(Ames, Iowa) – Police in Ames report a man from Illinois was arrested Wednesday afternoon, about 25-minutes after a woman was shot in a parking lot, in Ames. Authorities say 33-year-old Lyndon N. Dembry, of Chicago, was taken into custody at around 3:16-p.m. in the 4500 block of Mortensen Road. He faces felony charges of Attempted Murder (a Class-B Felony) and Dominion and Control of a Firearm by a Felon (a Class-D Felony), along with Domestic Assault while displaying a dangerous weapon (an Aggravated Misdemeanor).

Ames Police say they received a report of a shooting in the 4700 block of Mortensen Road at around 2:53-p.m., Wednesday. When officers arrived, they found a woman who had been shot in the upper body. She was transported to a hospital in Des Moines. Her name and a report on her condition was not immediately released.

(Atlantic, Iowa) – Officials with Cass Health, in Atlantic, have announced (that as part of National Rural Health Day), the facility has earned a 2024 Performance Leadership Award for Excellence in both Patient Outcomes and Quality. Compiled by The Chartis Center for Rural Health, the Performance Leadership Awards recognize top quartile performance (i.e., 75th percentile or above) among rural hospitals in Quality, Outcomes, and/or Patient Perspective.

Cass Health CEO Brett Altman says “Our vision is to be the best rural hospital in America because we care deeply about the health of our patients and community, which means we are committed to always providing excellent quality of care and striving for the best possible outcomes. Even though the award identifies top quartile performance, we know that we are actually in the top 4 percent for both quality and outcomes. Being recognized for eight years in a row is certainly testament to the level of care provided at Cass Health, and not only are we extremely proud to achieve this award, we hope that our community is also pleased to know that the care they receive here is among the very best in the country.”

The Performance Leadership Awards are based on the results of The Chartis Rural Hospital Performance Index®, a comprehensive and objective framework for assessing how rural hospitals are performing. Index benchmarks are relied upon by rural hospitals, health systems with rural footprints, hospital associations, and state offices of rural health to measure performance across multiple areas impacting hospital operations and finance.

Troy Brown, Network Consultant, The Chartis Center for Rural Health, says “The Performance Leadership Awards capture the commitment, diligence, and innovation with which America’s rural hospitals approach the delivery of care within their communities. It’s a tremendous honor to be able to recognize the efforts of this year’s award winners and celebrate their achievement as part of National Rural Health Day.”

(Red Oak, Iowa) – The Red Oak Police Department says no injuries or citations were reported, following an accident Wednesday afternoon. Authorities report a 2008 Ford Escape SUV driven by 84-year-old Gail Imogene Golden, of Red Oak, was traveling south on 3rd Street at around 2:35-p.m., when the vehicle slowed down at the intersection with Elm Street. Police say Golden did not need to slow down, since east/west traffic has yield signs at the intersection, while north/south traffic at 3rd Street does not stop.

The SUV was rear-ended by a 2000 Lexus ES300, driven by Kathy Palmquist, of Red Oak. Palmquist told police she did not see the SUV slowing down. Damage from the collision amounted to $5,500, according to the report. Police noted Gail Golden was driving at less than the posted speed limit, as a contributing factor to the collision.

During Wednesday’s news, we reported Gail Golden was involved in a collision that took place Tuesday, in Red Oak. That accident happened at the intersection of Washington Avenue and Broadway Street. Authorities the same SUV Golden was driving stopped behind traffic at the intersection stop sign on Washington Avenue, heading westbound. For reasons unknown, the SUV began backing-up. The vehicle struck a van driven by Lizzete Nolting,of Red Oak, causing an estimated $3,500 damage altogether.

Following an investigation, Red Oak Police cited Golden for Unsafe Backing. No injuries were reported.

(Creston, Iowa) – The Creston Police Department reports three people were arrested recently, on separate charges. This (Thursday) morning, 57-year-old Chris Ray Pickering, of Creston, was arrested at his residence and charged with Domestic Abuse Assault 2nd offense. Pickering was being held without bond in Union County Jail.

Wednesday night, 39-year-old Jennifer Lyn Ham, of Creston, was arrested for Possession Drug Paraphernalia and Possession of Controlled Substance/3rd offense. Ham was transported to the Adams County Jail, where her bond was set at $5,300.

