Rainfall overnight in Atlantic (at the KJAN studios), as of 7-a.m. Sunday (Oct. 14th), was 1.06″.  That is also our 24-hour total. The rain had pretty much ended by 7-a.m., with just some light drizzle remaining in town. Total rainfall for Atlantic, including the Friday-Saturday precipitation, amounted to 1.93-inches.

The Iowa Department of Education has named Bloomer Elementary School in Council Bluffs, as the best in the State at educating students in learning English. The school is set to receive the IDED’s “Breaking Barriers” award, next month. The institution is one of five schools scheduled to receive the honor.

The IDED says Bloomer Elementary was the only Iowa schools awarded for how its English-learning students did on the state math and reading tests, as compared with the state average for the same group of students. Districts and schools receive the distinction for narrowing the achievement gaps between better-off groups of students, and disadvantaged groups, such as those students learning English or students from low-income families.

The Council Bluffs Police Department reports a passenger in a vehicle that crashed into a house Saturday died, while the driver of the car was injured. The accident happened at around 4:47-p.m. Saturday, near North 16th Street and Avenue F. The names of the victims were released late Sunday night.

Officials say a 1990 Geo Prizm driven by 47-year old Patrick Coover, of Council Bluffs, was traveling north on North 16th Street, when for reasons unknown, the car crossed over the center median heading in a westerly direction across Avenue F. The car then crashed into the side of an unoccupied  residence at 1602 Avenue F. Coover and a transient passenger in the car, 36-year old Rogers Williams Jackson, were transported to the hospital, where Jackson was pronounced dead. Coover was being treated at the Creighton University Medical Center. A report on his condition is not available.

The crash remain under investigation. Authorities say alcohol is believed to have been a contributing factor to the crash, while speed may-or-may not have played a role. Anyone who witnessed the crash is asked to contact the Council Bluffs Police Department’s Special Operations/Traffic Unit. Call 712-328-4948.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Severe thunderstorms were expected throughout the midsection of the country on Saturday, but many in Iowa are likely happy to see the rain after a summer of drought. The National Weather Service says much of the state will get at least some rain, with some areas in south central Iowa getting as much as 2 inches by today (Sunday). Iowa has struggled with record drought this year. As late as Thursday, three-fourths of the state remained in extreme or exceptional drought — the two worst classifications.

Here is the latest Iowa news from The Associated Press

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A grave marker belonging to a 6-month old child who died in 1986 apparently wasn’t stolen after all. Last week, employees of the Council Bluffs recycling Center found a plaque with the name Megan Alaine Kjellberg, in a recycling bin. A report Thursday in the Council Bluffs Daily Nonpareil stated Council Bluffs Police Capt. Terry LeMaster and other authorities, feared someone had stolen the marker in an attempt to sell it for scrap metal. LeMaster said area cemeteries and funeral directors were checked, as well as funeral and obituary databases and reports about stolen items.  He wondered if someone might have stolen the marker thinking it was solid copper. When it turned out to be only copper coated, it was tossed into a recycling bin.

While an initial attempt by authorities to find where the marker belongs failed, newspaper and broadcast reports  asking citizens for help in locating the child’s burial site paid off. LeMaster told the Nonpareil that they received several phone calls, some coming from as far away as Wisconsin.  But one call in particular solved the mystery. A person left a message asking authorities to check the website of Forest Lawn Cemetery in Omaha.

The Forest Lawn Cemetery has an alphabetical online record of everyone buried at the facility, and there in the K section was the name Megan Alaine Kjellberg. According to the cemetery, she is buried in the “Garden of the Apostles,” on the eastern edge of the property one row back of a lane that passes through the section. LeMaster said his department called the cemetery, which confirmed the plot number. After checking the records, it was determined the girls’ family had placed a new headstone on the grave in 1999 and had taken possession of the old one.

It’s still not clear how the removed marker made it to the recycling bin, though. If the family does not respond to the calls from police asking them to claim the marker, it would be considered found property and processed accordingly. LeMaster told the paper he was happy to know there isn’t a child’s grave out there without a marker, and that concerned citizens worked in concert to make sure that is wasn’t the case.

Here is the latest Iowa news from The Associated Press