(Griswold, Iowa) – Members of the Griswold School Board held their regular monthly meeting Monday evening. Superintendent Dave Henrichs says the Board approved the hiring of Bonnie Orfield as a night custodian beginning August 1st. The Board approved the Girl’s Wrestling Sharing Agreement between Griswold, CAM, Nodaway Valley, and Atlantic.

The Griswold School Board also approved the District’s Return-to-Learn plan, which is unchanged from last year.

In other business, some familiar faces will remain in-place, with regard to the Business Manager/Treasurer (Dan Rold), and Board Secretary (Hannah Bierbaum). Both were reappointed Monday night. The Board elected to secure Matt Hanson with Wilson, Hanson and Associates P.C., from Lenox, as the District’s Attorney. As far as the various bids are concerned, since they only had one bidder, the supplies of bakery goods, trash removal services, dairy, snow removal and warewash, are unchanged from last year.

Superintendent Henrichs said he shared in his report to the Board, they’re still looking for a Middle School English Teacher, a MS Volleyball and MS Football Coach. And he said the District is still waiting to hear back from the Department of Education, with regard to a “Safety Grant.”

(Radio Iowa) – The Des Moines Register’s “Iowa Poll” finds a majority of Iowa Republicans want Donald Trump to run for president in 2024, while just 37% of Iowa Democrats say President Biden should seek a second term.

The survey of likely voters found 57% of Iowa Republicans want Trump to seek a return to the White House, while about a third of Republicans in Iowa do not want Trump to run again.

Among the Iowa Democrats surveyed, 71% said they approve of how Joe Biden is handling the presidency, but 52% of Democrats said they hope Biden doesn’t run for reelection in 2024. The job approval rating for President Biden from all those surveyed was 27%. That’s the second lowest Iowa Poll rating for any president.

(Radio Iowa) – Two restored military aircraft are in Sioux City through this Sunday, July 24th to mark the 80th anniversary of the Sioux Gateway Airport. Dan Ragan is part of the crew for the B-17 “Flying Fortress.” He flew on the plane as he was stationed in Hawaii during the Korean War. “Our mission was first generation of AWACS and I was assigned as a radio operator on that aircraft right there,” he says. “…I flew on it back in 1953.”

AWACS stands for Airborne Warning and Control System. The B-17 in Sioux City is one of just three that are actively flying in the U.S. today. People can tour the aircraft, which has been restored with period-specific equipment. Ragan says the bomber didn’t fly over Korea, but had a special task. “Our mission was we flew about 200 miles away from the (air craft) carriers and we looked with surface radar 200 miles towards the bad guys,” Ragan says. “And we gave the carriers 400 miles heads up: ‘You have incoming.'”

Texas Raiders B17 via their Facebook page

Ragan spent over two-thousand hours flying these missions. “When I got out of the Navy, I went back to school and finished as (an electrical engineer) and I went to work for Collins Radio Co., the Cadillac of the industry. I spent about eight years as a design engineer in Dallas and got into product management and they transported me to Cedar Rapids, Iowa,” he says, “and I found out real fast my winter wear in Dallas made great summer wear in Cedar Rapids.”

A single engine aircraft used to train thousands of pilots and airmen for combat is also at Sioux City’s airport this week. Cockpit tours and flights on the planes are available from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. through Sunday. Persons wanting to experience a B-17 flight can call 855-359-2217 (877-FLY-A-B17), or reserve your place online at B17TexasRaiders.org.  On Facebook at B17TexasRaiders.

(Radio Iowa) – An Iowa City man caught with drugs during a traffic stop in southeast Iowa has been sentenced to 21 and a half years in federal prison. Thirty-two-year-old Brett Thomas Kriz was stopped in Washington County in March of last year. According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Des Moines, officers who searched the car found two backpacks that had crystal meth inside and Kriz later admitted he regularly purchased meth and distributed the drugs in eastern Iowa.

He pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine in December and was sentenced to federal prison this week. A passenger was in the car during the traffic stop and she was sentenced to state prison last fall.

(Red Oak, Iowa) – Two women were arrested in Red Oak at around 11:15-p.m., Wednesday, following a traffic stop in the 1700 block of N. Broadway Street. Red Oak Police report the vehicle was pulled-over by Officers, for failure to stop at a traffic light. The driver, 19-year-old Savanna Ann Schenck, of Shenandoah, was arrested for Driving Under Suspension. A passenger, 19-year-old Phoebe Rachelle Faye Johnson, also from Shenandoah, was arrested for Possession of Drug Paraphernalia.

Both women were booked into the Montgomery County Jail, where Schenck was being held on bond amounting to $491.25, and Johnson’s bond was set at $300.