(Creston, Iowa) – Three people were arrested on separate charges, Saturday, in Creston. According to a Creston Police report, at around 1:15-a.m., 46-year-old Cassandra Marlena Davis, of Creston, was arrested for Driving While Suspended. She was cited at the scene and released on a Promise to Appear (in court).

At around 3-a.m., Saturday, Creston Police arrested 53-year-old William Jason Long, of Creston, for OWI/1st offense. He was later released on his Own Recognizance.

And, at around 10:25-a.m., Saturday, Police in Creston arrested 40-year-old Truston Michael Gray, of Creston, on a Union County warrant for Failure To Appear on a charge of Driving While Revoked. Gray later posted a $2,000 bond before being released from the Union County Jail.

(Primghar, Iowa via KCAU) — Sheriff’s officials in northwest Iowa’s O’Brien County report an 18-year-old man died Saturday, after an early morning single-vehicle accident. The driver of the vehicle was identified as Carter Halverson, of Paulina. Authorities received a 9-1-1 call about the crash southwest of Paulina, a little after 12-a.m., Saturday.

Officials say OnStar reported their system showed airbags had been deployed and there was one person in the driver’s seat. OnStar also indicated that the vehicle had possibly rolled over. When deputies arrived on scene they found a 2023 Chevy Malibu. Halvorson – who was ejected from the car – died at the scene.

A preliminary investigation revealed that the vehicle was traveling eastbound on 500th street when it left the road and entered the north ditch. The vehicle appeared to have hit a driveway and rolled at least once.
The accident remained under investigation.

(Radio Iowa) –  First quarter earnings for Winnebago Industries were down 18 percent to 625-point-six million dollars. The company C-E-O Michael Happe (Happy) says they sold fewer units and the average selling price per unit was down to give them a net loss five-point-two million dollars, compared to net income of nearly 26 million last year. Happe says the outdoor recreation products business continues to face a difficult operating environment marked by soft retail demand and a cautious dealer network.

He says that results in lower revenues and profitability for their towable and motorhome R-V segments. Happe says recent recreational vehicle sales trends show some potential positives in the near future.

(Radio Iowa) – The head of the largest food bank in the state says nearly 11 percent of Iowans do not have consistent, reliable access to nutritious food due to their household finances — and the rising cost of food. Food Bank of Iowa C-E-O Michelle Book says food prices are up 25 percent in the past four years. “There are 345,000 Iowans who are estimated to be in need food assistance,” Book says, “and of that, 100,000 are children.”

During the last school year, 42 percent of Iowa’s K-through-12 students were served free or reduced price lunches at school through the U-S-D-A’s national school lunch program. “I think the number that are eligible is probably much higher, but a lot of families either don’t have the ability to fill out the forms or they’re afraid to fill out the forms,” Book says. “I think it’s likely that 50% of our kids are food insecure across the state of Iowa and could take advantage of free and reduced breakfast and lunch if it were more available to them.” The Food Bank of Iowa — which supplies food pantries in 55 of Iowa’s 99 counties — is spending about a million dollars a month on food. “It’s a constant foot on the pedal,” Book says. And this year the Food Bank of Iowa will distribute about 230 percent more food than it did when Book started as the organization’s C-E-O in 2016. She is retiring on December 31st.

“In 2018, we renovated the existing facility in Des Moines. In 2018, we also acquired a failing Feeding America Food Bank in Ottumwa and brought that into our organization,” Book says. “We doubled our distribution space in the Des Moines facility, went from 30,000 square foot to 60,000 square foot last fall. We’ve upgraded from three trucks that were falling apart in 2016 to a fleet of 20 today.”

Book discussed her work at the Food Bank of Iowa during a recent episode of “Iowa Press” on Iowa P-B-S. There are three other Feeding America Food Banks in Iowa — in Davenport, Waterloo and Hiawatha — and the Food Bank of the Heartland in Omaha also serves western Iowa counties.

(Red Oak, Iowa) – Police in Red Oak report the arrest Sunday afternoon, of 60-year-old Scottie Alan Cetnar, of Red Oak. He was arrested in the 1000 block of Senate Avenue, on a Class-D Felony charge of Felon in Possession of a firearm and/or ammunition. Cetnar was booked into the Montgomery County Jail and held on a $5,000 bond.

(Elk Horn, Iowa) – Multiple area fire departments were requested to assist Elk Horn Fire Fire and Rescue battle a barn fire southwest of Elk Horn, Sunday night. The blaze was reported at 2531 500th Street, at around 8-p.m.

The site is the location of Greve Petroleum Services, according to online information.

Crews from Harlan, Marne and Walnut, were requested for manpower and equipment (water tanker trucks, mainly).

Additional information is currently not available.

