(Creston, Iowa) — Students at Southwestern Community College (SWCC) held a memorial vigil Tuesday night, to honor the life of Madalynn Stewart, of Maloy. The community gathered at the gymnasium in the student center to share memories of Stewart. The 19-year-old was on the school’s women’s basketball and dance teams.

Stewart died Sunday from injuries she suffered July 21st in a Union County crash. According to the Iowa State Patrol, a car driven by Stewart, failed to stop at a stop sign when it entered Highway 34 from 190th Street in Afton around 10:30 that night. The car was struck by a pickup truck, and both vehicles went into a ditch.

Stewart is the third 19-year-old to die as a result of the crash. Halsie Lynn Barnes and Ella Jo Leonard died as a result of the crash. People gathered on July 25 to honor their lives during a candlelight service. Clergy and counselors were also on-hand.

Open visitation for Madalynn Mae Stewart will be held at the Armstrong Funeral Home in Mount Ayr, on Sunday, Aug. 6, from 1-8 p.m., with family present from 5-8 p.m. Her funeral will be on Monday, Aug. 7, at 2 p.m., at the Mount Ayr High School gymnasium.

SWCC will be closed Monday so employees may attend the funeral.

(Radio Iowa) – The Dallas County Sheriff reports a teenager has died after being pulled from Moffit Lake Monday. The Sheriff says they received a 9-1-1 call just before 7 p-m that three people who were fishing at the lake were in the water and struggling to stay afloat. A passerby pulled all three out of the water.

A 14-year-old girl who was under the water the longest was given C-P-R and taken to the hospital where she later died. No names have been released.

(Radio Iowa) – The monthly survey of supply managers in Iowa and eight other Midwestern states shows both the state and regional economies took big falls during July. Creighton University economist Ernie Goss says it’s a warning sign for the economy in the months ahead, as the overall Business Conditions Index indicates a significant slowdown is looming in the Midwestern manufacturing sector.

Despite some recent optimism about the U-S economy’s overall performance, the survey shows the region’s supply managers estimate there’s almost a 50-50 chance of a recession in the second half of this year. Goss expects what he’s calling “a rolling recession” to impact certain sectors of the economy, especially commercial real estate and manufacturing.

(Omaha, NE) – Twenty-eight organizations, three business leaders and 12 high school seniors across Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska and South Dakota were recently selected by an independent panel of business and community leaders as 2023 Better Business Bureau (BBB) award and scholarship recipients.

The BBB Students of Integrity Scholarship program recognizes high school seniors who personify values, leadership and integrity. Annually, 12 seniors are awarded $2,000 scholarships to further their education. The 2023 Students of Integrity Scholarship recipients from the Omaha and Southwest Iowa areas include:

• Megan Wells — East Mills High School, Malvern, Iowa
• Nina Marie Kudlacz — Ralston High School, Ralston, Nebraska
• Trista Swain — Griswold High School, Griswold, Iowa

“These students, leaders and companies exemplify the highest standards of ethics,” said BBB President and CEO Jim Hegarty. “These awards embody BBB’s mission of advancing marketplace trust. Join us in celebrating these incredible award winners at our upcoming luncheon. Our communities can be proud to have such strong leaders that put integrity into action.”

(Council Bluffs, Iowa/updated)- Residents of Pottawattamie County, Tuesday, went to the polls to determine if the method of determining how their Board of Supervisors are elected will change, or not. Three plans were on the ballot. Plan One was to keep the members elected essentially At Large, meaning each member of the Board of Supervisors is allowed to reside anywhere in Pottawattamie County and the voters of the county elect all five members of the Board of Supervisors. Unofficial results show that Plan was approved by 5,224 votes.

Plan Two garnered just 545 vote. If that had passed, Pottawattamie County would have been divided into five districts of roughly equal population. Plan Three received 2, 357 votes. That would have also divided Pottawattamie County into five districts of roughly equal population, but voters would elect the one Supervisor who resides in the same district as the voter and would not vote for the other four Supervisors in the other four districts. As previously mentioned, the Pottawattamie County Board of Supervisors approved the special election on June 6 after private groups gathered and submitted a petition with nearly 4,000 signatures to allow county residents to choose between three options for county supervisor elections.

According to the Iowa State Association of Counties, 49 counties elect supervisors by that at-large system. About 81-hundred people voted in Pottawattamie County’s August 1st Special Election. During this spring’s legislative session, the Iowa Senate passed a bill that would have required Iowa’s five largest counties to elect supervisors by districts rather than in at-large or countywide elections. It would not have applied to Pottawattamie County, which is Iowa’s 10th largest county. House Republicans changed the bill so it applied only to Black Hawk, Johnson and Story Counties where the state universities are located, but the bill was tabled.

(Radio Iowa) – Seven Iowans are in southwest Montana, working for the U-S Forest Service to fight a fire that’s already consumed 17-hundred acres in a national forest. Three other Iowans are in Texas right now, dealing with wildfires there. Gail Kantak is the fire supervisor for the Iowa Department of Natural Resources. She says for the most part, these are NOT D-N-R employees, but contractors the D-N-R has trained and hired to be short term employees of the U-S Forest Service.

“It’s a whole variety, big spectrum of folks who are interested in expanding their knowledge and skills in fire,” Kantak says. “We offer National Wildfire Coordinating Group training to anybody who’s interested.” The Iowans fighting the wildfire in steep, rugged Montana terrain will be there for up to three weeks. Kantak says they are patrolling fire lines and creating new ones to prevent the fire’s spread.

“When you see pictures of wildland fire fighters in the west digging lines, that’s what they’re going to be paying attention to,” Kantak says. The Iowans in Texas will be there for two weeks as part of what Kantak calls an ending crew. “An ending crew is made up of three to five people that work in tandem with an engine and water and hoses,” Kantak says.

A state-owned fire engine was deployed to Texas along with the Iowa firefighters. Each person who’s been hired to fight fires in Montana and Texas has gone through at least 40 hours of training in Iowa. Texas officials say since the beginning of the year, about two-thousand wildfires have burned through 50-thousand acres.

The Iowans in Montana are fighting a fire sparked by lighting on July 20th. At the beginning of this week, officials said that fire was only three percent contained.