(Radio Iowa) – A celebration this Summer of all things Latino in southeast Iowa, is being called off after community members said they were scared about being detained at the event. The Latino Festival of Washington – which normally occurs in August – typically gathers around 300 people for a full day of live music, dancing, and vendors selling Mexican food and other goods. Sonia Leyva is president of Latinos for Washington, the nonprofit that puts the event together. She says they canceled the event to keep people safe.  “It’s a time where we feel that we can’t really celebrate our culture, because it’s like you bring that attention,” Leyva says. “The last thing we want is a family to get split apart, or something happen in our community.”

Latino Festival – City of Washington, IA (2021 File Photo)

Leyva says organizers began hearing that people were scared to go to the festival, given partnerships between state law enforcement officials and U.S. Immigration and Customs and Enforcement.  “It’s a beautiful, wonderful event, and it just brings our community together, and it gives us an opportunity to share our beautiful culture with our community,” Leyva says. “It’s just a bummer that we can’t do that this year. It’s quite devastating, actually.”

Leyva says the nonprofit will continue to provide its U-S citizenship classes and high school scholarship programs and hopes to put on the festival next year.

(Creston, Iowa) – Officials with the Creston Police Department say a woman was arrested late Wednesday morning. 44-year-old Candy Lee Jones, of Creston, was arrested a little before 11:30-a.m., and charged with Failure to Appear [in court]. Jones was taken to Union County Jail. She was later released after being fingerprinted.

(Radio Iowa) – Green sprouts from the corn and soybeans Iowa farmers planted in mid-April are starting to emerge from the soil, but many farmers are still waiting to get their crops planted. Angie Rieck Hinz, an agronomist for the Iowa State University Extension in north-central Iowa, says planting started around April 10th and continued “going gangbusters” for a little over a week. “Ever since then, it’s been raining or drizzling in some cases, where we haven’t got a lot rain, but we’re not getting a lot of soil drying out,” she says, “so it’s been very difficult for people to get back in the fields since April 19th.” Rieck Hinz says the U-S-D-A crop report that came out earlier this week may not be telling the full story.

“The North Central Crop Reporting District shows us at about 23% of the corn planted and 11% of the beans, compared to statewide where we have 34% of the corn and 25% of the beans planted,” she says. “I think most people would tell you those numbers seem pretty low, that there’s actually a higher percentage of corn and beans planted.” Rieck Hinz offered a bit of advice to farmers who are anxious to get their planting work completed. “We have a lot of time to get crop in the ground once it dries out,” she says. “We’re supposed to go into a hot, dry period starting the end of next week, so I think once we get dried out, we’ll be back in the field relatively quickly and we’ll finish up planting for this season.”

Farmers need to be patient and wait for conditions to be right for planting, she says, otherwise seeds won’t be at the right depth and won’t root well. Rieck Hinz says yields last year were just as good for the early-planted crops as for those that were planted later.

(Radio Iowa) – The Iowa D-N-R says its spring efforts to collect walleye eggs to raise the next generation of fish was one of the fastest in the program’s history. Jay Rudacille oversaw the operation at Lake Rathbun and says all the fisheries seemed to benefit from warmer water temperatures during the spawn. “Most of our walleyes get stocked as just one to two day old fish that are very small and they have a fairly low survival rate, but we can we can produce them very cheaply and we can produce them in mass. So it’s an easy thing to do,” he says. Other walleyes are kept around a little longer before being released.

“We will raise fish to an inch and a half size and we will stock those about the first two weeks of June. And those are mostly stocked in rivers, and then we will raise some fish to the eight to nine-inch size at both our Rathbun and Spirit Lake hatcheries, and those get stocked into constructed and natural lakes in the month of October and early November,” Rudacille says. Rudacille says their goal is to have 116 million walleye fry. He says that’s believe to be second only to Minnesota, which looks to stock 257 million walleye. Rudacille is the D-N-R Warm and Coolwater Fish Culture Supervisor, and says Iowa doesn’t grow all the fish it stocks here in the state. He says they do a lot of fish trading with other states.

