Jim Field speaks with Cass County Youth Coordinator Beth Irlbeck about the Clover Kids program for 4-H. Cass County 4-H invites parents and other caring adults to attend the Clover Kids Find Out Night on September 12, 2013 at 6pm at the Cass County Community Center.
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The number of students enrolling in the Atlantic Community School District continue to increase. That was the word Monday night from Superintendent Dr. Michael Amstein, during his report to the school board. Amstein says the district “Is up about 30 students. That’s very good. We continue to be somewhat of an anomaly in southwest Iowa [because other districts are not picking up students like Atlantic is].”
He said as of Monday, there were 1,492 Kindergarten through 12th grade students in enrolled. The biggest increase is between the incoming Kindergarten Class and Senior Class. He said it marks the fourth consecutive year that the school district has shown an enrollment increase.
In other business, the Atlantic School Board Monday, approved a sharing agreement with the Harlan Community School District for a Curriculum Director. Amstein says Harlan wanted to share services with regard to their ESL – English as a Second Language – program, with the curriculum delivered under the guidance of Atlantic’s curriculum director.
Amstein said there are some operational sharing dollars available to Atlantic the agreement, which allows 100-percent for 5-years, as long as the agreement continues for that time frame. The agreement would allow Atlantic’s ESL Director to communicate via Skype with the Harlan District three Friday’s per month, and be on-site for a half day on Friday’s, once a month. It’s estimated 12 students in the Harlan District would be served by the arrangement, for a total of 28 between the districts.
And, the Atlantic School Board Monday, approved a School Resource Officer’s (SRO) Agreement for the 2013-2014 school year. The agreement is in-line with a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the Cass County County Sheriff’s Department, CAM, Griswold and Atlantic School Districts, as far as cost sharing is concerned.
While the full-scale corn harvest won’t start in Iowa for a couple of weeks, farmers are now beginning to bring in the first loads of specialized grain. In central Iowa, near Ankeny, Paul Mens runs a corn picker that’s designed for harvesting ears that will be shelled at a nearby Monsanto seed corn processing plant. “On a seed corn harvester, we pick it in the ear and we do not have a yield monitor,” Mens says. “In my opinion, for what this has been through, the yield is real good. They don’t tell us what each variety or inbred is supposed to make, we don’t have a clue, but this has done real well. You can tell where the wet spots were, where it was too wet this spring, but overall, it’s doing real well.”
Monsanto is paying Mens to harvest ears from the stalks that were detasseled earlier in the season for a future hybrid seed corn variety. “This is an earlier variety,” he says. “We’re actually the only ones running. There are four picker groups that pick for our plant at Grinnell. We’re the only ones running right now. Nobody else is going. This earlier variety came on before the dry weather hit. As we get further into the season, we’ll see how bad that did hurt.”
Iowa’s market corn harvest likely won’t begin until fall arrives in just under two weeks on September 22nd. Harvesting this specialized corn is considered a preview of the drought’s impact on the crop.
(Radio Iowa)
The podcast weather forecast for Atlantic and the KJAN listening area from Freese-Notis, and weather information specifically for Atlantic….
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Sheriff’s officials in Adams County report the arrest Monday evening of a woman who allegedly destroyed a television set. 18-year old Melody Marie Bentley, of Glenwood, was charged with Criminal Mischief in the 5th degree, for allegedly destroying a t-v belonging to Country Haven residential care facility, in Corning. Bentley was taken into custody at around 7:50-p.m. and brought to the Adams County Jail, where her bond was set at $300.
Three football players from Iowa Western Community College have been cited for being in minors in possession of alcohol. The Daily NonPareil reports the trio were cited inside a dormitory suite on the Iowa Western campus in Council Bluffs, at around 2:10-a.m., Sunday. Council Bluffs Police Officers cited 20-year old Connor Bravard, 19-year old Andrew Ulveling, and 19-year old George Sehl IV.
