Iowa Department of Public Health (IDPH) Director Gerd Clabaugh announced today (Tuesday) that he is retiring from his position, effective July 31, 2020. Clabaugh stated he is retiring from Iowa government service to spend more time with family and seek new opportunities.

“It’s been my honor to serve the administrations of former Governor Branstad and Governor Reynolds,” said Clabaugh. “I am very proud of the work of IDPH staff to support Governor Reynolds’ response to the COVID-19 outbreak, and I look forward to continuing to support IDPH’s outbreak response work through my departure in July.”

“I thank Director Clabaugh for his years of service to the state of Iowa,” said Governor Reynolds. “Under Clabaugh’s tenure, Iowa has strengthened infectious disease response, consolidated critical health data collection systems to improve their sustainability, and led the agency through the achievement of national accreditation.”

Clabaugh has served as IDPH director since 2014.

w/ Chris Parks

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The Red Oak Police Department reports the arrest of 20-year-old Courtney Ann Hall of Red Oak for Domestic Assault 1st Offense, a simple misdemeanor. Hall was arrested on Tuesday morning at approximately 4:36 a.m. in an apartment on Summit Street in Red Oak. She was taken to the Montgomery County Jail and held on no bond.

The Atlantic Parks and Recreation Board held a meeting on Monday night and discussed work on the city pool. With the recent decision to keep the pool closed for the year, Parks and Rec Director Bryant Rasmussen looked into the possibility of bringing in painters earlier than was planned at the end of the pool season. He said bids for the pool painting to be done earlier dropped the price tag by about $21,000.

The board discussed whether the pool should open for the season now that further restrictions related to the pandemic have been lifted by the Governor, or if they should remain closed and get the painting done along with some other updating work. The decision was made to go ahead with the painting and update the pool for next year.

The board also had some discussion on discouraging fireworks being used in city parks and a recent eagle scout project to add some bird nestboxes at Schildberg Recreation Area and Sunnyside Park.

The Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office reports a drug arrest on Monday night. At 10:06 p.m. Deputies arrested 29-year-old Steven Charles Dukes of Hepburn for Possession of a Controlled Substance (Methamphetamine), Possession of a Controlled Substance (Marijuana), and Possession of Drug Paraphernalia. The arrest was made following a traffic stop at the intersection of Halland and Highland Avenue in Stanton. Dukes was taken to the Montgomery County Jail and held on $1,000 bond.

(Radio Iowa) – A large black bear is being spotted lumbering through fields in eastern Iowa. Multiple still and video posts on Facebook show the big adult bear ambling through a green cover crop near the Clinton County town of Welton on Sunday.

Nan Holst (photo) via Radio Iowa

At least a dozen people are also seen along the fence rows, hopping out of their pickups to gawk and shoot their own photos. Late last week, what appears to be the same bear was seen to the north in Jackson County near Maquoketa and Preston.

Iowa does not have a breeding population of black bears, but Wisconsin, Minnesota and Missouri do. Iowa DNR officials say if you spot a bear, keep your distance and don’t approach it, as it’s likely just passing through.

(Radio Iowa) — Health care workers at dozens of Veterans Affairs facilities nationwide are being provided with protective face shields made at a John Deere plant in the Quad Cities. In April, the seeding factory in Moline, Illinois, switched from making farm equipment to P-P-E. Project leader David Ottavianelli says more than 400-thousand shields were produced and a quarter of them were sent to those who care for veterans.

Ottavianelli says, “That led to us eventually delivering over a 135,000 shields to approximately 40 different VA facilities in about 26 states.” Although production on the face shields has wrapped up, Ottavianelli says they can easily switch back if COVID-19 begins to surge again. “We’ve learned a lot in this conversion so we actually have the facilities that if needed could be converted back over to produce this plus we also understand those supplies chains so we’ll be able to get that material quickly,” he says.

Ottavianelli says the additional shields that were not distributed to V-A facilities have been sent to Homeland Security facilities in Iowa and Illinois to be part of their inventory.

(Radio Iowa) — With virtually all of the state’s corn and soybean crops planted, most of them well ahead of schedule, farmers across the region are reporting the plants look to be emerging in very good shape. Kelvin Leibold is a farm management specialist with the Iowa State University Extension and Outreach in north-central Iowa.

“We started off this spring with a very favorable planting season, for the most part, and that helped us out,” Leibold says. “We ended up with a bit more rain than we wanted and we saw the corn plants struggle a bit to go from the primary root system to the main root system, but now we’ve got enough heat and we seemed to pop through that.” Some areas of the state have water standing in the fields, though Leibold says he’s crossing his fingers that the weather will cooperate.

“We do have some areas around that have standing water in the potholes because we’ve had some pretty significant rainfall events,” Leibold says. “But we’re going to go into the hotter, warmer, drier part of the year with a good soil profile and that should help us sustain yields as we move forward.” Leibold says many growers are looking forward to the opportunity for record yields this fall.

“Hopefully, we can avoid serious events like hail storms, although we’ve had a couple of issues with that already this year,” Leibold says. “That’s always a concern as we get through the season, but none the less, there is optimism for some outstanding yields as we go forward here the rest of the summer.” While some fields are wet, it’s a far cry from 2019 when prolonged flooding forced a number of Iowa producers to abandon their acres for the entire growing season.