 3rd Degree (Shoplifting).

Two people were arrested July 2nd, in Atlantic:

• 26-year-old Courtney Cook, of Ft. Dodge,  was arrested for Robbery in the 1st Degree, Possession of Controlled Substance 1st (marijuana), and Interference with Official Acts. And,
• 35-year-old Tiffany Wallace, of Carter Lake, was arrested on a warrant of Possession of Controlled Substance 3rd or subsequent offense, Possession of Controlled Substance 1st (Marijuana), and Possession of Drug Paraphernalia.

And on July 1st, Atlantic Police cited 63-year-old Julie Peck, of Walnut, for theft 5th (shoplifting).

(Audubon, Iowa) – The Queen of the 2025 Audubon County Fair received her crown Wednesday evening from last year’s Queen, Michelle Brooks. The winner for this year’s title is Emily Foran.

She’s a member of the LeRoy Leaders 4-H Club. Emily says being a member of 4-H is a family tradition.

She’s also involved in FFA.

Emily Foran says she has a lot of Static Exhibits at the Audubon County Fair, but she really loves participating with her dog, in the dog show.

2025 Audubon County Fair Queen Emily Foran (Left), and Runner-Up Olivia Carter (Photo via the Audubon County Fair Facebook page)

Emily says she will be attending Colorado State University this Fall, to Major in Business Marketing, with a Minor in Spanish. She hopes to work in International Business when she graduates from college.

Runner-up for the title of Queen, was Olivia Carter. Her parents are Ann and Jerry Carter. Olivia has two younger brothers. She said the Audubon County Fair has been a big part of her life, having shown everything except pigs. Her favorite animal to show is her horse.

She started leasing a horse when she was in 4th grade. She got her own horses last year, and another this year right before her birthday. She also showed chickens and and cows. She received a couple of purple ribbons for the chickens. Olivia is a member of the Bunkhouse Gang 4-H Club, and a graduate of the Audubon High School. She’s interested in studying agriculture when she attends college.

The candidate finalists were treated to a catered meal at the Audubon Agri-Hall, on July 11th.

(Radio Iowa) – Iowa’s unemployment rate went up in June to three-point-seven percent, marking the fourth straight month of a one-tenth of a point increase. Iowa Workforce Development director Beth Townsend says the number of people in the workforce also went up again. “I will take an increase with labor force participation rate and a slight increase in unemployment every day of the week,” Townsend says, “because the more people we have who are employed and or looking for work, the better off work we are economically.” She says they saw a group of 39-hundred Iowans return to the workforce in June.

“Especially in women over 45, which was a group that had dropped. About during the pandemic. So that’s a really good sign, and that matches the 39-hundred Iowans who returned last month,” she says. Iowa businesses lost 27-hundred jobs in June, mostly in the private service industries, and losses were partially offset by gains in health care and construction. Townsend says Iowa continues to be in a good situation. “If you look at where we were last June a year ago, we have about 88-hundred more Iowans with jobs in Iowa. So that’s a good sign, right? And seeing this continued trend of more people coming into the labor force, looking for work and or getting work is a good sign as well,” Townsend says.

She says there are plenty of options for people re-entering the workforce, or looking for a new job. “We still have over 50-thousand open jobs in Iowa. Certainly the job market has tightened, but there’s still lots of opportunity available,” she says. The Trump administration is now through its first six months, and Townsend says some of the policy decision could start showing impact. “I think this the next few months will be interesting. Hopefully we’ll have some, we’ll have more and better information to share with you….and we can see what the effect of some of these policy decisions are,” she says.

The U-S unemployment rate decreased to four-point-one- percent in June.

(Clarinda, Iowa) – Page County Attorney, James L. Varley, reports the following activities in the Iowa District Court for Page County for the week of June 16, 2025:

Kylee Jade Dockweiler, age 17, of Clarinda, Iowa, appeared by counsel and pled guilty to Assault While Participating in a Felony. The defendant was granted a deferred judgment and placed on probation for 2 years. As a condition of probation, the defendant is to obtain a mental health evaluation. The defendant was ordered to pay court costs and court-appointed attorney fees.

Ricardo Aurelio Herrera Jr., age 24, of Clarinda, Iowa, appeared by counsel and pled guilty to Driving While License Denied or Revoked. The Defendant was fined $1,000 and ordered to pay court costs, surcharges and court-appointed attorney fees.

