(Cedar Rapids, Iowa; by an FFA Reporter) – The Atlantic FFA Chapter competed in the annual Iowa FFA Horse Judging Career Development Event held at Kirkwood Community College on June 10, 2025. Atlantic FFA had a team and individual that participated in this year’s Career Development Event. Team members Kayedance Sturm, Clara Kennedy, Callie Rudy and Paislee Klever earned a silver medal.

The Horse Judging CDE is designed to provide the student an opportunity to display their agricultural knowledge and skills in the area of Equine Science. Each team member evaluated halter and performance classes. They also answered questions over the classes and gave oral reasons to explain their placings. A written examination was included along with a team problem solving competition.

In the Halter division, Kayedance placed second overall while the team placed 3rd overall. Sturm said, “Every year horse judging at Kirkwood College has been an amazing team building experience the night before going to eat, to going to the contest. I can’t wait to see what next year’s results hold for us.”

(From left-to-right): Kayedance Sturm, Clara Kennedy, Paislee Klever, Callie Rudy. (photo submitted)

Team member Clara Kennedy said “Aside from our pre judging nerves we have become more confident and grown as a team. We always make the most of our trip, from the night before, the drive there and back, to the actual reason we are there, for the contest. It will be exciting to see how our team continues to progress in the upcoming year.”

Callie Rudy said, “With the team being very young, it was a lot of fun. You can tell throughout the team that we have improved and that we genuinely love to do it. Always having fun the night before whether we go shopping or are hanging out in each other’s rooms it is always a blast with the team. The contest may be challenging, but it is a good experience for everyone.”

Paislee Klever said, Horse judging is a very fun experience I think everyone should try. The pre contest nerves are always the worst but not only the contest but being with your teammates, going shopping, having supper and just bonding was so fun. The contest might come across hard to others and it can be but that’s why we work for it, and we will get better as the years go on.”

The Iowa FFA Horse Career Development Event was made possible with support through the Iowa FFA Foundation Gold Standard Partners. The Horse Career Development Event was coordinated and held at the Iowa Equestrian Center in Cedar Rapids. Kirkwood Community College also provided lunch to all participants.

(Radio Iowa) – The city of Dubuque is reporting higher-than-recommended levels of pollutants called PFAS (PEE-fah’s) in its drinking water. Dubuque Water Department operations supervisor Nick Connolly says the numbers are subject to change throughout the year. “Our minimum was two-point-four (2.4) and our maximum was four-point-two ( 4.2), so, it will fluctuate a little bit through the year, and we are right on the cusp of the proposed action level,” he says.

Connolly says they have made adjustments. “We have changed some of the processes and kind of how we do things. We are trying to use more of our deep aquifer water that at this time has not tested positive for any of the PFAS chemicals, and we blend in the shallow wells as needed,” Connolly says. Connolly says the Environmental Protection Agency has heightened its regulation on PFAS as testing has become more accurate.

The city intends to spend nearly 15 million dollars over the next five years to build a new well for access to deep aquifer water and filter rehabilitation. Sometimes called “forever chemicals,” PFAS have been used in a variety of products since the 1940s and can bring adverse health effects.

(Atlantic, Iowa) – Officials with the Atlantic Police Department today (Thursday) released a report on persons cited or arrested over the nearly past 10 weeks (April 18-June 10). Those arrested in June include:

• June 10th: Jlast Ewar, 23, of Atlantic was arrested and booked into the Cass County Jail for public intoxication.
• June 9th: Jlast Ewar, 23, of Atlantic was arrested and booked into the Cass County Jail for possession of marijuana, 1st offense, and disorderly conduct.
• June 7th: Craig Lang, 62, of Atlantic was arrested and booked into the Cass County Jail for Public Intoxication; Owen Cook, 18, of Atlantic was arrested and booked into the Cass County Jail for domestic abuse 1^st and OWI 1^st offense; Ezra Sedina, 49, of Atlantic was arrested and booked into the Cass County Jail for public intoxication.
• June 5th:Nicholas Renner, 30, of Omaha was arrested and booked into the Cass County Jail on charges of domestic abuse, 1^st offense, and person ineligible to carry dangerous weapons.
• June 4th: JM Osiena, 23, of Atlantic was arrested and booked into the Cass County Jail for public intoxication; Morgan Wooton, 26, of Carter Lake, was arrested and booked into the Cass County Jail for possession of a controlled substance (meth) 2^nd offense, possession of contraband in a correctional facility, and providing false identification information.
• June 2nd: Taylor Andersen, 38, of Atlantic was arrested and booked into the Cass County jail for possession of a controlled substance (meth) 1^st offense and possession of drug paraphernalia.

