(Des Moines, Iowa) – As Iowa colleges and universities receive the last of the federal student aid applications for the upcoming school year, financial aid officials are seeing fewer students submit their documents and changes in how much those who do file receive. The Iowa Capital Dispatch reports Iowa’s completion rate of the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) is on par with the national average, but for individual colleges those numbers are more extreme. Almost 1.9 million students had filed the FAFSA by June 21, according to the National College Attainment Network, or just over 45% of the total high school class of 2024. This is an 11.8% drop from 2023. Iowa is firmly in the middle of the pack for rates of FAFSA completion, according to the network, with 43.8% of high school seniors having submitted the form by June 21. The rate of completion dropped by 11.7% from last year, or from 18,493 submitted applications to 16,039.

At Luther College in Decorah, financial aid director Rachel Moser said rates of first-year students submitting FAFSAs is 18% behind where it was this time last year, and there’s been a decrease of 15% in continuing students’ FAFSA submissions as well. Just days before the Iowa FAFSA deadline hit on July 1, Moser said the financial aid department was trying to contact people and encourage them to get their forms filed. Drake University Financial Aid Director Ryan Zantingh said his staff was also reaching out to students ahead of the deadline, especially those who might qualify for the Iowa Tuition Grant.

In June 2023, Drake had admitted 4,508 students. Despite seeing an increase in admitted students by more than 1,000 by mid-June this year, which Zantingh said is among the university’s largest-ever admitted student populations, Drake has received 237 fewer FAFSAs from admitted students compared to last year. These admission numbers exclude international students, who do not fill out the FAFSA. He said that in total, the filing rate for admitted students is down around 15% compared to previous years.

The new FAFSA has given both families and universities grief since its soft launch at the end of 2023, two months later than it rolled out in previous years. Students struggled with accessing the form early on and trying to understand sometimes confusing language and changes to the aid formula and what they needed to include for accurate calculations. Glitches and inaccurate data caused delays in getting forms to schools, many of which then had to be sent back to be corrected.

Colleges are still seeing bugs in the system and cannot make batch corrections on FAFSA forms, slowing down the process to get students accurate financial aid information even more. Changes were also made to the FAFSA to exclude the number of additional family members in college and to include the value of family farms and businesses as assets, impacting the aid some continuing students have been receiving.

Analysis from Iowa College Aid projected that the number of students eligible for Iowa Tuition Grants would increase by a net 2%, with the number becoming eligible going up by 8% and the number no longer eligible going up by 6%. Most of the students losing eligibility could attribute that to no longer being able to consider other family members in college.

Financial aid officials say they’re hoping for a smoother time next FAFSA cycle. They expect the form to be out earlier, as Federal Student Aid is committed to having it out on Oct. 1st.

(Atlantic, Iowa) – Here’s a reminder about an upcoming meeting in Atlantic, Monday, with regards to a thinning deer population in the region. Iowa DNR State Deer Biologist Jace Elliott says the presentation takes place from 6:30- until 8-p.m., Monday, July 8^th, at the Venue in downtown Atlantic.

Other meetings are being held next week, in Denison, Council Bluffs, and Shenandoah. Elliott says the deer population degradation is not specific to any one county. It’s occurring throughout western Iowa.

He says discussions will be held in eight locations altogether. The week of July 15^th, meetings will be held in Onawa Sioux Center, Sioux City, and Cherokee. Jace Elliott says the discussions will be tailored to the region.

He says you don’t need to bring any materials with you to the meetings. You ARE encouraged to bring your fellow hunters along with you, or at least let them know about the sessions, because input from hunters is needed to determine how the DNR should proceed with helping the deer herd to recover.

The results of questionnaires available at each meeting will be published once all the meetings are completed. He says they have a lot of data to put what’s happened, in context.

Elliott says they’ve made “some pretty drastic changes over the last three-years in southwest and west central Iowa, in terms of reducing county anterless tags and other regulations,” in an attempt to turn around the downward deer population trend. He says the DNR is confident they can revitalize the deer population in a few short years.

