(Griswold, Iowa) – The Griswold School District’s Board of Education will meet Monday evening (Sept. 16, 2024) in the Conference Room at the High School/Middle School/Elementary Building. Their monthly session begins at 5:30-p.m., and includes the following (tentative) agenda items:

• Call Meeting to Order

• Reading of Mission Statement

• Approval of Agenda (D.R.)

• Public Input

• Superintendent’s Report:

Thank You Card(s) (I)
The Month in Review – Administration (I)
Board Learning Opportunities (I)

– Honor August Recipients

– Select September Recipient(s)

• Consent Agenda (D.R.)

Approval of Minutes

Approval of Financial Statements

Approval of Bills

A) Personnel

B) Gifts, Memorials, Bequests

Old Business:

1. Board Policies – Second Reading (D.R.) – 904.1, 904.2, 905.1, 905.1R1, 905.1R2, 905.1E1, 905.1E2, 905.2, 906
2. Approval Of Facility Bids (D.R.)
3. Approval Of Safety Grant Bids (D.R.)

New Business during the Griswold School Board meeting is as follows:

1. Approval Of Request For Allowable Growth And Supplemental Aid For 2023- 2024 Special Education Deficit (D.R.)
2. Consider Approval Of 2024-25 School Improvement Advisory Committee (D.R.)
3. Open Enrollment Report (I)
4. Board Policies – First Reading (I) – 101, 102, 102.E1, 102.E2, 102.E3, 102.E4, 102.E5, 102.E6, 102.R1, 505.05, 907, 907.R1

[D.R]= Decision Required

[I]= Informational only

The final agenda will be posted in the Central Office no less than 24-hours before the meeting.

(Atlantic, Iowa) – [NOTE: Meeting begins at 4:45-p.m.]  The Atlantic City Council will meet Monday evening in the Council’s Chambers at City Hall. The meeting would normally be held on Wednesday this week, but was moved to Sept 16th due to the Iowa League of Cities Conference. September 16, 2024 City Council Agenda Packet-compressed

On the agenda for the Council’s session that begins at 4:45-p.m., is action on a Resolution appointing Laura McLean as the Atlantic City Clerk, and setting her compensation for FY 2025. Assuming the Council passes the Resolution, McLean will be Sworn-in near the end of the meeting.

McLean currently serves as a member of the Atlantic School Board. If approved, she would succeed acting City Clerk Rich Tupper, who was appointed as City Clerk following the resignation on March 6th, of former City Clerk Barb Barrick.

The Council will also act on:

• Orders to reappoint Shawn Shouse and Melissa Ihnen to the Board of Adjustment.
• An Order to close Indian Trail Drive on Sept. 29th from 4-until 9-p.m., for Church Worship Night.
• The 3rd and final reading of an Ordinance “Vacating the 66-foot wide Street Right-Of-Way on W. 4th Street, in Atlantic,” as previously described in the two previous readings that were passed by the Council.

The Atlantic City Council will also act to review and act on a recommendation/request from the Parks Commission, for the addition of trees to the “Do Not Plant” list. And, they are scheduled to receive a presentation from officials with SHIFT ATL with regard to the property at 201 W. 14th Street, which the non-profit organization remodeled over the past year, and recently sold. It was the second remodeled home that Shift ATL sold since they began efforts to find and fix-up and flip. Shift Atl’s representative(s) are expected to talk about reimbursing the City’s Housing Development Fund.

(Creston, Iowa)  – Officials with the Creston Fire Department report firefighters were dispatched at around 3:48-a.m. Friday (today) to a structure fire at The barndominium and greenhouse, in rural Union County. When crews arrived at the scene off 240th Street, the structures were engulfed in flames. Occupants of the residence were able to safely evacuate prior to firefighters’ arrival. (Photos by Chuck Spindler, Creston Fire Dept. – from Facebook)

Creston Fire received mutual aid from the Afton Volunteer Fire Department, Lenox Fire Department, Prescott Fire & Rescue, and Corning Fire Departments.

Additionally, all five fire departments made multiple shuttles with their tanker trucks to provide water to two portable dump tanks and a pumper, keeping firefighters supplied with a constant source of water to fight the fire. Officials say Creston and other departments conducted a rural fire fighting, live burn exercise last December in which they trained for the type of water shuttling operation put into use Friday morning.

