Officials with the Iowa Aviation Museum in Greenfield have announced the 2017 inductees to the Iowa Aviation Hall of Fame.  The inductees will be honored at a banquet at the Warren Cultural Center in Greenfield, on September 30th.  A reception will be held at 4:30 pm with dinner served at 5:15 and the program following at 6:00 p.m.  The event is open to the public with advance registration is required for the banquet.  Cost of the event is $20.00 for the banquet and dance.

The following persons are 2017 selections to the Hall of Fame:

Stephen Bales was born in Ottumwa Oct 7, 1942.  He was the Guidance Officer at Mission Control responsible for Apollo 11, the first Lunar Landing, where a series of problems could have led to a dangerous abort of the landing. Stephen and his “Back Room” team quickly and correctly processed these serious alerts. For Stephen’s role in the successful landing of Apollo II, he was chosen to accept the “NASA Group Achievement Award” from President Nixon on behalf of the Mission Control team.    

James McClain was born in Des Moines in 1923.   He enlisted in the Army Air Corps in 1942. He attended navigator training; and upon graduation in July 1943, he was assigned to the 564th Squadron, 389th Bomb Group in Benghazi, Libya. He was navigator on a B-24B Liberator during Operation TIDAL WAVE, a daring low level attack on the Ploesti, Romania, oil refineries on August 1st, 1943. The Ploesti raid was the most highly decorated mission in the U.S. history, with five Medals of Honor awarded.

Ronald Narmi was born in Council Bluffs, Iowa on June 27, 1933.  He was a Navy pilot for 30 years (4,653 flight hours); Commanding officer of a P-3 squadron; Commander of a P-3 wing of five squadrons; Commander, Fleet Air Keflavik (Iceland) for 2 years with ASW (antisubmarine warfare) responsible for the North Atlantic (finding and tracking Soviet submarines); Commander, Iceland Defense Force for 2 years, responsible for the air defense of the North Atlantic, tracking Soviet Bear bombers. He was also responsible for defense of the Iceland commanding Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, and NATO forces.

Following the completion of the program at 8:30, a dance will be held featuring Brick’ n Bob.  The dance is open to the public for $10.00 if not attending the banquet. The Iowa Aviation Museum is open weekdays and Saturday 10 am to 5pm and 1 to 5 pm on Sundays.  For questions or advance registration, please call the Iowa Aviation Museum at 641-343-7184.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Authorities have identified a man stabbed at the Iowa State Fair in Des Moines and announced an arrest in the case. The Iowa Public Safety Department says 21-year-old Tay Ronce Denton was stabbed around 10:25 p.m. Tuesday in the southwest corner of the fairgrounds. He was taken to Mercy Hospital. Police said Wednesday that he is in stable condition.

Officials say 17-year-old Yuri Green has been charged with counts of willful injury. Two other juveniles believe involved have been banned from the fair. It’s the second stabbing in as many years at the fair. Court records say a man was sentenced to 10 years in prison for a gang-related stabbing on Aug. 21 last year.

Noisy cicadas have been buzzing around Iowa for weeks and now cicada-killing wasps are also circling our yards, picking off the big bugs. Entomologist Jody Green says the wasps are not aggressive like bees or hornets, but they are hunters and it’s only the female of the species that goes after cicadas.”She’s gotta’ fly out and hunt and catch them. They catch the cicada and paralyze it with their venom. She drags it back to the burrow and she’ll lay an egg on it. The larvae will emerge, consuming that cicada as food, keep eating over the winter and emerging the next fall. Circle of life.”

The cicada killers may be up to two inches long with black with yellow markings on the body and rusty-colored wings. They’re the largest wasps in Iowa. Green says the male wasps typically aren’t the attackers but they might give you a good scare. “The males are fakers, they’re aggressive though and they’ll fly right up in your face,” she says. “They’re territorial so they’re defending their territory from other males and they’ll attack them. It looks like they’re attacking humans but they really have nothing behind that stinger. The female, on the other hand, does have venom behind that large stinger but she uses though that for prey, not for people.”

This type of wasp burrows into the ground, sometimes as deep as two feet. “When there are a lot of cicadas and a lot of (wasp) nests, sometimes people want to control them but it’s really difficult,” Green says. “I’d recommend they do that at night and they treat each individual burrow with a pyrethroid dust, but normally, there’s no control necessary.”

