CLARINDA, IOWA, October 23, 2024: The Page County Attorney’s Office has announced that following a two-day trial and about 90-minutes of jury deliberation, 38-year-old Samantha Wheatley, of Shenandoah, was found guilty of the crime of Willful Injury, a class D felony, and Assault with Intent to Inflict Serious Injury. The verdict was rendered Wednesday afternoon.

Wheatley was originally charged with Attempted Murder and Willful Injury after striking Sayj Martin with an automobile Wheatley was driving in Shenandoah, on December 31, 2023. Wheatley was released on bond and sentencing will take place on January 8, 2025.

Samantha Wheatley (Photo courtesy of the Page County Attorney’s Office)

The case was investigated by the Shenandoah Police Department, with assistance from the Fremont County Sheriff’s Office and the Iowa State Patrol, and was prosecuted by the Page County Attorney’s Office.

(Red Oak, Iowa) – Some residents of Montgomery County will have to find an alternate route for the next few weeks, as a bridge is being repaired. Montgomery County Engineer Karen Albert spoke about the change during Tuesday’s Board of Supervisors meeting in Red Oak.

She said also, the Secondary Roads Department is working on plans for projects in the County’s 5-year construction plan program. There’s also an upcoming meeting of the County Planning and Zoning Commission….

The Montgomery County P&Z meeting begins at 5:30-p.m., Nov. 4th.

(Atlantic, Iowa) –  Officials with the non-profit Vision Atlantic organization report Snyder & Associates Engineers in Atlantic have donated $50,000 to Vision Atlantic’s transformative project, which will bring a housing development, new childcare center, and YMCA expansion to Atlantic. Dave Sturm, Snyder’s Atlantic Business Unit Leader, says “It can’t be overstated how transformative of a project this will be for Atlantic. It is an exciting initiative for Snyder & Associates to be a part of and we appreciate Vision Atlantic’s commitment to progress. This will be an incredible accomplishment that will have immeasurable benefits for our community.”

Photo courtesy Bailey Smith, Executive Director of the Atlantic Area Chamber of Commerce; Shown from left-to-right: Mike Jorgensen, Jeff Godwin, Melissa Ihnen, Garrett Reynolds, Christina Bateman, Dave Sturm, Chris Petersen, Mason Goergen, Austin Sonntag, Erik Jorgensen, Shawn Maas and Deanne Knudsen.

As previously mentioned, Vision Atlantic, through extensive research and surveying of the community and surrounding region, identified three areas that will help increase Atlantic’s population: expanded childcare, quality housing and quality of life amenities. Construction of the 144 mixed unit housing development, 300 capacity child development center and expansion of the current YMCA facility is slated to begin late spring of 2025.

With substantial monetary support from the Charles E. Lakin Foundation and local donors, $18.4 million has been raised in the past 11 months, over 60% of a $30 million goal. Vision Atlantic’s Project Committee is actively working to secure the remaining $11.8 million needed to meet the fundraising goal. If you are interested in helping transform Atlantic, whether it’s through monetary donations or acts of volunteerism, please contact Vision Atlantic at visionatlanticiowa@gmail.com. Follow Vision Atlantic on Facebook for behind-the-scenes access to project updates or visit www.visionatlantic.org.

Vision Atlantic is a 501(c)(3) non-profit whose mission is to empower growth, enhance lives, and build a thriving community together through the economic development of Atlantic, Iowa.

(Des Moines/Ames, Iowa) – Students at the Des Moines Area Community College (DMACC) will be able to take advantage next Fall, of a new 3+1 nursing agreement between the college and Iowa State University, that will allow DMACC students to obtain a degree in Nursing. The Iowa Capital Dispatch reports the community college and four-year university signed an articulation agreement on the new program Wednesday, creating a pathway for DMACC students to easily transfer and earn their bachelor of science in nursing,  through a combination of online classes and in-person experiences at ISU.