Dalton Lee Sederburg, age 28, of Clarinda, Iowa, appeared by counsel and pled guilty to Possession of a Controlled Substance, Marijuana. The defendant was sentenced to 4 days in the Page County Jail and fined $430. The fine was suspended, and the defendant was ordered to pay court costs, surcharges and court-appointed attorney fees.

Gavin Allen Sickler, age 25, of Clarinda, Iowa, was found guilty of Burglary in the Third Degree by a jury on April 23, 2025. On June 18, 2025, the defendant appeared with his attorney was sentenced to a term of incarceration not to exceed two years. The sentence was suspended, and the defendant was ordered to reside at the Residential Corrections Facility until maximum benefits are achieved and complete a substance abuse evaluation. The minimum fine of $855 was imposed and suspended.

The Honorable Eric J. Nelson, District Court Judge of the Fourth Judicial District presided over the aforementioned cases.

All persons are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law

(Radio Iowa) – Virginia’s governor will headline an Iowa GOP fundraiser tonight, another in a growing list of potential 2028 presidential candidates making trips to the state that has been the starting line for presidential campaigns for decades. Iowa Republican Party chairman Jeff Kaufmann has long argued Iowa’s position as the lead off state for presidential campaigns is stronger when both parties hold Caucuses on the same night and he’s “thrilled” the new Democratic leader in the Iowa House is talking about having Iowa Democrats again host first-in-the-nation Caucuses in 2028. “I haven’t had this much hope for probably a year and a half,” Kaufmann said. “I stand ready to tape my mouth and work with him.”

Jeff Kaufmann was re-elected chairman of the Republican Party of Iowa in January, a position he’s held since 2014. (RI photo)

Kaufmann said when he was a member of the Iowa House, he had a good working relationship with House Democratic Leader Brian Meyer, who was on the Iowa attorney general’s staff at the time. Iowa Democrats, in the past, have wrestled with ways to give Iowans who could not attend the Caucuses in person a way to participate. That’s a no go, according to Kaufmann. “They cannot have a mail in option because when you have a mail in option, that makes it a primary and automatically we’re set up against New Hampshire,” Kaufmann said.

New Hampshire has hosted the country’s first presidential primary since 1920. Iowa Republicans hosted lead-off Caucuses in 2024, but Iowa Democrats followed the campaign schedule laid out by President Biden that had other states go first. However, some Democrats who may run for president in the future have begun to appear here. Pete Buttigieg, the winner of the Iowa Democratic Party’s 2020 Caucuses, spoke to a large crowd in Cedar Rapids in May. Former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel will be in Des Moines in September and Arizona Senator Ruben Gallego will visit the Iowa State Fair.

Tonight, the Iowa Republican Party will host Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin in Des Moines. Florida Senator Rick Scott spoke at a GOP fundraiser in Davenport in May. And Texas Senator Ted Cruz, the winner of the 2016 Iowa Caucuses, is scheduled to headline a fundraiser for Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird in August.

(Radio Iowa) – Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley says President Trump’s signature on a bill that classifies fentanyl-related drugs as more dangerous substances will save lives. The new federal law will require prison sentences for people convicted of making or selling synthetic drugs that are similar to fentanyl. Grassley says the law will prevent these deadly fentanyl knockoffs from making their way into Iowa communities. Grassley attended the bill signing at the White House. Other elected officials from Iowa were there, too.

Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird says it’s a pivotal moment in the fight against fentanyl. Congresswoman Mariannette Miller-Meeks says the bill gives law enforcement the tools to stop fentanyl and copy-cat drugs from claiming more lives. Congressman Randy Feenstra says too many families have lost loved ones to an overdose and this law will strengthen efforts to keep drugs out of our communities and away from our kids.

U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), at President Trump’s right, applauds HALT Fentanyl Act signing (White House photo)

Fentanyl is an opioid — and opioids and synthetic opioids are the leading cause of overdose deaths in the United States.

(Council Bluffs, Iowa) – Officials with the Pottawattamie County Secondary Roads Department report 525th Street, from Pioneer Trail (G-66) to Beechnut Road, will remain closed due to weather delays associated with a crossroad pipe replacement project. The Department says the project, which began June 30th, is now expected to be completed (weather permitting), by 5-p.m., July 25th.

