Officials with the Cass County Community Foundation have announced applications are now being accepted for the Dustin McCurdy Endowed Scholarship Fund.  The McCurdy Scholarship provides two scholarships of approximately $500 each to high school seniors from Cumberland Anita Massena High School (CAM). Applications are available from your high school guidance counselor.  Applications are due to your guidance counselor no later than March 31^st.  

The scholarship was created to honor the memory of Dustin McCurdy, a Broadcasting major who died from cardiac arhythmia due to an overwhelming viral infection in January 2001, during his Senior year, while attending college at Northwest Missouri State University, in Maryville.

Iowa Congressman Leonard Boswell was in Atlantic this (Friday) morning, where he held one of several planned public “Listening Posts on Agriculture.”

Congressman Leonard Boswell (D-IA) listens to a constituent speak at the Atlantic Public Library Friday morning

The session took place before a crowd of a little more than a dozen people, and while it was designed to gain input as preparations are made to craft the next farm bill, it also covered several issues of concern to area residents, including the Inheritance, or “Death Tax,” affordable health care, and what can be done to stop the partisan bickering in Congress. Boswell said “This is a challenging time in the history of this County,” and there are a lot of issues that need attention. One of those concerns, he says, is the Farm Bill, which will come up for a vote this Fall. Boswell says discussion on the bill is one of the few instances where partisan politics were set aside, but didn’t to get anywhere because the “Super Committee” tasked with cutting the budget failed to act.

Regardless, he thinks there will be an agreement on a Farm Bill that will meet with approval of the full Congress.” Of concern though, he says, is a “Safety Net” for farmers, which basically comes down now, to crop insurance. He says crops insurance needs to be affordable and accessible, and available. He also warned Direct Payments to farmers and producers will likely go away. The cuts, he says, will have reduced the bill by about 23-billion dollars, but before any more cuts are made, agencies other than the USDA will have to make sacrifices before any further action is taken on addition cuts to the bill.

The inheritance, or “Death Tax,” cuts set in-place during the first Bush Administration, and is set to expire at the end of this year, was a hot topic at the meeting. One of those in attendance proposed eliminating it entirely on land, if the land will be used for the same purpose the person who passed away used it for. The unidentified man said if the land is used for anything other than what is was formally used for, the person receiving that land should pay the taxes owed, because they’ve changed the use of the land. The same thing he said, could apply to small, family-owned businesses. Boswell said that was an “interesting idea,” but didn’t say whether he would mention it when Congress acts on the Obama Administration’s 2013 budget, which by some accounts, calls for $2-Trillion in new taxes and fees.

Boswell says he hopes Congress can work together to compromise on the budget and other matters. He says work on the Farm Bill has been “very bi-partisan” up to this point, but he blamed former House Speaker Newt Gingrich’s 1994 Republican “Contract with America” for much of the partisan bickering that has occurred over the years, and divided the Country.

The Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office reports two Red Oak residents were arrested today (Friday), on drug charges. 43-year old Richard Linfor was charged with being a felon in possession of a firearm and possession of drug paraphernalia. And, 40-year old Cathy Bush was arrested for possession of drug paraphernalia.

The arrests followed the execution of a search warrant at 210 West Washington Avenue, in Red Oak, at around 9:15-a.m.

Several hundred motorcyclists in biker gear rolled into the statehouse Thursday. The men and women with the motorcycle activist group known as ABATE, were in Des Moines for their annual lobbying day. State coordinator Phil McCormack of Clear Lake says ABATE is fighting a bill that would license all-terrain vehicles as motorcycles and let ATVs on the road. “We are against it. ATVs are not designed for highway use and they would throw ATVs in the statistics of motorcycle crashes if they were licensed that way,” McCormack said. This year, ABATE helped stop a bill to require helmets for cyclists under age 18. The group is also lobbying for a bill to allow motorcycle dealers to display their wares at biker rallies. McCormack noted that most years it’s too cold to travel on motorcycles for lobbying day, but some bikers did brave the open air this year. McCormack earned the nickname “Bullets” after an incident last year.

 “Evidently, you don’t carry bullets in your jacket in the capital,” McCormack said with a chuckle. “They caught it on the scanner, so they kind of threw that name on me last year. I took them out to my truck. I didn’t have my gun…just some extra bullets in my pocket.” Governor Branstad signed a proclamation Thursday recognizing March as Motorcycle Safety Month.

(Pat Curtis/Radio Iowa)

An official with ACCENT Marketing Services, LLC, says the company plans to hire 25 new employees at its customer engagement center in Harlan, to support new client growth. Gene Gettys, ACCENT’s Harlan engagement center director, said the company will immediately begin hiring for 10 non-licensed customer engagement specialists to support a variety of home protection products, including warranties, service plans and homeowner emergency assistance programs.  Fifteen additional employees will be hired over the next four months.  In total, ACCENT will employ 50 people in Harlan once the hiring ramp-up is complete.