EARLHAM, Iowa — A quick-thinking FedEx driver escaped harm after their trailer caught fire this weekend. KCCI reports Earlham Fire and Rescue posted pictures on social media, Saturday. Early that morning, Earlham Fire was requested to help DeSoto Fire crews. Flames were coming from one of the sets of tires on the truck.

The driver had managed to get the other trailer and semi tractor unhooked and away from the burning trailer before they arrived. The fire was quickly knocked down. (Photos from the Earlham Fire & Rescue Facebook page)

Fire crews say many boxes had to be removed to make sure everything was put out.

(Iowa News Service) –  Hundreds of people who were separated from society because they had disabilities are buried in a nondescript field at the former state institution here. Disability rights advocates hope Iowa will honor them by preventing the kind of neglect that has plagued similar cemeteries at other shuttered facilities around the U.S. The southwest Iowa institution, called the Glenwood Resource Center, was closed this summer in the wake of allegations of poor care. The last of its living residents were moved elsewhere in June. But the remains of about 1,300 people will stay where they were buried on the grounds.

The graveyard, which dates to the 1800s, covers several acres of sloping ground near the campus’s brick buildings. A 6-foot-tall, weathered-concrete cross stands on the hillside, providing the most visible clue to the field’s purpose. On a recent afternoon, dried grass clippings obscured row after row of small stone grave markers set flat in the ground. Most of the stones are engraved with only a first initial, a last name, and a number. “If somebody who’s never been to Glenwood drove by, they wouldn’t even know there was a cemetery there,” said Brady Werger, a former resident of the facility.

During more than a century of operation, the institution housed thousands of people with intellectual disabilities. Its population declined as society turned away from the practice of sequestering people with disabilities and mental illness in large facilities for decades at a time. The cemetery is filled with residents who died and weren’t returned to their hometowns for burial with their families. State and local leaders are working out arrangements to maintain the cemetery and the rest of the 380-acre campus. Local officials, who are expected to take control of the grounds next June, say they’ll need extensive state support for upkeep and redevelopment, especially with the town of about 5,000 people reeling from the loss of jobs at the institution.

Brady Werger lived at the Glenwood Resource Center from 2011 to 2018. He has since moved to a group home in Glenwood, for people with disabilities.

Hundreds of such places were constructed throughout the U.S. starting in the 1800s. Some, like the one in Glenwood, served people with disabilities, such as those caused by autism or seizure disorders. Others housed people with mental illness. Most of the facilities were built in rural areas, which were seen as providing a wholesome environment. States began shrinking or closing these institutions more than 50 years ago. The shifts were a response to complaints about people being removed from their communities and subjected to inhumane conditions, including the use of isolation and restraints. In the past decade, Iowa has closed two of its four mental hospitals and one of its two state institutions for people with intellectual disabilities.

After closures in some other states, institutions’ cemeteries were abandoned and became overgrown with weeds and brush. The neglect drew protests and sparked efforts to respectfully memorialize people who lived and died at the facilities. “At some level, the restoration of institutions’ cemeteries is about the restoration of humanity,” said Pat Deegan, a Massachusetts mental health advocate who works on the issue nationally. Deegan, who was diagnosed with schizophrenia as a teenager, sees the neglected graveyards as symbolic of how people with disabilities or mental illness can feel as if their individual identities are buried beneath the labels of their conditions.

Deegan, 70, helped lead efforts to rehabilitate a pair of overgrown cemeteries at the Danvers State Hospital near Boston, which housed people with mental illness before it closed in 1992. More than 700 former residents were buried there, with many graves originally marked only with a number. The Massachusetts hospital’s grounds were redeveloped into a condominium complex. The rehabilitated cemeteries now have individual gravestones and a large historical marker, explaining what the facility was and who lived there. The sign notes that some past methods of caring for psychiatric patients seem “barbarous” by today’s standards, but the text portrays the staff as well-meaning. It says the institution “attempted to alleviate the problems of many of its members with care and empathy that, although not always successful, was nobly attempted.”

Deegan has helped other groups across the country organize renovations of similar cemeteries. She urges communities to include former residents of the facilities in their efforts. Iowa’s Glenwood Resource Center started as a home for orphans of Civil War soldiers. It grew into a large institution for people with disabilities, many of whom lived there for decades. Its population peaked at more than 1,900 in the 1950s, then dwindled to about 150 before state officials decided to close it.

Werger, 32, said some criticisms of the institution were valid, but he remains grateful for the support the staff gave him until he was stable enough to move into community housing in 2018. “They helped change my life incredibly,” he said. He thinks the state should have fixed problems at the facility instead of shutting it. He said he hopes officials preserve historical parts of the campus, including stately brick buildings and the cemetery. He wishes the graves had more extensive headstones, with information about the residents buried there. He would also like to see signs installed explaining the place’s history.

