Atlantic, Iowa — Officials with the Southwest Iowa Planning Council (SWIPCO) are welcoming a new Grants Specialist. Mary Auten will work to ensure that complex rules established by state and federal funding agencies are followed to maximize the impact of investments in our communities, reduce the administrative burden on our member communities, and increase the likelihood of future funding into our region.

Auten said in a press release, “I have spent most of my career doing work that many other companies can do, and I am excited for the opportunity to fulfill a specific need for our communities that helps people and communities directly. I understand how important it is to maintain compliance with programs and regulations, and I am happy I get to help people and our southwest Iowa communities thrive by using the skills I have gained throughout my career.”

Mary Auten

Auten lives in Casey (Iowa). She is a graduate of Coon Rapids high school and completed her degree through William Penn University. She spent most of her career working in banking and insurance and most recently she was with Wells Fargo home mortgage. SWIPCO Executive Director John McCurdy said “Almost all of the programs that we work with at SWIPCO come with an enormous amount of rules attached. They should, because they are public funds. But, they can be hard for our communities to follow, so it’s great when you can add someone like Mary to your team who has a wealth of experience working on complex administrative problems, with a great attention to detail, and also the passion for the region that you’ve got to have to be successful in this type of work.”

(Atlantic, Iowa) – The Atlantic Police Department reports numerous arrests and/or citations took place over the past few weeks. Most recently:

• Last Saturday (Nov. 12), 35-year-old Rinanten Amo, of Atlantic, was arrested for Public Intoxication, and, 23-year-old Logan Russell, of Atlantic, was arrested for OWI/1st offense, and Driving While License denied or revoked.
• On the 7th, 24-year-old Ason Pisalil, of Atlantic, was arrested for Disorderly Conduct.
• On Nov. 6th, 28-year-old Nicholas Renner, of Atlantic, was arrested for Domestic Abuse Assault, Possession of a Controlled Substance (Marijuana), and Possession of Drug Paraphernalia.
• 75-year-old Rose Henderson, of Anita, was cited into court and then released November 4th, on a charge of Theft in the 4th Degree (Shoplifting); and, 36-year-old Sapas Ramisin, of Atlantic, was arrested for Public Intox. and Disorderly Conduct.
• Atlantic Police arrested 31-year-old Dillon Harry, of Orient, on Nov. 3rd. He was charged with OWI/1st offense.
• On Nov. 1st, 39-year-old Darryl Gillett, of Orlando, FL, was arrested for Public Intox.; and, Laura Jurchen was cited into court for Assault causing bodily injury, and then released at the scene.
• And finally, on October 18th, Atlantic Police cited Stephen Foote, of Atlantic into court, for Criminal Mischief in the 5th Degree.

(Atlantic, Iowa) – The Atlantic Police Department report a man was cited following a three vehicle accident Friday morning at 7th and Walnut Streets. Authorities say a vehicle driven by Case Arnold, of Atlantic, was traveling east on 7th Street at around 7:33-a.m. and approaching the intersection with Walnut Street. His traffic light was red. A Chevy Malibu driven by Chelsey Christensen, of Atlantic, was southbound on Walnut with a green traffic light, and an SUV driven by Richard Whetstone, of Atlantic, was northbound on Walnut, waiting on a red light to change green. Police says Arnold ran the red light and struck the Christensen car in the intersection and pushed that vehicle into the stopped SUV. 

The Chevy HHR Arnold was driving eventually struck a tree at 705 Walnut and came to rest. Case Arnold was transported by Cass EMS to Cass Health, for treatment of non-lifethreatening injuries. Christensen suffered non-lifethreatening injuries also, and went to the hospital in a private vehicle. Arnold was cited for Failure to Provide Insurance, Failure to Obey a Traffic Control Device, and having no valid Driver’s license. Damage to the primary crash vehicles was estimated at $15,000 each, while the Jeep SUV sustained about $3,000 damage.

(Radio Iowa) – There’s still more than a month of fall left but winter weather is moving into Iowa today (Monday). It’s snowing in parts of northwest and north-central Iowa and meteorologist Craig Cogil, at the National Weather Service, says the snow will continue well into the afternoon. “Right now, it looks like the accumulations are mostly going to be in the about the top three tiers or so of Iowa,” Cogil says, “the heaviest right along the border where maybe up to two to three inches of snow are expected today.”

A Winter Weather Advisory is posted for Dickinson, Emmett, Kossuth and Winnebago counties. A second snow storm is forecast to move into Iowa from the south late tonight and move across central Iowa, heading east. “And that snow is going to last on and off until late Tuesday night/early Wednesday,” Cogil says, “and anywhere from one to three inches looks pretty widespread across the eastern two-thirds of the state.”

Even though winter doesn’t start until December 21st, Cogil says this second round of snowfall is relatively on target, roughly ten days early. “Typically, I know in the Des Moines area, right around November 25th is the average date of the first inch of snow, so you go north, it’s going to be sooner than that, you head south a little bit later,” Cogil says, “but so it’s not too far off the mark for it really.”