Elliott said deer harvest practices that have taken place from the mid-2000’s on, is the main factor which has resulted in the current reduced deer population, but there are other factors as well. “Deer hunting, he says, “is one of Iowa’s most recreationally and economically important traditions. Our goal is to manage deer numbers at a level that is acceptable to our citizens and that supports a quality hunting experience.”

See the schedule below for information on other meeting dates, times and locations. All meetings run from 6:30-until 8-p.m.

• July 9, Denison, at Yellow Smoke Park Lookout Shelter
• July 10, Council Bluffs, at Bass Pro Shops
• July 11, Shenandoah, at the Public Library
• July 15, Onawa, at the Public Library
• July 16, Sioux Center, at Sandy Hollow Clubhouse
• July 17, Sioux City, at Dorothy Pecaut Nature Center
• July 18, Cherokee, at the Community Center Auditorium

(Radio Iowa) – If you’ve ever had a hankering to taste Iowa-fried cicadas, you’ll have your chance later this summer. Ginny Mitchell, education program coordinator at the Iowa State University Insect Zoo, says one popular element of their annual “Insect Village” event next month is edible insects. Mitchell recently collected hundreds of the 13- and 17-year cicadas which she plans to air-fry, sprinkle with seasoning, and serve to visitors on the Ames campus. “Entomophagy, or the eating of insects, is something that has been around since the beginning of humankind,” Mitchell says. “In most countries, the population there eats insects as a daily part of their diet. It’s no different than us going to get some chicken nuggets or making popcorn for a snack.” Are insects “meat”?

The issue of eating insects is subject of debate among vegetarians. Those who refuse to eat meat because of environmental reasons see the very small impact raising and eating insects has on the planet, so they may choose to consider insects as -not- meat, while other more strict vegans disagree. Whatever you call it, Mitchell says making a meal of insects can be extremely healthy. “Insects are a complete amino acid, which means it has all the amino acids that your body needs,” Mitchell says. “They’re also full of protein. There’s way more protein in insects than there is in any of the meat sources that Americans typically eat. Also, it’s full of calcium, which is important.” While many of us may be hesitant to put an air-fried cicada in our mouths, no matter what sauce is on top, others are more adventurous.

Mitchell has been studying — and eating — all sorts of insects for years and will plan to plate up a variety of cicada delicacies during the August event. “I’ll be cooking both the adults and the nymphs, and this is important because once an adult emerges, its exoskeleton is really hard and they’ve got those long wings,” Mitchell says. “Some people might not find those as appetizing as the nymphs, which are a softer-bodied insect and they also don’t have wings.” In the past month or so, two broods of cicadas emerged in eastern Iowa (and across the Midwest) that had been slumbering underground 13 and 17 years. That simultaneous emergence only happens once every 220 years, so Mitchell took a four-day road trip to bag up hundreds of specimens of the six-legged creatures.

“People all over the country are cooking cicadas and eating them,” she says. “There’s several breweries in Illinois that are brewing beer with cicadas. There’s also a fancy restaurant in Illinois that’s made ice cream with the cicadas.” Others are using cicadas in tomato sauce over pasta, or even as a pizza topping. I-S-U’s Insect Zoo will hold its Insect Village event on the Ames campus on Saturday, August 24th. In addition to the edible insects, there will be a Bug Costume Contest and more than 150 species of living arthropods on display, with many available for hands-on inspection.

On the web at https://www.ent.iastate.edu/insectzoo/

(Radio Iowa) – Some changes are coming to the Iowa Alcoholic Beverages Division (ABD) and Department of Revenue websites as part of the state reorganizations. Department of Revenue director, Mary Mosiman says the change brings both together. “As of July 9th, the Department of Revenue and the Alcoholic Beverage Division websites will unite under the revenue.iowa.gov website,” she says. Mosiman says this has been happening with all state government agencies. “It’s called the Digital Transformation Project. It’s an effort to make sure that all Iowans are effectively getting to where they need to be and that we’re all under a unified standardized website so all the services are right where they need them to be for doing business in Iowa,” she says.

