A southwest Iowa native has what she calls a “small but pivotal” role in a Hollywood movie that will premiere nationwide later this month. Melinda Simonsen is a Hamburg native and a 1979 Farragut High School graduate. Simonsen now lives in Norfolk, Nebraska, where parts of the movie, called “Nebraska,” were shot. Simonsen, who is a registered nurse — not an actress, says it all started when she answered a newspaper ad seeking locals to work as extras. “The emphasis was actually on farmer types — and I’m not a farmer — and people from the local area,” Simonsen says. “It was an email address. They just wanted a snapshot and to know how to contact you.”

About three weeks later, the film’s casting director, John Jackson, asked Simonsen to audition at the Norfolk Theater. The first audition consisted of her doing a read-through of the script with Jackson.  “He was reading the lines and I was saying the other lines, didn’t have it memorized, had a camera in the room so he was taping me,” she says. “He kept saying, ‘Melinda, don’t look at the camera,’ and I’m like, ‘Oh, heck,’ and left thinking I didn’t do very well.”

A few weeks after that, Simonsen was asked to audition for the director, Alexander Payne, whose earlier movies include “About Schmidt,” “Sideways,” and “The Descendants.” She says her audition apparently impressed the director as she got the part. “He did say, ‘Melinda, you’re my favorite one for the receptionist,’ and he filled me in on when the filming would be done. My part was filmed in Lincoln.”

Well-known actors Bruce Dern and Stacy Keach star in the film. A movie website says it follows an aging, booze-addled man who makes the trip from Montana to Nebraska with his estranged son to claim a million-dollar lottery prize. “Nebraska” opens nationwide November 22nd but a special screening will be held this Friday (November 15th) at the Film Streams Theater in Omaha.

(Radio Iowa)

The Iowa Department of Public Health is using a five-point-three-million dollar grant from the U-S-D-A to upgrade the system that provides benefits for the Women, Infants and Children or WIC food and nutrition program. Program manager, Brandy Benedict, says they will move away from sending out paper checks to giving participants plastic cards. She says the participants will then use those cards at the grocery store to purchase their benefits.

The transition is similar to the changeover in the Food Stamp Program, which went from the paper food stamps to electronic benefit cards. Benedict says the federal grant will be used to hire a company to develop the electronic system. “We’ve partnered with Colorado WIC so the R-F-P (request for proposals) is actually posted on the Colorado bid system and the Iowa bid system,” Benedict says. She says they will begin evaluating the bids around January.

While the changeover is similar to what the food stamp program went through, Benedict says there are enough differences that they can’t share the same electronic system. “Their cards actually are very similar to a prepaid credit type card or debit card type card that you can purchase as a gift card. WIC is based on specific products,” Benedict explains.

The WIC system will be designed specifically them. Benedict says, “Our cards have to be set up to house products and U-P-C’s rather than dollars.” So for example, the WIC cards could be loaded to allow the recipient to receive five gallons of milk, and after they purchased one gallon, the card balance would drop to four gallons. Retailers are then reimbursed for the cost of the milk. Benedict says the program operates very efficiently right now and they don’t expect to see much in savings from switching to an electronic system versus paper.

“The benefits that we’ll see are related to better prevention of fraud since there will be different types of authentication on the cards — which we can’t protect the paper checks in the same way,” Benedict says. The Iowa WIC Program served approximately 69-thousand-159 participants each month last year. The federal government has required all states to shift to the electronic system for WIC by 2020.

(Radio Iowa)