CLEAR LAKE, Iowa (AP) — Organizers have announced the end of a memorial snowmobile race on Clear Lake in northern Iowa. The organizers of the Jack Helgren Memorial Race say the event has been discontinued after its 10-year run because members of the original organizational group have decided to retire.

The Mason City Globe Gazette reports that the race is named after Jack Helgren, an area businessman, former snowmobile dealer and avid racer who died in 2009. The two-event featured snowmobile races, a vintage snowmobile show and live music.

The event, historically scheduled in January, was postponed to February this year because of unseasonable temperatures and poor ice conditions. The race was held on the lake ice, and snowmobilers and spectators parked on the ice as well.

AMBER, Iowa (AP) — Liability concerns have been raised about the Hula Hoop Tree that sits alongside a county road in eastern Iowa. The Jones County Board of Supervisors is scheduled to discuss the concerns at the board meeting Tuesday in Anamosa. The discussion could include proposals to move it, tear it down or find another tree or place for the hoops.

FILE – This Oct. 9, 2018 file photo shows hula hoops dangling off the limbs of a tree in Monticello, Iowa. Liability concerns have been raised about the Hula Hoop Tree that sits alongside a county road in eastern Iowa.
The Jones County Board of Supervisors is scheduled to discuss the concerns at the board meeting Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2019 in Anamosa. The discussion could include proposals to move it, tear it down or find another tree or place for the hoops. (Kevin E. Schmidt/Quad City Times via AP)

Some local folks say the first hula hoop on the tree was blown there during a storm, but there are other, competing versions about what happened. Hundreds of colorful hoops now adorn the dead tree, which has become a quirky landmark that’s drawn visitors from around the Midwest and beyond.

Supervisor Lloyd Eaken worries that the tree is in such bad shape it won’t be able to hold up the weight of the hoops for much longer. County Sheriff Greg Graver says the tree’s location near Amber makes it an unsafe place for motorists to stop.

(Radio Iowa) — The placement of wind turbines has become a hot topic in some areas of the state. There will be a public hearing in Winterset today (Tuesday) on a proposed moratorium banning construction of wind turbines in Madison County for the next 27 months. Last Thursday, Kossuth County’s Board of Supervisors held a public hearing about a proposed wind farm in southeastern Kossuth County. Several people in the crowd asked whether the turbines interfere with television, radio or emergency signals. Tony Wellman, the site manager of an Alliant Energy wind farm in Franklin County, says the company has technicians who can be dispatched to investigate. “To upgrade antennas, different things like that,” Wellman says, “…different processes for different scenarios, whatever that scenario may be, to help eliminate that TV interference.”

Others in the crowd asked Wellman if wind turbines interfere with G-P-S signals used to guide machinery through farm fields. “The Franklin County Wind Farm is 181 turbines…All of those locations are right out in agricultural fields, so they’re planting soybeans, corn, so on under the turbines,” Wellman says. “We have not had one GPS interference on a tractor for those 181 turbines.”

The city council in Wesley passed a resolution last month, asking the Kossuth County Board of Supervisors to change the county’s wind energy ordinance and prevent wind turbines from being placed within two miles of a city.

(Radio Iowa) — An Iowa State University professor of Food Sciences says you should be looking at the food ingredient labels on the food you eat and not just accept what the front of the package says. Ruth Litchfield says there are often a lot of words on the front of the package designed to catch your attention. “Whether they put front and center that it’s a non-G-M-O project certified food item. Or it says it antibiotics free. Or you’ve got that organic symbol on there. A lot of consumers perceive that labeling that those are products that are going to be healthier — and that may or may not be the case,” Litchfield says.

She says you should look for other information on the product. “What you really want to do is turn the product to the side where you have nutrition facts. And if you’re making your choices of what you are purchasing at the grocery store based on health — you want to look at the nutrition facts side. Also looking at the list of ingredients,” Litchfield says. Litchfield says some labeling words carry more weight than they should. “There’s kind of a halo effect when you put organic, or you put non-G-M-O project, or you use the term natural. There’s kind of this halo that this is a healthier food item. And that is not always the case,” according to Litchfield. “You need to be logical and look at those nutrition facts and look at that list of ingredients.”

She points to poultry products as an example when companies say their poultry contains no antibiotics — when in fact no poultry products contain antibiotics because it is against the law to do so. There has been talk of adding country of original labeling to all foods. Litchfield says that could make it more difficult for consumers to sort through. “There’s a lot of information there already that’s a challenge for a lot of consumers,” Litchfield says. “So, we want to keep it simple, but we need to keep it truthful so that they can make the best decision for them.”

