OMAHA, Neb. – VA Nebraska-Western Iowa Health Care System’s Shenandoah (Iowa), VA Community-Based Outpatient Clinic (CBOC) will host a two-hour open house on Saturday, June 15, 2024, beginning at 11 a.m. The clinic is located at 2043 ‘A’ Avenue in Shenandoah, Iowa.

According to Joyce Portz, nurse manager at the Shenandoah VA CBOC, the open house will include opportunities for Veterans, Veterans families and the community at large to learn more about the many Veteran health care services offered at the clinic.

Along with a reception hosted by the local American Legion Auxiliary, visitors will have an opportunity to tour the facility, meet members of the CBOC team, and speak to the VA Nebraska-Western Iowa Health Care System’s Health Care Enrollment specialist and local county Veterans Service Officer and learn more about enrolling for VA health care. The local American Legion Auxiliary will also be providing refreshments for the open house.

The open house is scheduled to begin following the June 15 dedication ceremony for the new Page County Veterans Memorial at Rapp Park, which is set to begin at 10 a.m. The open house will conclude at 1 p.m.

(Radio Iowa) – A century-old car with a fabled history for road trips was -supposed- to be chugging across Iowa today (Friday), but as happens with aging vehicles, it’s developed engine trouble. Tim Matthews, curator of the Museum of American Speed in Lincoln, Nebraska, says this was the ten-millionth Model T produced by Ford and it’s already made three cross-country treks — when it was built in 1924, on its 50th birthday in 1974, and again in 1999. Matthews says things were going well on this 100th anniversary trek when they left New York City last Sunday, but the engine blew apart in Pennsylvania.

“We actually had a connecting rod bearing failure, and anytime you have one thing go bad inside an engine, it usually creates a chain reaction,” Matthews says. “So that bearing came unglued, which destroyed the crank, and it threw a lot of material around the engine and it required us to take the engine completely out of the car.” The black buggy was hauled to Ohio for repairs and soon, it’ll be trucked back to Pennsylvania to resume its 45-hundred mile “Sea-to-Sea in a Model T” trek from New York to San Francisco. Matthews credits the team of expert Model T mechanics who are driving the vehicle, but also Henry Ford, who pioneered the industry, introducing mass production and assembly lines.

Photo from https://www.museumofamericanspeed.org/

“He built a car that really anybody could understand and anybody can take it apart,” Matthews says. “You’re talking about a time when a lot of Americans didn’t have electricity yet, but this car generated its own electricity, so for the time, it was very technically advanced, but it was simple enough that people with just common tools could take it apart and rebuild it. So that’s kind of the fun of the whole deal.” The Model T will soon resume its route, following the Lincoln Highway coast-to-coast. That’s Highway 30 in Iowa, which will take it through communities including: Clinton, Cedar Rapids, Marshalltown, Ames, Carroll and Denison. Matthews says the historic car, with its “TENMIL” Iowa license plates, always draws crowds of onlookers when it stops, but there’s a steep learning curve to operate it.

“Most people look at a Model T, they get in and there’s three pedals on the floor, and none of them are the gas pedal, and so people are thinking, ‘What the heck? How do you even drive this thing?'” Matthews says. “It takes a little time to understand how to operate a Model T, with the three pedals and your throttle’s up on the steering wheel — that’s how you control your speed.” The Lincoln Highway Association says 85-percent of the original stretch of road across Iowa is still drivable, though some of it is gravel. While you might think a hundred-year old car would provide a rough, bumpy ride, Matthews says that’s not the case, though its top speed is only 45 to 50 miles an hour.

“The Model T is like a giant spring, basically, and it goes off road better than most of your off-road vehicles today,” Matthews says. “I mean, this thing was designed to go across the country before there were great roads, so it’s accustomed to going through ditches and over mountains and things of that sort, and they’re incredibly adept at doing that.” The car was recently donated to the museum by the family of Dr. Alan Hathaway, a Davenport dentist who died in 2016. The Hathaway family drove the “Tin Lizzy” cross-country twice, for its 50th and 75th anniversaries, while officials from Ford drove it sea-to-sea when it was new in 1924. If you’d like to see the historic Model T, it’ll be coming to Iowa — soon.

The schedule on the website (museumofamericanspeed.org) will be updated as soon as the vehicle is again roadworthy.

(Radio Iowa) – Iowa Congresswoman Ashley Hinson, a Republican from Marion, has proposed legislation she says will create better border control. Hinson it is in response to the recent action by President Joe Biden that she calls inadequate. “Iowans and Americans see this for what it is. It is a cheap election year ploy by President Biden,” she says. Hinson says the House Appropriations Committee legislation would expand beds in border detention facilities to about 50-thousand. Biden’s plan puts a cap on those seeking asylum. “This weak, watered-down executive order won’t do anything to protect Americans from the potentially dangerous illegal immigrants that are already in the U-S, or to actually secure the border. The proposed legislation would also end grant programs for sanctuary cities.

Hinson also talked about the importance of keeping up efforts to battle the Avian Flu, especially with the first case being reported in an Iowa dairy herd. “We know its effect on poultry we know that if milk is pasteurized it is safe but obviously Animal Health is a huge priority for me,” she says. Hinson says part of the battle is maintaining adequate funding. “In the Ag/F-D-A bill we have continued to prioritize making sure we have resources available to properly research and fund potential vaccine efforts and to step up those efforts across the board,” Hinson says.

Hinson made her comments during her weekly conference call with reporters.

(Red Oak, Iowa) – Sheriff’s Deputies in Montgomery County, Thursday evening, responded to an altercation at a residence east of Villisca, and ended-up arresting a man from Shelby County. When deputies arrived at 3153 110th Street at around 5:30-p.m., they arrested 57-year-old Rex Dean McDermott, of Elk Horn, for Criminal Mischief in the 2nd Degree – a Class D Felony, and on three-counts of Aggravated Assault while displaying a dangerous weapon – which are aggravated misdemeanors.

McDermott was transported to the Montgomery County Jail and held on a $5,000 bond.