A better course of action is just to leave the wasps alone and they’ll usually treat you likewise.

(Radio Iowa)

A call Tuesday morning about a disturbance in Minden resulted in the arrest of a woman on a warrant for Parole Violation. The Pottawattamie County Sheriff’s Office reports 22-year old Ashley Nicole Duncan, of Council Bluffs, was taken into custody at around 10:15-a.m., and held at the Pott. County Jail for other authorities.

More area and State news from KJAN News Director Ric Hanson.

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DES MOINES, Iowa — The Iowa State Patrol and the Des Moines Police Department are investigating a stabbing at the Iowa State Fair.  At approximately 10:25 PM, Tuesday, a 21-year-old male was stabbed near the SW corner of the fairgrounds.  The victim was transported to Mercy Hospital in Des Moines in a critical, but stable condition.  The investigation is ongoing and more details will be released as they become available.

SERGEANT BLUFF, Iowa (AP) – A northwest Iowa school superintendent is facing an October trial on accusations of drunken driving. Dickinson County court records say Sergeant Bluff-Luton Community School District Superintendent Rod Earleywine entered a written plea of not guilty Monday. The charge: operating while under the influence, first offense. His trial is set to begin Oct. 10.

Earleywine was arrested Aug. 5 in Spirit Lake. The records say Earleywine’s blood alcohol was above the legal limit in two tests. The school board president has declined to comment about the case. The district website still lists Earleywine as superintendent.

The area’s top news at 7:06-a.m., w/KJAN News Director Ric Hanson

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A crowdfunding campaign is underway this month to keep a program afloat that helps sexual assault victims in Iowa. Adam Robinson, executive director of the Iowa City-based Rape Victim Advocacy Program, says they’ve seen severe cuts in state and federal funding in recent months. Robinson says, “In total, RVAP’s budget last fiscal year was about $1.4 million and we’ve lost about $400,000 this fiscal year.”

The deep cuts forced the office to slash its workforce, eliminating 15 of the 30 part- and full-time staff members. “One of the key programs that we’ve been running since 1999 is the Iowa Sexual Abuse Hotline,” Robinson says. “That program provides 24-hour, confidential, free support to anyone impacted by sexual violence and that particular program was defunded.”

Even though that hotline was defunded, Robinson says the 800-number is still active and is being staffed by the remaining personnel and volunteers. While the office lost some 400-thousand dollars in funding, the modest goal for the month of August was to raise ten-thousand dollars via the crowdfunding effort. “We’ve raised $7,300 so far, which is tremendous,” Robinson says. “We have a lot more money to raise to try to recoup the dollars we’ve lost in funding but it’s been a great start.”

The fundraiser will help to sustain some services that would otherwise be at risk of vanishing. To donate money or time as a volunteer, visit the Rape Victim Advocacy Program website: rvap.org.

(Radio Iowa)

An R-V carrying some of the state’s historical artifacts is parked at the Iowa State Fair this week. Officials call it a “mobile museum” and they’ve assigned the phrase “Iowa History 101” to describe the experience of touring the interior. Mary Cownie is director of the Iowa Department of Cultural Affairs. “The State Historical Society of Iowa maintains more than 200 million documents and artifacts,” Cownie says, “but they’re only valuable if people can see them.”

The R-V already has traveled to 24 counties, with the goal of making stops in each of Iowa’s 99 counties by the end of 2019. The mobile museum is parked near the livestock pavilion on the state fairgrounds from now through Friday. Governor Kim Reynolds says it’s one way to share Iowa’s legacy with the state’s citizens. “If you get a chance, be sure to walk through the RV and see some of the highlights,” Reynolds says, “things like a patch from astronaut Peggy Whitson with her spacesuit, a jersey from Lynne Lorenzen’s glory days in six-on-six basketball and, one of my personal favorites, the pen that Governor Harding used to sign the 19th Amendment in 1919 — and this made Iowa the 10th state to ratify the 19th Amendment and give women the right to vote.”

The mobile museum will be parked at the Clay County Fair in Spencer from September 9th through the 17th. It’s next stop, though, is this Sunday in northeast Iowa. It will be at the Parkersburg Historical Home on August 20th.

(Radio Iowa)