Authorities in Corning, Monday, released additional information about a double drowning incident that took place Saturday in a farm pond near Prescott. During a press conference held the at Corning Fire Station, Emergency Management Director/Corning Fire Chief Donnie Willett and Adams County Sheriff Alan Johannes said they received a call from Tom and Lisa Frey, of Prescott, at around 5:34-p.m., with regard to their adopted, missing boys, ages eight and nine. The brothers had been playing on the family farm at 1623 Vanilla Avenue, when they failed to return to the home.

Corning Fire Chief/EMA Mgr. Donnie Willett (Left) & Adams County Sheriff Alan Johannes.

Willett said the parents discovered a hole in the ice and called 9-1-1. Numerous emergency crews were notified, including Adams County Fire & Rescue, the Corning, Prescott and Creston Fire and Rescue Departments, Deputies with the Union County Sheriff’s Office, and Union County Rescue, the Iowa State Patrol and the Midwest Regional Dive Team. But it was a dive team from the Creston Fire Department equipped with ice water recovery gear, who found the boys. Some of the boys’ clothing was found on top of the ice near the hole in the center of the pond.

The hole was located about 20-yards from shore. The body of one of the boys was found under the ice. The other body was found about 20-minutes later. Willett said the ice near the shore was about 2 ½ inches thick, but near the center, where the boys fell in, it was so thin you could punch a whole in it with your fist. The water at the point where they fell in was about 10-to 12-feet. Resuscitation efforts began immediately, and the boys were flown from the scene by helicopter to a trauma center.

Sheriff Johannes had some advice for anyone thinking about venturing onto the ice at this time of year. Make sure the ice is thick enough. In order for it to be strong enough to support a person, there should be a number of days of below freezing temperatures that will enable the ice to form a thick layer.

Powers Funeral Home in Creston has identified the boys as Nate and T-J Frey. Funeral arrangements are currently pending. The boys’ father owns the Creston Livestock Auction. The family has requested privacy from the public and the media.

The Atlantic Police Department reports the arrests of two North Dakota residents on theft and forgery charges on November 27th.  25-year-old Nicolas Olson and 28-year-old Kristina Schrupp both of Fargo, North Dakota were arrested and charged with Theft 5th Degree and 9 counts of Forgery.  Both were transported to the Cass County Jail and booked in and held.  The Atlantic Police Department was assisted by the Iowa State Patrol.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) – Car and truck dealers are planning to fight a possible fee increase suggested by the Iowa Department of Transportation.  The Des Moines Register reports that the department has suggested increasing the fee to 6 percent for vehicle registrations. The current 5 percent fee is applied every time a customer buys a new or used car or truck.

The DOT says the higher fee would keep pace with the state’s current 6 percent sales tax. It would generate an estimated $60 million more each year for road construction projects. Iowa does not impose a sales tax on car and truck purchases.

The Iowa Automobile Dealer Association’s 13-member board has voted unanimously to lobby lawmakers against the increase. The associated represents about 400 Iowa dealers.

A survey of college students in Iowa and four other states finds them more distracted in class than in years past due to smart phones and tablets. Barney McCoy, a journalism professor at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln, says the poll found the typical college student plays with their digital device 11 times a day and of those times, they’re checking text messages 86-percent of the time. “Websurfing was 38%,” McCoy says, while 67-percent were emailing and 66-percent were doing social networking.

Eight-percent admitted to playing games on their phones in class. The survey found 80-percent of students surveyed admitted their use of smart phones, tablets and laptops interferes with their learning. McCoy says he was surprised by one response as to how digital devices were being used while lectures were underway. “This is a generational issue, checking the time, 79%,” McCoy says. “I didn’t think about that until I realized a lot of my students don’t wear watches. They look at their smart phones to check the time.”

Ninety-percent of students surveyed admitted they weren’t paying attention in class because of texting or emailing. The study found students who were distracted often missed instructions and more than one-fourth said they lost grade points because of their digital habits. Still, McCoy says, students refuse to part with their gadgets.  “They expect to be connected at all times, including in the classroom,” he says. “They want to be able to use these devices to check their email or to do a text message if they feel like what’s taking place in the classroom might be boring them.”

In recent years, McCoy noticed more students were looking at their cell phones than their text books, so he undertook the multi-state study. With more than eight in ten students texting, he says, that’s clearly the biggest trouble spot. “We’re talking about conversations that are coming from beyond the walls of these classrooms now and they demand that you reply,” McCoy says. “They’re really conversations that are taking place, instead of just the distraction of being bored and maybe reading the newspaper instead of listening to what the instructor is talking about.”

Because they’re conversations, he says digital devices prove to be a bigger distraction than anything else. Nearly 800 students were surveyed at: Morningside College in Sioux City, Iowa; the University of Nebraska at Lincoln; the University of Nebraska at Omaha; the University of North Carolina; the University of Kansas and the University of Mississippi.

(Radio Iowa)