JEWELL, Iowa [KCCI] –  The South Hamilton Community School District is raising money for a new scholarship in memory of recent graduate Owen Renaud and his uncle, Jesse Ostheimer. The two men were among four Iowans killed last week in an Indiana airplane crash.

Authorities say their single-engine Piper PA-46 plane left the Fort Dodge Regional Airport around 6:30 a.m. Sept. 6 and crashed around 9 a.m. near a small airport in Anderson, Indiana, northeast of Indianapolis.

Renaud, 19, and Ostheimer, 41, were killed along with 68-year-old Joseph Scallon and 36-year-old Braden Hicks. The plane was owned by a LCC registered to Scallon, and Indiana authorities have said he was piloting the craft at the time of the crash.

KCCI reports South Hamilton announced that tonight’s (Friday night’s) home football game against Roland-Story will be a white-out. White T-shirts with Renaud’s name and football number (6) will be available during the game for a free-will donation. Online shirt orders can be placed here.

Money raised from the shirt sale will go toward a new Flying High Scholarship Fund created in honor of Renaud and Ostheimer.

• On Sept. 2nd: 25-year-old Guillermo Hernandez, of Harlan, was arrested on charges that include: Eluding; Driving While Suspended; Driving While Barred, and Possession of Stolen Property. The charges stem from a chase that began around the intersection of Highway 71 and Highway 44. Hernandez appeared before the magistrate and was held until he posted bond on September 9th.
• On Sept. 1st: 32-year-old Christi Carpenter, was arrested on a Harassment 1st charge. The charge stems from an incident in the 300-400 block of W Washington in Exira on August 30th. Carpenter appeared before the magistrate and was held until she later posted bond;Christi Carpenter was also charged with Child Endangerment, Possession of Marijuana 1st, Possession of Drug Paraphernalia and Keeping a Premises for Controlled Substances. These charges stem from the unrelated arrested on September 3rd. She posted bond on all the charges and was released; 39-year-old Brentley Gross, of Exira, was summoned into court September 1st, on charges of Possession of Controlled Substance-marijuana 1st and Possession of Drug Paraphernalia. He appeared before the magistrate on a later date.
• 40-yearold Rose Brabham, of Exira, was summoned into court on a Theft 3rd charge on August 13th, 2024. The charge stems from an incident in the 200 block of Kilworth on August 12th. She appeared before the magistrate on a later date.

(Radio Iowa) – A fixture on the Iowa State University campus in Ames that started out as a memorial has become an enduring symbol of the school as it celebrates 125 years. Music professor Michael Golemo says the bells for I-S-U’s campanile were a gift from Edgar Stanton to remember his wife Margaret McDonald Stanton who died in 1895. “Edgar Stanton wanted to fund putting a small bell tower in that facility, but that but the facility that building wouldn’t sustain the tower, and so instead they they ended up building the freestanding Campanile tower,” he says. Edgar Stanton was part of I-S-U’s first graduating class and served in several roles at the school, including four stints as acting president over 50 years. Margaret Stanton was the first dean of women at the school and was there 25 years before she died.

Golemo says the bells have been upgraded through the years and the song the “Bells of Iowa State” added to their stature and importance.  “I like to think about the idea that faculty are maybe on campus for a couple of decades, and students a couple of years, and and we as administrators are are mere caretakers of this incredible institution. But the bells of Iowa State are forever, and generation after generation the bells chime and really ring out the sound and the soul of what it means to be an Iowa State Cyclone,” Golemo says. He is the director of bands at I-S-U ans says the position of the Campanile gives it a different sound.

“Most carillons are built in town squares, and so when they are played, they are so often played with the hustle and bustle of a of an urban community in their surroundings,” he says. I-S-U’s bell tower is right in the middle of campus in an open space that allows the sound of the bells to travel. “The fact that our Campanile is in the midst of this palatial lawn at the heart of Central Campus, it actually has even a greater musical and oral impact because of its really unique location,” Golemo says. The Campanile has also become the subject of some folklore. One story suggest a woman is not a true coed until she has been kissed under the Campanile (Campaniling) at the stroke of midnight.

“Whether it is the romance of Campaniling beneath the tower, or laying on the lawn and doing your homework or hammocking and resting between classes, or going out and playing Frisbee in the shadow of the Campanile. I think that that tower, and what it means is is always kind of at at the heart of of the the experience of of being here,” Golemo says. It is believed to be one of the most photographed places on campus.

The 125th celebration is this Sunday (Sept. 15) at 2 p-m north of the Campanile.