Atlantic Police arrested or cited the following, during the month of May:

• May 4th: Shantell Michaels, 19, of Atlantic, was arrested and booked into the Cass County Jail for Assault with Bodily Injury; Amanda Michaels, 45, of Atlantic, was arrested and booked into the Cass County Jail for Assault while displaying a dangerous weapon; Devon Fields, 18, of Atlantic, was cited and released for assault with bodily injury.
• May 5-Ashley Eden, 32, of Griswold, was cited and released for Theft 5^th degree (Shoplifting)
• May 7: Masen Jordan, 21, of Atlantic, was cited and released for disorderly conduct/fighting; Madison Clark, 20, of Atlantic, was cited and released for disorderly conduct/fighting.
• May 10:Kray Lukehart, 30, of Atlantic, was cited and released for Theft 5^th degree (Shoplifting); Kimberly Baumann-Worth, 37, of Atlantic, was arrested and booked into the Cass County Jail for public intoxication and interference with official acts.
• May 19-Kuichiang Tap, 40, of Lincoln, Nebraska, was arrested and booked into the Cass County Jail for Public Intoxication. He was held on a Polk County warrant for failure to appear on an assault charge.
• May 22-Joseph Atoliph, 26, of Atlantic, was arrested and booked into the Cass County Jail on OWI 1^st offense, child endangerment, and open container.
• May 23- Mym Attan, 23, of Atlantic, was arrested and booked into the Cass County Jail for public intoxication.
• May 24-Peter Mualia, 45, of Anita, was arrested and booked into the Cass County Jail for disorderly conduct.
• May 26- JR Berdon, 24, of Atlantic, was arrested and booked into the Cass County Jail for Public Intoxication.
• May 28-Catherine Nelson, 60, of Atlantic, was cited and released for theft 5^th degree (Shoplifting)
• May 29-Lisa Holloway, 45, of Atlantic, was cited and released for 3^rd degree harassment.
• May 31:Alexander Smith, 39, of Atlantic, was arrested and booked into the Cass County Jail for theft 3^rd degree; Brian Heinrichs, 26, of Exira, was arrested for possession of marijuana, 1^st offense, possession of drug paraphernalia, and person ineligible to carry a dangerous weapon.

And, the following were cited or arrested in late April:

• April 18-Floyd Johnson, 60, of Wiota, was arrested and booked into the Cass County Jail for OWI 1^st Offense.
• April 19-Jason Mark, 32, of Atlantic, was arrested and booked into the Cass County Jail for Criminal Mischief 5^th Degree.
• April 22 – Rexon Teru, 20, of Atlantic, was arrested and booked into the Cass County Jail for Public Intoxication.
• April 23-Payton Daugherty, 19, of Cumberland, was cited and released for Possession of Marijuana.
• April 24: Randall Bruhl, 58, of Atlantic, was cited and released for 5^th degree theft (Shoplifting); Serphyl Phylon, 42, of Atlantic, was arrested and booked into the Cass County Jail for OWI, 1^st offense. He was also ticketed for no valid driver’s license and an open container.
• April 29-Martha Oltmanns, 54, of Grant, was cited and released for Theft 5^th degree ( Shoplifting).

June 12, 2025 (DES MOINES, IA) — The Iowa Economic Development Authority (IEDA) today announced five recipients of the Iowa Rural Certified Site Initiative (IRCSI), a competitive grant program supporting the development of project-ready industrial locations in Iowa’s smaller communities.

