(Radio Iowa) – A movie based on the World War Two German POW camp near Algona will premiere Friday in Algona and Forest City. The movie “Silent Night in Algona” focuses on the prisoners in Algona from September through December of 1944. Forest City’s Jim Brockhohn appears in the movie as Uncle Joe. “These three producers from Wisconsin they’ve had to threaten for several years where I’d take it and so they finally got produced. They did film for days here in Forest City and Heritage Park and Heritage Park was gracious enough to donate some uniforms and let let them use the buildings and then we found majority of it in Algona and Whitmer and so is a three week shooting every day except they’re off on Sunday. So we actually started the end of October and then we finished up into towards the end of November”

Brockhohn helped director director Tony Hornus cast the parts for the movie– leading to many locals in the cast. “So what I do is I call that person up, see if you’d be interested in doing the film and then I got that actor in contact with Tony and they went from there then,” he says. “They then auditioned for Tony and Tony would select them and the people I did send to him, he did select them all and put them in the movie.” He says they also asked him to bring some extras and he did that, so there are some of them from Forest City in the movie. Much of the movie was filmed in Heritage Park in Forest City and the original barracks were also in the movie.

“The barracks they use have been at Heritage Park for all these years and so — or for many years I’m not sure when they got them — but Heritage Park acquired them, so they took the barracks from here and took them Algona and built the barracks house there and use the original barracks,” Brockhohn says. Brockhohn says there was a tremendous amount of work put into the attention to detail from uniforms to cars. He says Forest City residents didn’t fill all the spots in the movie. “Even though we had some from Forest City they’ve recruited people from Texas from L.A. from New York and all the states around, and even Wisconsin. And so they had professional actors from all over, it is wonderful,” he says.

The Algona camped housed around 17-hundred prisoners. A nativity scene created by some of the prisoners while in captivity in Algona in 1945 has drawn visitors to the community for many years.

(Radio Iowa) – Volunteer firefighters are vital in Iowa, especially in our rural areas, but they’re retiring in droves and new recruits are direly needed to join the ranks. Members of the Iowa Firefighters Association plan to appeal to state lawmakers in the upcoming session to help get more people interested in volunteering. The association’s past president Jason Barrick, who serves on the Iowa Falls Fire Department, says new incentives are needed at the state and local level. “You’re not going to get rich off of being a volunteer fireman,” Barrick says. “That is not why anybody does it. Most departments in Iowa are absolutely unpaid. There are some volunteer fire departments that do have the benefit of getting paid but even at that, they’re averaging probably, each fireman, maybe $1,000 to $1,500 a year.”

Barrick says one recruitment possibility is to try and reach young people at the high school level. “There’s some programs out there that we call cadet programs or junior firefighter programs that just bring young kids aware of what the fire service can do for them and where it can take them in life, both personally and professionally.” The cadet programs work, Barrick says, and he’s seen the results first-hand. “We had one a few years ago here in Iowa Falls,” Barrick says. “It was very strong and we have eight fire members on currently now that were in that junior program back ten years ago.”

The Iowa Firefighters Association has about 15,500 members, while there are 269 volunteer firefighter departments in Iowa.

(Audubon, Iowa) – Officials with the Audubon County Memorial Hospital have announced their newest primary care physician. Dr. Jon Swanson is joining ACMH’s team of family physicians. Born and raised in Omaha, Dr. Swanson is double board-certified as a family medical physician.

He attended Iowa State University, and is married to his wife, Alka. When visiting Audubon County Memorial Hospital and Clinics, Dr. Swanson was encouraged to learn of the care the staff offer to the patients in the community. He said the level of care, community spirit and patient-first attitude ACMH staff offer, were significant factors in his decision to join the facility. “The administration’s vision for ACMH,” he said, “fits in with my desire to reach underserved patients.”

Dr. Swanson and Alka relocated to Audubon and are excited about participating in community events. He is currently accepting new patients. Contact ACMH Clinics in Audubon to schedule an appointment at 712-563-4611 or Exira at 712-268-5348.

(Radio Iowa) – The Iowa Lottery Board has approved a change that will cut the time players in multi-state lotto games have to claim their prize from a winning ticket from 365 to 180 days. Iowa Lottery vice president, Mary Neubauer, says Iowa is one of only 14 states which have a one year claim period — while 33 states have 180 day time limits. Neubauer says they started looking into the issue after continually seeing unclaimed prizes of all amounts. She says there are around one-point-two and one-point-five million dollars worth of tickets that expire in Iowa each year without the prize being claim. The change would impact the Powerball, MegaMillions, Lucky for Life, and Lotto America games. The claim periods for other Iowa Lottery products will not change. Neubauer told the Lottery Board they started studying the issue by looking at one single drawing day and its prize redemptions.

“Less than three percent of the prizes from those drawings were claimed after 180 days so if the prize I was going to be claimed, it was claimed in the first six months,” Neubauer says. She says they then expanded the research to several more days and got the same result. “Time and time again, we saw that less than three percent of the monetary value of the prizes that had been won in those particular drawings were claimed after the six month mark. In some cases, it was a tiny percentage like one point-two percent. For some other drawings, I think the biggest amount that was involved was two-point-nine percent,” according to Neubauer. Neubauer says decreasing the amount of time players have to cash in tickets will allow them to get the unclaimed money back into the prize pool.