“Yellow perch from South Dakota. We will be providing some muskellunge to back to South Dakota and we’ll be sending some down to the state of Missouri. In exchange for those muskies that we send down to Missouri, in return, we’re going to get channel catfish and also paddlefish. So, there is a fair amount of fish trading,” he says. The fish trading is somewhat similar to the old kids card game “Go Fish” as he says if Iowa has more of one fish than it needs, they can trade for something they don’t have. “We don’t necessarily want to duplicate efforts, so if a state is very good at producing a certain species and we can have something to give them an exchange for that, there’s no real reason for us necessarily to go through the learning curve to try to develop a program for that same species,’ Rudacille says.

There is little natural reproduction of walleyes in most Iowa lakes and rivers, and Rudacille says keeping the population of those fish up depends on the stockings.

(Red Oak, Iowa) – Police in Red Oak report the arrest in Emerson, of 36-year-old Cody Hudson. He was taken into custody at around 11:40-p.m. Wednesday in the 400 block of King Street, for Violation of a no contact order. Hudson was being held without bond, in the Montgomery County Jail.

(Radio Iowa) – A House panel has advanced a budget plan that includes three MILLION dollars for an initiative at the University of Northern Iowa. Republican Representative Austin Harris of Moulton is chairman of the House subcommittee that develops the annual state spending bill that includes money for higher education.

“The University of Northern of Iowa is looking to boost their student population,” Harris said. “Something that other states have done that has had some success in recruiting students from out of state is offer in-state tuition.” U-N-I administrators propose charging students from the six states that surround Iowa the same, lower tuition rate Iowa residents pay. The three million dollars would replace the money those out-of-state students would pay if they were charged the higher tuition rate for residents of other states.

The same spending package includes an eight MILLION dollar boost in state support of Iowa’s 15 community colleges. Democrats say that’s encouraging, but they’re concerned general state support of Iowa’s three public universities falls far short. Representative Elinor Levin is a Democrat from Iowa City.

“I am just concerned to see so many status quo line items, especially in a year when we saw such a high rate of inflation,” Levin said, “when costs are going up at 4% to 5% in a year and there’s no increase reflected.” And Levin says while there is money in the budget for literacy programs in early elementary grades, there should be more dedicated to train teachers in the best methods for improving the reading skills of their students.

(Radio Iowa) – Republicans on the Iowa House Oversight Committee are asking the state auditor for more proof that 27 million dollars in misdirected court fines wasn’t stolen. Court officials say computer coding errors over the past four years meant the Iowa D-O-T, victim services programs and county sheriffs’ offices didn’t get as much money as they should have. State Auditor Rob Sand told the panel no fraud was involved and his office can provide its accounting of the incorrect transactions, if lawmakers present a written request for the list.

“We know that there were no dollars involved here that actually left the state’s or the government’s hands,” Sand said. “…Any dollar that went somewhere through one of these coding errors still went to a public account.” Representative Brooke Boden, a Republican from Indianola, says legislators want to review the documents that trace the misdirected court fines to see for themselves that the money went into the state’s General Fund where nearly all payments to the state are deposited.

“There is quite the tangled web of figuring out where all the money goes every year and where it’s getting allocated,” Boden said. Accounting procedures occupied most of the conversation at the hearing table. However, near the end of the 90 minute session Republican Representative Judd Lawler of Tipton and State Auditor Sand quarreled over a recent law that limits Sand’s authority to access some government records.

“Can I proceed without interruption?” Lawler asked. Sand replied: “Can you fairly represent the fact that we said that this law can stop us in the future.” Lawler, who twice said, “I believe I am,” during Sand’s response, then Lawler asked of Sand: “Are you the only one who owns the truth?” The committee’s chairman intervened and the hearing ended five minutes later.

After the hearing, chairman Charley Thomson of Charles City issued a written statement accusing Sand of downplaying the significance of the misallocation of 27 million dollars in court fines. Iowa Democratic Party chair Rita Hart then issued a statement, accusing House Republicans of engaging in political theater.

(Radio Iowa) – Forty students are victims of AI-generated deepfakes at Cascade High School which saw the heads of students attached to nude bodies. The Western Dubuque School District discovered the photos at the end of March, and Superintendent Dan Butler says it’s a scary, new era for technology.