DMACC Health & Public Services Executive Academic Dean Jeanie McCarville-Kerber said a transfer program between DMACC and ISU has been under discussion since 2018, with staff from both institutions working together to develop the best curriculum and pathway for students. The 3+1 program will be available to nursing students starting in fall 2025. With the new partnership, DMACC nursing students will spend three years at the community college completing their associate of applied science in nursing degree, taking courses developed for the program that align with both institutions’ standards, said Laura Jolly, dean of ISU’s College of Health and Human Sciences.

Once they’ve graduated from DMACC, students must take and pass the National Council Licensure Exam for Registered Nurse Licensure in order to qualify for the transfer to ISU. Their last year of the program will take place mostly online through ISU, with some in-person requirements. ISU Director of Nursing Education Dawn Bowker said the hybrid learning will also allow students to work in the field while finishing their schooling. In addition to the flexibility the 3+1 program provides, Bowker said students will have opportunities to sign up for practicum experiences in the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota and Oslo, Norway.

Bowker said research shows that nurses who hold a bachelor’s degree have improved patient outcomes, decreased medication errors and decreased mortality rates. ISU’s program has a 94% completion rate, she said, compared to the national rate of 60%.

Iowa State University College of Health and Human Sciences and DMACC President Rob Denson, right, signed an agreement on Oct. 23, 2024 to launch a 3+1 nursing program for students. (Photo by Brooklyn Draisey/Iowa Capital Dispatch)

This fall DMACC restructured its nursing program, DMACC Director of Nursing Education Natalia Thilges said, combining its previously standalone associate nursing degree and practical nursing program into a “ladder program.” Now students will first take prerequisite courses then take a year of practical nursing courses and, if they qualify, move ahead to a year of associate nursing degree courses. DMACC also holds a 3+1 program agreement with the University of Iowa for nursing, which they are currently working to modify in order for it to work with the new structure and partnership with ISU.

More than 400 students are currently enrolled in DMACC’s nursing program, which DMACC President Rob Denson said is one of the largest in the state. ISU is the community college’s top transfer institution. DMACC and ISU have a long history of supporting each other through partnerships, Denson said, starting as far back as 2006 with the signing of their first transfer agreement. The schools also have partnerships for fashion design, cybersecurity and supply chain management, and DMACC students get additional supports when they attend ISU due to the DMACC-ISU Connect program.

(Radio Iowa) – The four Republicans who represent Iowa in the U-S House are seeking reelection — and the race in the third congressional district is among the tightest in the country.

In 2022, Republican Congressman Zach Nunn of Bondurant won his race by less than one percent. At the beginning of this month, Republicans had a nearly six percent voter registration advantage over Democrats in the third congressional district, but nearly 29 percent of voters in the district are independents. Lanon Baccam of Des Moines, the Democrat from who’s running against Nunn, has made restoring abortion rights the central issue of his campaign.

“Women should make the decisions about their own bodies,” Baccam says. “When I get to congress, I will fight to pass the Women’s Health Protection Act and we will restore the rights found under Roe v Wade.” Nunn has focused on economic issues, like extending the Trump-era tax cuts. “We’ve got a real opportunity here not only to change the make-up of DC, but to do what all of us do — pass a balanced budget,” Nunn says. “We’ve got 35 trillion reasons why spending on a credit card is not good for us or our kids.”

Both candidates have military experience. Nunn is a corporal in the Air Force Reserve. Baccam enlisted in the Iowa National Guard at the age of 17 and served a decade.

(Radio Iowa) – Law enforcement crisis negotiators from around the state are in Sioux City this week to train and compete against each other in the 11th annual Iowa Hostage and Crisis Negotiator Conference. Sergeant Michael Clyde of the Iowa State Patrol is one of the event leaders. “The furthest this team is from Dubuque in Fort Madison, so they crisscross the state from the opposite corner to the opposite corner. One-hundred-13 negotiators and there’s probably 15 or 16 teams, and then there’s 12 teams who are actually competing,” he says.