And, Monday morning, 23-year-old Ashley Nikole Kalkas, of Creston,  was arrested for Driving while License is Suspended. Kalkas was cited and released from the scene, on a Promise to Appear in court.

(Anita, Iowa) –  CAM Speech/Debate team Head Coach Manda Thomas says the month of November is very busy for the CAM Drama Department.  She says students have participated in tournaments in Atlantic and Bettendorf.  This coming weekend they will be traveling to Des Moines North for a tournament to finish out the month.

At Atlantic’s Bull Creek Invitational Friday night speech events, Macy Burg participated in Informative speaking and placed 2nd overall.  Hannah Thomas placed 2nd overall in Original Oratory.  Sophie Herberg placed 3rd overall in International Exptemoransous Speaking.  Jakob Petersen participated in Humorous Acting, Declan Cambaage in International Extemporaneous Speaking, Megan Gerlock in United States Extemporaneous Speaking and Echo Crecilus in Original Oratory.

Sophie Herzberg, Macy Burg, and Hannah Thomas at Atlantic’s Bull Creek Invitational (Photo courtesy Coach Thomas)

On Saturday the team returned to Atlantic for Debate events.  Megan Gerlock placed 2nd in speaker points and 2nd overall in Lincoln Douglas Debate. Creighton Kinzie placed 2nd in speaker points for Public Forum Debate.  Creighton and Declan Cambage placed 2nd overall in Public Forum behind a tough Rosevelt team. Jakob Petersen participated in Student Congress where he received an award for being Presiding Officer and placed 6th overall.

November 9th saw the Debate team at home participating in the WILD Debate Tournament. In Public Forum Debate Declan Cambage and Creighton Kinzie placed 3rd overall. The team of Sophie Herzberg and Megan Gerlock placed 4th.  The team of Katilynn Platt and Marcus Jarosik finished in 5th place.  Macy Burg placed 3rd in Student Congress.

On November 15, 4 Debate students travel to Bettendorf High School to participate in the Bulldog Invitational.  Hannah Thomas and Jakob Petersen participated in Student Congress on Friday night.  Declan Cambage and Marcus Jarosik participated in the Public Forum on Friday and Saturday. On Saturday Hannah Thomas and Jacob Petersen participated in Informative Speaking and Humours acting respectively.  While none of the students placed, they all felt it was a good tournament and they gained experience and knowledge on how to better themselves.

This coming weekend the team will travel to Des Moines North to participate in speech events on Friday evening and Debate events on Saturday.  Thomas says “The coaches are very proud of these students and look forward to seeing how they continue to grow as the season progresses.”

CLIVE, Iowa — A Pottawattamie County woman who won a $300,000 prize playing the lottery said she knew she had a winning ticket, but she was way off on the prize amount.

That’s 66-year-old Patricia “Patty” Weihs, of Walnut, who claimed her prize at lottery headquarters in Clive. Weihs won the seventh top prize in the Iowa Lottery’s “Ruby Red Crossword” scratch game. She bought her winning ticket at Yesway, 2101 Antique City Drive in Walnut.

Patty Weihs, from Walnut won $300k in an IA Lottery scratch ticket game. (Photo & audio courtesy of the Iowa Lottery)

She took her ticket back to the store where it was purchased from the next morning, and handed it to an employee to claim what she thought was a $300 prize. The clerk checked and told Weihs, he couldn’t pay her.

“He showed me this slip, and I saw this 3 with all these zeros after it,” she said. “I didn’t know what to say. I mean, what could you say? It’s like you’re mind-blown.” Weihs, a server at a local restaurant, said she plans to be wise when it comes to how she uses her winnings.

Ruby Red Crossword is a $30 scratch game that features 16 top prizes of $300,000, 47 prizes of $10,000 and overall odds of 1 in 2.29.

(Radio Iowa) – A central Iowa man who survived one of the deadliest forms of cancer is offering his story of hope on this World Pancreatic Cancer Day (Thursday). Andy Lyons, a retired commercial photographer from Johnston, will turn 72 next week and realizes he was one of the fortunate few to beat the disease. In the past two years, the five-year survival rate for pancreatic cancer has risen from 11 to 13-percent, which may not sound like much, but Lyons says it’s significant. “Any uptick is fabulous. There seem to be more cases being diagnosed now, the treatments are getting better. There’s just so much progress being made rapidly, which is encouraging,” Lyons says. “Still, it’s only 13-percent, but still, it’s 13-percent! It’s twice as much as it was 10 years ago, so that’s good.”

