(Radio Iowa) – Officials with the Iowa Donor Network says they saw great numbers for 2023. Network spokeswoman Heather Butterfield says during the past year, 123 “donor heroes” in Iowa gifted a remarkable 350 organs for transplant. She says a record was also set last year with an “unprecedented” one-thousand-27 tissue donors, each of whom enhanced the lives of 50 to 300 people. Butterfield says they’ve seen a 40percent increase in organ donors since 2019 and a 21% increase in organs transplanted. She says it shows the incredible commitment that Iowans have to saving lives.

(Radio Iowa) – The spokesman for the state’s largest utility company says the heavy winds that accompanied the storms last week helped create an electric generation record. MidAmerican spokesman, Geoff Greenwood, says the company’s turbines did a lot of turning.”Those steady high winds that we had throughout the week really, really made wind energy fare really well,” he says. “We cranked out a lot of wind energy, and in fact on Friday we said a peak daytime record for wind energy output here in our state.”

Greenwood says the company’s turbines produced 158-thousand megawatt hours of wind energy, which he says is at least the amount of energy MidAmerican customers would use in a day. He says they can make adjustments on the turbines if the winds become too strong. “Depends on the equipment and the manufacturer. So each has a different tolerance. But if it does ever get to that point, we will turn the wind turbine blades to reduce the resistance against the wind and it causes them to slow down a little bit so we can control them if they get too high, but we didn’t get to that point,” he says.

Greenwood says icy conditions can be a problem for the turbines.”We’ve got sensors on our wind turbines if they do have an ice build up then we will shut them down or the system shuts itself down so that turbine will stop turning if it senses an imbalance due to ice,” Greenwood says. There were bitterly cold temperatures and Greenwood says their turbines have winter packages to deal with that. “Not to say that we don’t have an occasional problem with a wind turbine as you do with any piece of mechanical equipment but by and large last week our wind energy really really performed,” he says.

Greenwood says turbines are rated to work in temperatures down to 22 below zero, and could possibly work below that. Most Iowans heat with natural gas, and he says usage was up with the subzero temperatures. “Interestingly we didn’t set any natural gas records it was very cold but it was not a peak record that we set,” Greenwood says. He says customers may see a higher heating bill than normal for the month, but that depends on how the temperatures play out the rest of the month.

(Radio Iowa) – Iowa dairy farmers planning to invest in new technology or expanded processing can now apply for state grants to finance part of their projects. Iowa Agriculture Secretary Mike Naig says the Dairy Innovation Grant Program is part of a broader effort to expand the amount of local food available to Iowa consumers.

“And, in the course of doing that, provide Iowa farmers with more market opportunities,” Naig says. The state is awarding a million dollars in grants to expand processing at meat lockers around the state this year. Now, Naig’s agency is accepting applications for part of the 750-thousand dollars lawmakers set aside for grants to dairy farms with fewer than 50 employees.

“To increase on-farm dairy processing opportunities like cheese, butter, yogurt, frozen yogurt — those type of things,” Naig says, “but also to allow those dairy farmers, especially the smaller farms, to also invest in some technology, some equipment that would help them drive down their labor costs as well.” Naig expects may of the grant applications to be from dairy farmers planning to buy robotic milking systems, but he says there’s a lot of new technology out there to enhance production.

“There are systems now that you can put around the cattle’s necks so you can track their eating and when they’re milking and what their productivity is and track their health,” Naig says. According to the Iowa State Dairy Association, there are nearly 800 dairy herds in Iowa — and over 200-thousand dairy cows. Naig says there are some large-scale dairy operations in the state, but this program is for smaller operations.

“Consumers are more interested than ever before in buying local and so if you can source milk or cheese, yogurts — those types of products from your own farm that’s certainly what consumers are looking for,” Naig says, “but it also gives those farms an opportunity control their own destiny, capture some margin, generate some value of the milk that’s coming off their farm by processing it there and selling it direct to consumers.”

The maximum cost-share grant will be 100-thousand dollars. The grants may not be used to cover start-up costs, advertising, salaries or to pay off debt. The deadline to apply is February 9th.

(Radio Iowa)  – Iowa Republican Party officials say just over 110-thousand Iowans participated in Monday night’s Caucuses. Party chairman Jeff Kaufmann says it happened when some areas of the state had a wind chill of negative 30 degrees. “We’ve shown the world we can have a personalized grassroots event and we can have absolute election integrity and we can do it all in wind chills that would probably send a whole lot of citizens in a whole lot of states under the covers,” Kaufmann says.

