A judge in Guthrie County sentenced a Carroll County man to five-years in prison Monday, for his role in a methamphetamine manufacturing operation. According to the Guthrie Center Times, this past July, a jury found 40-year old Tony Richard Meyers, of Coon Rapids, guilty on a charge of Possession of lithium with the intent to use it in the manufacture of meth, but he was found not guilty on a related charge of conspiracy to manufacture meth. Judge Randy Hefner noted in his decision, that this will be Meyers’ second prison sentence for a drug-related crime.

In a separate jury trial held this past Spring, co-defendant, 21-year old Tylor Meyers, also of Coon Rapids, was found guilty on both possession and conspiracy charges. He received a suspended sentence and ordered to live in a residential correctional facility as part of the terms of his probation.

The charges were the result of an incident which occurred in January, 2010, where a man hiking on shoe shoes at the Whiterock Conservancy near Coon Rapids, stumbled across the Meyers’, who appeared to be in the process of manufacturing meth.

Rescue personnel were called to the scene of a minor personal injury accident this morning, at the entrance to the Atlantic High School. According to dispatch reports, a passenger in a vehicle suffered a bump to their head when they hit the windshield.

The accident happened at around 7:45-a.m. No other details are currently available.

The Iowa Department of Public Safety Thursday afternoon, released more information about Tuesday’s car crash that killed a State Trooper near Indianola. The information includes two 911 calls placed shortly after the crash at 4:40 p.m. One caller stated, “I just saw a cop go in the ditch and he went in it pretty fast.” Trooper Mark Toney died in the crash as his squad car rolled into a field and burst into flames. The 43-year-old Toney had just started his shift at 4:00 p.m. Witnesses said the car’s emergency lights were flashing when it left the highway, but investigators say there was no communication between State Radio and Trooper Toney indicating his actions just prior to or during the crash. The in-car camera retrieved from Toney’s vehicle did not contain audio or video pertaining to the crash. An autopsy was conducted Wednesday but results are still pending. A press release states the official cause of the crash is still undetermined. It marks the first death of an Iowa State Trooper in the line of duty in 21 years. Toney’s funeral is scheduled for Saturday in Ankeny.

The three thousand Iowa National Guard soldiers who recently returned from active duty in Iraq and Afghanistan aren’t facing a daily life-or-death mission any more– but many are facing the tough task of trying to find work as civilians when jobs are not plentiful. Becky Coady works with the Department of Defense agency know as the “Employer Support of the Guard and Reserve.” She says finding a job was an issue for many soldiers before they left for active duty.”There were a significant number 730 of them stated that they were not employed prior to going on the deployment due to the recession,” Coady says.

One Iowa guard member — 22-year-old Joe Carr of Pleasant Hill — said he had only a temporary job when he was called up. “And that was pretty much all I could get, and I had that until I deployed,” Carr said. Temporary positions aren’t covered under the federal law protecting soldiers’ jobs while they are on active duty, so the army private is looking for work. He repaired drone aircraft in Iraq. He says he got back to Iowa on July 15th and says he has not had very much luck in finding a job. “At first I was trying not to be picky, but I feel my skills earn me a little bit, not a minimum wage job,” Carr says, “But its really hard in this economy to find anything.”

Sergeant Clay Chickering deployed with a Denison Iowa Guard unit, and was in the same boat. “I knew before I went on the deployment that when I came back I was going to be unemployed,” Chikering says. His manufacturing job got moved out of state while he was overseas. In Iraq he ran raids on houses suspected of harboring the Taliban. That kind of background makes some civilian jobs less appealing. “I don’t want to be sitting behind a desk doing a telemarketing job,” Chickering says, “It is kind of nerve-racking knowing that there’s a lot of people that are looking for work. Now that I’m off active duty I’m going to go ahead and file for unemployment.”

Iowa Workforce Development is trying to help the soldiers by taking its job search program directly to armories around the state.

(Radio Iowa)