(Radio Iowa) – A northwest Iowa school district at the center of an assault investigation involving its high school wrestling team, is losing two administrators. The Hinton School Board accepted the resignations last night (Tuesday night) of middle and high school principal Phil Goetstouwers and athletic director Brian DeJong, who is also an elementary school principal. No reasons were given for the resignations that are effective at the end of the school year.

The Coralville Police Department launched an investigation after wrestlers said older teammates tasered them at a hotel during a wrestling tournament last month. A video circulating on social media showed a wrestler being held down on a bed during the attack. A police spokesperson says additional information will likely not be released because all involved are juveniles.

Several parents attended the meeting on Tuesday night. (IPR photo by Sheila Brummer)

The public wasn’t allowed to speak at the special meeting, but afterward, one woman who identified herself by only her initials, D-H, says her son was one of seven freshmen targeted.  “There’s still a lot of people who need to be held accountable where we don’t have answers,” she says. The woman says more information will be coming out. “A lot of things have been unraveling more and more. It’s going to hit the Hinton community hard. It’s going to be getting worse before it gets better,” She says.

Hinton’s head wrestling coach is still on administrative leave. Parents say he is being allowed to teach math.

(Atlantic, Iowa) – The Cass County (IA) Auditor’s Office reports a candidate filing for the June 4th Republican Primary took place, today (Wednesday). Fifth District Board of Supervisor Bernard Pettinger submitted his nomination papers.

On Monday, Republicans Kathy Somers, incumbent Cass County Auditor, filed for re-election, and Chief Deputy John Westering, filed to run for Cass County Sheriff.

Candidates for County Office have until 5-p.m. March 22, 2024, to file their nomination papers.

(Radio Iowa) – The Iowa Court of Appeals has upheld the life sentence of a Dickinson County man in the shooting death of women outside a Milford medical staffing office in 2022. Christian Goyne-Yarns of Sprit Lake was found guilty of first-degree murder in the shooting death of Shelby Woizeschke in the parking lot of her workplace.

Woizeschke was the mother of his two children, but they were separated. Goyne-Yarns appealed, saying there was not enough evidence to support his conviction or to show he planned the shooting ahead of time.

The Court of Appeals ruling says there was some evidence missing from the case, including the gun, but Woizeschke’s 9-1-1 call identifying Goyne-Yarns as the shooter and corroborating surveillance video was substantial evidence to uphold the conviction.

(Radio Iowa) – Researchers at Iowa State University are studying the genetics of three types of turtles with the ultimate goal of helping people survive life-threatening incidents, like heart attacks. Nicole Valenzuela, an ISU professor of ecology, evolution and organismal biology, says they’re growing what are known as organoids from turtle livers.

“Organoids are a simplified version of an organ that can be grown in a petri dish,” Valenzuela says, “so that we can do experiments without using live animals.” These are the world’s first organoids developed for turtles and only the second for any reptile. When a person has a heart attack or a stroke, they can suffer permanent injuries caused by a lack of oxygen to their organs.

Valenzuela says, “By understanding the remarkable ability of painted turtles to survive lack of oxygen for months, we could develop therapies that bio-mimic that capacity to then help these patients.” Many turtles also have the ability to withstand the extreme cold for long periods of time, something else Valenzuela and her research team are studying with human applications in mind.

“If we understand how these animals are able to survive freezing and not suffer damage to the DNA or their cells,” Valenzuela says, “that also could help develop better technologies that can be used during organ transplantation, the preservation of the organ, the tissue itself.”

ISU research scientist Itzel Sifuentes-Romero and Prof. Nicole Valenzuela (ISU photo)

The research also holds promise for conservation, she says, as the use of organoids would enable the study of endangered species which couldn’t otherwise be investigated.

(Atlantic, Iowa) – Firefighters from the Atlantic Fire Department were dispatched to a grass/brush fire early this (Wednesday) afternoon. The call went out at around 12:21-p.m., to the area of 620th and Memphis Road, south of town. Cass County Emergency Management Coordinator Mike Kennon says embers from an old brush pile ignited the blaze.

The fire was extinguished in about 30 minutes. The flames consumed about 10 acres.

No injuries were reported (Photo courtesy Mike Kennon)