CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa. – December 21, 2021 – Two Alliant Energy line workers have received the Governor’s Lifesaving Award for their courage and bravery after helping to save the lives of four Iowans during two separate incidents – a house fire and a home explosion. Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds presented the awards to Customer Service Mechanic Danny Gutschenritter and Service Responder Alex Schwenke during a ceremony on December 16 at the Iowa State Capitol in Des Moines.

On May 26, 2019, Schwenke was dispatched to a home in Rose Hill, Iowa after a smart meter indicated a power outage. When he arrived at the address, Schwenke found a large pile of debris. It appeared the home had exploded and collapsed. After calling 911, he turned off the utilities to the area. The couple trapped inside the house saw his flashlight and started calling for help. Schwenke and firefighters then worked to rescue them. “I thought I was going to a power outage, but I ended up being a first responder,” Schwenke said. “It felt great to help them out.”

The second incident took place months later in Creston, Iowa. On October 11, 2019, Gutschenritter arrived home from work to find a neighbor’s house was on fire and his neighbor was yelling for help through a window. Gutschenritter ran around the house, smashed a window with a brick and rescued a 12-year-old girl trapped inside. As thick smoke poured out of the windows, he ran to the other side of the home to help his neighbor escape. Once everyone was safe, Gutschenritter disconnected the utilities to make it safe for firefighters to put out the fire when they arrived.  “I just got lucky,” Gutschenritter said. “God put me in the right place at the right time.”

Daniel Gutschenritter

The Governor’s Lifesaving Awards are presented to those who have performed courageous acts in an attempt to save individuals who are in danger of losing their life or to individuals who unselfishly rendered service in a time of emergency.

Davenport – The Iowa Department of Corrections says 33-year-old Joseph LaShawn Roberts, who was convicted of Robbery 2nd Degree in Scott County, failed to report to work from the Davenport work release facility as required yesterday (Monday). Roberts is a Black male who stands 5-feet 9-inches tall, and weighs 186 pounds. He was admitted to the work release facility on Dec. 7, 2021. Persons with information on Robert’s whereabouts should contact local police.

Joseph LaShawn Roberts

(Radio Iowa) – Iowa has improved slightly but still has one of the nation’s worst rates of children being hit by trains, according to a study by a non-profit group that works to protect kids from preventable injuries. Nadji Kirby, senior program manager with Safe Kids Worldwide, says their surveys find many parents don’t make it a priority to educate their children about the dangers that surround railroad tracks. “It’s something that they’re not talking to their kids about, even if the family is living near the railroad tracks,” Kirby says. “That’s kind of surprising, considered more broadly that every five days a child is injured in a rail-related incident.”

In the past year, Iowa has moved from having the third- to the eighth-highest percentage of railroad-related accidents involving kids. In 2020, there were zero reports of railroad-related injuries or deaths of children in Iowa, but between 2010 and 2019, there were 54 such reports, 12 of which were fatal. Kirby says people don’t recognize how fast a train may be moving. “They can go up to 70 miles an hour and it’s hard for them to stop. It takes up to a mile for a train to stop, or about 18 football fields back-to-back,” Kirby says. “They can’t stop because they’re so heavy. One train weighs about 12-million pounds.”

Many kids — and adults — will walk along train tracks as a short cut or to take selfies, but they may not realize how quiet trains can be, especially when they’re moving toward you. “You don’t have that traditional clickety-clack on the modern trains. They’re much quieter so they can really sneak up on you because you can’t hear them,” Kirby says. “They’re also much wider than the tracks. People think they can jump out of the way quickly but that’s really not the case. Most trains are at least three feet wider and some are four-to-six feet wider.”

Kirby says accidents at railroad crossings often happen when a driver isn’t paying attention, when drivers or walkers choose to bypass safety barriers, or when they race to cross the track before the train passes. Learn more about railroad safety HERE.

(Radio Iowa) – State liquor sales set records dollar sales in each of the last two fiscal years during the pandemic. Iowa Alcoholic Beverages Division spokesman, Jake Holmes, says the sales since the end of the last fiscal year. “The fiscal year ended June 30th — so from July 1st through the end of November is the start of fiscal year ’22. And those numbers are up five-point-seven percent from the fiscal ’21 numbers,” Holmes says. Sales increased 13 percent and eight percent in the last two fiscal years — each setting a sales record. “That five-point-seven percent is a lot more similar to what we saw prior to the pandemic. We’ll just have to keep tracking those numbers to see where it ends up,” he says. Holmes says they are in their busiest time of the year.