Department of Revenue Director, Mary Mosiman. (Radio Iowa photo)

The Iowa Lottery is now also under the Department of Revenue, but she says their website won’t be changing. “Largely because of the branding and the unique use that the Lottery website has of their vendors and of their lottery players,” Mosiman says. Once the changeover is complete, you can find all the information you need from A-B-D or the Department of Revenue at the one site. “One visit to an entity that has a tax and an alcohol issue versus two separate visits. So we know we’re being more effective with our personnel in that regard. We’re hopeful that the people, the external stakeholders, our taxpayers, and our usersof the alcohol licenses, that they to find it to be more effective for them,” Mosiman says.

Mosiman says the transition to bring the Iowa Lottery and the A-B-D under the Department of Revenue has gone smoothly.

(Radio Iowa) – An administrator from the now-closed Glenwood Resource Center is transferring to a role at the state-run facility in Woodward that cares for Iowans with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Two federal investigations raised concerns about how residents with serious disabilities at Glenwood were being cared for and the home was closed last month.

Iowa Department of Health and Human Services director Kelly Garcia says the person she hired to stabilize medical care at Glenwood is transferring to the Woodward Resource Center.  “We did finally land a physician who was the medical director out at Glenwood,” Garcia says. “We did that through a very unique arrangement with the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics, so he’s on faculty there. He works for them. We pay his salary and he’ll be moving to Woodward to assist us in lifting up the Center of Excellence.”

Garcia says the goal of the center is to have some Woodward staff help direct care providers elsewhere figure out what works best for a patient with high needs. “Or maybe an individual needs to come from some respite or short term crisis stabilization or to work on some of their skills and then that team will go out into the community and support that work with that community provider,” Garcia says, “What we’ve recognized through this transition is providers can’t do it alone. We shouldn’t expect them to. That was a space we were missing in Iowa, but we’re doing it today.”

Woodward, like Glenwood, has provided intensive services for Iowans with profound disabilities for more than a century. Garcia says the Woodward patients are not permanent residents, as was the practice at Glenwood. “It might be six weeks, it might be six months, it might be six years,” Garcia says, “but the goal would be to stabilize that individual, to understand them (and) what they need to be successful and then to work on a transition plan to a lower level of care, which in this case would be a community setting.”

Garcia says the Woodward Resource Center is centrally located and her plan is for it to be a hub of expertise for private or non-profit facilities that care for Iowans with
disabilities.

(Iowa News Service) – A national mental health advocacy organization called Inseparable has released a report on the rollout of the 988 crisis line for people going through a mental health emergency.

Iowa scored well but there are still questions over how to pay for the service. The report called for Iowa and other states to expand 988 call-center capacity, increase the number and availability of mobile mental-health response units, create more crisis stabilization centers, and find ways to pay for it all.

Iowa came close to its goal of answering 90% of its calls in a timely manner, and is working on creating more than two-dozen mobile response teams.

Angela Kimball, chief advocacy officer for Inseparable, said the 988 mental health services need to be available to everyone who needs them, 24/7.

“Regardless of their ability to pay, just like we expect fire trucks to come if there’s a fire,” Kimball explained. “We don’t ask for insurance information first. Police come. They don’t ask whether or not there is an insurance card or payer first.”

Iowa is considering several ways to pay for the 988 service, including a surcharge, billing commercial insurance or by asking for money from the federal Medicaid program.

Kimball said the 988 system needs effective communication between mental health, emergency first responders and police, and added given the high stakes in mental health emergencies, a botched response is not an option.

“One in five fatal police shootings involve someone with mental illness,” Kimball pointed out. “Too often we see really a tragic outcome when people don’t get the right help.”

A 98-cent surcharge on Iowans’ phone service would generate more than 3 million dollars a year, according to Inseparable’s data and the report is looking at ways to keep the service accountable no matter how it is paid for.

(Radio Iowa) – A growing number of Iowa students are participating in target shooting contests. Marty Eby is the shooting sports coordinator for the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, which oversees the “Scholastic Clay Target Program” in Iowa. He says the trapshooting championships held in early June are example of that growth. “When we first started this thing back in the mid-2000s, we had a couple of hundred kids. It was a two-day event,” Eby says, “and now 15 years later we’ve morphed into our American Trap, a seven day event with over 3100 participants.”