Snow that accumulates will likely be sticking around for several days as he says air temperatures are expected to stay quite cold, and there may not be a warming trend at least until next week.

(Radio Iowa) – Six people were killed in Texas after two historic military planes from the Commemorative Air Force collided midair and crashed Saturday during a Dallas air show. One of the planes was a B-17 bomber known as “Texas Raiders” that flew into Sioux City in July for the 80th anniversary of Sioux Gateway Airport. Larry Finley, director of Sioux City’s Mid America Museum of Aviation and Transportation, says the two pilots and the bomber’s crew members were all well trained. Finley says, “They’re all very experienced pilots and they are pilots for the Commemorative Air Force but they’re also pilots generally in commercial and military aviation, so they are a very experienced group.”

The restored World War Two-era bomber collided with a P-63 Kingcobra, a vintage fighter plane. Videos shot by spectators at the event show the Kingcobra fly into the bomber, causing them to immediately crash to the ground and explode. The National Transportation Safety Board had taken control of the crash scene and Finley says the investigation will be slow and methodical. “That can take a month or two for preliminary results from the NTSB, and then their final report may not be out for one to two years as far as the actual cause of the accident,” Finley says. “They have to go back and look at whatever parts are left that they can evaluate to see if it was a mechanical failure, or was it a human error.”

Commemorative Air Force “Texas Rangers” B-17.

Finley says Texas Raiders was one of just ten B-17s still in existence and just a couple of them were air-worthy.) “There were only three of the ten B-17s that were still flying. It was one of three that had returned to the air post-COVID,” he says. “They had pulled everything off from these air shows for almost two years.”

In July, the Texas Raiders flew for a week in Sioux City, with over a hundred people booking flights on the vintage aircraft.

(Red Oak, Iowa) – The Red Oak Police Department and the Red Oak Volunteer Firefighters Association, with the support and assistance of multiple public safety agencies, local businesses and organizations in Montgomery County, will once again be distribution point for the Marine Corps “Toys for Tots” program for Montgomery County. The goal, is to see to it that every child, which is registered in Montgomery County, is able to have at least one new toy for Christmas this year.

Registration dates: November 18th, 2022 3-5PM will be the main sign up day, this will be held at the Red Oak Fire Department meeting room 1904 N Broadway in Red Oak (Please use the east door to the meeting room). A toy drop off/2nd registration day is set for December 2nd, 2022 at Fareway parking lot from 5PM-7PM with Santa and the Gammell lighted fire truck! At Fareway for toy drop off you may drive thru; to see Santa on the fire truck please practice social distancing rules and sign ups need to be contactless so please have child’s birth certificate or medical card ready to display to the officers in charge. The main sign-up at the Red Oak Fire Station will be 1 individual per time, NO Groups or multiples registering together, this will be contactless also – please have documents ready to show.

If you are unable to make it on the listed dates, contact ROPD Chief Justin Rhamy or Amber Jennings and they will assist you in figuring out other means of getting you signed up. No matter how you register, whether online, or in person, the necessary information, will need to be provided for each child you want to register, and then go through the screening process. After Dec 2nd it will have to be done online, through the website. However, delivery of the toys, cannot be guaranteed after that time. This is because of time needed to confirm the details of the necessary registration process, and time available to the person at the local distribution site to follow up. Our projected toy delivery date will be set for December 22nd, 2022.

A parent, guardian, or grandparents are the only ones allowed to sign up a child. There is some information that needs to be brought in with the person registering the child when they come to register. If they can bring a copy of the child’s birth certificate or medical card, that works the best. Child’s full name as it appears on the birth certificate/medical card, Date of Birth, parent’s names and a telephone number of the person registering the child.

Toys are divided into three age groups with a maximum age of 14.

0-3 Non gender specific

4-8 Male/Female

9-14 Male/Female

DONATIONS can be dropped off at: Fareway, Montgomery County YMCA, Cubby’s, The Bucksnort, Orscheln’s, Red Oak Express, Red Oak Library, Montgomery County Memorial Hospital, Family Dollar/Dollar Tree and the Red Oak Police Department. Toys must be a new unwrapped toy.

Agencies assisting with the Montgomery County Toys for Tots program include: Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office, Montgomery County Emergency Management Agency, Stanton Fire & Rescue, Villisca EMS Association, Villisca Fire Department, Grant Fire Department & First Responders, and Elliott Fire First Responders, Fareway, Montgomery County YMCA, Red Oak Eagles #2715 , Bucksnort Restaurant, SWIA Squadron of Heroes, Red Oak Community Schools, Cubby’s, Orscheln’s, Red Oak Express, Montgomery County Memorial Hospital and Red Oak Library.

