(Fort Dodge, Iowa) – The Iowa National Guard reports an official “In-Activation Ceremony” for the 133rd Test Squadron in Fort Dodge, will take place on March 2nd, beginning at 1-p.m. The formal ceremony marks the official closure of the Iowa National Guard unit. During the ceremony, officials say, the 133rd Test Squadron will celebrate the outstanding success of their great 133rd Airmen and the immense history of over 75 years in the community of Fort Dodge. The event takes place in the 133rd’s Auditorium at 1649 Nelson Ave., in Ft. Dodge.

In 2023 the U.S. Air Force initiated divestment of certain mission sets as part of restructuring for what they call the “Great Power Competition.” The mission of the 133rd Test Squadron was removed from the Iowa Air National Guard as a result of the realignment actions. The Iowa National Guard has been working closely with its Airmen and the community of Fort Dodge throughout this process.

Every full-time employee with the 133rd Test Squadron will be offered a position within the Iowa Air National Guard with a majority of the Service Members going to the 132nd Air Wing in Des Moines, and the 185th Air Refueling Wing in Sioux City.

The Iowa National Guard will still have an active presence in Fort Dodge, with the Army National Guard 1st Battalion, 194th Field Artillery Headquarters.

(Radio Iowa) – The University of Iowa is reviewing its lease on the MacBride Nature Recreation Area to determine whether it makes sense to keep the nature area for economic and educational purposes. Connie Mutel, a retired UI hydro science and engineering professor, says the area is valuable to thousands of K-through-12 students who participate in the university’s Wildlife Instruction and Leadership Development Program.

“We can use it in the future. We have that possibility,” Mutel says. “If we get rid of it now, all of those possibilities are moot. They’re gone, and that’s especially bad when our natural world is being degraded by climate change and by loss of biodiversity.”

The Army Corps of Engineers has leased the land to the UI since the 1960s. Mutel says the area is important for a host of environmental research. “To throw away the sites where we can study that, do research on it, expose people, students to the integrity of the natural world,” Mutel says, “why are we getting rid of the one place on campus where they can do that?”

A ten-member committee started its review in September and is examining the area’s usage and maintenance. Campus members can provide input until March 14th. The review is to be complete by May 1st.

(Radio Iowa) [UPDATED] – Iowa police and sheriff’s departments would be required to enforce any federal order to detain someone suspected of being in the country illegally under a bill advancing in the Iowa House. During a hearing on the bill, a lobbyist for the Iowa Police Chiefs Association said the bill would add more responsibilities to departments already struggling with tight budgets and limited staff. Mike Tupper, who recently retired after serving as Marshalltown’s police chief, says local officers already work with their federal partners to address legitimate public safety concerns.

“But local law enforcement should not be involved with the immigration enforcement mission,” Tupper said. “It will diminish communication, it will diminish communication in our communities and ultimately diminishes public safety.” John Noble of Des Moines says the bill is a distraction from Iowa’s real problems, like a rising cancer rate and a declining education system.

“This bill, along with a lot of other bills we’ve seen come up in the Iowa House are a way to get us looking at our immigrant neighbors and fearing our immigrant neighbors,” Norris said. Vanessa Marcano Kelly, board chair of the Iowa Movement for Migrant Justice, directly criticized the bill’s sponsors.”Representatives Holt and Wheeler and the other extremists that have taken over our government continue to push a battery of xenophobic and racist bills like this one in attempt to make Iowa stray from our historical values of welcoming immigrants, valuing people and caring for our neighbors.”

Representative Steven Holt, a Republican from Denison, responded. “There is a huge difference between legal and illlegal immigration,” Holt said. “…Many groups today seek to erase that difference.” Holt says there are criminals who came across the border illegally and some of them are in Iowa. “It is vital that we have complete cooperation between local, state and federal authorities as we work to remove these dangerous individuals from our communities and make everyone — immigrant and citizen — safer.”

Republican Representative Skyler Wheeler says an illegal immigrant recently stabbed two people in Hull, his hometown. “If you are here illegally, you are a criminal,” Wheeler said. “…Our job is to keep our citizens safe. They come first and foremost. I am happy to move this forward and I hope it becomes law.” The bill requires Iowa law enforcement agencies to sign a memorandum, pledging to cooperate with federal agencies enforcing immigration laws.

According to the A-C-L-U of Iowa, by Wednesday night 157 jurisdictions in the United States had signed the memo and agreed to have local officers serve federal immigration warrants and jail suspected illegal aliens.

(Radio Iowa) – New requirements for the company that has a permit to build a carbon pipeline and for the state regulators that granted the permit have cleared initial review in the Iowa House. One bill would require Summit Carbon Solutions to show it has enough insurance to cover all damages from a pipeline rupture. Cynthia Hansen’s family owns land in Shelby County that’s in the pipeline’s path. “We already have our letter from our insurance company saying that we cannot get liability insurance on this piece of ground if this pipeline goes through because (liquified carbon) is considered a pollutant, so that puts us at great risk if the pipeline would rupture,” Hansen said. “I mean, we would go bankrupt.”

