Atlantic, IA – Cass Health’s next session of Healthy U will feature Dr. Chad McCance and the topic of colorectal cancer screenings. The session will be held Thursday, March 21 at noon in Conference Room 2.

Dr. McCance provides general surgery, thoracic surgery, and critical care procedures. He is board-certified and a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons. In 2017 he was honored as one of 10 Hospital Heroes by the Iowa Hospital Association.

Dr. McCance graduated from Hastings College in 1988 and completed medical school at the University of Nebraska College of Medicine in 1992. He completed his general surgery residency at the VA and Methodist Hospitals in Des Moines in 1997. He served in the US Army Reserve and retired as a Lieutenant Colonel in 2012.

Chad McCance

Space is limited! A free boxed lunch is provided for all attendees, so reservations are required. Call 712-243-7479 to reserve your seat. For more information about Healthy U, visit casshealth.org/healthyu.

(Atlantic, Iowa) – Members of the Xi Beta Phi women’s service organization recently raised money for the Atlantic Food Pantry, by selling holiday wreaths and decorations.

Shown are (right to left) Sara Nelson, Xi Beta Phi, presenting the $1524 donation to Atlantic Food Pantry representatives June Halder, Brad Osborne and Chuck McClaren.

(Glenwood, Iowa) – The Mills County Sheriff’s Office reports the arrest at around 7:52-a.m., Thursday, of 31-year-old Davonte Laronne, from Omaha. Laronne was taken into custody in Rock Port, MO., on a Mills County warrant for Violation of Probation. His bond was set at $5,000.

The following is a press release from the Pottawattamie County Sheriff’s Office, with regard to a shooting incident during an alleged carjacking incident that took place Sunday night:

(Greefield, Iowa) – The Adair County Sheriff’s Office reports two arrests took place last Thursday, Feb. 29th. 36-year-old Lee Delmar Goll, of Ankeny, was arrested at the Adair County Jail on an Adair County Felony warrant for Harassment in the 1st Degree. Goll was being held without bond in the Adair County Jail until seen by a judge.

And, 44-year-old Tanya Lynn Funke, of Stuart, was arrested Feb. 29th in Casey, for Violation of a No Contact Order/Contempt of Court. She was transported by Adair EMS to the Adair County Hospital, for treatment of a bloody nose and additional medical treatment.The Sheriff’s report noted she showed signs of being under the influence of alcohol, and allegedly under the influence of illegal substances consistent with methamphetamine use.

Once discharged from the hospital, Funke was arrested on the No Contact/Contempt charge, because she was not allowed to be at the residence in Casey, due to alleged offense of Domestic Abuse Assault. She was released March 1st on a $1,000 cash or surety bond.

(Radio Iowa) – A Des Moines Register Mediacom Poll has found 56 percent of Iowans have a favorable opinion of the state’s nine Area Education Agencies. The A-E-As provide special education services, teacher training and other services to Iowa school districts. In early January Governor Kim Reynolds said the A-E-As are failing students with disabilities and she proposed major changes in how A-E-As operate, including an end to some services she says schools can get from the private sector or hire staff to provide. The Iowa House has approved its own bill which would keep the A-E-As the sole provider of special education services for schools. It calls for creation of a task force to study the A-E-As and pushes back the timeline for changes in non-special ed services provided by the A-E-As.

Representative Skyler Wheeler of Hull says he and other House Republicans met with parents, superintendents, A-E-A employees and education groups to get to this point. “We’ve worked diligently and I am proud of the work that we have done,” Wheeler said. “…This bill does not change anything with special education. It does not dismantle the AEA system.” Wheeler says as the parent of a daughter with autism he knows how important A-E-A services are to families and that’s why he used his authority as House Education Committee chairman to permanently table the governor’s plan.

“We killed the other bill and started from scratch,” Wheeler says. “…I, too, have a very high opinion of the AEAs. This bill came to use as a way to look at how do we improve outcomes for our students and specifically students with disabilities.” The bill passed the House late last week with the support of 53 Republicans. Nine Republicans and all Democrats in the House opposed it. Representative Molly Buck, a Democrat from Ankeny, is a teacher who questioned why the governor decided to propose such major changes.

“No one campaigned on this issue. The AEAs were blindsided…and I can tell you schools and teachers felt really blindsided, too.” Senate Republicans have developed their own proposal for A-E-A changes that more closely resembles the governor’s bill. In the Des Moines Register’s Iowa Poll, 20 percent of those surveyed have an unfavorable view of A-E-As.

(Guthrie Center, Iowa) – Guthrie County Deputy Sheriff/Jail Administrator Jesse Swensen, today (Monday) released the Feb. 2024 Jail stats. Swensen said “February was a decent month. We processed 67 inmates through the facility during the month. We held 36 out of county inmates for different periods of time. We brought in $31,500 from holding out of county inmates.”

Detailed information can be found through the PDF links shown below:

February Monthly Summary

February Average Population

February Billing

(Radio Iowa) – Johnson County’s GuideLink Center is starting its third year of providing mental health and substance abuse treatment and four-thousand admissions later, the data shows more walk-ins than expected. About 700 of the facility’s admissions came from law enforcement, while more than one-thousand came from health care providers. GuideLink’s Faraji Hubbard coordinates recovery at the center.

“Our first responders, our officials are able to connect with individuals who are struggling and they have that option to come to GuideLink,” Hubbard says, “and that is the gift.” Hubbard says instead of inadequate care, jail or a trip to the emergency room, there are options, like a chance to get help. Medical Director Monika Jindal says people are becoming more aware of these services and are making use of them, even outside of a crisis.

“GuideLink was originally designed to be jail diversion and ER diversion, and I think we have done some of that,” Young says, “but I think a lot of what we’re seeing is that the pandemic certainly exacerbated mental health needs.” Over the past three years, some 14-hundred people walked in for service.

WASHINGTON, March 4, 2024 – Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack today (Monday) announced that four school districts in Alaska, Iowa, Maine, and Ohio received awards for their trailblazing and innovative efforts to improve the nutritional quality of meals for their students. This announcement was made in front of nearly 850 school nutrition professionals at the School Nutrition Association Legislative Action Conference during National School Breakfast Week. The school districts are the first winners of Healthy Meals Incentives Recognition Awards, jointly created by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and Action for Healthy Kids as part of USDA’s Healthy Meals Incentives Initiative, also known as HMI. These awards celebrate school districts who embrace opportunities to take their school meals to the next level.

The four awardees—Clear Lake Community School District in Iowa; Sandy Valley Local School District in Magnolia, Ohio; Petersburg School District in Alaska; and Regional School Unit 89 in Stacyville, Maine—along with 260 other small and/or rural school districts also received HMI grants last summer to enhance the nutritional quality of their school meals.

The Clear Lake Community School District (Iowa) is recognized as a “Lunch Trailblazer” for reducing sodium in their menu items through creative strategies such as sourcing low- or no-sodium products, increasing the use of fresh local foods, and enhancing flavors with custom spice blends. Julie Udelhofen, food service director, Clear Lake Community School District, said “We’ve been hosting monthly taste tests for our students, which feature locally grown foods. These events are a wonderful opportunity to introduce our students to new produce items as well as show our students that their opinions matter to us.”

For more information about the awardees, please visit the HMI Awardee Spotlight webpage.