Des Moines, Iowa – State Treasurer Michael Fitzgerald is reminding Iowans about College Savings Iowa’s Year-End Giveaway. “This holiday season, unwrap your child’s future by entering to win a $5,290 College Savings Iowa contribution,” said Fitzgerald. “Visit Iowa529Contest.com by the end of the year to register.” Any Iowan over the age of 18 can register for a child in their life.

“Saving for the child in your life is one of the most important things you can do,” commented Fitzgerald. “Having a dedicated education savings account lets your children know you believe in their dreams. It’s a gift you can’t unwrap, but it might just be the most valuable gift of all.” To date, College Savings Iowa participants have withdrawn more than $4.5 billion to pay for qualified education expenses.

College Savings Iowa is the state’s direct-sold 529 plan and helps families save for the rising costs of higher education on a tax-advantaged basis. Funds in an account can be used for tuition, room and board, books, computers, supplies and other qualified education-related expenses. The student you’re saving for can attend any eligible education institution, including two- and four-year colleges, apprenticeship programs and trade schools. Additionally, Iowa taxpayers can deduct up to $3,522 of their contributions from their state income taxes in 2022.

For details about the Plan, visit CollegeSavingsIowa.com to read the Program Description

(Creston, Iowa) – Officials with the Creston Police Department say no injuries were reported following a collision Tuesday evening at S. Sumner Avenue and Adams Street. Authorities say a 2019 Chrysler Pacifica mini-van driven by 40-year-old Joshua E. Smith, of Creston, was stopped at the controlled intersection facing northbound on S. Sumner, at around 5:52-p.m., when his vehicle was struck from behind by a 2002 Buick Century. The driver of the Buick, 21-year-old Deren M. Fry, of Greenfield, told Police that he dropped his cell phone, and when he reached down to retrieve it, he didn’t have enough time to stop.

Fry was cited for Failure to Provide Proof of Insurance. Damage from the collision amounted to $5,000 altogether.

(Radio Iowa) – A movie based on the World War Two German POW camp near Algona will premiere Friday in Algona and Forest City. The movie “Silent Night in Algona” focuses on the prisoners in Algona from September through December of 1944. Forest City’s Jim Brockhohn appears in the movie as Uncle Joe. “These three producers from Wisconsin they’ve had to threaten for several years where I’d take it and so they finally got produced. They did film for days here in Forest City and Heritage Park and Heritage Park was gracious enough to donate some uniforms and let let them use the buildings and then we found majority of it in Algona and Whitmer and so is a three week shooting every day except they’re off on Sunday. So we actually started the end of October and then we finished up into towards the end of November”

Brockhohn helped director director Tony Hornus cast the parts for the movie– leading to many locals in the cast. “So what I do is I call that person up, see if you’d be interested in doing the film and then I got that actor in contact with Tony and they went from there then,” he says. “They then auditioned for Tony and Tony would select them and the people I did send to him, he did select them all and put them in the movie.” He says they also asked him to bring some extras and he did that, so there are some of them from Forest City in the movie. Much of the movie was filmed in Heritage Park in Forest City and the original barracks were also in the movie.

“The barracks they use have been at Heritage Park for all these years and so — or for many years I’m not sure when they got them — but Heritage Park acquired them, so they took the barracks from here and took them Algona and built the barracks house there and use the original barracks,” Brockhohn says. Brockhohn says there was a tremendous amount of work put into the attention to detail from uniforms to cars. He says Forest City residents didn’t fill all the spots in the movie. “Even though we had some from Forest City they’ve recruited people from Texas from L.A. from New York and all the states around, and even Wisconsin. And so they had professional actors from all over, it is wonderful,” he says.

The Algona camped housed around 17-hundred prisoners. A nativity scene created by some of the prisoners while in captivity in Algona in 1945 has drawn visitors to the community for many years.