About 42-hundred Iowa students were involved in the program last year. Youth shooting sports have grown more popular over the the past decade. Nearly all states are participating in the Scholastic Clay Target Program. “Through last year, Iowa was the largest SCTP state in the number of participants in the United States,” Eby says. Thirty-six Iowa school districts sent teams to the state Skeet Championships in Waukee last month. The statewide shooting competitions for Iowa community college students will be held in October. Eby says the program’s first priority is teaching the kids how to safely handle a gun.

“Before every practice, before every meet, anytime the kids are going to go onto what we call the field, the ultimate importance is safety,” Eby says. “We ingrain our coaches to hammer that home to the kids so that there are no incidents when we’re on the field.” Students who mishandle their gun are disqualified from competition. All tobacco products and alcohol are banned at events — for students, coaches and spectators. Gun critics raise concerns about the growing popularity of youth shooting sports and argue marksmanship training should be the responsibility of parents, not schools.

(Radio Iowa) – Many Iowans will be celebrating the nation’s independence today (Thursday) by lighting the fuse on fireworks, and those big booms can be confusing and upsetting for some pets. Michelle Casey, with the Humane Society, says it’s likely -not- a good idea to take your dog to a fireworks display, either a big professional show or in your backyard. “You never know when those fireworks start to go off or those loud noises, you never know how a dog’s going to react. So, I would suggest keeping your pets inside the house, somewhere where they’re secure during fireworks displays,” Casey says. “It can be really very stressful, and dogs can experience a lot of anxiety from that.”

Casey says if your pet does not like fireworks, consider getting some dog-specific anxiety medication before the -next- Independence Day. “The big thing, I would say, is just keep your pets inside. During Fourth of July, you can turn on some music, turn on the TV, something like that, to kind of drown out the sound,” she says. “And then, of course, you can speak to your veterinarian, if you think that your pet might require some medication to make them more comfortable.”

Radio Iowa photo

Casey also recommends using a weighted “thunder shirt” for dogs to help keep them calm.

CLEARFIELD, Iowa – The Iowa Department of Public Safety reports that at around 3:19 a.m. on July 4, 2024, the Taylor County 911 Communication Center began to receive several calls for a shooting that occurred on Broadway Street in Clearfield, Iowa. When deputies arrived, they found one male deceased from a gunshot wound.  The victim has been identified as Colby Nelson, 19, of Lenox, Iowa. A forensic autopsy will be performed by the Iowa Office of the State Medical Examiner in Ankeny, Iowa.

Deputies took Alan Schultz, 37, of Bedford, Iowa, into custody without incident. Schultz has been charged with Murder in the First Degree. (View the Criminal Complaint: Schultz, Alan Murder 1st C&A_Redacted)

Alan Schultz

This is an ongoing investigation. No additional information will be released at this time.

Note: A criminal charge is merely an accusation, and a defendant is presumed innocent until proven guilty. 

(Atlantic, Iowa) – The City of Atlantic’s Planning and Zoning Commission (P&Z) will meet 5:30-p.m. Tuesday, July 9th, to hold a Public Hearing with regard to the Camblin Hills Development Project – Preliminary Plat. The hearing takes place in the City Council’s Chambers inside the Atlantic City Hall Building.

Following the Hearing, the Commission will review and make a recommendation to the City Council, with regard to the Preliminary Plat. They will then hold a Public Hearing with regard to an application to Rezone the Camblin Hills Development from an R-2 (Low Density/Single Family) Zone to an R-4 (Multiple Family) Zone.

Afterward, the Commission will review the application and make their recommendation to the full City Council, for action during their meeting at City Hall, which begins at 5:30-p.m. Wednesday.  The P&Z is also expected to hold a forum for invited business owners, Tuesday evening, and possible hold discussion with regard to Shouse-Barndominium Regulations.

Camblin Hills Prelim. Plat. (Click on the link in the story for the full PDF file)