The Adams County Sheriff’s Office says a Red Oak woman was arrested Sunday afternoon following a traffic stop. 25-year old Christine McGlade was pulled over at around 1:50-p.m. for having expired license tags and a cracked windshield. McGlade was found to have had a warrant for her arrest issued out of Page County. She was arrested for Driving While Revoked, Failure to have an ignition interlock device, and Expired tags. McGlade was being held in the Adams County Jail on $1,000 bond.

Iowans involved in organ donation will be involved in the Tournament of Roses Parade in Pasadena again this year. Iowa Organ Donor Network spokesman, Tony Hakes says the Donate Life float in the parade on January 2nd will include a florograph with a likeness of organ donor Dyllan Lawson. “His family is going to go out and be able to decorate float and see the florograph actually on the float — and do a bunch of other fun things with the family,” Hakes says.

Lawson had just completed his first year at the University of Iowa in pre-medicine when he was involved in a car accident on June 30th, 2011 that left him with severe head injuries. His organs were donated to four people. “His family has done a lot of things to promote donation in the last few years,” Hakes says, “they hold a 5-K and they do some stuff at a baseball game. Dyllan was a big baseball fan and player.”

Hakes says this is a good way to honor Dyllan and thank his family for continuing the support of organ donation. “Turns out that his family is actually fans of the Rose Parade, they watch it every year, and they have been sending a rose out to the Donate Life Float each year,” Hakes says. “And so this year to honor him and them — we decided to send his parents and sister and brother out to represent us at the Rose Parade.”

Iowa is also sending a representative who had received and organ donation to ride the parade float, and another person who donated an organ to walk along with the float. “And it turns out that our walker is the liver donor of our walker, a mother and daughter team. So, that is going to be pretty special for them too,” Hakes says.

Cindy Newton is a living donor to her first and only daughter Carlie who was born with a disease that kept her liver from functioning. “I think she was just a few months old when her mother got tested and was able to donate a partial liver to her. So I think that was 18-19 years ago now, because she is a freshman at Iowa,” Hakes says.

This year’s float is called “Teammates in Life” and includes 95 other organ donor recipients along with Carlie Newton. The float is modeled after a Polynesian catamaran.

(Radio Iowa)

Information from the latest survey by the Iowa State University Extension department shows most farmland remains in the hands of “locals” when it’s sold. Economist Wendong Zhang conducts the annual survey. “We find that 72 percent of the buyers are existing local farmers and another two percent are existing or relocating farmers. Investors account for roughly 20 percent, new farmers are only three percent,” Zhang says.

He says the land generally stays with families until someone decides that no longer want to farm. “Estate sales account for over half of the land sold,” Zhang says, “and retired farmers account for another 23 percent,” Zhang says. He says there are few young people who own farmland. “Land owners 65 or above own half of Iowa’s land. Landowners 75 and above own one third,” Zhang says.

While the latest survey showed the third straight drop in land prices, Zhang says it is still hard for new farmers to find the resources to get into farming. “This is a still a very capital intensive industry that is a barrier for new farmers to enter,” Zhang says.

He says there are some farm programs now available to try and help young people get into farming. Zhang isn’t expecting a lot of big changes though in the next several years in the ownership of Iowa farmland.

(Radio Iowa)

Securing long-term funding for water quality programs remains a high priority for Iowa farm groups, but in light of the state’s nearly 100 million dollar budget shortfall, that task may be a bit more challenging. Iowa Farm Bureau president Craig Hill says – for now – his organization is not promoting any specific solutions to water funding. “We’re leaving it open to our legislative leaders to find a way, a pathway, to add this long-term, dedicated funding stream that will provide us the confidence we can invest and have a commitment from the state,” Hill says.

The Iowa Soybean Association (ISA) is also taking a more general approach, according to I-S-A president Roland Schnell of Newton. “We came out last year in support of the governor’s plan, and we’ve been supportive of the ‘I WILL’ three-eighth of a cent plan,” Schnell says. “But we’re really not nailing down anything specific, because we want to make sure the people understand that we’re supportive of anything that will provide us with long-term funding.”

Schnell says everything that happens in the 2017 Iowa legislature will take place with state budget constraints as the backdrop.

(Reporting by Ken Anderson, Brownfield Ag News)

With KJAN News Director Ric Hanson.