A total of $133,528 in matching funds was awarded to assist with due diligence activities required for site certification — a key step in attracting new business investment and quality jobs. The funding reimburses costs for required reports and studies such as environmental assessments, geotechnical investigations and cultural resources surveys.

“Rural communities are thinking strategically about long-term growth,” said Debi Durham, director of the IEDA and Iowa Finance Authority. “This support helps them take important strides toward welcoming new employers and creating opportunities close to home.”

The following applicants received funding:

• Clarinda Economic Development Corporation
  $29,875 — Hugh and Maxine Loudon Business Park (~70 acres), Clarinda
• Jackson County Economic Alliance
  $27,050 — Highway 61 Industrial Park (~59 acres), Maquoketa
• Iowa Interstate Railroad
  $37,500 — Newton Rail Park (~478 acres), Newton
• City of Webster City
  $37,500 — Webster City Southeast Industrial Park (~773 acres), Webster City
• Greater Fort Dodge Growth Alliance (on behalf of Webster County)
  $1,603.75 — Iowa’s Crossroads of Global Innovation (~765 acres), west of Fort Dodge

Created during the 2024 legislative session, the IRCSI provides matching grants of up to $37,500 to eligible applicants, including local governments, economic development organizations and utility providers in counties with populations fewer than 50,000.

(Radio Iowa) – A few dozen tiny turtles were turned loose in a wetland in Guthrie County this month, the next important step in helping the rare creatures regain numbers in a state where they were once plentiful. Mick Klemesrud, a spokesman for the Iowa DNR, says many populations of Blanding’s turtles died out during a frigid, snowy spring about a decade ago. With the help of Blank Park Zoo in Des Moines, more than 50 were hatched and raised last year.

“We released 32 of them last week. Most of them had a transmitter on them, so we’re going to track their movements and try and get some information on these juveniles, what they do, search for habitat and where they move throughout the wetland,” Klemesrud says, “so we could maybe make some management decisions based on that to help these turtles survive.”

An adult Blanding’s turtle may grow to 10 inches in diameter, resembling an old-style army helmet, but each of these youngsters would fit in the palm of your hand. So how do you track them? Klemesrud says Iowa State University is also a part of this project.

Two of the Blanding’s turtles (Iowa DNR photo)

“They have a student technician that’s going to be going out every day this summer with an aerial transmitter, and she’s going to be tracking these. There’s different frequencies associated with different transmitters,” Klemesrud says. “She’s going to be collecting some of this information just to see, where are they going? What are they using? What is their preferred habitat in the wild?”

Blanding’s turtles are a threatened species in Iowa and they’re being considered for federal listing. Besides the frigid weather, Klemesrud says the turtles face many other challenges in Iowa.

“The turtles will travel a long distance to lay their eggs and so they have to travel across a lot of roads and sometimes they get hit by vehicles. There’s a lot of nest predators that will just completely wipe out their nests,” Klemesrud says. “We have very little natural reproduction. It takes about 14 to 20 years for these turtles to become mature and to start laying eggs, the females, so it just takes a long time to get these back.”

In an agency statement, DNR director Kayla Lyon says: “In the wild, just hatching means these turtles beat the odds. Leaving the nest and finding the wetland is another major achievement, and making it to year one is like winning the lottery — which makes today all the more exciting.”

She says the restoration of wetlands and shallow lakes benefits Blanding’s turtles, in addition to many other wildlife species, including nesting trumpeter swans and sandhill cranes.

(Radio Iowa) – The City of Ames is shutting down its police advisory committee in order to comply with a new state law. During a city council meeting this week, Police Chief Geoff Huff said members of the Ames Resident Police Advisory Committee — or ARPAC — learned about police procedures, offered suggestions and helped with community outreach events.

“A lot of what ARPAC has done is just bring that different perspective to the police department,” Chief Huff says. “We had very good discussions during all of our meetings. It’s a really good group of people, very committed to their community and to the police department.” Huff says there could be other ways to involve volunteers that would not involve a city commission.

ARPAC was formed in 2021 in the wake of George Floyd’s murder in Minneapolis and the Black Lives Matter movement. Ames City Council member Tim Gartin says communities should be able to “craft solutions that work best for them.”