The teams are competing in a scenario where a father is in a hospital and doesn’t want his dying son taken off life support. “And so it’s really challenging the negotiators to dig deep into their empathy really kind of feel for where this guy is in his life,” Clyde says. “How would they feel they were in the same situation, about ready to lose a family member. So it’s really challenging them to kind of turn the cop brain off and turn the listening negotiator brain on.”

The competitors are judged on a scale of one to nine, with nine being the best. “The judges have rubrics of different categories, active listening skills, rapport, teamwork, communication skills, and then there’s a couple just yes or no questions if they did certain techniques that we would expect every team to do,” he says.

The winning team gets a championship belt. Attendees also had case studies and debriefs from nationally recognized experts in the field of crisis/hostage negotiations. The three-day event wraps up today (Thursday).

(Radio Iowa) – Halloween is one of the deadliest nights of the year for pedestrians, according to a University of Iowa researcher who studies how to make roads, sidewalks and crossings safer. Elizabeth O’Neal, a U-I professor of community and behavioral health, says costumed kids get excited — and distracted — while trick-or-treating and that can be a dangerous combination when it comes to crossing a street.  “There are more pedestrians out on the roadways, crossing streets than usual,” O’Neal says. “Second, it’s dark, which makes pedestrians more difficult to see. Also, many of the costumes are dark, which makes children even more difficult to see, because we do know that more pedestrian deaths occur at nighttime.”

Parents can drill into a child how they need to look both ways before crossing the street, but they may have to repeatedly reinforce that mantra during trick-or-treat night. O’Neal says kids who are a little older might be in even greater danger. “They’re often trick-or-treating without parents at a time when being with their peers results in them wanting to engage in riskier behavior,” O’Neal says, “so that can pose an even greater risk to those older kids during trick-or-treating.”

Parents play a key role in helping to keep their kids safe, and a few cosmetic changes to a costume could make a tremendous difference in their visibility without destroying the spooky illusion. “If the costume doesn’t need to be black and dark, that’s always helpful,” O’Neal says. “Using glow sticks and bracelets to help illuminate pedestrians. And if children are going to be alone, just emphasizing there’s plenty of time to get to the next house, so take the time to make sure there aren’t any cars coming before crossing the street.”

O’Neal and the U-I team have done extensive research with dozens of Iowa City-area parents and kids in a virtual reality simulator, having them cross a computer-generated road with approaching cars. The findings reinforce the dangers of peer pressure. “When children are alone, they choose gaps that are appropriate for a single individual to cross through,” she says, “but when older children, say 12 years old, are crossing together, they don’t choose gaps that are large enough to accommodate both crossers.”

One recent U-I study found kids learn to be better and safer at crossing busy streets when they have hand-in-hand help from their parents.

(Ida County, Iowa) – A collision Wednesday evening north of Battle Creek in Ida County resulted in the death of an adult male and injuries to two juvenile females. The Iowa State Patrol reports a semi tractor-trailer was traveling north on Carriage Avenue at around 6-p.m., and slowing down to turn west onto 230th Street. A pickup driven by 29-year-old Joshua Fowler, of Holstein, was also northbound on Carriage Avenue.

The pickup struck a grain trailer being pulled by the semi, on the right rear side. Joshua Fowler was trapped in his pickup following the collision.  He died at the scene. One juvenile female in the pickup was flown to MercyOne in Sioux City by Wings AirCare. The other juvenile female was transported to Horn Memorial Hospital in Ida Grove. None of the occupants in the pickup truck were wearing their seat belts.

The driver of the semi, 74-year-old Donald Schultz, of Battle Creek, was transported to the hospital in Ida Grove for treatment of minor injuries. The Iowa State Patrol was assisted at the scene by the Ida County Sheriff’s Office, Battle Creek Fire/Rescue and Ida Grove Ambulance.