(Atlantic, Iowa) – Atlantic School District School Business Official (SBO)/School Board Secretary Sarah Sheeder has announced her resignation. She submitted her resignation on Monday. Sheeder said she has accepted a position at AC/GC schools, as a shared School Business Official.  Her contract was approved by the Guthrie Center Board of Directors Tuesday night. Her resignation letter is shown below. Sheeder is the second person in the ACSD Administration to resign. Superintendent Steve Barber has announced his resignation, effective at the end of the current school year.

(Red Oak, Iowa) – A law enforcement officer suffered minor injuries during a residential structure fire Tuesday evening, in Red Oak. Red Oak Fire Chief John Bruce the blaze at 1903 200^th Street was reported at around 6:49-p.m.

The first crews at the scene reported a heavy fire coming from the north side of the residence, with the blaze extending to the first floor. Firefighters conducted defensive exterior ground operations before moving inside the structure to suppress the fire. Three adults and one child evacuated the home without injury.

The law enforcement officer was injured while assisting with a hose hook-up to the fire hydrant. The officer was treated and released from the hospital.

Photo courtesy the Red Oak Fire Dept.

Chief Bruce said the fire begin with wind driven embers from a fire pit located about 10 yards to the north of the residence. Those embers ignited the vegetation along a fence line, and started the northwest portion of the first floor on fire. The blaze eventually breached the first-floor windows, and entered the residence. The home sustained extensive fire, smoke, and water damage.

Mutual aid was requested from the Stanton and Elliott fire departments. Additional entities at the scene included Essex Rescue, Officers with the Red Oak Police Department, Montgomery County Sheriff’s Deputies, MidAmerican Utilities, and the American Red Cross. Montgomery County Communications was also a part of the emergency response.

(Atlantic, Iowa) – Officials with the Atlantic Community School District today (Wednesday) announced Superintendent Steve Barber has made the decision to resign as superintendent from the Atlantic Community School District effective June 30, 2023. The Board of Education said in their statement that they “would like to thank Mr. Barber for his years of service and commitment to the District. He has been a dedicated and conscientious leader who was committed to seeking improvement in all aspects of District operations and student achievement.

We wish Mr. Barber well in his future endeavors as we are already considering the next steps in the process of selecting our next superintendent. During this transition, we will seek community input and will keep our staff and the public updated throughout the process.”

No reason was given for Mr. Barber’s decision to resign.

(Carson, Iowa) – Riverside Community School District has announced that Casey Moran, Assistant Director of Special Education for the Council Bluffs Community School District and Dr. Stephanie Anderson, Director of Elementary Education and Student Services, Fort Dodge Community School District have been selected as the finalists for the Riverside Community School District Superintendent position. Stakeholder groups and the School Board will complete final interviews on Wednesday April 5, 2023.

The Board had sixteen applications and interviewed six semifinalists before selecting them for final interviews. Current Riverside Superintendent, Dr. Timothy Mitchell, announced his retirement in January and will be leaving the District at the end of the 2023-2024 school year.

Read more about the finalists HERE.

(Radio Iowa) – The Iowa D-N-R was recently called to a hotel parking lot in Sioux City to remove a porcupine. D-N-R wildlife biologist Vince Evelsizer, says it’s pretty rare in today’s world to see them, but they do get around one porcupine call every three to five years. He says porcupines are are native to our state and are a species that was nearly wiped out or pretty well wiped out the mid to late 1800s and early 1900s.

Evelsizer says the porcupines were probably killed off because people thought they posed a danger, or they ate them. He says it’s likely porcupine wandered in from a neighboring state. Evelsizer says it’s not true that they can shoot their quills at objects like animals or people.

DNR photo

The quills do pose a problem if a dog or a person comes in contact with a porcupine because they are one way barbs that once they’re lodged in a dog’s mouth are pretty hard to get out.

(Radio Iowa) – One of the state’s largest independent agricultural banks is releasing the results of its annual survey of thousands of farmers, gauging their opinions on a range of topics. Bank Iowa president and C-E-O Jim Plagge says 67-percent of farmers surveyed said they believed the ag economy would be the same or stronger in 2023, while more than 70-percent felt they were in the same shape or better off financially as the prior year. Finding labor was the top concern on last year’s survey, but Plagge says finding ‘qualified labor’ moved to number-one this year.

