A new documentary film and book tells the story of the Underground Railroad which slaves followed through Iowa to find freedom in the mid-1800s. Filmmaker Gary Jenkins of Kansas City says he was reluctant to tell the story until a friend and a descendant of a slave urged him to see the remains of an underground railroad stop in Quindaro, Kansas. Jenkins says he saw where runaway slaves hid in cellars, wells and secret rooms. “I didn’t really want to do it and one day I rode my motorcycle over to Quindaro and found it and walked down in and looked at the ruins,” Jenkins says. “I was inspired standing there in the actual place where I knew Jimmy’s great-grandfather, George Washington, had come across the frozen Missouri River, had gotten help, got into the Union Army and lived out a full life.” That stretch of the Underground Railroad along the Missouri-Kansas border was considered one of the most dangerous escape routes. To reach Canada, freedom seekers had to dodge professional slave catchers, federal marshals, and Missouri slave holders. Jenkins says it was a region-wide effort.

He says, “They had this cadre, this organized group of Kansans and Iowans and Nebraskans who banded together and helped people escaping out of Missouri and got them on this kind of complicated, over a-thousand mile journey to at least Chicago where there was a large free black population, and some of them went around to Ontario, Canada, through Detroit.” The escape routes began along the Missouri/Kansas border, north to Nebraska City, Nebraska, east across the Missouri River through Tabor, Iowa, then east into Illinois and north to Chicago. The 75-minute documentary film is called: “Freedom Seekers: Stories from the Western Underground Railroad.” It premiered last week in Kansas City. The companion book is “John Brown and the Last Train.”

Learn more at the website: “http://lifedocumentaries.com”

(by Matt Kelley/Radio Iowa)

Officials with the Cass County Memorial Hospital in Atlantic say their construction and renovation project is proceeding on schedule, with occupancy of the new two-story addition expected late this summer.  One phase of the 30-month project has already been completed – the expansion and remodeling of the Atlantic Medical Center.  A 1,240 square foot addition housing exam rooms and office space for Dr. James Brown’s obstetric and gynecology clinic opened in October 2011.  Internal remodeling to create four additional family medicine exam rooms, nurses station, clinical offices and a new blood draw station were completed the first week of February 2012. Pat Markham, CCMH CEO says “We are very pleased with the progress of construction and quality of work being done,” said Pat Markham, CEO.  “Our contractors have been diligent about staying on schedule, and the mild winter has certainly helped them accomplish that goal.”

Construction on the 41,690 sq. ft. addition to the east side of the hospital began in March 2011.  The first floor of the addition will house a new Emergency Department, surgical suites and same day surgery area.  Crews are currently installing millwork and finishing the wallpaper and paint in these areas.  Gridwork for the acoustical ceiling tiles is being hung, and three elevators are being installed.

The second floor of the addition will house the medical/surgical, obstetric, and intensive care inpatient units.  Progress on the second floor is about three weeks behind the first, as crews work their way through the project.  The east half of the second floor is currently being dry walled and some wall finishes have begun.  Wall units in the patient rooms are being installed, which anchor furnishings and house medical equipment connections including oxygen supplies and patient monitors.  The west half of the second floor is being sheet rocked, and crews are finishing up the mechanical, electrical and plumbing rough-ins.

The addition is expected to open for patient care late this summer.  As departments relocate to the new area, remodeling will begin on the vacated space in the existing hospital building.

There’s been a change of venue for this evening’s meeting of the City of Atlantic’s Parks and Recreation Board. Parks and Rec Director Roger Herring says the meeting, which had been scheduled to take place at 5:15-p.m. in the Council’s Chambers at City Hall, will instead be held in the meeting room at the Atlantic Senior Center, located adjacent to the City Hall/Police Department building. The change was necessary, because the City Council is holding a work session in the Council’s chambers this evening. 

Action items and/or New Business on their agenda includes: an update on the Parks & Rec’s Capital Improvement Projects; discussion with regard to the Summer Recreation Programs, including – the playground, a Special Needs playground, Swim Team, Tennis and Softball programs; a review of the Little League Board meeting; a status report on vandalism perpetrated on Sunnyside park; and much more.