Two former employees of the Glenwood facility recently raised concerns that some of the graves may be mismarked. But officials with the Iowa Department of Health and Human Services, which ran the institution, said they have extensive, accurate records and recently placed stones on three graves that were unmarked. Department leaders declined to be interviewed about the cemetery’s future. Spokesperson Alex Murphy wrote in an email that while no decisions have been made about the campus, the agency “remains committed to ensuring the cemetery is protected and treated with dignity and respect for those who have been laid to rest there.”

Glenwood civic leaders have formed a nonprofit corporation that is negotiating with the state over development plans for the former institution. “We’re trying to make the best of a tough situation,” said Larry Winum, a local banker who serves on the new organization’s board. Tentative plans include tearing down some of the existing buildings and creating up to 900 houses and apartments. Winum said redevelopment should include some kind of memorial sign about the institution and the people buried in the cemetery. “It will be important to us that those folks be remembered,” he said.

Activists in other states said properly honoring such places takes sustained commitment and money. Jennifer Walton helped lead efforts in the 1990s to properly mark graves and improve cemetery upkeep at state institutions in Minnesota. Some of the cemeteries are deteriorating again, she said. Activists plan to ask Minnesota legislators to designate permanent funding to maintain them and to place explanatory markers at the sites. “I think it’s important, because it’s a way to demonstrate that these spaces represent human beings who at the time were very much hidden away,” Walton said. “No human being should be pushed aside and ignored.”

On a recent day, just one of the Glenwood graves had flowers on it. Retired managers of the institution said few people visit the cemetery, but amateur genealogists sometimes show up after learning that a long-forgotten ancestor was institutionalized at Glenwood and buried there. Former grounds supervisor Max Cupp said burials had become relatively rare over the years, with more families arranging to have deceased residents’ remains transported to their hometown cemeteries.

One of the last people buried in the Glenwood cemetery was Kenneth Rummells, who died in 2022 at age 71 after living many years at the institution and then at a nearby group home overseen by the state. His guardian was Kenny Jacobsen, a retired employee of the facility who had known him for decades. Rummells couldn’t speak, but he could communicate by grunting, Jacobsen said. He enjoyed sitting outside. “He was kind of quiet, kind of a touch-me-not guy.” Jacobsen helped arrange for a gravestone that is more detailed than most others in the cemetery. The marker includes Rummells’ full name, the dates of his birth and death, a drawing of a porch swing, and the inscription “Forever swinging in the breeze.”

Jacobsen hopes officials figure out how to maintain the cemetery. He would like to see a permanent sign erected, explaining who is buried there and how they came to live in Glenwood. “They were people too,” he said.

Tony Leys wrote this story for KFF Health News.

Ames, Iowa — Sheriff’s officials in Story County are warning travelers about the dangers of impaired driving during the holidays, after recently arresting a woman for going the wrong way on the highway and allegedly driving while intoxicated. The video, posted on social media by the Story County Sheriff’s Office, shows a driver turning the wrong way onto Highway 30 toward Ames on Dec. 9. Audio in the video includes two callers who dialed 911 to alert dispatchers about the wrong-way driver.

(Still-frame image of Story County Deputies stopping an allegedly impaired driver) – Story County Sheriff’s Dept. Facebook page photo

The video shows deputies tracking down the driver, pulling over the vehicle and taking the driver — 27-year-old Sarafina Wilson — into custody. Wilson faces several charges, including OWI-second offense, driving on the wrong side of a two-way highway, second-degree theft and criminal mischief.

(Radio Iowa) – Iowans who have sidewalks and driveways they care for sometimes face a quandary during the wintertime about the use of salt to break up ice and provide traction. Aaron Steil, a consumer horticulture specialist at the Iowa State University Extension, says if you don’t use enough ice melt, you might slip and fall, but if you use too much, the eventual runoff could critically damage your lawn and nearby plants. “Excessive salt can be a problem, especially for those areas near sidewalks and driveways,” Steil says, “and the best option is just to not overuse salt.” The chemicals used in some ice-melting pellets can cause damage to your concrete, especially if it’s newly poured this year. Steil says there’s a simple remedy that only employs the use of two key ingredients.

“One of the things that we do here on the campus of Iowa State, that’s a really nice way to reduce salt but still have the safety that you need, is to mix salt with sand,” Steil says. “Doing that, you get some traction and you’re using less salt.” When spring arrives, you’ll likely know right away if you used too much salt, as anything that was growing nearby may be struggling — or it’s already dead. “When we have a buildup of salt in the soils next to these areas that are heavily salted, it can cause a drying out, as salt can desiccate roots and those kinds of things,” he says, “and so it can cause some damage when it’s in excess.”

Steil says it’s possible those plants can be revived in the spring with a heavy watering to wash out the salt.