Litchfield also works for the I-S-U Extension Office and says they are trying to educate people more on where food comes from. She says the only thing many people know about food is they get it at the grocery store.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — On a sunny Tuesday as the fall semester was beginning on Iowa State University’s campus, volunteers for three presidential candidates set up tables, calling out to harried students as they made their way to the school’s massive library. Ryan Ford, a senior who’s serving as one of Sen. Kamala Harris’ campus leaders, was up at 7:30 that morning just to be ready. “I will wake up as early as it takes if it means getting rid of Donald Trump,” he said.

Ford had ample company. Student volunteers for Harris, Bernie Sanders and former Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke were there already making the hard sell — sometimes with candy as an enticement — to a constituency that could be key to success in a crowded caucus field: college students. With so many Democratic candidates competing, and a fragmented vote a distinct possibility, many of the 2020 hopefuls are hoping to turn dissatisfaction with Trump on Iowa’s campuses into votes on caucus night when small margins might mean the difference between going on to New Hampshire or getting out of the race.

Most of the history of young voters suggests it’s a flawed strategy — 18- to 29-year-olds have far lower turnout rates than their older counterparts. But there is one powerful exception: In 2008, Barack Obama’s successful courting of college students helped propel him to an upset caucus victory, and ultimately, the White House.
In this cycle, candidates think they have another edge: animosity toward Trump on issues like guns and climate change. In 2018, about 38% of registered Iowans between the ages of 18 and 24 voted in the midterm election — the highest turnout among that age group in any midterm election since 1990, according to the Iowa secretary of state.
The burst of organizing activity on campuses shows that Democrats believe that energy can be tapped again.

“It’s a fractured primary field and locking up a key constituency or two might be enough to win the caucuses or place higher than pundits might’ve expected,” said Ben LaBolt, a campaign spokesman for Obama in 2008 and 2012. “The path to victory for Obama in ’08 was reliant on changing the caucus electorate — to reach younger voters and nontraditional voters.”
It is not easy, particularly because caucus voters often have to trudge to their precincts on a cold winter night and stay for an extended period to understand the complicated rules and vote.
That’s where students like Ford come in — he said he plans to spend “a couple dozen” hours a week organizing for the campaign on ISU’s campus, and even more time when it gets closer to caucus night.

He’s one of a student organizing corps spread out across a dozen campuses in Iowa for Harris. She also has paid organizers working on each campus, and launched over the summer “Camp Kamala,” an in-person training program focused on getting students and young Iowans to caucus. But Harris faces fierce competition for the youth vote, with every top-tier campaign in Iowa organizing heavily on campuses and making a pitch directly to young voters. In addition to Harris’ organization, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren has had organizers on 18 different campuses around the state; South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg’s team is organizing on a dozen campuses across Iowa; and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders’ staff says he has students who have trained to volunteer for the campaign at nearly every campus in Iowa.

Sanders’ success in attracting young voters in 2016 was part of what helped catapult him to a near-tie with Hillary Clinton in Iowa, and helped drive his unexpectedly strong candidacy. This cycle, his campaign just completed its own youth voter training camp, with 1,600 students going through six webinars to effectively learn how to be independent, volunteer organizers. Sanders himself just completed a two-day swing through the state’s three public universities, which are located in three of its bluest counties, where he emphasized the power young voters could wield — if they get out and vote.

Both Sanders’ and Harris’ campaigns have started efforts focused specifically on high-school students as well, who are able to participate in the February caucuses if they turn 18 by the November general election. Buttigieg, as the youngest candidate in the field, has made the case for generational change central to his pitch to voters, and his campaign has deployed organizers to a dozen campuses. He’s also running digital radio ads on Spotify and Pandora aimed at young people in Iowa. New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker has hired three organizers from NextGen Iowa, the youth voter turnout group, and his campaign said they registered more than 400 students across 15 campuses during the first week of school. O’Rourke held campus organizing events across Iowa as well.

But the biggest challenge may simply be getting students to show up for a caucus, a process where voters display and defend their votes publicly and one that can seem complicated and opaque to first-time voters. Somerle Rhiner, an Iowa State University freshman, said she’s interested in the presidential election but “really hesitant” about caucusing.
“I don’t know anybody that’s ever caucused before. It’s the pressure of not knowing what to expect,” she said.