“There is no monetary advantage to the lottery from making this change. We don’t keep the money, the state doesn’t keep the money from prizes…that expire without being claimed,” she says. Neubauer says they don’t have a firm date for when they will change the prize expiration time limit, because there has to be a transition period. “So if someone has a ticket today, the price claim period for that ticket would not change, we would have a very definite countdown to the point when the price claim period change will take effect,” Neubauer says.

Neubauer says they need to complete testing on the statewide gaming system before the change can be implemented. The lottery anticipates making the change in the first quarter of calendar year 2023.

(Red Oak, Iowa) – A man from Red Oak was arrested twice Tuesday afternoon. According to Red Oak Police, 56-year-old James Kent Otte was arrested at around 4-p.m. for Public Intoxication and Disorderly Conduct, both of which are Simple Misdemeanors. Otte was arrested earlier in the day, at around 12:12-p.m., on a charge of Public Intoxication. He was being held in the Montgomery County Jail on a $300 bond.

(Radio Iowa) – Big jackpots for Powerball and MegaMillions helped push Iowa Lottery sales up in the early part of its fiscal year that started in July. Iowa Lottery C-E-O, Matt Strawn, gave details to the Lottery Board, Tuesday. “The Iowa Lottery is in record territory for both total sales and proceeds through October or the first four months of fiscal year 2023. And once audited November sales figures are available, the record-breaking performance will be even more pronounced,” He says.

Strawn says raw sales data from November indicates it was the third-highest-grossing month of sales in the Iowa Lottery’s 37-year history. “Lottery sales of 152-million-605-thousand-971 through October represent a year-over-year increase of five-point-four-six percent,” Strawn says. He says Lottery proceeds through October are up nearly two percent at almost 33-point-nine million dollars.

“With the exception of scratch tickets and pick three — sales of every Iowa Lottery product are outpacing last year’s results through October,” Strawn says. Chief Financial officer, John Roth, says the lotto ticket sales were up more than 38 percent compared to the same time last year. “Powerball generated 21-point-three million dollars in sales through October — a six-point-three percent increase versus fiscal year 2022,” Roth says. He says that is impressive considering there was also a large Powerball jackpot in that time frame last year. MegaMillions also contributed to the increased bottom line.

“MegaMillions and the 830 million jackpot in late July, delivered 18-point-8 million in sales through October compared to fiscal year 2022. And generated the fifth largest sales week ever,” he says. Roth says scratch ticket sales had been slowed by higher gas prices — but they have seen some improvement in those ticket sales as gas prices have come down.

(Sheldon, Iowa) – A collision between a car and a semi tractor-trailer in northwest Iowa, Tuesday afternoon, resulted in life-threatening injuries to a man from Nebraska. The accident happened at around 1:20-p.m. south of Sheldon, in O’Brien County. According to the Iowa State Patrol, a 2018 Hyundai Elantra driven by 48-year-old Brian J. Williams, of Omaha, was traveling south on Nettle Avenue, when the car crossed the center line of the road.

The vehicle struck the rear axles of a trailer attached to a 2017 Peterbilt semi tractor-trailer before leaving the road to the west. The driver of the semi, 22-year-old Devon Timothy Stetson, of Hull, attempted to  evade the crash by moving to the right, but was unable to avoid doing so.

Following the collision, the semi stopped on Nettle Avenue. Williams – who was not wearing a seat belt -was transported by Sheldon Ambulance to the Sanford Hospital in Sheldon, before being flown to a separate trauma center.  Stetson was not hurt in the accident.

(Radio Iowa) – Forecasters say another storm system is expected to reach the state later this week that could bring snow across Iowa’s northern half and rain to the south. Meteorologist Cory Martin, at the National Weather Service, says the divider line between snow and rain runs from Council Bluffs to Des Moines to Cedar Rapids to Dubuque, but just a few degrees shift in the temperature could make all the difference.

“Temperatures are going to be warm enough to support actually a fair share of rain probably for a good chunk of the area as the storm system moves in through the day on Thursday,” Martin says. “If we’re looking for any snow, it may be confined to far northern Iowa, whereas further south, right now, we’re looking at warm enough for some rain to fall.” Once the sun sets on Thursday night, Martin says those conditions could change — or not — as the system is still developing.

“Thursday night into Friday morning, temperatures may cool enough to allow that rain-snow line to sink further south and into central Iowa,” Martin says, “so, still quite a bit of uncertainty there and just how far south we’re going to see snow, just because we’re talking the difference of just a degree or two.” Wide sections of north-central and northeast Iowa may see two or more inches of snow, which could make driving hazardous from Mason City to Decorah.

“It’s certainly possible up there that we’re going to see slick and snow-covered roads that may impact your travel especially as we get into Thursday night,” Martin says. “Once the sun goes down, temperatures cool a little bit more, so that’s definitely something that we’ll be monitoring.” Keep up with the developing forecast at weather-dot-gov.

(Radio Iowa) – The search continues today for the body of a newborn baby at the center of a Fort Dodge homicide investigation.

According to Fort Dodge, police captain Dennis Quinn, officers from the Fort Dodge Police Department, and the Webster County Sheriff’s reserves were joined by the FBI over the weekend in the search of the child’s body. The investigation began before Thanksgiving after the Webster County telecommunication center received information indicating that a female had given birth to a child at home and that the body was moved to another location. 

Webster County Crime Stoppers is offering a reward to anyone with information that leads to the discovery of the child’s body.
The names of the people at the center of the homicide investigation have not been officially released at this time as no charges have yet been filed.