(Lewis, Iowa) – The Lewis Community Club is holding a celebration of the community this Saturday which is also Flag Day. The Lewis Day Celebration takes place from 2-until 10-p.m., Saturday. Lewis Community Club member Duane Weirich says the timing is an unintended, but welcome coincidence.

Weirich said they’ve been planning for the event since late April, but they could still use some help serving pop and beer. He says the day will be a family event, with several kids games.

There’s also an unusual, “Stand-still parade.” Weirich explains how that idea came about.

Anyone who likes parades can attend and interact with those in-line, just as if your were standing there or sitting in a lawn chair next to your neighbor. There will also be a 30-by-38 American Flag available to viewing. There’s also lots of good food on hand, with the smell of barbecued beef wafting through downtown Lewis.

There’s also tractor pedal tractors for little kids, middle-size kids and adults. And, some”tricky trikes.”

There are antique firetruck rides around the Lewis Freedom Rock, a car show-and-shine, music, and fireworks at dusk. Grand Marshall for the event is long-time community supporter, Betty Auten.

(Radio Iowa) – After two dozen years in business, a small Webster County grocery store announced Thursday it’s closing its doors. The store’s board of directors said that despite cutting costs, ordering alongside other stores and limiting store and employee work hours, the Dayton Community Grocery was at a crossroads that led to its closure. The store’s Facebook page announced that the store is just not able to compete with big box stores to generate the income necessary to keep going at this rate.

The board does not want to be any further in debt that they are currently are and the store owners felt the responsible thing to do is go out debt free. There are eight full and part-time employees at the store. The store will continue to sell grocery items until they are gone but will not be placing additional orders. The store in Dayton will close after the last of the groceries are sold.

(Radio Iowa) – The African American Museum of Iowa is hosting its annual Juneteenth Festival in Cedar Rapids on Saturday. Jacqueline Hunter, the museum’s executive director, says it’s an event designed around remembrance and celebration. “It’s a chance for us to recognize the importance of the holiday, but what does that look like for our community and our state moving forward,” Hunter says. “It’s a deeply personal and powerful reminder of this unfinished struggle for freedom.” Juneteenth is an annual, nationwide celebration of the freeing of the last slaves in the United States on June 19th, 1865, when news of the Emancipation Proclamation at last reached Confederate Galveston, Texas. While that’s part of history, Hunter says current events keep related issues in the forefront.

“I think it’s most appropriate during this time as we are seeing things that play out again, not only locally but within our state and our country and our world,” Hunter says, “in terms of what does it look like for us to come together again behind shared interests, and things that make each of us have a good quality of life in the respective communities that we live in.” The festival will include live music and performances, food and merchandise vendors, a talent show, lawn games, and a homemade sweet potato pie contest. “Not that we don’t eat sweet potato pies everywhere, but it really does have some roots in the South and certainly with those who were enslaved, and just the magic of the sweet potato,” Hunter says. “So certainly something that if you’re down South, you’re probably far more likely to see it on the menu than maybe some other parts of the country, but we appreciate getting a good sweet potato pie anywhere we can.”

The facility will also host a screening of the documentary “Juneteenth: Faith & Freedom” next Thursday, on June 19th. “It really does focus on the connection of Galveston, Texas, to the overall Juneteenth event. It also features the woman that we would call the mother of Juneteenth, or the founder of the celebratory part of that experience in Galveston,” Hunter says. “It really takes you through the church, the period of enslavement, and what happened after emancipation.”

The museum’s Juneteenth Festival is Saturday at Cedar Rapids’ NewBo City Market from 11-to-5 PM.

(Radio Iowa) – Due to high nitrate levels from farm chemical runoff, the utility that supplies water to 600-thousand residential and commercial customers in the Des Moines area is imposing an immediate ban on watering lawns. Tami Madsen, executive director of Central Iowa Water Works, says nitrate levels in the Des Moines and Raccoon rivers, which supply the system, are the highest they’ve been since 2013. Madsen says, “We have ample source water but the source water is so high in nitrate that it’s difficult for the plant to treat it at the same rate that customers are demanding it on the other side.”

