The AtlanticFest Committee has announced a new location for the Motorcycle Show at AtlanticFest this year to be held RAIN or SHINE on August 8th. Motorcycles will check-in at 7th and Chestnut Street just east of the City Park. Motorcycles will be lined along both sides of Chestnut between 6th and 7th street. Registration will be from 8:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. Judging will be from 12:00 – 1:30 p.m., followed by an awards presentation at 2:30 p.m.

There are 13 Classes for motorcycles to register in, including a Future Rider class for kids. Pre-registration is $10.00 and must be paid by July 24th. Registration beginning July 25th is $15.00. Pre-registered participants will receive a free AtlanticFest T-Shirt. The first 75 entries will receive complementary goodie bag.

The AtlanticFest Motorcycle Show is sponsored by Baxter Cycle in Marne and Steffens Cycle Shop, in Atlantic. AtlanticFest presenting partner is 1st Whitney Bank & Trust.

More area and State news from KJAN News Director Ric Hanson.

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The 7:06-a.m. report w/KJAN News Director Ric Hanson

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Iowa communities with a population of 5,000 or more, have the opportunity to learn more about tree care, identification and inventory through a grant from the Iowa Department of Natural Resources. The two-year grant program currently provides training and assistance to Atlantic, Fairfield, Grinnell, Marion, Marshalltown, Mason City, Muscatine, Oskaloosa and Pleasant Hill, and is now accepting applications for 10 additional communities in 2016.

Grant communities receive intensive training by a team from the DNR and members of the Iowa Arborists Association. Training covers tree identification, health, inventory, planting, corrective pruning and maintenance, benefits of urban trees, ordinances and community outreach.

Through the cooperative effort between the Iowa DNR and the U.S. Forest Service, each selected community will have a complete street tree inventory, canopy cover analysis, and an urban tree management plan with goals and methods to increase its tree canopy.

Grant applications and instructions are available online at http://www.iowadnr.gov/Environment/Forestry/UrbanForestry.aspx. The deadline to apply is September 1st.

Prairie Rose State Park, near Harlan, is welcoming some special visitors this week, and they are taking some of the parks’ land management issues into their own… mouths. This week, about 20 goats will arrive to chow down on non-native honeysuckle and other nuisance vegetation threatening to crowd-out native plants in the park’s woodlands. Park manager Michelle Reinig took the innovative step of hiring goats because “it just made so much sense.”

Reinig says “Our resource is looking rather ‘sick,’ being overtaken by the woodland fugitive honeysuckle not to mention a few other invasives. The goats will help us get a handle on this overwhelming problem while loving the work that they do. This is a more ‘green’ approach than other methods of invasive control, and we like the idea of conservation and agricultural working together.”

Goats On The Go, a targeted grazing company based in Ames, will provide the herd that will call Prairie Rose home for about 10 weeks. Aaron Steele, co-owner of the company, says goats “Like to eat weeds and brush more than grass, and many of our biggest nuisance plants are at the top of the goats’ (dining) list.”

Goats can be put to work controlling noxious honeysuckle, poison ivy, buckthorn and multiflora rose without the use of chemical herbicides or gas-powered machinery. They also happily work in areas that would be uncomfortable and even dangerous for human workers – like steep slopes and dense woods.

The DNR has successfully used goats in land management projects in other parts of the state, most notably on the steep slopes in northeast Iowa.

Police in Red Oak arrested a man Tuesday evening for Driving While Suspended, and OWI/2nd offense. 37-year old Jeffrey Dale Joiner, of Red Oak, was arrested at around 9-p.m. and taken to the Montgomery County Jail, where he was being held on $2,000 bond.

Iowa’s quest to become the healthiest state in the nation is getting a boost. The latest “Kids Count” survey, which ranks all 50 states for the well being of children, places Iowa near the very top. Laura Speer, a spokeswoman for the Annie E. Casey Foundation, says they look at 16 key criteria, including: education, health, economic well being, and family and community conditions. “Iowa was ranked 4th overall in terms of the well being of its children,” Speer says. “Where Iowa is really a shining star is in the area of health. The state is ranked #1 best in the country in terms of the physical health of children.” Minnesota ranked first overall on this year’s Kids Count report, followed by New Hampshire and Massachusetts, with Iowa a close fourth. Speer says Iowa is a clear leader of all states in several categories.

We looked at things like the percent of low birth-weight babies, the percent of children who lack health insurance, the child and teen death rates and the percent of teens who abuse alcohol or drugs,” Speer says. “In those four measures, Iowa is ranked the best in the country.” In last year’s report, Iowa ranked third in the nation overall, so the state’s fourth-place showing this year represents a slight drop. Iowa’s lost a little ground in one category in particular, according to Speer.

“One of the areas that is most disconcerting is the percent of children living in poverty in the state,” Speer says. “It’s about 16% of all children in Iowa who are living below the poverty line in 2013. That’s actually higher than in was in 2008 when it was 14%.” Iowa’s child poverty level is fairly low compared to many other states but Speer says it was still unfortunate to see that figure rise. The lowest-ranked states on the list are: Louisiana, New Mexico and Mississippi. See the full report at the Annie E. Casey Foundation website: www.aecf.org.

(Radio Iowa)