Bravard, a sophomore from West Des Moines, is the Reivers’ starting quarterback, while Sehl is a freshman wide receiver from Iowa City. Ulveling is a sophomore linebacker from Mason City. Bravard threw for 207 yards and three touchdowns in Iowa Western’s 61-0 win against Ellsworth Saturday, while Sehl had one catch for 17 yards.
The Reivers play at the North Dakota State College of Science this Saturday in Wahpeton, N.D. The team has not announced any disciplinary actions at this time.
A teen charged with the murder of a 5-year old boy from Atlantic had his pre-trial hearing moved to another date. The hearing was to have been held on Monday for 17-year old Cody Metzker-Madsen, but the Daily NonPareil reports that’s been moved to 1:30-p.m., October 14th. An arraignment for Metzker-Madsen will be held on Sept. 30th. He faces a charge of first-degree murder in the death of his foster brother, Dominic Elkins. Metzker-Madsen, will be charged as an adult, according to Geoff Greenwood, a spokesman for the Iowa Attorney General’s Office. His trial is set to begin 9:30-a.m., Nov. 5th.
Late last month, Metzker-Madsen led his family to Elkins’ body, which was located at the bottom of a ravine in rural Harrison County.The teen remains in the Harrison County jail on $500,000 bond.
Quad Cities-based Deere and Company is planning a major expansion in Brazil. The company announced Monday it will spend 40-million-dollars to add production of another line of tractors, the eight-R, at its plant in the city of Montengro. Spokesman Ken Golden says demand is growing in Brazil for higher horsepower models like the eight-R. “This is true across the world as far as high-production agriculture uses our larger tractors — the eight-R, the nine series — for the real workhorse activity that goes on in high production farming,” Golden says.
The five-year old plant in Brazil already manufactures three smaller models, the five, six and seven-thousand (5,000/6,000/7,000) series. Making the larger horsepower tractors in the country opens up a new financing option for Brazilian growers. Golden says it will allow for a public financing program that subsidizes their interest rates. “Until you manufacture the product in Brazil, the product does not qualify for that kind of financing,” Golden says. He says this expansion in Brazil will not affect production or employment at the Waterloo (Iowa) plant where several lines of tractors, including the eight-R, are now being made.
“It’s not competitive right now to build a tractor in Waterloo and move it over to Brazil. Because of the financing package, the tariff cost, we’re not cost competitive in Brazil with the eight-R tractor,” according to Golden. “By building them there we will increase our capacity for building the eight-R tractors around the world, and we will be cost competitive in Brazil.” Production of the eight-R in Brazil should begin in 2015. John Deere first came to Brazil in 1979, when it invested in a joint venture in the country. In 2008, it announced plans to build its own factory there.
(Radio Iowa)
A new survey shows fewer Iowa businesses are planning to boost employment levels compared to three months ago. Karen Miller, a spokesperson for Manpower, says their latest Employment Outlook Survey indicates hiring should slow down between October and December. “We’re still looking at solid numbers though,” Miller says. “We’ve got 67-percent of employers looking to maintain their staffing levels and 21-percent looking to increase their staffing levels.”
Another 10-percent of the Iowa companies surveyed plan to trim their workforces over the next three months. That places the fourth-quarter Manpower Net Employment Outlook for Iowa at 11-percent. That compares to a 10-percent net outlook one year ago. “What’s unusual is the fourth quarter hiring outlook is really (down) compared to the third quarter, when we had a net outlook of 21-percent,” Miller says. Employer confidence has clearly taken a hit in recent months, according to Miller.
“At this point right now, I think it’s just kind of indicator as to what’s happening in the economy and understanding what might be happening with health care. We see a lot of employers being a bit more conservative in their approach and in their staffing plans,” Miller says. Nationally, 18-percent of the companies surveyed plan to add more workers in the fourth quarter, 8-percent expect to let staff go, and 72-percent plan to maintain current staffing levels.
The Manpower report claims the “best states for jobs” include Nebraska, Maryland, Idaho, Florida, Texas, North Carolina and South Carolina.
(Radio Iowa)
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