Representative Steven Holt, a Republican from Denison, says the cost and liability if there’s a rupture would hit property owners as well as local governments who’d have to respond to the disaster. “It is the local county supervisors, law enforcement, EMT personnel, fire fighters that will be responsible for the safety of their citizens,” Holt said, “and it also appears that counties will be left holding the bag, (along with) landowners, should something go wrong.” A spokesperson for Summit Carbon Solutions says in order to secure its pipeline permit, the company was required to have at least a 100 MILLION dollar insurance policy and the ability to compensate landowners for damages from construction. The other bill would require members of the Iowa Utilities Commission to attend the commission’s hearings and informational meetings.

Holt says House Speaker Pat Grassley attended a public meeting scheduled by the agency, but no one from the commission was there to hear comments from the public. “This was confirmed for me when we had an informational meeting in Holstein, in Ida County. I was there. No commissioners were there,” Holt says. “Unfortunately, this seems to fit the pattern of arrogance toward property owners that has been on display throughout this entire process by the Iowa Utilities Commission when the leadership changed.” Governor Kim Reynolds replaced the commission’s chairman and appointed another new member to the panel in April of 2023.

Jessica Mazour is conservation program manager for the Sierra Club’s Iowa chapter. She says the new commissioners have been disrespectful toward property owners who object to having the pipeline on their land. “Not showing up to meetings, not listening — I mean we’re talking about people who put their lives on hold for four years to protect their property from a company that’s coming in to take their land, endanger their families,” Mazour said, “and they don’t even have the ability or the care to show up and listen to them.” Peg Rasmussen owns land in Montgomery County where Summit Carbon Solutions plans to extend its pipeline during phase two of the project. She says one commission member was at the informational meeting she attended. “I’m sure that there was bias in terms of how they interpreted the meeting,” Rasmussen said, “so having multiple ears there hearing could related to better understand what the public really was saying.”

Similar bills have been filed in the Iowa Senate, but no subcommittee hearings on either senate bill have been scheduled.

(Radio Iowa) – With sub-zero temperatures and wind chills, shelters have been doing more to reach out to the homeless this week. Candace Gregory with Omaha’s Open Door Mission says they started reaching out to people in homeless encampments and abandoned buildings on both sides of the Missouri River at the end of last week. “Trying to educate people, ‘Hey, it’s coming, it’s going to be cold for numerous days, this is a time to come in.’ Even though we give out resources and things like that. We have people who still choose to be outside, so our clinic has been dealing with a lot of frostbite this week,” she says. Gregory says the Mission’s outreach center in Council Bluffs handed out hundreds of blankets, hats, mittens, and coats to people in need.

Gregory says the organization spent the past several days searching through homeless encampments and abandoned buildings. “Our neediest neighbors really need us this week and we just need to work together to keep everyone safe,” Gregory says. Gregory says even though their shelters are already overflowing, no one gets turned away.

Gregory says there’s an estimated 16-hundred homeless people in the Omaha metro area, including Council Bluffs and western Iowa. However, she says that the number is likely much higher because an annual count required by HUD is done during the winter, not summer months.

(Radio Iowa – With the coldest winds of winter howling this week, many Iowans may be dreaming of warmer climates and late season getaways. A survey finds Iowans who plan to vacation aboard a cruise ship this year will have plenty of company as they sail the seas. Brian Ortner, spokesman for Triple-A-Iowa, says the travel club projects a record number of cruisers in 2025.

“This is the first time AAA’s put out a forecast specifically towards cruising for forms of travel,” Ortner says, “and the short answer, absolute record, over 19-million folks projected to cruise this year alone.” Cruise travel volumes will reach a record high for the third consecutive year, he says, as it’s reached the point now where the ship itself can be the destination.

“The cruise industry is taking advantage and listening to their consumers,” Ortner says. “They’re focusing on bigger ships, shorter itineraries, and private islands have all contributed to the remarkable growth that the cruise industry has seen in recent years.”

The report says the most common cruise itineraries are six to eight days, while the three busiest cruise ports in the world are all in Florida: Miami, Port Canaveral, and Fort Lauderdale. Iowa airports in Cedar Rapids, Des Moines and the Quad Cities all have direct flights to many of those Florida cities.

(Radio Iowa – The National Endowment for the Arts has revised its grant guidelines for 2026 to reject applications for projects focused on diversity, equity and inclusion, and has eliminated its Challenge America grants for the upcoming year. Fairfield Arts and Convention Center Executive Director Lindsay Bauer is still waiting for the Challenge America funding it was awarded for this year

“The project that I have Challenge America grant support for technically could be considered a D-E-I project. Was it booked on the basis of it being a D-E-I project? No, it wasn’t. It was booked on artistic merit. But how do we answer those questions?,” Bauer says. She is concerned about navigating the new guidelines. “I’m putting together my season for 2025-2026 already. I’m signing contracts now. I’m budgeting now,” she says. “If I can’t count on a level of funding that we’ve been able to rely on in the past, that really is going to affect how we’re able to plan.”