Lyons was diagnosed in October of 2021 and had surgery the following month. After 12 rounds of chemotherapy, his doctors declared him cancer-free in October of 2022, which he calls a testament to the importance of cancer screenings and early detection. “That’s the key, if you find it when it’s in its infancy, chances for surgery are much better, chances for survival are tenfold better,” Lyons says. “When mine was discovered, everyone says, ‘Oh, what stage was it at?’ because everyone hears stage four, stage five, which is not good at all. Mine was stage — (puff of breath) — it was just starting.”

Pancreatic cancer is lethal because it’s often not found until it’s spread to other areas, so Lyons knew he’d need to act quickly once the tumor was discovered. “I was diagnosed on a Wednesday, and met with a surgeon on Friday, and 10 days later, I had it removed robotically, so it’s less invasive and, a quicker recovery,” Lyons says. “It was not a fun surgery, but it wasn’t too bad.” Lyons lost at least seven close relatives across three generations to pancreatic cancer, including his grandmother, at least two of her sisters, his mother, an aunt, an uncle, and his brother. Some 25 years ago, Lyons enrolled in a familial pancreatic cancer study and he’s gone through extensive testing every year since. He had 22 years of negative tests before being diagnosed. He offers Iowans a warning.  “If you have a history, a family history, of pancreatic cancer, that’s a good key to be alert and get things checked out,” he says.

The symptoms of this type of cancer are often vague and can be mistaken for something else. That includes things like abdominal pain and back pain, changes in stool, yellowing skin, weight loss, appetite loss, and a feeling of being full after only eating a little food. Pancreatic cancer is the third-leading cause of cancer-related death in the United States. It’s estimated 600 people will be diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in Iowa this year and more than 500 of them will die from it.

(Radio Iowa) – The Farm Bureau finds the cost of the Thanksgiving dinner has dropped again this year, but is still impacted by inflation and the pandemic. Iowa Farm Bureau’s economics and research manager Christopher Pudenz says the overall cost is down considerably. “The total cost for the Thanksgiving dinner was 58-dollars and eight cents, which represents a five-percent decrease in the overall price of the basket from 2023,” he says. The turkey accounts for 44 percent of the costs of the 11 items, and the 16-pound bird this year dropped in cost by six percent.

“In 2023 the turkey was also the primary source of a decrease from the previous year, but in 2023 that was because prices in 2022 had been so high due to losses of turkey flocks because of highly pathogenic avian influenza. Here in 2024 the decrease from last year has to do with a decrease in the overall demand for turkey,” Pudenz says. He says the cost of the Thanksgiving meal is still well above the pre-pandemic level.

“That 58-dollars and eight cents this year is still roughly 19 percent higher than we had back in 2019 which roughly reflects national inflation during that time period. Now we’ve seen a decline in the rate of inflation over the past year or so, but that doesn’t mean prices have gone down.” He says some of the issues raised in the recent election hold true for the Thanksgiving dinner.”If folks are, you know, still feeling like groceries are, on the whole are more expensive than they were back in 2019, or 2020 it’s because they are,” Pudenz says. He says one thing to note is farmers are not seeing much of the increased cost of feed.

“According to the U-S-D-A, farmers, on average, still received less than 16 cents per one dollar that consumers spent on food at the grocery store in 2023,” he says. The increase costs came after the food left the farm. “The remaining 84 percent of that food dollar that they call it goes to other part of parts of the supply chain, no energy, packaging, transportation, things like that,” Pudenz says. “Food Processing gets roughly 13 cents of that, according to U-S-D-A Food Service. So think restaurants that gets nearly 32 cents of that food dollar. Advertising gets two and a half cents or so.”

The other food items in the survey were frozen pie crusts, pumpkin pie mix, whipping cream, dinner rolls, fresh cranberries, whole milk, frozen peas, sweet potatoes, and stuffing.

(Red Oak, Iowa) – The Red Oak Police Department reports a woman was arrested at around 6-p.m. Wednesday, on two active Montgomery County warrants for Violation of Probation. 48-year-old Keyla Rae Churchill, of Red Oak, was transported to the Montgomery County Jail and held on bond amounting to a total of $10,000 ($5,000 for each warrant).