(Radio Iowa) – Volunteer firefighters are vital in Iowa, especially in our rural areas, but they’re retiring in droves and new recruits are direly needed to join the ranks. Members of the Iowa Firefighters Association plan to appeal to state lawmakers in the upcoming session to help get more people interested in volunteering. The association’s past president Jason Barrick, who serves on the Iowa Falls Fire Department, says new incentives are needed at the state and local level. “You’re not going to get rich off of being a volunteer fireman,” Barrick says. “That is not why anybody does it. Most departments in Iowa are absolutely unpaid. There are some volunteer fire departments that do have the benefit of getting paid but even at that, they’re averaging probably, each fireman, maybe $1,000 to $1,500 a year.”

Barrick says one recruitment possibility is to try and reach young people at the high school level. “There’s some programs out there that we call cadet programs or junior firefighter programs that just bring young kids aware of what the fire service can do for them and where it can take them in life, both personally and professionally.” The cadet programs work, Barrick says, and he’s seen the results first-hand. “We had one a few years ago here in Iowa Falls,” Barrick says. “It was very strong and we have eight fire members on currently now that were in that junior program back ten years ago.”

The Iowa Firefighters Association has about 15,500 members, while there are 269 volunteer firefighter departments in Iowa.

(Audubon, Iowa) – Officials with the Audubon County Memorial Hospital have announced their newest primary care physician. Dr. Jon Swanson is joining ACMH’s team of family physicians. Born and raised in Omaha, Dr. Swanson is double board-certified as a family medical physician.

He attended Iowa State University, and is married to his wife, Alka. When visiting Audubon County Memorial Hospital and Clinics, Dr. Swanson was encouraged to learn of the care the staff offer to the patients in the community. He said the level of care, community spirit and patient-first attitude ACMH staff offer, were significant factors in his decision to join the facility. “The administration’s vision for ACMH,” he said, “fits in with my desire to reach underserved patients.”

Dr. Swanson and Alka relocated to Audubon and are excited about participating in community events. He is currently accepting new patients. Contact ACMH Clinics in Audubon to schedule an appointment at 712-563-4611 or Exira at 712-268-5348.

(Radio Iowa) – The Iowa Lottery Board has approved a change that will cut the time players in multi-state lotto games have to claim their prize from a winning ticket from 365 to 180 days. Iowa Lottery vice president, Mary Neubauer, says Iowa is one of only 14 states which have a one year claim period — while 33 states have 180 day time limits. Neubauer says they started looking into the issue after continually seeing unclaimed prizes of all amounts. She says there are around one-point-two and one-point-five million dollars worth of tickets that expire in Iowa each year without the prize being claim. The change would impact the Powerball, MegaMillions, Lucky for Life, and Lotto America games. The claim periods for other Iowa Lottery products will not change. Neubauer told the Lottery Board they started studying the issue by looking at one single drawing day and its prize redemptions.

“Less than three percent of the prizes from those drawings were claimed after 180 days so if the prize I was going to be claimed, it was claimed in the first six months,” Neubauer says. She says they then expanded the research to several more days and got the same result. “Time and time again, we saw that less than three percent of the monetary value of the prizes that had been won in those particular drawings were claimed after the six month mark. In some cases, it was a tiny percentage like one point-two percent. For some other drawings, I think the biggest amount that was involved was two-point-nine percent,” according to Neubauer. Neubauer says decreasing the amount of time players have to cash in tickets will allow them to get the unclaimed money back into the prize pool.

“There is no monetary advantage to the lottery from making this change. We don’t keep the money, the state doesn’t keep the money from prizes…that expire without being claimed,” she says. Neubauer says they don’t have a firm date for when they will change the prize expiration time limit, because there has to be a transition period. “So if someone has a ticket today, the price claim period for that ticket would not change, we would have a very definite countdown to the point when the price claim period change will take effect,” Neubauer says.

Neubauer says they need to complete testing on the statewide gaming system before the change can be implemented. The lottery anticipates making the change in the first quarter of calendar year 2023.

(Red Oak, Iowa) – A man from Red Oak was arrested twice Tuesday afternoon. According to Red Oak Police, 56-year-old James Kent Otte was arrested at around 4-p.m. for Public Intoxication and Disorderly Conduct, both of which are Simple Misdemeanors. Otte was arrested earlier in the day, at around 12:12-p.m., on a charge of Public Intoxication. He was being held in the Montgomery County Jail on a $300 bond.