COUNCIL BLUFFS, Iowa (AP) — It used to be that a blood donation was worth a free cookie and a cup of juice but a new effort to attract donors makes a donation of blood or platelets worth a free haircut. The Council Bluffs Nonpareil reports that the American Red Cross and Sports Clips shops in Iowa and Nebraska are offering a free haircut in exchange for a blood donation through September.

Tricia Quinn, CEO of the Red Cross Midwest Blood Services Region says the offer is part of a national promotion. In Nebraska seven Sports Clips shops in the Omaha area and two in Lincoln are participating. In Iowa, two shops in Cedar Rapids are among those participating along with others in Coralville, Dubuque, and North Liberty.

Details are online at www.sportclips.com/redcross .

SIOUX CITY, Iowa (AP) — A new contract giving the Sioux City school superintendent an $8,000 raise has boosted his salary to the third highest in the state. The Sioux City Journal reports Superintendent Paul Gausman will be paid $212,482 in the current school year. That’s behind the Des Moines superintendent’s $260,000 and Cedar Rapids’ at $220,972. The state’s third largest district, Davenport, will pay $195,868. The Sioux City district is the fourth largest in Iowa.

Sioux City school board member Doug Batcheller says the pay raise is meant to keep Gausman. Batcheller says Gausman has been approached four times about jobs elsewhere. Batcheller says an increase in student performance, improved graduation rates and declining dropout rates were key factors in the decision.

Gausman is entering his sixth year in Sioux City.

KIRON, Iowa (AP) – Investigators say a fatal house fire in the northwest Iowa town of Kiron was an accident.  Sioux City television station KTIV says the fire was reported about 9 a.m. Saturday. Firefighters put out the blaze, then found the body of 50-year-old Tina Reed.

Kiron is a town of about 280 that sits 60 miles east-southeast of Sioux City.

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) – The organizer of free Honor Flights to Washington, D.C., for Nebraska and western Iowa veterans of the Korean War says he’s booked a plane that he can’t yet pay for.  Bill Williams of Patriotic Productions in Omaha says he has a goal of $80,000 but has only $20,000 in donations so far.

He told the Lincoln Journal Star that he’s joined forces with his counterpart in southwest Iowa, who is in the same bind. The Iowa organizer also has raised just $20,000 toward his $80,000 goal.  They’ve booked the same plane for consecutive flights: Oct. 29 for the Nebraskans, Oct. 30 for the Iowans. Williams says that will save them about $20,000.