(Image from IABD website)

“Traditionally, October, November, and December is definitely the busiest time of the year, the higher sales numbers. We have seen recently there are spikes in other times of the year too — but traditionally those October, December, November months are the highest,” Holmes says. He says while the sales have set records in the last two fiscal years — the favorite brands haven’t really seen much change. “The most popular item is still Black Velvet. It’s been at the top of the list for a number of years,” according to Holmes. “One product in particular — Tito’s Vodka — has really been increasing in popularity of the last several years…five years ago it was number 12 on our list and now it is number two. Other than that, Captain Morgan, Fireball, those are always near the top of the list. As far as Iowa products — Blue Ox Vodka is the top-selling Iowa product for the third year in a row now.”

Holmes says they always kept a good supply of the most popular items in stock and that helped them overcome any shortages.

(Atlantic, Iowa) – The Atlantic City Council, Monday, following a public hearing, approved the Food Pantry’s application for the CDBG COVID-19 Program. Their action followed a report presented Nov. 17^th by Kristine Stokes, SWIPCO (Southwest Iowa Planning Council) Community Development Specialist, who was present for Monday evening’s meeting, as well.

The Atlantic Food Pantry is requesting $100,000 in grant funding from the Iowa Economic Development Authority (IEDA). The grant will help the food pantry buy food in 2022 and early 2023. They previously received $23,000 as a grant match, from the recent Atlantic Chamber of Commerce’ “Scrooge” Contest, which in addition to cash, provided much needed non-perishable goods for the pantry.

Mayor Dave Jones said the Atlantic Pantry is staffed by hard workers and volunteers.

In her presentation, Monday, Stokes made it clear, the request for funding is not for a new building, as some may have thought. It’s a request for food and non-food items.

Stokes said also, the Atlantic Food Pantry has served as much as three-times the number of households since before the pandemic began, and their costs to purchase groceries has nearly quadrupled since 2019. The Southwest Iowa Planning Council requested that the city be the applicant for a one-time $100,000 grant in 2023. She says $95,000 will be for the Pantry to purchase food and non-food items (Such as hand soap and toilet paper), $5,000 will be used for grant administration, to be performed by SWIPCO. The Food Pantry would be a sub-recipient of the grant funding.

Stokes said Food Pantry volunteers conducted personal income surveys for each household they serve, over a period of four-weeks earlier this Fall.

In addition, she said based on the food pantry’s sign-in sheets, an average of 86-percent of the recipients live in Atlantic. The Atlantic Food Pantry has served the community for the past 40-years. Their staff consists of 30-volunteers. Stokes said there is no deadline to submit the application, but she hopes to do so in mid-January. She said they should know if the request is approved, by late February.

(Radio Iowa) A state senator from central Iowa is predicting Governor Kim Reynolds will soon propose major funding for a new terminal at the Des Moines airport. Senator Brad Zaun of Urbandale, a Republican, expects Reynolds to use part of her “Condition of the State” message in January discuss using new federal infrastructure dollars for the expansion. “And that’s going to be a win-win for all of us not only as passengers, but from an economic development standpoint,” Zaun says.

A plan unveiled in 2020 calls for constructing a new terminal, with 18 gates, that would open before the end of the decade. Zaun says there’s demand for more flights in and out of Des Moines, but no space in the terminal that was originally built in the 1930s and expanded in the 1970s. “Full disclose: most of my customers are outside the state of Iowa, so I’m in that airport about every other week,” Zaun says. “…There’s no doubt that we need more terminals. Every gate is full.”

Matthew Ahmann, an assistant vice president at Principal Financial Group, is the Greater Des Moines Partnership’s 2021 government policy council chairman. He says expanding gate space at the Des Moines airport won’t just benefit central Iowa. “Anybody that’s been on one of those late flights where you’re flying in at about 10 or 11 o’clock and you’re talking to somebody next to you who’s hopping in their car and driving to Clear Lake — it’s really an Iowa issue,” he says.

House Democratic Leader Jennifer Konfrst of Windsor Heights says many people have described the Des Moines Airport as Iowa’s front door. “Especially, let’s not forget, people who are interviewing for jobs — when they come in, that’s the first thing they see,” Konfrst says. “…It helps people see what we have to offer right away.” Republican Representative Brent Seigrist of Council Bluffs says an affordable, robust airport like Eppley Airfield in Omaha has been critical to business in western Iowa.

“Air transportation is very vital for economic development,” Siegrist says. “Des Moines needs to be better and I think the state should be part of that partnership and I think it would have a pretty good hearing moving forward.” Senate Democratic Leader Zach Wahls of Coralville says he mainly flies out of the Eastern Iowa Airport in Cedar Rapids, but would support an upgrade to the airport in Des Moines.

“The funds that are coming out of Washington, D.C. from the bipartisan infrastructure deal are obviously going to be huge for the State of Iowa,” Wahls says. “not just our airports, but our roads and bridges.” Congresswoman Cindy Axne of West Des Moines, a Democrat who supported the bill, says it will provide 120 million dollars for airport projects in Iowa.

A total of five billion dollars is headed to Iowa for road, bridges, broadband and other infrastructure like ports and rail lines.