Water leaving the treatment plant is currently around nine parts per million. If it rises above the safety standard of 10 parts per million, pregnant women and children will be advised not to drink the water. “Right now, your water is safe to drink,’ Madsen says. “There are no concerns. Continue to drink your water. Just don’t put drinking water on your lawn. It doesn’t need drinking water.”

Repeated violators of the watering ban will face having their water shut off.

(Atlantic, Iowa) – Nishna Valley Family YMCA Aquatics Coordinator Chelsie Rush reminds area residents that, to help ensure a safe and enjoyable swimming experience for all, several area pools have announced a new policy: Mask-style swim goggles (which cover both the eyes and nose, similar to snorkel or scuba masks) are no longer permitted. The change has been adopted by the following facilities:

• Sunnyside Pool – Atlantic
• Atlantic YMCA Pool
• Atlantic Golf and Country Club
• Elk Horn City Pool
• Oakland City Pool
• Audubon City Pool
• Avoca City Pool

(Radio Iowa) – Wednesday’s storm that hit Sibley and other areas of northwest Iowa caused damage to crops, trees, buildings and power lines, but Peter Rodgers, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service office in Sioux Falls, says videos of the storm posted online do not show it was a tornado. “What those videos are showing are little swirls and curls on the leading edge of those strong downburst winds and so they certainly have a circulation with them and they appear to be a tornado, but the rotation is at the ground and not connected to an actual nearby thunderstorm,” he says. “We call them gustinadoes.”

Rodgers says wind speeds were between 60 to 80 miles per hour in the storm. Osceola County Emergency Management Director Corey Shearer has surveyed damage in Sibley, Ocheyedan and Allendorf. “Very big diameter branches down, trees down,” he says. “Some hitting houses where siding, roofs, windows damaged.” Kossuth County Emergency Management Coordinator Charissa Mueller was tracking the storm as it passed through Fenton. “They received a quite a bit of marble-sized, pea-sized hail in a quick amount of time resulting in some crop damage there with the corn,” she says. “Looking at Whittemore and Algona, we had a lot of trees down.”

Photo of crop damage by Kossuth County Emergency Management Coordinator Charissa Mueller

In Lyon County, some roofs in Rock Rapids were damaged, in Clay County trees were toppled near Fostoria and in Emmet County the Veterans Memorial in Emmetsburg was damaged as the storm rolled through.

(Radio Iowa) – Fundraising efforts in eastern Iowa will allow some AmeriCorps members to continue working through the summer, after the federal money for the program was eliminated by DOGE earlier this year. Eight AmeriCorps members in Davenport will be able to finish their service, after donors chipped in to help reach the 78-thousand dollar goal. Matt Mendenhall, president of the Davenport-based Regional Development Authority, says the locals acted quickly to save the program.

“We have a pretty tight-knit group of community funders,” Mendenhall says, “and so we often will come together on different things when it needs a group resource.” Mendenhall says the eight members will serve at local nonprofits and agencies like Big Brothers Big Sisters and Davenport Parks and Recreation until their contracts end in August. “It was well over two to three-thousand kids that would be affected in terms of their summer programming,” he says, “so I think it was just pretty easy, because I think AmeriCorps is pretty well known, so I think there’s a lot of credibility already built in to what that would look like.”

The team will officially serve through the Iowa National Service Corps, instead of AmeriCorps.

(Radio Iowa) – The Board of Regents approved a tuition increase Thursday of three percent for the University of Iowa and Iowa State University, and two-point-seven percent at U-N-I. Board of Regents representative Brad Berg says a plan to charge in-state tuition at U-N-I for students from states surrounding Iowa will be delayed. “Those proposed rates were based on funding that was included in the education appropriations bill and with the Governor’s recent veto of the funding for that initiative. Would like to take action on those three rates at a subsequent meeting,” Berg says.