Any person having questions in regards to the Toys for Tots program or would like to make a monetary donation please contact Chief Justin Rhamy or Amber Jennings of the Red Oak Police Department at 712-623-6500.

(Anita, Iowa) – The CAM School Board will meet tonight, in the High Superintendent’s Office. Their session gets underway at 6:30-p.m., with a Public Hearing on the conveyance of real property.

In August, the CAM School Board accepted a bid of $26,500 from Wahlert Construction to purchase a school-owned property located four-blocks south of the main campus, in Anita. The property is rarely used by the District. The Board set Nov. 14^th as the date for a hearing on the matter, during their meeting last month.

Afterward, the Board will adjourn the hearing and convene their regular session, which includes action on any resignations or contracts, and a Resolution for a Conveyance of Real Property. The Board will hold discussion with regard to enrollment for 2022 and financial projections, as well as objectives regarding District facilities/future alignment.

(Radio Iowa) – The Peoples Law Library of Iowa And the State Law Library of Iowa and University of Iowa Law Library have teamed up with the hope of offering clear information to people involved in a case or just trying to understand a particular issue. U-I Law Library director, Carissa Vogel says the website is an on-ramp for non-lawyers looking for quality information. “There are lots of people that come to the judicial system not knowing that they need representation, not understanding necessarily the complexity of what they’re dealing with, or having challenges finding representation. … There are a lot of people trying to get help that don’t have representation,” she says. Vogel says the project is essential for making the judicial system accessible.

“There’s an eviction notice, or someone loses their job, or there’s a custody issue, and they don’t know where to start, right. And so it was important for us that the Peoples Law Library fit that really first basic step in foundational understanding,” Vogel says. A 2015 national survey of civil dockets found at least one party was self-represented in 76 percent of civil, non-family related cases. Twenty five years before that — nearly all cases involved attorney on both sides. The Iowa project was funded with 100-thousand dollars from the American Rescue Plan.

(reporting by Zachary Oren Smith, Iowa Public Radio)

(Radio Iowa) – All three of Iowa’s state universities will now have nursing programs after the Board of Regents gave the go-ahead for the University of Northern Iowa to start one. U-N-I Provost, Jose Herrera, says there’s no doubt the program will help fill gaps in the health care system. “The need for nurses in Iowa and nationally is critical. Many major medical centers, centers and rural hospitals are forced to close entire floors to the shortage of nurses,” he says. Herrera says patients suffer from the lack of nurses.

“Many patients who require hospitalization spent several hours in the emergency room waiting for a bed. The nursing shortage results in higher patient caseload and significant burnout and nurses, further exacerbating the problem,” Herrera says. He says data from the American Association of Colleges of Nursing show that more than eight-thousand qualified applicants were denied entry to programs just in the Midwest last year due to a lack of space. Herrera says U-N-I’s plans have broad support.

“All healthcare providers but particularly those in rural settings have made it abundantly clear they’re in desperate need of additional graduates that we can provide,” he says. “Leadership from the University of Iowa’s College of Nursing and Iowa State University’s nursing program have provided fruitful conversations to guide our efforts and we hope to continue to benefit from their advice and partnership.” Herrera made his comments during a presentation to the Board of Regents, which approved the new program during their meeting last week. U-N-I will seek accreditation of the nursing program with the hope of getting it started on the Cedar Falls campus in the fall of 2024.

(Radio Iowa) – Many Iowans will be meeting up next week with family members they haven’t seen in a while, and some of us need to mentally prepare ourselves so we’re not sucked into a squabble that ruins Thanksgiving. University of Iowa professor and psychologist Michele Williams says we just had the mid-term elections last week, but that’s likely something to be avoided, along with discussions about inflation, gas prices and the economy. Even vaccines can still be a touchy subject. “With the kind of triple threat of COVID is still around, we’re having the flu, we have RSV, so people are not necessarily going to be healthy this holiday season,” Williams says. “So there’s a lot to talk about that is potentially still divisive and so much in the media that people it may be on people’s minds.”

In order to keep family conversations civil, Williams says the key is to make discussions dialogues, not debates. Stay patient, she says, and tread carefully on potential hot-button topics. “If you were just talking about the price of gas or how the restaurant prices have gone up, so just things that you might talk about in a normal family gathering like, ‘Oh, where are you going?’ ‘We’re not sure if we’re gonna fly home to such-and-such because airline prices are still high,’ that could easily spill over to political perspective on how the economy is going.” She says some families manage conflict by deciding only to talk about football or the kids or other things that they have in common — and not politics.

“We need to listen more. Americans are not really good at listening. We’re good at talking, we’re good at having debates and trying to prove the other side wrong,” Williams says. “We need to kind of move that more to a dialogue where we’re interested and curious about the other side. So we need to listen and I think about it as listening with empathy and grace.” Williams is a UI professor of management and entrepreneurship in the Tippie College of Business and she’s a psychologist who specializes in management communications and relationships.