(Creston, Iowa) – The Creston Police Department today (Friday) reports six people were arrested on separate charges over the past couple of days (0ne was arrested twice):

At around 12:49-a.m. today (May 30th), 37-year-old Jacob Miles Erskine, of Creston, was arrested for Possession of Drug Paraphernalia. He was cited at the scene and released on a promise to appear in court. And, at around 6:30-a.m., 41-year-old Ryan Lee Woosley, of Des Moines, was arrested in Creston for Driving While Barred. Woosley posted a $1,000 bond, and was released.

On Thursday (May 29th), 26-year-old Mauricio Andres Trejos-Castenada, of Creston, was arrested at around 9:05-p.m. Harassment in the 1st Degree/3rd offense. Trejos-Castenada was subsequently charged at around 11-p.m. Thursday, with Harassment in the 1st Degree/4th offense. He was being held in the Union County Jail separate $2,000 bonds; 41-year-old Trisha Jae Johnston, of Creston, was arrested Thursday night for Theft in the 5th Degree. She was later released on bond; and, 40-year-old Kevin Wayne Rauch, of Creston, was arrested by Creston Police on two outside warrants for failure to serve required jail time. Rauch was being held without bond in the Union County Jail until his jail time is fulfilled.

DES MOINES, Iowa (May 29, 2025) – Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Mike Naig, Thursday, announced 33 schools or school districts have received grants to participate in the Choose Iowa Food Purchasing Program for Schools. The one-year pilot program connects Iowa schools with Choose Iowa members to encourage school food service programs to purchase and serve more ingredients and products sourced from local farmers and small businesses.  The pilot program was authorized during the 2024 legislative session and is an initiative of Choose Iowa, the state’s branding and marketing program that identifies and promotes Iowa grown, made, and raised food, beverages and ag products.

Among the area community school districts (CSD) which received grants for the Choose Iowa program, was:

• The Griswold School District
• The Clarinda CSD
• The Council Bluffs CSD
• The Missouri Valley School District, and
• The Diagonal CSD

The school pilot program has a total budget of $70,000, and each school was eligible to apply for up to $1,000 per school building. Both public and private schools were encouraged to apply. Selected schools are required to provide a minimum one-to-one (1:1) financial match. For example, a school receiving $1,000 must provide at least $1,000 from other sources for a total of $2,000 spent on local foods through the pilot program. Choose Iowa received applications from 61 schools or school districts totaling $158,249, an overall request far exceeding available funding.

Secretary Naig said “This Choose Iowa pilot program is yet another way we’re connecting Iowa farmers and small businesses with schools to provide fresh, local, and nutritious food to our students. This one-year pilot program saw strong demand from interested schools that far exceeded the available program budget. As Choose Iowa continues to expand, we will work to open even more opportunities to connect local producers and school food programs. Choose Iowa’s membership is growing quickly and is already demonstrating how it can be a powerful tool for strengthening and growing our rural communities.”

Eligible products that can be purchased include meat and poultry, dairy products (other than milk), eggs, honey and produce. Funding for milk is available through a different federal program. To be eligible for funding through the Choose Iowa Food Purchasing Pilot Program, schools must purchase food from a Choose Iowa member. If selected schools wish to purchase from specific Iowa farmers, they should encourage those farmers or businesses to apply to become a Choose Iowa member. Food hubs that are Choose Iowa members are also eligible for food purchases within the program. Products purchased through food hubs must come from Iowa producers.

Find the complete list of school districts that were awarded Choose Iowa grants, HERE.

Additional details on the school pilot program can be found on the Choose Iowa website. The school program accompanies the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship’s Choose Iowa’s Food Purchasing Pilot Program for Food Banks, which launched last summer to connect food banks with Choose Iowa members to help alleviate hunger within our communities.

(Radio Iowa) – While Memorial Day was this past Monday, today (Friday) marks what was once an important, similar holiday known as Decoration Day and it’s still being honored in northeast Iowa. The Bay Church and Cemetery near Delhi is hosting its annual re-enactment of the first Decoration Day program, according to Bob Sack, secretary of the Upper Bay Cemetery Association. “We’re honoring the soldiers of the Civil War who were from Delhi and Buck Creek, and the event is the first celebrated at that time, August 24th of 1865,” Sack says. “The war was over in May and we’re following that pretty much the same using the same songs, same layout of the program.”

