(Radio Iowa) – About 90 northeast Iowa veterans were flown from Waterloo to the nation’s capitol and back earlier this week and the Midwest Honor Flight organization has a flight scheduled out of Sioux Falls tomorrow (Saturday). “We’ll have the honor to fly 83 veterans out to Washington, D.C.” That’s Midwest Honor Flight President Aaron Van Beek. He says the trip will cost about $150,000. “We estimate it costs about $753 for every veteran that we take along. Now this does not cost the veteran anything, of course, to travel on a day of honor with an Honor Flight,” he says. “Travel expenses for the plane ride, the busing in D.C., their meals — that’s all included in that $753 that we’re fundraising for constantly.”

The Sioux City Muskateers held jersey auctions to raise some of the money for this weekend’s flight. Each veteran on a flight is accompanied by a family member or volunteer who pays their own way. Van Beek says those guardians are an integral part of each Honor Flight. “We do require mandatory training,” Van Beek says. “This is required by the Honor Flight Network, as well as for insurance, but all of our guardians are trained as well as our crew on the proper usage of wheelchairs, how to care for our veterans for the day and just, ultimately, how to take in the experience alongside a veteran.”

Van Beek started the Midwest Honor Flight chapter in Sioux Center in March of 2017, when he was still in college.  “I’ll be honest that I did not even imagine that we would do more than two or three flights,” Van Beek says. “We’ve now since taken over 730 veterans over eight different flights.”  Van Beek has quit his third-grade teaching job to work full time in organizing flights — for the waiting ist of 850 veterans from northwest Iowa, South Dakota and southwest Minnesota.

(Rock Rapids, Iowa) – A collision between a semi and a car Thursday afternoon east of Rock Rapids in northwest Iowa’s Lyon County, resulted in the death of a woman from Sioux County. The Iowa State Patrol reports 71-year-old Carol Jo Fliear, of Matlock, Iowa, died from her injuries at a hospital, after the 2016 Ford Taurus she was driving – for unknown reasons – crossed the center line of eastbound Highway 9 and struck a 2007 Freightliner semi, head-on, at the intersection withK60/Indian Avenue. The accident happened at around 12:37-p.m.

The driver of the semi, 64-year-old Gregory Marvin Krieger, of Sibley, declined treatment at the scene. Both drivers were wearing their seat belts. The accident remains under investigation.

(Radio Iowa) – With school letting out soon, thousands of Iowa teenagers are starting to apply for their first-ever summer jobs and they may need to be aware of some common scams. Consumer advocate Michael Domke says one con that’s been making the rounds is to have a new employee cash a check and then pay back some of the money.  “To take that money and pay a vendor who they need for training or IT resources,” Domke says, “and in essence, that check was fake and then they’re taking out of their own account.”

Teens of various ages are only allowed to work a certain number of hours per week, so new workers will need to know those rules and make sure they’re not being asked to work too much. Mystery shopping might sound like an ideal job for some Iowa teens, but Domke says you need to do a little research first.  “In reality, very, very few of those mystery shopping jobs are legitimate,” he says, “and how the scam works there is they get you to pay upfront, whether it be $20 or $40, and that is kind of your enlistment fee.”

Domke says no legitimate job will require you to pay to sign up or to apply for a position.

(Radio Iowa) – An Iowa State University student who’s graduating with a psychology degree this weekend is also leaving Ames with a new title, Steak Cookoff Association World Champion. Marissa Ouverson grew up in Kansas City, Missouri, where barbecuing meat is something of an art form. During the pandemic, she decided to try her own skills at the grill, going on the road for six months and entering 54 competitions. “I got four first place, I had 26 or 24 Top 10s, and I finished 12th in the world in the points chase, and then I had the 2022 Worlds and I won the whole thing!” Ouverson says. “So, I was the youngest to ever win it and then I was also the first female. Knowing that I made history in multiple ways is awesome.”

When she was younger, Ouverson accompanied her father and older brother as they traveled to barbecue competitions, so she was a natural. Ouverson says her mother took time off from her flight attendant job to accompany her to steak grilling competitions across the country, all the while staying current with her I-S-U studies. “Her and I pretty much just packed up the car and we were on the road for six months,” Ouverson says. “It was because I was able to do everything online. I had her and my dad to really take me around everywhere and go with me so that I wasn’t alone the whole time. I got so close to my family. We have always been super close, but I mean, we got to do everything together.”

Marissa Ouverson (Photo from bbqnewsletter.com)

Her victory at the world competition in Texas led to sponsorships, prize money, and even her own online cooking class. “Here we are now and I haul a giant trailer around everywhere now,” she says. “What it turned into was wild. It’s mind blowing.” As she preps for graduation, Ourverson is focusing on the next stage of her life, using her degree to help people struggling with mental health. “I wanted to do psychology,” she says. “I wanted to help people and so I am focusing on suicide counseling, specifically for teens, and then I might end up actually going over to veterans.”

While the competition circuit may be on the back burner, Ouverson says she wants to continue improving her grilling craft — even though she’s already tops in the world and has a trophy and a ring to prove it.