Shelby Van Horn, Cass County Youth Coordinator, reports “Cass County 4-H Clubs would like to invite the public to attend their annual 4-H Mardi Gras carnival on Sunday, March 8.” Mardi Gras includes fun, food, & carnival-type games for kids of all ages. The event is scheduled from 2:00 P.M. – 4:00 P.M. at the Cass County Community Center in Atlantic. We are so excited to offer many activities for families.” Activities this year include: Family Mardi Gras Photo Booth, Ring Toss, Dessert Walk, the ever popular Youth Council Mardi Gras Jail, boot toss and much more! Several clubs will also be selling snacks for attendees to enjoy, including a Walking Taco Stand and pop floats to go.

The Youth Action Committee and Youth Council are sponsoring this county-wide event and would like to invite all Cass County families to come out and join the fun. It is intended to be a low cost, family-friendly event for everyone in the county. “You don’t have to be in 4-H to attend,” shared Van Horn, “all are welcome!” Admission is free and game tickets cost $.10 each. Each 4-H club determines how many tickets to charge to play their game.

All proceeds from the event benefit the 4-H clubs, Youth Council, and the Cass County 4-H Program.

The Cass County 4-H Endowment committee is hosting the annual 4-H Endowment Pancake Supper on Thursday, March 5 from 5:00 p.m. – 7:30 p.m. at the Cass County Community Center in Atlantic. The Pancake Man will be dishing up fresh pancakes while 4-H members serve juice, coffee and more. Supporters can enjoy all you can eat pancakes for $6. Proceeds from the 4-H Pancake Supper directly benefit Cass County. The money raised goes to the Cass County 4-H Endowment, a fund to defray the 4-H Program Development Fee, support scholarships, and start up dollars for youth programs including Clover Kids and STEM (science, technology, engineering and math).

The 4-H Program Development Fee is $30 per youth each year to enroll. Instead of having individual 4-H’ers and families take on that expense, the Cass County Extension Council, and the 4-H Endowment Committee pick up this expense. The Cass County 4-H Endowment also offers opportunities for youth to get involved in the 4-H program by attending camps and conferences and offering scholarships to graduating seniors. Shelby Van Horn, Cass County Youth Coordinator, says “These opportunities are very important to the success of the 4-H program in Cass County. It certainly would not be possible without a great deal of support from the community.”

There is also a silent auction during the supper. The 12 4-H clubs in Cass County, as well as additional friends of 4-H and local business supporters, donate items.  If a community business is interested in supporting the Pancake Supper with a Silent Auction donation, please contact the Extension Office. For more information on the Pancake Supper, Endowment or 4-H contact Shelby Van Horn, Cass County Youth Coordinator, at 243-1132 or xcass@iastate.edu.

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — An Iowa man has been charged with the Omaha slaying of a man who’d been reported missing. Nebraska court records say Dalton Dukes, of Council Bluffs, is charged with first-degree murder and two weapons crimes. The records don’t yet list the name of his court-appointed attorney. Council Bluffs police took a missing person report on Joseph Hellman on Feb. 21 last year. He was last seen in Omaha, and the report was referred to Omaha police. Omaha investigators determined that Hellman had been killed Jan. 29. Police say his death couldn’t be classified as a homicide until this past December.

DAVENPORT, Iowa (AP) — An April 6 trial start has been scheduled for a Davenport high school science teacher accused of secretly recording nude videos of two females who’d stayed at his Bettendorf home. Court records say Clinton Van Fossen pleaded not guilty Thursday to five counts of invasion of privacy and to other crimes. He’s on leave from his job at Davenport West High School. The records say the allegations stem from actions committed between Dec. 26 and Jan. 4. The records say Bettendorf officers searched Van Fossen’s home on Jan. 7 and seized spy cameras. Van Fossen denied any knowledge of the cameras.