About 15 percent of registered Republicans voted — the lowest turn-out for the Iowa Caucuses in 24 years. “Before the 186,000 record that was set in 2016 on a, well, it would be a balmy evening compared to Monday, we were looking at numbers in 2012 and 2008 that were very similar to this,” Kaufmann says. About 120-thousand people voted in the 2008 Iowa Republican Party Caucuses. which Mike Huckabee won. In 2012, when Rick Santorum won, there were about 122-thousand participants.

Kaufmann says it was a breach of faith for major media outlets to announce Trump was the projected winner of THIS YEAR’S Caucuses before the vast majority of participants had cast their straw poll vote.  “We are certainly showing our displeasure. I’m certainly cautioning the Nevada chair because they’ve got a caucus coming and that’s something that should not occur,” Kaufmann says. “That’s something that should not happen again.”

The Iowa Caucuses are run by the party, not state or county government officials. Kaufmann and other Iowa G-O-P officials raised more than 800-thousand dollars for the operation of this year’s Caucuses.

(Radio Iowa) – The Iowa Hunger Coalition is calling on the legislature to take action and accept additional federal food assistance for low-income Iowa kids. The program would provide an extra 120-dollars of food aid over the summer for 240-thousand Iowa kids who qualify for free or reduced price school lunches. Governor Kim Reynolds announced last month that Iowa won’t accept the federal money because of administrative costs to the state and because the program does not address the childhood obesity epidemic.

Mandi Remington of Iowa City says she barely makes enough money to support her three kids on her own, and the pandemic version of this program helped her a lot.  “We find ourselves stretching food at the end of the month, and that pandemic EBT made a really big difference in that in allowing us to continue have fresh foods rather than just struggling with what we could throw together out of cans,” she says.

The Iowa Hunger Coalition held a rally at the state capitol Wednesday and has launched a petition drive to encourage Republican leaders to take action.

(Atlantic, Iowa) – The City Council in Atlantic held a very short meeting Wednesday evening, during which they passed two resolutions. The first was “Approving the transfer of funds for the second quarter of Fiscal Year 2023-24.”  In his agenda notes, City Administrator John Lund said the City Clerk (Barb Barrick) makes budgeted transfers and Local Option Sales Tax (LOST) allocations on a quarterly basis. The money is allocated to various funds and recommended by the City auditor’s to be approved by resolution.

A breakdown of the funds is shown below:

The second Resolution approved by the Atlantic City Council was with regard to”Resetting the salary for Police Sergeants effective January 1, 2024 through June 30, 2024.” On January 4th, the City’s Personnel and Finance Committee met to discuss new business. It was decided at that time, to increase the Sergeant pay based on the recent MOU (Memorandum Of Understanding) regarding longevity for patrol officers. The resolution proposes compensation for a Sergeant to be $35.90 per hour/$73,989.90 annually.
Speaking of police officers, Atlantic Police Chief Devin Hogue provided a report on P-D activities. He said officers: responded to 639 Calls for service; Conducted 94 traffic stops; issued 32 citations; issued 15 written warnings; conducted 20 arrests; filed 39 charges; completed 23 incident reports, and covered 10 accidents.

In her written report to the Council that was included in Council members’ packets, Atlantic Public Library Director Michelle Andersen mentioned the Friends of the Library held their annual meeting and approved giving the library $4,600. The funds will be used for summer programming, other programming, the Community Shred Day in April, sponsoring of the Imagination Library, and other purposes.

Michelle said the elevator project should begin before February. Schumacher Elevator estimates it will take about one and a-half weeks to complete the installation, once work gets underway. The Atlantic Public Library received a $20,000 grant from the American Library Association (ALA) to modernize the elevator. The cost of the library second floor updates is covered by grants amounting to $28,500 (combined USDA and Cass County Community Foundation grants), and private donations from the library’s gift account.

Andersen reported the Library had “Major computer issues” in December. The issues essentially boiled down to expired client licenses. Another reason was the age of the servers, which are more than five-years old. Andersen said she is looking into replacing the servers later this year. She said also, in the past couple of months, the library received memorial gifts from Janeille Kenworthy, Judy Overton and Carol Hensley, as well as a $3,834.35 disbursement from the Frederick Hansen Trust. The Atlantic Public Library has also received State funds for the fiscal year amounting to $5,353.39, and County funds of $30,700.

At the conclusion of regular business, the Atlantic City Council entered into a Closed Session pertaining to personnel matter, where that individual requested the closed session.

(Radio Iowa) – The 2024 honorees who will be inducted into the Iowa Rock ‘n Roll Hall of Fame are being announced.

The hall in northwest Iowa recognizes those who have played a significant role in popular music through the years. Hall of Fame president Ralph Kluseman says the induction ceremony will be held Labor Day weekend at the hall and museum in Arnolds Park.