The survey finds technology is leading the way in terms of investment decisions. In the past two years, the percentage of farmers who say they’re considering investing in ag-tech jumped from 22- to 36-percent.

(Radio Iowa) – U.S. Senator Joni Ernst will be hosting her annual “Roast and Ride” fundraiser on June 3rd and it could be a showcase for some of the G-O-P’s 2024 presidential candidates.  In June of 2015, seven Republican presidential candidates appeared with Ernst at her first “Roast and Ride” fundraiser. A year later, Donald Trump was the event’s main speaker. Six years ago, Mike Pence — who was vice president at the time — rode a Harley down a path to the event’s main stage in Boone.

The Ernst campaign has announced tickets are now on sale for the event this June at the Iowa State Fairgrounds and “special guests” will be announced soon. When Ernst launched her annual “Roast and Ride” event soon after winning a seat in the U.S. Senate, she said her goal was to showcase the party’s top candidates, just as former Senator Tom Harkin had done with his annual “steak fry” for Democratic presidential hopefuls.

Ernst, though, serves up pork rather than beef and hosts a motorcycle ride in the morning before the rallies in the afternoon.

(Radio Iowa) – Governor Kim Reynolds has issued a disaster proclamation for six more counties in response to last Friday’s storms. The governor’s latest proclamation allows state resources to be utilized to recover from the effects of this severe weather in Appanoose, Davis, Iowa, Jackson, Lucas, and Monroe counties. The proclamation activates the Iowa Individual Assistance Grant Program for qualifying residents, along with the Disaster Case Management Program for those counties.

The Governor already issued disaster proclamations for Cedar, Clinton, Delaware, Des Moines, Dubuque, Grundy, Johnson, Keokuk, Linn, Mahaska, Wapello, and Washington counties for the same storms.

Boone County, Iowa – The Iowa Department of Public Safety, Tuesday (April 4, 2023), said 50-year-old Dallas Wingate, a former Boone County Sheriff’s Deputy and K-9 handler, was charged with the death of K-9 deputy Bear. Wingate, who turned himself in at the Story County Jail, has been charged with one count of Injury or Interference of a Police Dog Service, a class D felony.

On September 2, 2022, the Boone County Sheriff’s Office requested DCI investigate after Bear was found dead inside Wingate’s K-9-equipped police vehicle. The investigation showed that Wingate placed Bear inside his enclosed vehicle on the evening of September 1. Nearly twenty-two hours later, Wingate opened the vehicle for the first time.

The Story County Attorney’s Office will prosecute this case.
Note: A criminal charge is merely an accusation and a defendant is presumed innocent until proven guilty.

Photo courtesy of Story County Sheriff’s Office

(Radio Iowa) – Governor Kim Reynolds has signed a bill into law that will consolidate 37 state agencies into just 16 departments and eliminate dozens of unfilled positions in state government.  “Not only will Iowans receive better service with alignment, they’ll get it at a lower cost,” Reynolds said. The governor paid a consultant nearly a million dollars to draft the reorganization plan.

“Iowa had significantly more cabinet departments than neighboring states and best practices, services were spread unpredictably across state government, really causing just unnecessary friction for Iowans,” Reynolds says. “What we also saw was just fractured organizational structure that was preventing capable, hardworking public servants from really reaching their full potential.”

The non-partisan Legislative Services Agency projects the plan will eliminate about 200 full time positions in state government that aren’t filled today and save about 12-and-a-half million dollars a year. The governor’s staff estimates the state will save about 215 million dollars over four years. Reynolds says efficiency is the main goal, making state government agencies, programs and licensing easier to navigate.

“If we save anything and streamline services and have a single mom or single dad trying to get services not have to go through 14 different doors to try to get an answer, then that’s a win for me,” Reynolds told reporters. The governor expects most if not all the changes to be in place when the next state fiscal year begins July 1st.

“I’m not saying there won’t be bumps. I mean this is a huge undertaking, but we’re going to do it right,” Reynolds says. “…If we need to slow down any of the alignments…we’ll do that.” The 16 state agency directors and Republican lawmakers gathered in the governor’s office at the statehouse for the bill signing ceremony on Tuesday afternoon.

Democratic leaders in the House and Senate say the plan dilutes the legislature’s authority and is a “power grab” by the governor. And House Democratic Leader Jennifer Konfrst says the bill was authored by out of state consultants without real input from Iowans.