A woman from Fremont County was arrested Thursday evening on drug charges, in Mills County. 32-year old Alysse Marie Heywood, of Randolph, was taken into custody at around 6:25-p.m. following a traffic stop at Noyes Avenue and Highway 275. She was transported to the Mills County Jail and held on $7,300 bond for Possession of a Controlled Substance, Possession of Drug Paraphernalia, and Possession of Contraband.

The Audubon County Board of Supervisors this week, approved $200,000 in future TIF (Tax Increment Financing) funds to be used for T-Bone Trail maintenance and resurfacing. Their action on Tuesday, allows the Audubon County Conservation Board to obtain matching funds.

Officials say while the trail in Audubon County is currently in good shape, the funds will help keep it from falling into disrepair. The 21-mile long T-Bone Trail mostly parallels Highway 71, and extends from the City of Audubon south into Cass County.

(Radio Iowa) — The risk of spring flooding along the Missouri River in western Iowa remains above normal, according to the National Weather Service’s second spring flood outlook, released Thursday. The next few weeks look generally dry. Mike Gillisipie, a hydrologist with the National Weather Service in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, says snow has been melting at a steady, ideal rate, and that could continue. Gillispie says, “The longer we can keep this up, the less chance there is of that real significant flooding, barring any real big, heavy future precipitation.”

Very wet soil and the large volume of water flowing down the Missouri are the two things contributing to the above-normal flood risk along the river. If the snow continues to melt steadily rather than rapidly, Gillispie says it would be better for the Missouri River and its tributaries, kind of like turning a sink on and off.  “If you turn it up, if you have a real rapid snowmelt, all that water comes off at once,” he says. “If you have temperatures getting up into the 40s during the day, dropping back below freezing at night, it’s like turning the faucet on just a little bit and then shutting it off.”

The Missouri River from below Sioux City to Omaha has an increased chance of getting to flood stage this spring. Northwest Iowa tributaries, including the Big and Little Sioux Rivers, are expected to rise to major flood levels. The National Weather Service will release a third spring flood outlook on March 12th.

(Reporting by Katie Peikes, Iowa Public Radio)

DIKE, Iowa (Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier) — Family members have sent a message to whoever burglarized a rural home in eastern Iowa: Give us back the box holding the cremated remains of our father. The box was stolen Feb. 14 or 15 from the rural Dike home of Daniel Evanson. The Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier reports that he was 65 when he died Feb. 6. His sister asked in a public Facebook post that the box be returned to his farm. The box was decorated with a farm scene that showed a tractor and a barn.

More State and area news from KJAN News Director Ric Hanson.

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(Radio Iowa) – The year 2019 stands out for record precipitation and record flooding across Iowa and much of the region, according to Doug Kluck, the Central Region climate services director at the National Weather Service in Kansas City. Kluck says, “Across the Midwest and, to some degree, the Missouri River basin, the Midwest (states) have never seen a wetter year, in fact, they’ve never seen a wetter year — by far.”

Parts of Iowa saw more rainfall last year than ever before, as well as flooding that surpassed all previous recorded high water marks. The wet soil meant many Iowa farmers faced extreme difficulty with spring planting as well as the fall harvest. While there are predictions of a repeat in 2020, Kluck says he does NOT expect to see that mix of weather conditions again. “Just off the cuff, I would say the likelihood of that happening again is very, very low, to get close to that record or exceed it, for sure,” Kluck says. “But even if it is above normal, which is a whole bunch of other years, by the way, we’re going to have severe problems.”

He says the patterns that are developing show we’re clearly moving toward more precipitation and storm events. “The trend overall has been to be, on an annual basis, wetter than what we’ve had in the past, that’s the trend,” Kluck says. “It doesn’t mean we can’t go into drought, but the trend line is definitely on a pretty upward slope. It’s pretty obvious from the data that we collect.”

The first flood outlooks for the region released earlier this month predict major flooding is likely in most of the region’s river basins, including the Mississippi and Missouri.