“We’re going to do a special Okoboji Rocks Concert Series event on Friday, and then the weekend will kick off with the opening ceremony,” Kluseman says. “We’re going to have a meet-and-greet and all of that, but Sunday is the day that we do the ceremony where we bring people into the Hall of Fame, we do the concert, we bring in the winner of the Iowa Rocks Talent Contest who will open the show.”

Kluseman says they’ll be updating the hall’s website to include all sorts of information about the new class of inductees.

“We’re just excited about making sure that over the next weeks and months coming up here, we will delve a little deeper into the stories of all the inductees and be posting those,” Kluseman says, “so people can learn more about who are these people from all over the state of Iowa that have made such an impact on our lives, and brought so much joy.”

This is the 27th year for the Iowa Rock ‘n Roll ceremony and he says it always draws a sizable audience.

“It’s the one thing that I look forward to every year, this induction, because it’s so heartfelt,” Kluseman says. “When people get up and accept their award, you know this means a lot and obviously their fans, the people that care about them, everybody’s in such a place in their mind and their heart, that this is a really huge celebration everybody looks forward to it.”

This year’s list of inductees includes:

• Band Category: Lake Patrol, Johnny Trash, The Ozone Ramblers, Jason Reed & Kerosene, Ghostship, Labyrinth,
  311, Cornfed, Sage
• Border Band Category: Cartwright Brothers
• Out of State Band Category: Badfinger
• Inventor Category: Wade Goedke, Owner of Chandler Limited
• Individual Category: Dave Rowley, Lynn Wee, Jon Purdy, John Stefaniak, Matt Cox, Richard Kleinberg, Phil Kelly, Dave Ducharme-Jones, Tina Mock, Dawn Sedlacek
• DJ Category: Tony Coloff, Rick Galusha
• Music Store: North Star Music Supply
• Support Person Category: Phil Maas, Tim Fox
• Iowa Rock ‘n Roll Music Association Lifetime Achievement Award: Jon Douglas “Doug” Dixon
• Matousek Lifetime Achievement Award: Gary Heady, Sr.
• Spirit Awards: Jeff Poulter/Capitol Theater, Bryan Farland, Wendy Hull
• John Senn Legacy Award: Diane Sanders

(Radio Iowa) – Iowa Senator Joni Ernst is among a bipartisan group of lawmakers who hosted today’s U.S. Capitol visit from families of Americans being held hostage in Gaza.

“For over 100 days now Americans have been held at the mercy of Iran-backed Hamas — six of them,” Ernst said. “Families don’t know if their loved one is dead or alive and, as you see here, no parent should have to endure this.”

Speaking at a news conference earlier today, Ernst told reporters that pain should be answered. “Bring these hostages home. Bring these Americans home now,” Ernst said. “…Every second counts.”

Earlier this month, Ernst led a delegation of Democrats and Republicans from the U.S. House and Senate to stops in four Middle East countries. “The mission of that delegation was solely focused on the return of our hostages. We called on leaders in the region to pressure Hamas into releasing these hostages,” Ernst said. “…We cannot let up in holding our partners feet to the fire to reunite these families.”

U.S. Senator Joni Ernst speaking at a news conference in Washington, D.C. on Jan. 17, 2024. (Photo provided by Ernst’s U.S. Senate office.)

Israeli officials estimate about 130 hostages remain in Gaza after being captured by Hamas on October 7. Ernst said the country of Qatar could be key to negotiations to free the hostages and she’s called on more members of congress and the Biden Administration to exert more public pressure on Hamas to free the hostages.

Ernst, other top Senate leaders and relatives of the six Americans who’s among the remaining hostages spoke earlier today during a news conference in Washington, D.C.

(Red Oak, Iowa) –  A man from Mills County was arrested this (Wednesday) afternoon in Red Oak, on a Class-D Felony charge of Domestic Abuse Assault – Strangulation Causing Bodily Injury. The Red Oak Police Department reports 39-year-old Adam Chandler Orr, of Henderson, was taken into custody at around 12:30-p.m. in the 400 block of 1^st Avenue.

Orr was being held without bond in the Montgomery County Jail,  pending an appearance before the Magistrate.

Elk Horn, Iowa – The Danish Windmill will be hosting its Windmill Expo & Membership Drive on Tuesday, January 30th starting at 5:30PM in the Elk Horn Town Hall. This is a great opportunity to learn about everything the Danish Windmill accomplished in 2023 and what our future plans are for the organization. It will include a thorough presentation from the Danish Windmill’s executive director, Shaun Sayres.

This event is free to the public with food and drink provided. Membership is not required to participate. Come learn more about Shelby County’s largest tourist attraction. For more information, call the Danish Windmill at (712) 764-7472 or email us at info@danishwindmill.com.