(Radio Iowa) – Five Iowa State University students who served our country in uniform will be honored this (Monday) afternoon with a ceremony in the Gold Star Hall of the Memorial Union. Rita Case, with I-S-U’s military-affiliated Student Center, says more than 600 names of former I-S-U students are carved in the hall’s wall and several veterans are singled out every year.
We read the names and we have history,” Case says. “We research all year on who we pick that year and tell their stories and if their families are nearby, or we can get a hold of a family member, we try to invite those families to come.” The annual ceremony that spotlights the stories of individual veterans began in 2003.  “This is a really meaningful ceremony,” Case says, “and then it makes these names that are on the walls that we walk by come alive.”

The Gold Star Hall’s origins date way back to 1928, when the names of Iowa State students who died in World War One were carved into the walls of the newly opened Memorial Union. Five veterans are being featured this year. This year’s honorees are: Howard Medin of Algona and James R. Davis of Ames, both of whom served in World War Two; Ramon Roderick Davis and Donald Scott Wilkins, both of Ames, both who served in Korea; and Vietnam veteran Ronald Edgar Riede of St. Louis, Missouri. Honoring five veterans is a little unusual for the service.  “We usually only honor about three but we found a new name for the wall when we were researching one of the Davis’s we discovered they had a brother who was lost in the Korean War that was also an Iowa State student that we did not previously have listed on our wall.”

The veterans honored in the hall served in conflicts including: World War One, World War Two, Korea, Vietnam, Somalia, USS Liberty, Iraq and Afghanistan. The ceremony is scheduled for 3:15 P-M. The names and stories of each veteran listed on the wall are available in an online database on the Memorial Union’s Gold Star Hall website: mu.iastate.edu

(Radio Iowa) – With one more day on the campaign trail, Iowa’s top-of-the-ticket candidates are emphasizing national themes. Republicans like Governor Kim Reynolds frame the election as a referendum on President Biden. Here’s Reynolds Sunday night at a rally in Waukee: “Passionate Iowans…have had it with the direction that this president is taking the country and they are not going to take it anymore,” she said, “so thank you for being fired up.”

Republican Senator Chuck Grassley, at the same rally, picked up that theme. “This Biden Administration and everybody associated with it…they want to fundamentally change America…We want to preserve America,” Grassley said, to cheers. Abortion has been a major issue for Democrats. Grassley’s opponent, Mike Franken, drew extended cheers at a Des Moines rally for saying he supports a woman’s right to choose.

“In those deeply personal moments, the last person you need in the delivery room are Chuck Grassley, a constitutional lawyer and the federal government,” Franken said. And Deidre DeJear, the Democrat running against Reynolds, criticizes the govenror for asking a judge let a six week abortion ban take effect in Iowa. “Kim Reynolds wants to be in your doctor’s appointment, helping you make the most important, critical, personal decision that a person could possibly make,” DeJear said, “and that is unacceptable.”

Today’s the last day of early voting in Iowa. Tuesday’s Election Day voting begins at Iowa precincts at 7 a.m.  Election officials say it’s too late to mail an absentee ballot, because absentee ballots have to be inside your county auditor’s office by 8 p.m. Tuesday. You may drop off your absentee ballot at your county auditor’s office today (Monday) *OR* turn it in tomorrow (Tuesday) at your precinct, where you’ll be a regular ballot to fill out instead.

(Radio Iowa) – No winning tickets were sold for Saturday’s Powerball drawing and TONIGHT’S (Monday’s) jackpot has now swelled to an estimated one-point-nine BILLION dollars. Three tickets sold in Iowa for SATURDAY’S drawing were one number away from claiming the previous world-record jackpot of one-point-six billion. Those three tickets each matched four of the first five numbers drawn, along with the correct Powerball number.

Iowa Lottery officials say two of those tickets — worth 50-thousand dollars each — were purchased in Clinton and Sabula. The person who bought the other ticket in Sheldon paid a dollar extra for the so-called “Power Play” option and it made their winning ticket worth 150-thousand dollars.

Over five-point-nine MILLION dollars worth of Powerball tickets were sold IN IOWA for Saturday’s drawing. Iowa Lottery officials have released a list of the top 10 retailers for Iowa Lottery sales from Sunday, October 30th through Saturday, November 5th. Half are in the Cedar Rapids-Marion metro and among the 10 top lottery retailers last week, nine are Hy-Vee stores.