Authorities say no one is actively being sought in connection with the death of a woman whose body was found near Elliott early Monday morning. Officials say 47-year old Carman M. O’Dell was discovered in a grassy field on the northern edge of Elliott, at around 4:40-a.m., Monday. According to the Iowa Department of Public Safety, her death did not appear to be suspicious.

Carman O’Dell (Photo from Duhn Funeral Home website)

An autopsy was performed by Dr. Dennis Klein of the Iowa Office of the State Medical Examiner in Ankeny. The cause and manner of her death are being withheld until the full autopsy report is complete. The Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation (DCI), Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office and the Iowa Office of the State Medical Examiner assistied with the investigation.

No further information will be released until the autopsy reports are complete. Funeral services for Carman O’Dell will be held 10:30-a.m. Friday, at the Central Church of Christ, in Griswold.

SOLDIER, Iowa (AP) – Officials have confirmed that a body recovered from a lake in western Iowa is that of a farmer reported missing in November. Monona County Sheriff Jeff Pratt says the Iowa State Medical Examiner’s Office identified the body as 68-year-old Walter Ordway, of Soldier. His body was pulled from a lake at Oldham Recreation Area near Soldier on Saturday.

In December, hunters found a pickup owned by Ordway near the recreation area. The Monona County Sheriff’s Office says it’s believed that Ordway took his dog for an outing on Nov. 17 and that the dog fell through the like ice into the freezing water. Officials say Ordway must have fallen into the water while trying to rescue his dog. The dog’s body was found nearby.

COUNCIL BLUFFS, Iowa (AP) – A citation has been upheld against a dental hygiene professor at Iowa Western Community College for allowing students to perform dental work unsupervised.
The Daily Nonpareil reports that dental hygiene students performed several services, including applying fluoride varnishes, without the supervision of a licensed dentist as part of Family Inc.’s I-Smile program, which offers free clinics at schools and other sites across Pottawattamie and Mills counties.

The professor was fined $75 on Feb. 25 by the Iowa Dental Board. The professor has an active license with the dental board, and is in good standing, according to the board’s online database. A spokesman for Iowa Western’s Dental Hygiene Program said that the school inadvertently did not follow a standard in the Iowa Dental Code, and has taken steps to make sure that their clinical activities follow the standards of the dental profession.

A summit is scheduled today (Thursday) in Des Moines to discuss the creation of a wireless broadband network dedicated to public safety. Ric Lumbard, executive director of the Iowa Communications Network, says it’s part of the federal initiative know as FirstNet.  “The general background for FirstNet was in the backdrop of the Boston Marathon bombing, where during major crisis events like this, the commercial cellular systems were unable to support public safety use of cellular during that time,” Lumbard told Radio Iowa. The FirstNet system would create a nationwide public safety communications network.

Lumbard offered some examples of how the network could benefit first responders in Iowa. “The easiest one is something very unique to Iowa, RAGBRAI, where we have a moving city of 25,000 to 30,000 people moving through rural Iowa where most of the commercial cell infrastructure is not built for that level of capacity,” Lumbard said. The system dedicated to public safety could also be important if there were a crisis situation at the Iowa State Fair or a large sporting event.

“Even a major weather event, such as flooding or tornadoes, those are not the times that public safety needs to contend with the private sector for commercial broadband space,” Lumbard said. FirstNet (short for “First Responder Network Authority”) has agreed to pay for the deployment of the nationwide system, but would likely recoup those costs through subscriptions to the service, according to Lumbard. Today’s meeting is scheduled for 1:00 to 3:30 p.m. at the Iowa Utilities Board headquarters in Des Moines.

(Radio Iowa)

Learn more about the Iowa FirstNet project here: http://www.connectiowa.org/