May 30th, or Decoration Day, was established three years after the Civil War ended on May 5th, 1868. Sack says the purpose was for the nation to decorate, with flowers, the graves of all the men and women who gave their lives during wartime. Civil War-era letters from locals will be read as part of the program. “Their letters just grab your heart,” Sack says. “To think of these people that, ‘I miss you, my wife,’ ‘I miss you, my mom and dad, but I’m here and I’m not going to come back because we need to get this war ended,’ and they thought it was going to be a short war, and it wasn’t. It was a long war.” The Decoration Day program will be held in the shadow of Iowa’s first Civil War monument. It was built to honor 15 soldiers from the area who died in the war.

“We talk about people that get PTSD and all,” Sack says, “but with all the cannon fire and all the short-range killing, it’s just amazing what those people went through and what they became when they came home alive, if they came home alive.” Sack says they’ve gone to great lengths to keep the program authentic.”There will be speakers. We’re going to have a religious invocation, a benediction, singing of three patriotic songs that we all know historically,” Sack says. “We will have a 21-gun salute by the Legion and the Black Powder Reenactors in period uniform, and then we’re going to have several shots from the cannon, we got a ten-pound cannon coming out of Dubuque.”

The Decoration Day program will take place at Bay Church and Cemetery, five miles southwest of Delhi at 5:30 PM. All are welcome. Afterwards, people are invited to take a tour of the historic Bay Church and enjoy fellowship and refreshments.

(Red Oak, Iowa) – Police in Red Oak, Thursday afternoon, arrested a local man on a charge of Harassment. Authorities report 18-year-old Zachary Allen Reese, of Red Oak, was arrested at around 3:30-p.m. in the 1000 block of E. Cherry Street, in Red Oak. Reese was charged with Harassment in the 1st Degree. He was being held in the Montgomery County Jail on a $2,000 bond.

(Radio Iowa) – One of the highest blends of biodiesel is now available at a retailer in central Iowa. B-99 contains just a tenth of a percent of petroleum-based diesel and it’s being sold at the Pilot Travel Center in Urbandale. Dave Walton, a soybean farmer from Wilton, says it’s a major milestone.

“It’s the lowest carbon fuel out that’s out there,” Walton says. “…On the health side, actually, the particulate matter is reduced by like 90% over petroleum diesel.” The B-99 terminal in Urbandale has two pumps. According to the Iowa Soybean Association, PepsiCo will fill its Des Moines-based distribution fleet there. Engines must be equipped with new technology to run on B-99.

Eric Fobes, a vice president for Pilot Travel Centers, says he hopes other carriers invest in the technology to cut carbon emissions. “Heavy duty trucking is very difficult to abate,” Fobes says. “This is a very unique solution to abate that carbon.” A ribbon cutting for the B-99 pump was held Thursday. Iowa Agriculture Secretary Mike Naig says it’s a big step.

B99 is being sold from this pump at a Pilot Travel Center in Urbandale, Iowa. (Brownfield Ag News photo by Brent Barnett)

“We can make this high-quality biofuel, but if it doesn’t make it into the supply chain, if it doesn’t end up in a fuel tank somewhere and get used then we haven’t really pulled the threat through,” Naig said. “We haven’t really completed the supply chain.”

B-99 is being sold at a Pilot Travel Center in Decatur, Illinois — the only other spot in the U-S where B-99 is available for sale in a retail setting. Iowa is the top biodiesel producing state, but the industry is in limbo. In January, five of the 10 plants shut down because a federal tax credit for biodiesel production expired at the end of 2024.

DES MOINES, Iowa [KCCI-TV] — The Iowa Attorney General’s Office says law enforcement officers were legally justified when they returned fire at a fugitive from Wisconsin during an incident on Interstate 80 last month. The AG’s Office Thursday evening released a 13-page report on the determination. The Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation reviewed body camera footage, car cameras, drone footage and other evidence to reach this conclusion. https://www.iowaattorneygeneral.gov/newsroom/iowa-attorney-generals-office-concludes-dallas-county-deputies-adair-county-deputy-adel-police-of

Around 1:30 a.m. on April 15, Vonderrick Rayford, of Milwaukee, was stopped by Dallas County Deputy Jacob Spurrell on Interstate 80 in Dallas County for excessive speeding. According to the attorney general’s report, Spurrell was sitting in his patrol vehicle running Rayford’s information when Rayford got out of his vehicle and began firing at the deputy. The report says Rayford also fired at the several other law enforcement officers who responded to Spurrell’s notice of shots fired.