Gettys says ACCENT is seeking employees with at least six months of customer service experience and an aptitude for sales.  Additionally, applicants must be at least 18 years old and have a high school diploma or equivalent.  Individuals with an insurance license who are looking for a career change are also encouraged to apply.  All interested applicants can apply through the careers section of ACCENT’s website at www.accentonline.com. 

ACCENT will also host a job fair at the Shelby County Entrepreneurial and Technology Center located at 1901 Hawkeye Ave. in Harlan.  The job fair will be held from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. and 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. on March 15 and 16 and from 8 a.m. until noon on March 17.  The Harlan center is the only ACCENT facility located in Iowa and serves as a dedicated insurance and financial services customer engagement center. 

ACCENT opened the Harlan facility in February after announcing it had acquired the licensed agent line of business from a leading insurance solutions provider.  Under the agreement, ACCENT retained the provider’s employees and management as well as assumed its client contracts specifically related to the company’s licensed agent line of business. Founded in 1993, ACCENT employs more than 2,500 people across the United States, Jamaica and the Philippines.

w/ Ric Hanson

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A Red Oak man charged in connection with a September 5^th, 2011 go-cart accident that critically injured his two-year old son, was sentenced late last month to serve one-year in jail, with all but 90-days of the term suspended. According to on-line court records, on February 27^th 35-year-old Shawn Michael Soar entered a written plea of guilty, to Child Endangerment causing bodily injury, and 1^st offense OWI charges. The charges were reduced from felony offenses when the mother of Ryan Soar agreed to plea deal. Judge James Heckerman placed Shawn Soar on a work-release probation, and ordered him to treatment for one-year at Zion Recovery Services.  He must also pay fines and related court costs amounting to $2,000, plus attorney’s fees.

The incident which lead to Soar’s arrest took place at around 9:15-p.m. September 5^th, when the go-kart he and his son were riding hit a parked pickup truck, in the 700-block of East Grimes Street in Red Oak. Lab results indicated Soar’s alcohol level was nearly twice the legal limit for allowed driving, in Iowa. Shawn Soar suffered minor injuries in the crash, but Ryan was flown by helicopter to a trauma center in Omaha. He was later released, but the child, who has since turned three, is still being treated for his injuries on an out-patient basis.

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The Iowa House has endorsed the idea of new protections for property owners when trespassers get injured. It means a property owner — or the person renting the property — is not liable for injuries trespassers may suffer if the property’s in good condition. Representative Mary Wolfe, a Democrat from Clinton, supported the bill. “What we’re trying to do here makes sense,” she says. “…I think it clarifies some gray areas in the law. I think it can protect homeowners, which is what we want to do.” But critics, like Representative Kurt Swaim of Bloomfield, say the bill does not protect the accidental trespasser.

“That’s the mother that’s taking her child out on Halloween night. That’s a hunter that inadvertantly gets on the wrong land,” Swaim says. “…The person who gets on the wrong land has some fault, but we don’t bar that person from any recovery.” Recovery is another way of suing for money to cover injuries or “pain and suffering.” The bill passed on a 68 to 30 vote. Only three members of the Iowa House spoke during debate of the legislation — and all three are lawyers.

(O.Kay Henderson/Radio Iowa)

Information released Thursday by the Iowa Department of Education shows the state four-year graduation rate dropped by one-half percent in 2011. Jay Pennington is chief of the department’s Information and Analysis Bureau. “I think it is concerning that it dropped a half percent from this year to last year. This year’s class of 2011 is above the class of 2009. So that’s good, I think it means that we need to, not just as a state, but schools and districts to get as many kids as possible to complete within four years,” Pennington says. The statewide four-year graduation rate is 88-point-three- percent, compared to 88-point-eight-percent in 2010, and 87-point-three-percent in 2009. Locally, Atlantic’s graduation rate was just over 88%; AHST 86%; Anita 100%; Audubon 93%; Exira 83%; Griswold and Nodaway Valley 98%, and Harlan 95%.

“The state Board of Education has a stated goal of 95-percent of students graduating. I think that 95-percent is an ambitious goal, that goal was set several years ago, in the meantime the formula has changed slightly since that formula was set,” Pennington says. He says Iowa still has one of the top graduation rates in the nation. Five of the 10 largest school districts in the state — Sioux City, Waterloo, Iowa City, Council Bluffs and Cedar Rapids — saw an increase in graduation rates.

“Seeing those larger districts with an increase in percentage is good to see, I think we need to dig in a little bit more and see the majority of districts that did see a decline and see what kind of supports are needed there,” Pennington says. Storm Lake has the lowest four-year graduation rate at 57-point-four percent. Sigourney had the next lowest at 63-percent. The state saw virtually no change in the annual dropout rate and an increase in the statewide graduation rate for students who took an extra year to finish high school.

(Dar Danielson/Radio Iowa)

See the complete list of graduation rates on this Radio Iowa link:

http://www.radioiowa.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/2010-2011GraduationDropoutRates.xls