The new guidelines also encourage projects tied to the 250th anniversary of America’s founding. The Iowa Arts Council says it’s still working to understand changes at the federal level.

(Radio Iowa) -A rural southern Iowa man who says he owes his life to his wife’s knowledge of C-P-R is now a strong advocate for getting all Iowans trained in the heart-starting procedure. Seventy-six-year-old Butch Gibbs, of Humeston, travels around the region with his wife, Susie, as volunteer ambassadors for the American Heart Association, giving talks about the simple system that kept him from dying of sudden cardiac arrest in 2004.

“My heart stopped and I quit breathing,” Gibbs says. “My wife immediately started CPR. Our ambulance was 20 miles away. Our local group got there in about three or four minutes, and started using the AED and shocked me numerous times.” It took 25 minutes for the ambulance to arrive and Gibbs says it was the fast actions of his wife and the local paramedics who saved him from grave consequences.

“CPR and an AED are the only things that can reverse a sudden cardiac arrest,” Gibbs says. “For each minute that goes by after you lose your pulse and breathing, that chance of survival decreases 10%, so in 10 minutes, you’re at zero.” More than 350-thousand people nationwide experience cardiac arrests outside of a hospital every year, and 90-percent of them don’t survive. Traditional C-P-R combines chest compressions with breaths, but research has found that doing chest compressions is more crucial, so hands-only C-P-R has become the standard.

“A lot of people would not do CPR because they did not want to put their mouth on another person’s mouth,” Gibbs says. “So most people would just not do anything and wait until the help got there, but you need to start right away with the compressions. We want you to be the help. Don’t wait for the help.” Studies show nearly seven in ten cardiac arrests happen at home, so it’s likely the person who needs C-P-R will be a family member or friend. The American Heart Association website offers a 60-second video that explains the basics of hands-only C-P-R, and Gibbs says he’s living proof that it’s both simple and effective.

“There’s nothing to it. You don’t have to be medically trained. You just have to realize that even if you’re doing it wrong, doing something is better than doing nothing,” he says. “If I wouldn’t have gotten that CPR started right away, then I wouldn’t be here today.”

Gibbs has an I-C-D, or internal cardio defibrillator, implanted in his chest which has automatically shocked his heart back into rhythm 13 times in the past 21 years. Susie Gibbs is retired after nearly 50 years as a nurse, including more than 20 years as an E-R nurse at the Lucas County Health Center in Chariton.

https://international.heart.org/en/hands-only-cpr

(Creston, Iowa) – A woman from Creston was arrested Wednesday evening at her residence, on an OWI charge. Creston Police report 63-year-old Elizabeth Elaine Christensen was arrested at around 7:35-p.m for OWI/1st offense. Christensen was taken to Union County Jail and later released after posting 10% of a $1,000 bond.

(Atlantic, Iowa) – The City Council in Atlantic, Wednesday evening acted on a number of different matters, including paying recognition to a Scout, and two librarians. Atlantic Mayor Grace Garrett recognized Michael Hocamp for having achieved the rank of Eagle Scout. The Mayor spoke of how Michael rose through the Scout ranks.

Eagle Scout Michael Hocamp (2/19/25 – Ric Hanson photo)

Hocamp earned his Eagle Scout badge in November, 2024. The Mayor mentioned less than 6% of all Boy Scouts achieve this rank, which is the highest that can be achieved in the organization. It takes 21 badges to be make Eagle Scout. Hocamp has 49. She said over the years, other young men have come before the Council and were recognized for their Eagle Scout achievement, which exemplifies their commitment to service.

She said his Eagle project was a kayak launch with a ramp and section of dock at Lake Icaria, which was completed in April, 2024. Mayor Garrett and the Council also recognized Diane McFadden for her 36 years of service at the Atlantic Public Library. She is an Adult Services Librarian.

She is known for her excellent customer service. And, Sondra Marnin was recognized for her 10 years of service to the Atlantic Public Library. She started as a clerk and became a Youth Assistant Librarian in 2023.

Diane McFadden

In other business, the Atlantic City Council, Wednesday, passed the Third & Final Reading of an Ordinance “Amending the Code of Ordinances of the City of Atlantic,

Sondra Marnin

Iowa, by Amending Chapter 165, Zoning Regulations.” And, they adopted the following Resolutions:

• • “Setting the date for a Public Hearing for the Proposed Maximum Property Tax Levy for Fiscal Year 2026 as March 26, 2025, at 5:00 P.M.”
  •  “Approving the Proposed Maximum Property Tax Levy for FY 2026.”
  • “Designating the Distribution of Sales Tax Revenues to Various Funds for Specific Purposes.”
  • “Setting the Date for a Public Hearing on a Proposal to Enter into a General Obligation Solid Waste Management Loan Agreement and to Borrow Money Thereunder in a Principal Amount not to exceed $90,000,” and, they passed a Resolution
  • “Setting the Date for Public Hearing on Proposal to Enter into a General Obligation Loan Agreement and to Borrow Money Thereunder.”

The meeting concluded with a closed session for Collective Bargaining purposes.