Here is the latest Iowa news from The Associated Press…

LOGAN, Iowa (AP) — The cause of death of a 5-year-old boy found in a western Iowa ravine has not yet been released. An autopsy on the boy’s body was completed yesterday but the Iowa medical examiner’s office is conducting further laboratory tests before a definitive cause is released.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Farmers in central Iowa are finding more damage from a weekend storm that passed though Iowa with enough wind to flatten corn plants in some fields and damage trees. Farmers in Dallas County say the early Sunday morning storm brought an end to the recent heat wave but also packed strong wind. No injuries were reported from the storms, which brought a 20-degree drop in high temperatures to Iowa breaking the nearly week-long record setting heat wave.

DAVENPORT, Iowa (AP) — A man mistakenly released on bond after he was convicted of making methamphetamine in a Davenport child daycare center, is back in custody. The Quad-City Times reports  Dale Sammy Blumer was returned to jail Saturday. Blumer, who is 35, shouldn’t have been released while awaiting an appeal of his conviction.

DYERSVILLE, Iowa (AP) — The Field of Dreams movie site in Dyersville has taken on the ghostly feel of the Kevin Costner movie shot at the field 24 years ago for an unusual night game. A team of ghost players emerged from the cornfield to play in the first night game at the field on Sunday. About 100 people attended the game at the field featured in the 1989 movie in which an Iowa farmer builds a baseball field and ghostly players from the 1919 World Series return to play.

Vandals caused nearly $1,000 damage to the Stanton Community School District’s softball and football fields over the Labor Day weekend. The Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office says sometime between 9-p.m. Sunday and 7-a.m. Monday, someone damaged the left field fence of the softball field. Five aluminum fence posts were bent over at ground level, causing an estimated $500 damage. A floater-type tire was also picked-up and rolled over some track hurdles, before being left on the football field.

Trash cans located along a walking trail were dumped over, and two picnic tables were rolled onto their tops. Officials say one of the tables had four metal straps bracing it to the concrete pad that was also damaged. In addition, a wooden bench in the gazebo at the south area of the walking trail was damaged by removing it from its base. The damage, including that perpetrated on the City of Stanton picnic tables, was estimated at $475 altogether.

Anyone with information about the incidents is asked to call Montgomery County Crimes Stoppers at 1-800-432-1001.

LOGAN, Iowa (AP) — The cause of death of a 5-year-old boy found in a western Iowa ravine has not yet been released. An autopsy on the boy’s body was completed today (Monday), but the Iowa medical examiner’s office is conducting further laboratory tests before a definitive cause is released. Dominic Lloyd Lee Elkins, who was found dead Saturday in rural Harrison County, had lived with a foster family near Logan for nearly three weeks. 17-year-old Cody Metzker-Madsen, who lived in the same foster home for nearly three years, has been charged with first-degree murder in the 5-year-old’s death.

COUNCIL BLUFFS, Iowa (AP) — It used to be that a blood donation was worth a free cookie and a cup of juice but a new effort to attract donors makes a donation of blood or platelets worth a free haircut. The Council Bluffs Nonpareil reports that the American Red Cross and Sports Clips shops in Iowa and Nebraska are offering a free haircut in exchange for a blood donation through September.

Tricia Quinn, CEO of the Red Cross Midwest Blood Services Region says the offer is part of a national promotion. In Nebraska seven Sports Clips shops in the Omaha area and two in Lincoln are participating. In Iowa, two shops in Cedar Rapids are among those participating along with others in Coralville, Dubuque, and North Liberty.

Details are online at www.sportclips.com/redcross .

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Farmers in central Iowa are finding more damage from a weekend storm that passed though Iowa with enough wind to flatten corn plants in some fields and damage trees. KCCI-TV reports farmers in Dallas County say the early Sunday morning storm brought an end to the recent heat wave but also packed strong wind.

Some corn fields in the area are completely flattened with eyewitnesses saying it was the worst crop damage from a storm they’d ever seen. Law enforcement officers reported to the National Weather Service that some trees were knocked over in Adel. No injuries were reported from the storms, which brought a 20-degree drop in high temperatures to Iowa breaking the nearly week-long record setting heat wave.

SIOUX CITY, Iowa (AP) — A new contract giving the Sioux City school superintendent an $8,000 raise has boosted his salary to the third highest in the state. The Sioux City Journal reports Superintendent Paul Gausman will be paid $212,482 in the current school year. That’s behind the Des Moines superintendent’s $260,000 and Cedar Rapids’ at $220,972. The state’s third largest district, Davenport, will pay $195,868. The Sioux City district is the fourth largest in Iowa.

Sioux City school board member Doug Batcheller says the pay raise is meant to keep Gausman. Batcheller says Gausman has been approached four times about jobs elsewhere. Batcheller says an increase in student performance, improved graduation rates and declining dropout rates were key factors in the decision.

Gausman is entering his sixth year in Sioux City.

w/ Ric Hanson

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (9.9MB)

Subscribe: RSS

w/ Ric Hanson

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (6.0MB)

Subscribe: RSS

KIRON, Iowa (AP) – Investigators say a fatal house fire in the northwest Iowa town of Kiron was an accident.  Sioux City television station KTIV says the fire was reported about 9 a.m. Saturday. Firefighters put out the blaze, then found the body of 50-year-old Tina Reed.

Kiron is a town of about 280 that sits 60 miles east-southeast of Sioux City.

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) – The organizer of free Honor Flights to Washington, D.C., for Nebraska and western Iowa veterans of the Korean War says he’s booked a plane that he can’t yet pay for.  Bill Williams of Patriotic Productions in Omaha says he has a goal of $80,000 but has only $20,000 in donations so far.

He told the Lincoln Journal Star that he’s joined forces with his counterpart in southwest Iowa, who is in the same bind. The Iowa organizer also has raised just $20,000 toward his $80,000 goal.  They’ve booked the same plane for consecutive flights: Oct. 29 for the Nebraskans, Oct. 30 for the Iowans. Williams says that will save them about $20,000.