Many Iowans will are wearing red today (Friday) for a good cause. Cassie Wessing, with the Des Moines Chapter of the American Heart Association, says National Wear Red Day is designed to raise awareness about the number one killer of women – heart disease. Wessing is hoping Iowans will take it a step further and “go red” the entire month. “Wear red, decorate your house, business or office red. Anything you can think of. We want the whole world to be red through the month of February,” Wessing says. National Wear Red Day, held annually on February 1, was created 10 years ago.

“At that time, women didn’t really think of heart disease as a disease for them, it was an ‘old man’s’ disease,” Wessing says. “Even health care professionals didn’t really think of treating women and heart disease in personal ways and according to their body types.” The American Heart Association reports, since the first Wear Red Day 10 years ago, 21% fewer women are dying from heart disease. “We started this campaign, really, to raise awareness that heart disease is the number one killer of women. It’s not just happening to men,” Wessing said.

Other events are scheduled this month in Iowa to raise both awareness and money toward the fight against heart disease. That includes The Heart Ball on February 16 at the Embassy Suites in downtown Des Moines.

(Radio Iowa)

The Cass County Board of Supervisors, Thursday, approved a request by Teddi Grindberg with Healthy Cass County, to place signs or banners in the courthouse promoting community wellness.

A sample of the new wellness signs to be rotated every 3 months at the courthouse.

The signs are made possible as part of a 5-year, $88,000 per year, Community Transformation grant. The grant comes from the Centers for Disease, Control and Prevention which was funded through a number of states, including Iowa. In Iowa, there were 26 counties chosen for the grant, which focuses on community wellness. Funds for the grant flow through Cass County.

Grindberg, whose office is at the Nishna Valley YMCA in Atlantic,  says there are a number of different wellness aspects that are focused on locally. The first year, 2012, focused primarily on the City of Atlantic. But the idea is to move the focus from community-to-community in Cass County, with emphasis on several areas. That includes: smoke-free multi-unit housing; chronic disease management, and work site wellness.

Teddi says they are also working with Live Healthy Iowa and other ways to make the communities in the county more physically active. Another aspect of the Community Transformation Grant, is information placed at strategic locations on an on-going basis, geared toward promoting health awareness, such as high blood pressure, etc.  She says new messages will be placed at different locations every three months or so.

The messages will be on easels in the courthouse, so as to not mar the finish on the walls.

An Atlantic man was arrested Thursday on a drug-related charges. According to Atlantic Police, 60-year old Samuel Miller faces two counts of Possession of a Controlled Substance/Marijuana. Miller was booked into the Cass County Jail and held pending a court appearance.

The Cass County Board of Supervisors, Thursday, passed a Resolution setting the gross load weight limits for certain secondary road bridges in the County. Cass County Engineer Charles Marker explained that as part of the County’s bridge inspection process, a consultant recommends any changes to posted weight limits based on the inspection results. Marker says there are currently 46 bridges which are below what is termed “Legal limit.” Even if the weight restrictions didn’t change on those particular bridges, the signs must still be put in place.

Marker said they inspect more than 230 bridges in the County. He says 46 out of 230 may seem like a large number, but percentage-wise, they are “Trying to hold our own” and keep up with repairs and replacements. Supervisor Charles Reiken said setting lower limits would create problems for some crop produces because they would have to haul smaller loads more frequently. The solution he said, would be to replace those structures with new bridges. He asked Marker if the issue was going to be more closely explored.

Marker says with the money that’s coming in from the State and/or Federal government for bridge replacement, it takes about three-years to accumulate enough money to replace a bridge of any substantial size. He says the money is not coming in fast enough to replace them, and while they’re replacing as many bridges – usually smaller length structures, 20-to-40 feet — as they can using County crews, they can still only handle about 3 or 4 per year.

In other business, the Supervisors passed a motion awarding a contract for the replacement of a 30-foot bridge over the Nishnabotna River on Lansing Road, to Murphy Heavy Contracting Corporation, of Anita, which had the low bid of $963,826.   The bid amounted to 75-percent of the engineer’s construction estimate. Work is expected to begin no later than May 6^th.