The 2017 Cass County Relay for Life is ready for a night of remembrance and celebration on Friday, June 23rd at the Atlantic High School. Relay Coordinator Carole Schuler says the night will begin for area Cancer Survivors at 4:30pm with check in for the Survivor meal.

This year’s event will have some exciting new additions. One of those changes will be a special pennant ceremony that will take place at the beginning of the event at 6:00pm on the high school track.

The pennant ceremony will replace the traditional luminary ceremony in order to allow more people to hear those names of loved ones being remembered and honored. For pennants that are purchased the rest of the night another reading will take place before the band takes the stage for evening entertainment.

Jett Black will perform beginning at about 7:30pm.  Villa Dance will also provide entertainment on the stage beginning at 6:45pm.

The survivor lap will follow the opening pennant ceremony to celebrate another year for all survivors involved.

Relay is a family friendly event with kids activities, walking the track to support the fight, education tent for cancer support and healthy lifestyle information, and other fun fundraising events through the night. Food will be available to purchase from Troublesome Creek BBQ, Atlantic Kiwanis, and Lewis Life Preservers with a portion of proceeds going back to Relay.

A tractor ride will also be going on throughout the day and that begins with registration at 8:00am at the Cass County Fairgrounds with the ride leaving at 9:00am.

Find out more about Cass County Relay for Life on Facebook: Relay for Life Cass County, Iowa or on the web at www.relayforlife.org/casscountyia Listen to Jim Field’s Full interview with Carole Schuler on our Heartbeat Today program below.

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A cattle industry analyst says this spring’s unexpected cattle market turnaround bodes well for the future of the industry. Doctor Nevil (NEV-ul) Speer, CEO of Agri-Clear, was the keynote speaker at an Iowa Cattlemen’s Association regional BeefMeet event in Creston this week. He says the fact that this spring’s cattle market rally was driven by increased consumer demand for beef is a very positive sign.

Speer points to two positive indicators that the increase in demand is “real.”

The other positive indicator, according to Speer, is the new record for the choice-select spread, at a higher level of beef production versus last year’s record high.

The challenge, Speer added, is to keep producing high quality beef that’s increasingly consistent. In addition to Tuesday’s event in Creston, the Iowa Cattlemen’s Association hosted regional BeefMeet events earlier this month in Dubuque and Ottumwa. Another BeefMeet is scheduled for today (Thursday) in Le Mars.

(Radio Iowa/Reporting by Ken Anderson, Brownfield Ag News)

A survey by the Iowa Department of Natural Resources found no discernible damage to wildlife after a large milk spill in Adair County near Fontanelle.  Dan Olson with the D-N-R says an accident led to the milk leaking out of a tanker truck into an unnamed tributary which flowed into the Middle Nodaway River. Olson says it created a 50-yard plume in the water, but he found no visible damage.

The accident happened along Highway 92 Sunday and Olson says the flow of the water probably helped dilute the milk.

He says it’s not the milk itself that poses a danger, but the reaction created as the milk breaks down.

Olson says this was a little different from the spills he normally investigates.

The Wisconsin-based transport company used a vacuum truck to clean up some of the spilled milk from a ditch. Olson says he’s still waiting to see the weight tickets from the vehicles to try and determine exactly how much milk may have spilled into the waterway. The tanker could have been carrying as much as 75-hundred gallons of milk.

(Radio Iowa)

The Creston Police Department reports two arrests Wednesday night and another early Thursday morning.

At 10:20pm Officers arrested 30-year-old Crystal Estell and 22-year-old Katelyn Armstrong, both of Creston, in the 200 block of South Lincoln Street on the charge of Disorderly Conduct. Both were later released from the Union County Jail on $300 bond each.

Early this (Thursday) morning at 12:30am Officers arrested 55-year-old Robert McCrory of Greenfield at 210 North Oak Street. McCroy was charged with Possession of a Controlled Substance 3rd Offense.  He was also arrested on a Union County Warrant for Violation of Probation on the original charge of Possesion of a Controlled Substance 2nd Offense. He was taken to the Union County Jail and held awaiting a bond hearing.

w/Chris Parks.

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A Corning man was arrested on Wednesday by the Adams County Sheriff’s Office after a pursuit that started in Lenox with Taylor County Deputies.  The pursuit ended at a residence on 240th Street in Corning.

Deputies eventually arrested 21-year-old Ridge Allen Casteel of Corning on multiple drug charges. Several bags of Marijuana and Drug Paraphernalia were found inside the house and vehicle at 3050 240th Street in Corning.  Casteel faces charges of Possession with Intent to Deliver and Drug Tax Stamp Violation. He was taken into custody and held on $5,000 bond.

The Red Oak Police Department reports the arrest of an Omaha man on a charge of Child Endangerment Wednesday. At 3:37pm officers arrested 41-year-old Alejandro Garcia-Pimentel of Omaha in the parking lot of the BP Gas Station at 1715 North Broadway Street in Red Oak. He was taken to the Montgomery County Law Enforcement Center and held on $2,000 bond. No further details were provided at this time.

Concept Photo

First Whitney Bank delivered a proposal to the Atlantic City Council on Wednesday night to construct a sculpture of Atlantic founder Franklin Whitney on Chestnut Street.  The bank wants to gift the sculpture in honor of Atlantic’s 150th Anniversary in 2018.

Bank President Paul Gude delivered the proposal to the council.

“What I am asking the city council to do is approve the construction of a center island on Chestnut Street between the First Whitney Bank and the Whitney Hotel.”

The monument on the center island would be a bronze casting sculpture to commemorate Franklin Whitney’s founding of the City of Atlantic.

The proposal would have Scott Smith and Troy Muller from the First Century Art Guild in Kimballton build the sculpture.  The sculpture would take about a year to complete if approved and First Whitney Bank would fund the entire project.

The island would be about 7 feet wide and 30-40 feet long.

The Council appeared to favor approval of the project but no action could be taken yet.

Listen to Jim Field’s interview with First Whitney Bank CEO Paul Gude about the project on our Heartbeat Today program below.

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OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — With a heat index creeping into the triple digits, the Salvation Army in Omaha has opened cooling stations in Omaha and neighboring Council Bluffs, Iowa. The cooling centers will offer an air-conditioned reprieve from the heat through Thursday, as well as bottled water to help people hydrate.

The centers are located at the Burrows Center in eastern Omaha, the Kroc Center in southeastern Omaha, North Corps in northeastern Omaha and Council Bluffs Corps across the Missouri River in western Iowa. Most of the centers are open from 9 a.m. until 4 p.m. on weekdays. The Kroc Center is open from 8 a.m. until 8 p.m.

The temperature in Omaha by mid-afternoon Wednesday was around 95 degrees, but the heat index was over 100 degrees.

Two people in a 2005 Chevy Cobalt were injured Wednesday, during a rollover accident in Monona County. The Iowa State Patrol reports the driver, 40-year old Dale James Swan, of South Sioux City, NE., and his passenger, 37-year old Amanda Kay Swan, of Sioux City, IA., were transported to hospitals in Onawa and Sioux City, respectively, with Dale Swan being sent by Whiting Rescue, and Amanda Swan transported by Mercy Air Care.

The Patrol says they were traveling north on Interstate 29 at around 4-p.m. near the Whiting exit (mile marker 120), when for reasons unknown, the car drove off the road and into a gore, rolling over several times before coming to rest on its top in the gore. Amanda Swan was extricated from the vehicle by mechanical means.

The accident remains under investigation.