“We wouldn’t begin to tell Davenport or Sioux City how to make such personal decisions for their communities. Those are things best left for them,” Gartin says, “but I would ask the legislature to leave us alone, to allow us to make decisions.” Other Iowa communities affected by the ban on police advisory boards include Cedar Rapids, Coralville, Iowa City, Dubuque and University Heights.

The new state law preventing cities with civil service commissions from having any type of citizen review board related to policing goes into effect August 16th.

(Radio Iowa) – Dozens of landowners who would be impacted by the proposed Summit Carbon Solutions pipeline project held a conference call today (Thursday) to talk about the governor’s veto of the pipeline bill. Megan Sloma is the part owner of a Century farm in Sioux County says the governor chose the rights of the pipeline company over landowners, without any alternatives. “My dad told me growing up to never bring him a problem without also bringing him possible solutions, so I would ask Governor Reynolds what is your solution to help the land owners?,” Sloma says. Wright County land owner Julie Glade says she is “righteously angry” about the veto. ”

Megan Sloma. (Photo from Sierra Club video news conference)

Governor Reynolds, I’d like for you to tell me how modern life depends on the pumping of a waste product, highly pressurized and dangerous, through our very productive rich family farmland. I feel like she’s thrown us under the bus and sided with wealthy corporate interests in the state of Iowa,” Glade says.

Glade says people are paying attention like never before, and that will show when its election time.  “My phone was exploding yesterday with messages from friends and family that heard the breaking news that governor Reynolds had vetoed our bill,” Glad says. “This is going to be a high priority election issue from here on out. We are going to make sure of it. We can do what South Dakota did and elect representatives that will reflect the will of the majority in Iowa, unlike Governor Reynolds and her minions in Senate leadership.” Bremer County Supervisor Cory Cerwinske says the veto is extremely disheartening, and says the governor’s reasoning is absolutely flawed from any and every angle. “This isn’t an agree to disagree circumstance, as we sometimes see ourselves varying over legislation. This veto is an outright attack on our inalienable rights that we, the people, are protected by both our U-S and Iowa Constitutions,” Cerwinske says. He supports the effort to override the veto, and also wants the governor removed from office.

“I suggest to speaker Grassley that in addition to an attempt to override, that our General Assembly addressed the glaring issue of the governor’s malfeasance by ignoring the Constitution to decimate our private property rights with her actions, by going forward and introducing articles of impeachment under the guidelines contained in Article three, Section 20 of the Iowa Constitution,” Cerwinske says. Republican Representative Steven Holt of Denison says impeachment is not the way to go. “Look, I understand everybody’s emotions on this, but a governor choosing to veto a piece of legislation in spite of what we feel about how it may violate the Constitution and those sorts of things probably doesn’t rise to the level of impeachment. So I doubt that that would get gained much traction,” Holt says.

Holt says that there would likely not be enough votes in the Senate for a special session to override the veto. He says the veto will be an issue for legislation the governor proposes in the next session, and they will continue to bring up legislation in the House to force the issue. “And the Senate is going to figure out. What they’re going. To do about, you know, they tried for over four years. They stopped the will of the people through their elected representatives to address this issue, they hid behind process and refuse to let legislation come to the floor and now the chickens have come home to roost in the Senate. They’ve got a civil war going on in the Senate, they’ve attack one another,” Holt says.

The bill the governor vetoed would have put limits on the use of eminent domain for pipelines. The governor says the bill was too broad and would impact other projects outside of carbon pipelines.

(Iowa Capital Dispatch) – A chain of Iowa-based Mexican restaurants is being sued by the federal government for allegedly paying some of its workers only the tips collected from customers. In a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Iowa, the U.S. Department of Labor is alleging that Rocio Correa-Mata, 33, of Iowa City, as the sole owner and primary manager of the Mexico Lindo Grill & Cantina restaurant chain, violated the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938. Mexico Lindo Grill & Cantina has locations in West Branch, Iowa City, and North Liberty.