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Sheriff’s officials in Adams County say a Union County man was arrested Sunday afternoon, on a drug charge. 31-year old Nathan Richard Hulett, of Creston, was arrested for unlawful possession of a prescription drug medication, and a was being held in the Adams County Jail.

A state official who hires lawyers says more law school graduates are intentionally aiming to take jobs defending clients who cannot afford their own attorney. “I hear stories from the past where sometimes they’d only have one applicant for a position and, even if they weren’t particularly pleased with that person, they’d be stuck with them, but that has certainly not been the case since I’ve been public defender.”

Adam Gregg has been the State Public Defender for the past two years, overseeing a staff with about 150 attorneys. He says many law school graduates were unable to find work after the last recession. “We have really outstanding applicants,” Gregg says. “I can’t think of an opening that we’ve had in recent times where we haven’t had multiple people that we would have liked to extend the offer to.”

That hasn’t always been the case. Law school grads have traditionally sought higher paying jobs, but Gregg says in addition to the recession, there are a growing number of aspiring attorneys who train specifically to represent poor clients. “From the legal clinic experiences that they take to the elective courses that they take, you can see that they have built themselves towards that…so it gets hard to pick from among numerous people of that same profile,” Gregg says. “What has often happened is we’ll have someone who has applied for one position, maybe came in second or third place in that, but then they’re number one at the next opening…The other thing I like about that caliber of applicant is they’re willing to do it anywhere.”

Gregg recently had an applicant who lost out on a public defender job based in Ottumwa, but reapplied and got a similar job in Waterloo. Some new public defenders can “burn out quickly,” according to Gregg. “It is a challenging job with a high caseload and sometimes they’re not well appreciated,” Gregg says. “…But those who really understand what the job is going to be like and maybe have had some of that experience know what they’re getting in to and tend to be ‘true believers’ in doing that work and we’ll have them stick around for a very long time.”

Anyone accused of a crime that can result in jail time if they’re convicted is entitled to a lawyer. If they cannot afford an attorney, the state has a group of attorneys on staff who work on those cases. The state also pays some local attorneys to represent indigent clients in criminal court.

(Radio Iowa)

A man and his son from Adams County were injured last Friday morning in a crash north of Kansas City, on Interstate 29.  According to the Missouri State Highway Patrol, 30-year-old Nathaniel A. Bennett and 2-year-old Sawyer Bennett, both of Corning and both of whom were wearing their seat belts, were transported to the North Kansas City Hospital following the accident that happened on southbound I-29 near Dearborn, MO., at around 9:30 a.m., Friday.

Officials say Nathaniel Bennett was driving a 2012 Buick Verano southbound on I-29 and failed to observe a 2012 Ford F-350 pickup that had stopped in a line of traffic congestion. Bennett’s car hit the back of the pickup, driven by 42-year-old Heather Hoepker, of Maryville, Missouri.  Bennett’s car, which was totaled in the crash, came to rest on the west side of the roadway. Hoepker’s pickup sustained moderate damage, but was driveable. It came to a controlled stop on the shoulder.  Hoepker was not injured in the crash.

Police in Council Bluffs are investigating the robbery late Sunday night, of a convenience store. Authorities say the Kum & Go at 154 Bennett Avenue in Council Bluffs was robbed at around 11:10-p.m. Sunday, by an 18-to 24-year old black male wearing a charcoal colored hooded sweatshirt, a black face mask and dark colored jeans.

The suspect entered the store and demanded the cash drawer be opened. He then went behind the counter and attempted to take cigarettes. As the suspect was leaving the store he pushed the clerk. No weapon was displayed during the incident. The suspect was not located and the investigation is ongoing.

If you have any information regarding the incident, please contact Crime Stoppers at (712)328-STOP (7867).

CHICAGO (AP) — Travel conditions remain hazardous across much of the northern Great Plains as a winter storm continues to sweep across the region. The combination of freezing rain, snow and high winds that forced the shutdown Sunday of vast stretches of highways in the Dakotas was forecast to continue into Monday morning. The storm has also caused widespread power outages in the Dakotas, Nebraska and western Iowa.

As of 1 a.m. Monday, the South Dakota Rural Electric Association was reporting 10,231 “member-consumer-owners” were without power. In Nebraska, high winds were cited for hundreds of power outages in central and eastern portions of the state.

The weather service office in Bismarck, North Dakota, predicted snow accumulations of 8 to 15 inches in western parts of the state and thunderstorms in the central region.