Deep Fake example Adobe stock image (public domain)

The bigger trend with this is the ease with these A-I tools of how information and images can be manipulated so quickly,” he says. Butler says he is working on prevention policies. “It’s a challenging situation for us as school officials, it’s a challenging situation for our students, the victims, and it’s a challenging situation for our families,” Butler says.

The school is cooperating with law enforcement as they conduct an investigation into the fake photos.

(Red Oak, Iowa) – Sheriff’s officials in Montgomery County report a man from northwest Iowa faces a theft charge, following an investigation into the March 13th theft from Elliott, of a skid steer machine. 48-year-old Nohel Delao, of Sioux City, was arrested this (Wednesday) morning, on a warrant for 1st degree theft.

The skid steer was later recovered in Fremont County. Also recovered at the same location, was a stolen tandem axle trailer.

Delao was being held in the Montgomery County Jail on a $10,000 bond.

(Council Bluffs, Iowa) – The Community Foundation for Western Iowa and SHARE Iowa have announced Christine Versaw, a volunteer for the Council Bluffs Schools Foundation, as the third annual Do-Gooder of the Year. All nonprofit organizations participating on the SHARE Iowa platform were encouraged to nominate their volunteers or “Do-Gooders” of the year. This year, nearly 20 nominations were reviewed, and Christine Versaw was awarded this year’s Do-Gooder of the Year award.

Bridgette Watson, Executive Director at the Council Bluffs Schools Foundation , and submitted the nomination, states, “Christine loves kids and supporting schools. While she is generous with her treasures, she is also generous with her time. Christine thinks about the kids every time she leaves the house. While at the store, she’ll see things on sale that could be used in a classroom, and she picks it up. For example, she found chalk on sale and brought it to the office for the kids at the Early Learning Center. She also visits garage sales, where she sorts through thousands of books each spring/summer/fall to find gently used books to gift to kids that helps them build their at-home libraries. We distribute these books to our kids at Kids & Company and at some of our high-risk schools. She doesn’t log her hours with us, so it’s hard to know how much time she spends finding things for kids, but she’s delivered thousands of books to our office and countless school supplies.”

Bob Versaw, Christine Versaw, Bridgette Watson, and Donna Dostal

Falling on National Volunteer Week, a major focus for Do Good Days is volunteerism. According to Volunteer Iowa reports, Iowa ranks in the top 10 states for volunteering. In 2023, more than 900,000 residents volunteered through an organization, contributing $1.5 billion in economic value. Volunteering is important to our nonprofit organizations and the communities SHARE Iowa serves.

Do Good Days were held April 23 – April 26th. During Do Good Days, SHARE Iowa and the Community Foundation for Western Iowa encouraged community members and nonprofit organizations to honor what doing good meant to them. During Do Good Days, SHARE Iowa provided capacity-building opportunities for nonprofit organizations.

On Wednesday, April 23, SHARE Iowa announced a new partnership with One Source, A Verified Credentials Company, for volunteer-led background checks. Coming soon, volunteers will be able to initiate the process for background checks, saving nonprofits valuable resources and enabling volunteers to get involved with a nonprofit quickly.

On April 24, area nonprofits joined together for a networking opportunity and a panel discussion on marketing and communications centered around branding. Panelists were Craig Carlsen, Director of Marketing at the Council Bluffs Convention and Visitors Bureau, Jacey Kallsen, Communications Manager at the Omaha Henry Doorly Zoo and Aquarium, and Rachel Morehead, Director of Marketing and Engagement at the Community Foundation for Western
Iowa. The event was sponsored by InoTek, LLC.

SHARE Iowa is a dynamic online resource for our nonprofit partners that helps them to better reach and engage with people who want to have an impact into their community by donating dollars, shopping from nonprofit wish lists and registries, attending events, or discovering volunteer opportunities.

Donna Dostal, CEO of the Community Foundation for Western Iowa, said “We created the Do-Gooder award to honor and recognize the amazing individuals like Christine who give of their time, talents, and treasures, to make a difference in other people’s lives and our community. Christine epitomizes a ‘Do-Gooder’ and is making a lasting impact in the lives of the children in Council Bluffs. We are honored to recognize her efforts.”

Go to www.sharegoodiowa.org to learn more and support nonprofit organizations making an impact in western Iowa