The department alleges that certain servers at the restaurants were “only paid via direct cash and credit tips from customers” and did not receive the federal minimum wage rate of $7.25 per hour. The chain also is alleged to have “willfully and repeatedly” paid employees less than the statutory overtime rate of 1.5 times the workers’ regular wages for all hours worked in excess of 40 hours per week. In addition, the department claims Mexico Lindo paid its “back-of-the-house employees” – a term typically used to describe kitchen workers — a cash salary that was insufficient to compensate them for any overtime hours.

According to the lawsuit, Mexico Lindo then failed to create and preserve accurate records of employees’ hours and failed to document each worker’s full name and Social Security number. The department alleges defendant Correa-Mata has actively managed and supervised Mexico Lindo’s operations and employees from June 2015 through the present, overseeing the chain’s daily operations, hiring and firing employees, establishing work schedules, and setting rates of pay at each location.

The Mexico Lindo Grill & Cantina at 1857 Lower Muscatine Road in Iowa City is one of three Iowa restaurants accused of wage-and-hour violations by the U.S. Department of Labor. (Photo via Google Earth)

The Department of Labor is seeking a court order enjoining Correa-Mata and the chain from “continuing to withhold employees’ unpaid minimum wages and overtime compensation,” as well as an order finding them liable for any unpaid wages, plus an equal amount in liquidated damages, payable to 25 different employees of the three Mexico Lindo locations.

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (KCRG) — A motorcyclist led Cedar Rapids police on a high-speed chase Wednesday evening.  KCRG reports that at approximately 7 p.m., police attempted to pull over a pickup truck and motorcycle traveling on Highway 100 after witnessing them taking videos of dangerous motorcycle stunts. The driver of the pickup truck stopped, but the motorcyclist continued to drive down the highway in an attempt to elude officers. The motorcyclist led police on a high-speed chase that ended in the 7700 block of 18th Street SW.

An airplane owned by the Iowa State Patrol tracked the motorcyclist and led police officers to the motorcyclists’ hiding spot. The plane also tracked the speed of the motorcycle, revealing the motorcyclist was driving at 177 mph while driving on Highway 100 and Highway 30.

Kyle Ward (Linn Co. S/O booking photos)

The motorcyclist, identified as 19-year-old Kyle Aidan Ward, was arrested and charged with felony eluding 25 mph over the speed limit, eluding 25 mph over the speed limit/2nd or subsequent offense, careless driving, speeding, disobeying a traffic control device, improper passing, failure to display registration plate, and improper tires. His bond was set at $7,000.

(Atlantic, Iowa) — Officials with Cass Health in Atlantic, today (Thursday), announced the winners of the photo contest have been chosen, and that most of the artwork is installed. Ann McCurdy, CCHS Director of Marketing and Communications, said “We are thrilled by the positive response from the community! We had more than 90 individuals participate, with more than 300 photos submitted. We have more than 35 canvases already displayed in our hallways, and we are expecting a few more to arrive soon. We also received several beautiful winter images, which we will put on display this December.”

One of the winning photos submitted by Colby Euken. (Courtesy Ann McCurdy)

The winning entries were submitted by the following:

Amanda Hall
Amayi Walker
Amy Nelson
Angela Turner
Ann Clinton
Ashley Skow
Aubree Williams
Breanna Russell
Caitlin Nelson
Christine Hass
Colby Euken
Dana Larsen
Derek Henry
Dianna Blake
Dolly Bergmann
Julie Holmes
Kaley Young
Kari McMartin
Kate Wheatley
Kathy Somers
Katie Nichols
Kelly Knudson
Kolton Hewlett
Kylee Wessling
Lydia Rouse
Mallory Kirchoff
Nancy Croghan
Nathan Robinson
Paige Bintner
Ruth Glines
Sandy McCurdy
Savannah Cameron
Steve Olsen

Honorable mentions were also given to photos submitted by Sue Hunt, Taylen Abarr, and Bob Lane. The winning photos can be viewed in the hallways near the Cass Health Pharmacy, Radiology, and Rehab Services, and an online gallery of the winning photos can be viewed under the Community tab at casshealth.org.