The Board also approved an increase in mandatory fees by three percent at the U-I, two-point-seven percent at U-N-I, and one-point-seven percent at I-S-U. The Board then voted to give the leaders of the three universities and executive director of the Board raises. Regent David Barker made motions for the salary increases. “For executive director (Mark) Braun, increase his base salary to 176-thousand- 384 dollars effective July 1st, 2025. Establish a new deferred compensation plan commencing July 1st, 2025 and terminating June 30th 2027 with annual contributions of 230-thousand dollars,” he says. That’s a nearly 20-thousand dollar salary increase for Braun. Barker then made a motion on increasing the salaries of U-I president Barbara Wilson and Wendy Wintersteen.

“President Wilson, increase her base salary to 825-thousand dollars effective July 1st, 2025. For President Wintersteen increase her base salary to 735-thousand dollars effective July 1st, 2025,” Barker says
U-N-I President Rod Nook is also getting a raise. “For President Nook, increase his base salary to 410-thousand dollars effective July 1st, 2025,” he says.

Wilson’s salary increased 65-thousand dollars, Wintersteen’s 25-thousand, and Nook’s nearly 13-thousand dollars. The Regents approved the salary increases with no discussion. A spokesman for the Board says they made their decisions based on two close meeting evaluations this year. The spokesman did not answer when asked why the Board voted to increase the salary of I-S-U president Wendy Wintersteen even though she is retiring in January.

(Red Oak, Iowa) – Police in Red Oak arrested a man early this (Friday) morning for Public Intoxication (A Simple Misdemeanor). Authorities say 50-year-old Dennis Michael Smith was arrested in the 2400 block of N. 4th Street. He was being held in the Montgomery County Jail on a $300 bond.

(Iowa Capital Dispatch) – Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird is continuing to pursue a lawsuit against Winneshiek County and its sheriff, Dan Marx, for allegedly violating Iowa law by discouraging law enforcement from cooperating with federal immigration officials. In her latest court filings, Bird has criticized Marx, alleging the sheriff has, in essence, asserted that “federal immigration officials should not be trusted.” Bird has also signaled that even if Marx were to comply with her demand that he disavow his past statements, the state is still obligated to strip Winneshiek County of funding, at least temporarily, based on those previous statements.

The lawsuit, filed in March in Polk County District Court, claims that Iowa law “requires stripping Winneshiek County of state funding until the sheriff follows the procedure to reinstate the funds” by disavowing his previous public statements on immigration enforcement.

The lawsuit stems from a Feb. 4, 2025, Facebook post in which, Marx, a Republican, stated that if his office received “detainer” requests to hold immigrants suspected of lacking legal status, and those requests were not vetted and approved by the courts, they would be rejected by his office.

In his post, Marx distinguished between detainer requests of that kind and what he called “valid” judicial warrants and court orders. He wrote that “the only reason detainers are issued is because the federal agency does not have enough information or has not taken the time to obtain a valid judicial warrant.”

In recent court filings, Bird claims that assertion by Marx is false, but that even if it were true, that’s not a defense since Iowa Code Chapter 27A clearly prohibits Iowa law enforcement officers from discouraging cooperation with federal immigration authorities. Before filing the lawsuit, Bird provided Marx with specific language to include in a public statement disavowing his Facebook post, written in the first-person to appear over Marx’s signature. Although Marx’s office deleted the Facebook post, Marx did not publish the statement authored by Bird, who then sued, seeking a court order declaring Winneshiek County to be ineligible to receive any state funds.

Bird is now contesting Marx’s request that the court dismiss the case.Bird also argues that even if Marx were to fully comply now with her request to disavow his previous statements, Iowa law still requires the state to temporarily strip Winneshiek County of state funding. In response to the lawsuit, Marx and Winneshiek County have each asked to be removed from the case, prompting the attorney general to characterize the county’s request as “odd” given the amount of money that’s at stake.

A hearing date on all of the motions now before the court has yet to be scheduled. A status conference on the case is scheduled for Friday, June 13.