(Atlantic, Iowa) – The Atlantic Speech and Debate team is starting a new fundraiser. Coach Tricia Koenig says from October 15th, until November 15th (2024), the team will be selling coupon cards for the Atlantic Hy-Vee. The coupon cards will save each purchaser $135 on Hy-Vee purchases, and the cards are only $25 each! Just using a few coupons more than pays for itself, and it is valid for an entire year.

Proceeds from each card goes to support the Atlantic High School Speech and Debate team in the form of: registration for tournaments, transportation, purchasing scripts, and more.

The National Speech & Debate Tournament is held in Iowa in June 2025, and this will help our performers compete. If you are interested in purchasing a coupon card, please contact:

• Members of the Atlantic High School Speech and Debate team
• Trisha Koenig at tniceswanger@atlanticiaschools.org or
• The Atlantic High School office at (712) 243-5358

Representatives of the Atlantic High School Speech and Debate team also plan to attend upcoming football and volleyball games where these coupon cards will be sold, so look for our table there! Thank you for all your support!

(Coupon card sample shown below)

(Radio Iowa) – The years-long effort to restore a historic building in downtown Webster City is nearing completion. The Elks Building, which opened in 1906, has been under renovation since 2019. Darcy Swon of LIFE W-C says they’re hoping to complete fundraising for the project soon.

“We’re about $500,000 from our finish line, which when you think of it being a $2.8 million project, that’s really not much,” Swon says. “We’re applying for some grants and are still accepting charitable donations.” A fundraiser was held over the weekend in Webster City. Work on the building’s main floor is nearing completion.

“Elevators should be done in 2025 spring and then the ballroom will be our next focus,” Swon says. “And we have a lot of work already done in the ballroom, so it shouldn’t take much longer.” The building’s first occupant will begin setting up shop next year. “We’ll be welcoming Wildcat Distilling Company. They will be the tenant for the main floor,” Swon says. “We are so excited because their business aligns very much with what LIFT is about — social connection, community betterment and many things, so it’s going to be a great partnership.”

The Wildcat Distilling Company makes whiskey from Iowa-grown corn and fruits and has operated a tasting room in Webster City less than half a mile from the Elks Building. Once the ballroom on the top floor of the Elks Building has been restored, it will host music concerts and be available for other gatherings.

(Radio Iowa) – The South Korean author who won the 2024 Nobel Prize for Literature spent time in Iowa in 1998. Han Kang was a writer in residence at the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa. Christopher Merrill, program’s director, says Kang started out as a poet and six of her published novels have been translated into English. “These novels are the novels of a poet,” Merrill says, “someone with that musical understanding of what a sentence can do for a story.”

Merrill says Kang’s prose is very precise. “It’s a kind of chiseled prose,” Merrill says, “and she’s the sort of writer who pays close attention to sometimes just the most seemingly insignificant details.”

Kang is the third alum of the University of Iowa’s International Writing Program to win the Nobel Prize in Literature.

(Radio Iowa) – The 2024 General Election ballots in several Iowa counties will let voters decide whether to raise local taxes to support ambulance services. Emergency Medical Services are generally staffed by volunteers in rural areas and response times vary widely. In 2021 the Iowa legislators passed a law allowing county-wide votes on proposed property tax levies that support emergency medical crews and equipment.

Atlantic Mayor Grace Garrett says if Cass County voters approve their local referendum, the county’s board of supervisors would come up with a plan on how the money would be spent.  “We are wanting to pass this in November to make it an essential service,” she said, “which will allow us to take funds and specifically allocate them to EMS.”

In the past three years, about a dozen counties have approved raising local taxes for ambulance services. The most recent was last month in a special election in Henry County, as 92 percent of voters approved the move to raise property taxes to fund Emergency Medical Services.

(Worth County, Iowa) – A single-vehicle crash on Interstate 35 in northern Iowa, Sunday afternoon west of Kensett, claimed the life of the driver and sole occupant of the vehicle. The Iowa State Patrol says a 2017 Cadillac CT6 was traveling south on I-35 near the 208 Exit ramp, when the car went out of control for reasons unknown. The vehicle entered the median, passed through a cable barrier and struck a bridge pillar before coming to rest.

The accident happened at around 1:45-p.m. The driver was identified as 33-year-old Samuel Joseph Poquette, of New Ulm, MN. The Patrol says he was not wearing a seat belt.  The crash remains under investigation.

(Anita, Iowa) – The CAM School Board is set to hold their regular monthly meeting beginning at 6:30-p.m. Monday, Oct. 14th, in the CAM High School  Media Center. Discussion and/or action items on their agenda include:

• Approval of Daycare Agreement
• Approval of Board Policy Revisions
• Approval of SBRC Modified Supplemental Amount Application and Supplemental Aid for the 2023-2024 Special Education Program Deficit of $1,062,396.81
• Review and Approve FY22 Audit Report
• Approval of Iowa Connections Academy School Handbook
• Discuss Iowa Association of School Board Convention November 20-22nd
• Discuss Facility Updates.