After several other officers arrived, Rayford fled across the highway median and eventually stood in the westbound lanes with his hands up and the gun on the ground at his feet. Despite multiple commands to back away from the weapon, Rayford remained near it. When officers approached within a few feet, Rayford picked up the gun and raised it at them, at which point deputies Spurrell, Eric Grimm, and Tyler DeFrancisco, along with Adel police officer Joel Gummert, fired their weapons, ultimately fatally wounding Rayford. Rayford died at the scene.

“The actions of all law enforcement officers who fired their weapons at Vonderrick Rayford on April 15, 2025, were legally justified,” the Iowa Attorney General’s Office found. “Rayford escalated a routine traffic stop into a deadly shooting that endangered the lives of multiple law enforcement officers and all other persons who were using the interstate that night.”

In the days following the shooting, law enforcement learned that Rayford had a warrant out for a parole violation in Wisconsin and just two days prior had been involved in a shooting in Colorado Springs, Colorado, where he allegedly shot a woman in the head and fired at an officer. The vehicle Rayford was driving was determined to have been stolen out of Colorado. Rayford also had prior felony convictions, including assault on a peace officer.

The officers involved in the incident, who have been cleared of any wrongdoing, include:

Dallas County Sheriff’s Office

• Deputy Jacob Spurrell
• Deputy Eric Grimm
• Deputy Drew Hurley

Adel Police Department

• Officer Joel Gummert

Stuart Police Department

• Officer Shane Martinson

Adair County Sheriff’s Office

• Deputy Tyler DeFrancisco

(Boone County, Iowa) – A collision Thursday morning southwest of Boone resulted in the death of a man from Boone. The Iowa State Patrol reports a 2003 Ford Ranger pickup truck driven by 89-year-old Dale Ray Crouse, of Boone, was traveling south on Montana Avenue at around 8:24-a.m, when Crouse failed to yield to a 2006 Ford Mustang, driven by 17-year-old Aubrey Rose Alexander, of Templeton, as she was traveling east on Highway 30.

Boone County S/O Facebook page photo, 5/29/25

When the teen was unable to avoid the collision, her car struck the pickup. Crouse was transported by ambulance to the Boone County Hospital, where he died from his injuries.  The Boone County Sheriff’s Office said Aubrey Alexander was checked by medical personnel on scene and released.

Multiple agencies assisted at the crash scene.

(Radio Iowa) – State Treasurer Roby Smith is celebrating the I-Save 529 state educational savings plan today (Thursday) on May 29th. Smith says there have been some changes made in the plan recently. “We raised the contribution amount that can be written off on your Iowa taxes to 58-hundred dollars ($5,800) per individual. Also, they can spend the money that they accrue in there for K through 12 tuition, apprenticeship programs, trade school. They can even do a student loan repayment up to ten-thousand dollars if they’d like,” Smith says.

Smith says you can tailor the plan to how aggressive you want to be in planning for the future. “If they want to have a little bit more risk, they can go ahead and invest in something that covers the entire stock market. If they want to have a little bit less risk, they can do more bonds, less stock market. It just depends on what their risk tolerance is,” Smith says. He says the earlier you start, the more money you’ll have to pay for your child’s education.

“If you think about this way, if you have 18 years, if you start when you’re a child is first born, and you put in two dollars a day, less than a cup of coffee, you’ll have over 13-thousand dollars in contributions by the time they turn 18,” Smith says. “And that doesn’t even count any growth in the investment that they could have.”

Changes in state and federal law now allow you to use that account after your child later in life. “If there’s money left over on the account and you’ve had it open for at least 15 years, you can turn over up to 35-thousand dollars. You can put it into your child’s Roth I-R-A. Not only do you help them for school, but now you can set them up for retirement,” he says.

Smith says you can start an account with a little as 25 dollars by going to iowa529.com.