Three southwest Iowa farms will be included in the Iowa Barn Foundation’s all-state barn tour this fall.

The tour across the state will feature historic barns that will be open to the public. The two day tour will be October 15 and 16 from 8:30 AM to 5:30 PM both days.

The three barns in southwest Iowa include the Finken barn in Harrison County, located at 3005 335th St. It was built in 1917.

The second barn is the Heflin barn located at 837 Orange Road in Harlan. It was built In 1901 and is said to be the only kind of its barn still remaining.

Also on the tour is the Kochersperger barn, located at 64094 Highway 59 in Mills County. It was built in 1941.

The two day tour is free and is meant to encourage barn preservation in the state.

An attempted burglary has led to the arrest of an Audubon man, while authorities are still looking for another suspect involved in the crime.

On Monday morning at about 11:30, the landowner at a home on County Road F-24 in Shelby County discovered two people attempting to remove property.

The property owner called police as the two suspects fled the scene.

When deputies from the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office arrived on the scene they were able to catch one of the two suspects a short distance from the property.

The suspect was identified as 31-year-old Jason Malloy of Audubon. Malloy was taken into the Shelby County jail and held on $5,000 bond. He is being charged with 3^rd degree burglary, a class D felony, and possession of burglary tools, an aggravated misdemeanor.

Authorities are still looking for the second suspect.

The Cass County Board of Supervisors are set to hold a meeting Friday morning.

Included in the agenda is a report from the southern Iowa rural water association. They plan to discuss rural water issues for southwest Cass County.

The board will also receive reports from the Cass County Attorney, the Cass County Engineer on a secondary roads update, and from the Cass County mental Health Coordinator.

The meeting is scheduled for Friday morning at 9:00 at the Cass County Courthouse and is open to the public.

w/ Brett Johnson

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The Missouri River is now completely open to all traffic.

The US Army Corp of Engineers opened all stretches of the river earlier this week.

The Missouri River had been closed to all traffic when flooding began this spring and summer.

The river had been gradually opening recently until the final stretch that was given the all-clear.

Barge and recreational boaters will now be allowed on the river.

Officials had to evacuate a Council Bluffs neighborhood because of a natural gas leak that was started by a copper thief.

About a dozen houses were evacuated before dawn Thursday morning while officials searched for the source of the gas leak. Residents were allowed to return home around 6:30 a.m.

Council Bluffs police say the gas leak came from a vacant homewhere someone had been trying to steal copper pipe. Officials believe the thief cut the home’s natural gas line and water line while trying to steal the copper.

Police arrested a teen suspect in the theft and recovered the stolen copper.

The affected neighborhood is a couple blocks east of Interstate 29 on the west side of Council Bluffs near 36th and B streets.

–AP

Proceeds from the Trevor Frederickson Memorial Fund and the T-Fred Golf Tournament are continuing to be distributed throughout western Iowa.

One of the donations made possible by the fund was the donation of an enclosed trailer to the East Side Christian Church in Council Bluffs.

Trevor’s mother Melanie Petty says she and Trevor’s father learned that the Council Bluffs church was looking for a trailer to keep supplies so they could be ready on a moment’s to help the community with any disasters. The church has made a pledge to log 10,000 hours of community service in 2011.

Including the trailer, the Trevor Frederickson Memorial Fund has made over $20,000 in donations to date. Some of those many donations include: books and magazine subscriptions to the Atlantic High School and Atlantic Public Libraries, $500 annually toward coaching expenses and t-shirts for all participants of the Trevor Frederickson Baseball and Softball Clinics , $1000 annual contributions to the Nishna Valley Family YMCA’s Partnership With Youth campaign, and $750 annual scholarships to two Atlantic High School graduates and a Southwestern Community College student.

In 2009, a Council Bluffs apartment fire took the life of 21 year old Trevor Frederickson. He was a graduate of Atlantic High School.

w/ Brett Johnson

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Iowa has widened its lead over North Carolina as the nation’s top hog producer.

The Des Moines Register reported Thursday that the U.S. Department of Agriculture lists Iowa’s herd total at 19.6 million, an increase from last year’s 18.9 million.

The hog inventory in No. 2 North Carolina dropped by 7 percent to 8.5 million. Producers blamed the decline in North Carolina on the high cost of corn, which is shipped to the state to feed the hogs.

The USDA says the nation’s total hog inventory was 66.6 million. Producers have been seeing strong prices.

Shane Ellis of Iowa State University Extension says per-head profits were $21.33 in August. He expects those profits to drop into the single digits in September.

–AP

Officials have evacuated a Council Bluffs neighborhood because of a natural gas leak.

About a dozen houses were evacuated before dawn Thursday morning.

The area was being evacuated as a precaution while officials searched for the source of the gas leak.

The affected neighborhood is a couple blocks east of Interstate 29 on the west side of Council Bluffs near 36th and B streets.

–AP