525th Street was originally expected to have re-opened on July 2nd, but that was delayed until July 18th, and then to the current expected re-opening of July 25th.

(Sioux City, Iowa) – A former Iowa nurse from western Iowa, who stole pain medication from nursing home residents, burglarized multiple residences, possessed a firearm as a felon, and committed a bank fraud, was sentenced Wednesday, July 16, 2025, to more than three years in federal prison. The U-S Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Iowa, reports 47-year-old Sarah Ann Haptonstall, of Onawa, received the prison term after she pled guilty on February 24, 2025, to one count of acquiring and attempting to acquire a controlled substance by misrepresentation, fraud, deception, or subterfuge, one count of possession of a firearm by a felon, and one count of bank fraud.

In a plea agreement, and at her plea and sentencing hearings, Haptonstall admitted that, in March 2023, she burglarized an Onawa couple’s home on multiple occasions in order to steal narcotic pain medication. One the residents needed the medication for constant nerve pain. Haptonstall knew this, because when she was a nurse in 2021, she had delivered narcotics to the Onawa couple’s residence. When law enforcement officers arrested Haptonstall on March 10, 2023, after she re-burglarized the Onawa couple’s residence a final time, Haptonstall possessed a 9mm Luger pistol in her truck. Haptonstall was a felon and drug user at the time, and so it was illegal for her to possess firearms. Haptonstall had purchased two 9mm Luger pistols in February 2020, after falsely stating that she was not an unlawful user of, or addicted to, a controlled substance.

The burglaries of the Onawa couple’s home were but one part of a larger drug diversion scheme that Haptonstall was perpetrating in western Iowa. In February and March 2023, Haptonstall was entering multiple apartments in Onawa and stealing the residents’ pain medications. Further, between April and October 2022, while working as a licensed Iowa nurse, defendant stole hydrocodone pills from four elderly residents of an Onawa nursing home and a Sergeant Bluff nursing home. One of the victims was over 90 years old. Haptonstall removed the narcotics from pill cards and replaced them with Tylenol. One of the nursing home residents suffered from severe pain as she died because defendant had swapped out the victim’s narcotic pills for Tylenol and made a false entry in her medical record. Another resident was in hospice when defendant stole her narcotics. Haptonstall was first licensed as a nurse in 2006, and her license was renewed at least five times (in 2009, 2012, 2015, 2018, and 2021). Haptonstall ultimately surrendered her nursing license.

Haptonstall also admitted that, in early 2023, she committed a bank fraud against a small family-owned business in Onawa. Haptonstall was the business’s bookkeeper and abused her position of trust to embezzle over $8,000 from the company. Specifically, Haptonstall created fraudulent checks payable to herself, drawn on the small business’s account, and bearing one of its proprietor’s signatures. Haptonstall disguised the fraudulent checks by making false and fictitious entries in the small business’s electronic bookkeeping system.

Haptonstall has an extensive criminal history, beginning with six theft convictions in the late 1990s and 2000s. Between 1997 and 2013, a state court dismissed more than 30 additional theft charges against Haptonstall after she agreed to pay restitution to the victims in those cases. Haptonstall’s felony record started in 2006, when she pled guilty to forgery after she forged signatures on checks. In 2014, Haptonstall was convicted of a felony controlled substance violation after making a material misrepresentation to obtain hydrocodone from a grocery store. In February 2023, while she was committing bank fraud, and about a month before burglarizing residences in Onawa, Haptonstall received a ten-year, fully suspended prison sentence in state court for felony drug diversion after she admitted she had swapped patients’ hydrocodone for Tylenol pills while working as a delivery driver for a local pharmacy.

Haptonstall was sentenced to 42 months’ imprisonment. She was also ordered to make over $8,000 in restitution to her former employer and to repay $5,000 in court-appointed attorney fees. Haptonstall must also serve a three-year term of supervised release after the prison term. There is no parole in the federal system.

Haptonstall was released on the bond previously set and is to surrender to the Bureau of Prisons on a date yet to be set. The case was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Timothy L. Vavricek and investigated by the Iowa Medicaid Fraud Control Unit and the Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Inspector General. The Federal Bureau of Investigation, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, and Monona County Sheriff’s Office assisted the investigation.