A fire overnight about five-miles west of Atlantic completely destroyed a home and its contents, but no one was injured. Atlantic Fire Chief Mark McNees said no one knew it had happened until after sunrise. McNees said Dave Freund, who is a neighbor of Wayne Preister,who was renting the home, both notified the fire department the house had burned. When crews arrived there was nothing left to do but put out some hot spots.

Smoldering remains of the home on Indian Creek St., near Atlantic. (Cass Co. EMA/photo)

McNees said his department, along with the Cass County Emergency Management Agency conducted an investigation and notified the State Fire Marshal’s office. The cause of the blaze will be listed as undetermined, because there is so little evidence to go on.  He said it could have been caused by lightening or was the result of an electrical problem, but that’s not official. No one was home at the time. 

The call about the fire came at 56575 Indian Creek Street in at around 7:30-.am. No injuries were reported.

A Harlan woman was cited for striking an unattended vehicle, recently. The Harlan Police Department reports a 1998 Chevrolet driven by Kristen Hoffman, of Harlan, was traveling south on 9th Street on May 30th, when she noticed a truck owned by David Archibald, of Harlan. Hoffman however, failed to notice a trailer behind the truck, and struck the trailer, forcing it forward, where it collided with the truck. A wrecker had to be called-in to lift Hoffman’s car off the trailer.

Damage from the incident amounted to $7,500.

The Harlan Police Department reports an Avoca man faces drug charges following a traffic stop June 5th (last Wednesday). 44-year old Stephen Andrew Weber was charged with Possession of drug paraphernalia. Another person, 50-year old Christina Lynn Hansen, of Harlan, was arrested during the same traffic stop, on a charge of driving while barred.

The H-PD says also, they took a report last Thursday (June 6th), of a purse being taken from a car parked on Country Club Parkway. The incident remains under investigation. Officials say they have received many reports of that type of theft, and they remind people to take the keys from your vehicle and lock its doors, when it is not in use.

A Walnut High School and Iowa State University graduate has been named City Administrator for the City of Clinton, in eastern Iowa. According to radio station KROS, Jessica Kinser, who has served as the Interim City Administrator for the past five-months, was officially given the job during a meeting Tuesday night of the Clinton City Council. Prior to serving as the Interim Administrator, Jessica was hired as the city’s Finance Director. 

Kinser served as the City Manager in Griswold from Feb. 2010 through October, 2011, before accepting the Finance Director’s job in Clinton. She was also a Financial Analyst for Ottawa County, Michigan and served as a Program Assistant at ISU.  Kinser graduated from ISU with a Masters in Public Administration in 2007. She also has Bachelor of Science Degrees in Political Science and English.

In a statement released to the media, Kinser said “I am honored and humbled to be selected as the City Administrator for the City of Clinton, and would like to thank the Mayor and City Council for the opportunity to serve.  I have worked for the City for a year and a half, and I have seen how quickly things change and opportunities arise, and I am excited for the known and unknown that lies ahead.” 

One of NASA’s best-known astronauts from the moon mission era was in Omaha/Council Bluffs last (Tuesday) night. Jim Lovell was commander of the doomed Apollo 13 flight, which had an oxygen tank explode two days into a trip to the moon, crippling the spacecraft far from home and threatening the lives of the three-man crew. “The odds were against us in the beginning because we didn’t know really what was wrong or what was happening,” Lovell says. “Consequently, we were concerned until we tried to figure out what the story was. There wasn’t an immediate explosion that violated the integrity of the spacecraft so we still had some time to think about it.”

Engineers on the ground were able to instruct the astronauts in how to bring the badly-damaged ship home. The dramatic mission in April of 1970 was the subject of the 1995 film, “Apollo 13,” which starred Tom Hanks as Lovell. The events depicted in the Oscar-winning movie were very accurate, Lovell says, and he was an advisor for the film. Lovell remains a huge supporter of the space program and hopes the U-S will once again be a world leader in space exploration. 

“I think it was one of the greatest inspirations for improving technology in this country and the STEM (science, technology, education, math) education of our young people,” Lovell says. “We won’t be a leader but I have to tell you, there will be other leaders, either Russia or China or even India.”

Lovell was in Omaha to speak at an event sponsored by the Immanuel Foundation. His talk was called, “Apollo 13; A Successful Failure.” At age 85, Lovell still pilots his own airplane but his wife made him promise to get a co-pilot this year — or sell the plane.

(Radio Iowa)