Stories from Monday, May 20, 2019

Elaine Marie Reese, age 93, of Storm Lake, passed away, expectedly unexpected on Wednesday, May 15. Funeral services was held Saturday, May 18, at 10:30 a.m. at the United Methodist Church in Storm Lake. Burial will be in the Buena Vista Memorial Park Cemetery in Storm Lake. Visitation took place Friday, May 17, from 5 - 7 p.m. at the Fratzke & Jensen Funeral Home in Storm Lake. The Fratzke & Jensen Funeral Home in Storm Lake is in charge of the arrangements...

Graveside services for Dennis D. Reilly, 70, of Baxter, formerly of Aurelia, will be held Saturday, May 25, at 10 a.m. at the Pleasant Hill Cemetery in Aurelia, with Pastor Bruce Rapp officiating. Military Honors will be presented by the L. A. Wescott Post #2253 of the VFW of Cherokee and the Grashoff-McManus American Legion Post #390 of Aurelia. ...

On May 16 at approximately 6:18 p.m., in the 1100 Block of W. 5th St. in Storm Lake, a vehicle driven by Jacob Graves of Alta, was involved in an accident with a vehicle driven by Jose Mendez Torres of Lakeside. The two vehicles collided causing total damages estimated at $1300...

The Avenue of flags will be up at 7 a.m., and taken down at 7 p.m. Volunteers are welcome. The ceremony will begin at 10 a.m. at Newell cemetary. In case of inclement weather the ceremony will beat Allee building. Chris Cakes pancake breakfast will be held at Allee Building 7-10 a.m. Free will donations to Newell Achiever 4-H club...

The annual Nemaha Memorial Day Brunch will be held at the Nemaha shelter house on Monday, May 27, immediately following the 8 a.m. service at the cemetery. All are welcome to bring a dish to share and your table service and join us there. Coffee will be provided. It is a special time to reminisce with all those who come to honor loved ones on that day...

Donations to the Buena Vista Regional Healthcare Foundation have recently been used to purchase the latest patient warming system. “This warming system will allow us to take better care of all trauma patients. Low body temperatures affect severely injured patients very negatively and can contribute to severe complications with the trauma itself. ...

The Alta P.E.O. awarded the annual scholarship to Nicole Jensen, Alta. The $300 scholarship is for the 2019-2020 academic year where she will be attending Iowa State University pursuing a degree in elementary education. She was honored at the P.E.O. spring brunch along with her mother...

Buena Vista Regional Medical Center employs over 400 individuals from over 50 different communities. BVRMC celebrates employees children with valedictorian honors among their graduation class. Congratulations to these outstanding honorees for 2019.

UnityPoint Health – Trinity Regional Medical Center announced a partnership with credentialed pain management specialists which will enable them to provide local, highly individualized treatment to patients with chronic pain. Trinity Regional Medical Center notified patients this past April that Des Moines Anesthesia would no longer be providing services at UnityPoint Health - Trinity Pain Management Center...

Officials say a dog disease that can be passed to humans has been confirmed in Iowa. The state veterinarian, Dr. Jeff Kaisand, says several cases of canine brucellosis have been confirmed at a commercial breeding facility for small dogs in Marion County...

Anyone who thinks poetry is just for sissies hasn’t had the pleasure of reading Chris Dombrowski’s Ragged Anthem released this spring from Wayne State University Press. Dombrowski, a Michigan native who taught at Interlochen Arts Academy and Center for the Arts, has served as the William Kittredge Visiting Writer-in-Residence at the University of Montana and directs the Beargrass Writing Workshops...

Charlize Theron and Seth Rogen make a sparkling comedic duo in the unconventional romantic comedy “Long Shot,” about a sleek politician and a schlubby journalist that is more than its superficial premise. The film from director Jonathan Levine, which does its fair share of over-the-top gross-out humor and jarringly violent physical gags that in real life would have left Rogen’s character Fred Flarsky hospitalized or dead, is, even in spite of those overdone R-rated tropes, full of surprising heart, wit and insight about relationships, compromise and (gasp) even politics.. ...

The Storm Lake School District leaders were excited to learn recently that a grant has been received that will allow the TLC after school program at the elementary school to continue for at least three years. The funding comes from the 21st Century Community program, the one federal funding source that is dedicated exclusively to supporting local  after school, before-school and summer learning programs...

The music teachers for the Storm Lake School District were out in force for the school board’s monthly meeting Wednesday night. Starting about a decade ago, the district began setting aside $25,000 per year for music equipment - as assistant principal Jeff Tollefsen said, “We were in dire straits.”...

Two Storm Lake St. Mary’s High School graduating seniors have earned the school’s first-ever seals of biliteracy. Gabriel Elsden and Alondra Meléndez earned biliteracy honors at the St. Mary’s High School Awards Day Ceremony and wore medals indicating this wonderful achievement at their commencement exercises May 12...

Monarch butterflies are fluttering this way, and, with some luck, they’ll be more plentiful than in previous years when they reach Iowa later this spring. During the winter months, scientists observed the largest overwintering monarch population in Mexico since 2007, said Steven Bradbury, a professor of natural resource ecology and management at Iowa State University. ...

Storm Lake (including Little Storm Lake) Black Crappie - Fair: Try a live minnow under a bobber in areas around docks and along shallow rocky shores. Anglers have picked up crappie in the marina and near the inlet. White Bass - Fair: Use leeches, crawlers and twisters. ...

Two housing projects in Storm Lake are ready to move forward by the end of the month, according to Johnston-based developer Shawn Foutch. Some equipment has been moved in at the former Sunset Bay condominium site, with workers finishing up other projects before they move to that location before the end of May. Uncertainty about a construction loan have been resolved, and closing on the loan is expected by early July...

The Storm Lake Police Department is pleased to announce that it has been selected to receive a ballistic vest for its police K9 provided by Vested Interest in K9’s (www.vik9s.org) with funds made available through the generous donation by Sharon Peters in memory of her late father, Det. Lt. Richard Scott who served for 34 years with the Roseville, MI Police Department...

Between Compass Pointe’s abrupt closure and Hope Haven’s anticipated departure of counseling services, there are a lot of potholes forming in the patchwork of mental health services around the area. Plains Area Mental Health is adapting its intake system to ensure patients land contact for mental health care in hours, rather than days or weeks...

Storm Lake High School’s Building & Trades class may merge with the Habitat for Humanity program for the coming year - to solve a problem each program faces. Habitat for Humanity, the program that helps build homes for limited income families, is without a construction supervisor. It has a plan, a site and funding, but without that building leadership, cannot move ahead with goals to construct a duplex for two families...

The members of the first-year Storm Lake High School Advanced Ecology Class met with the Storm Lake Board of Education last week to share their experiences. The class has garnered a lot of attention, not only studying issues, but creating projects of their own to help the local environment. The students presented members of the board with reusable cloth grocery bags with a school logo, a product they created to try to offset the amount of plastic bags that become litter or go into landfills...

A Linn Grove couple is being credited with discovering a new species of tiny mollusk Cucurbitula, a clam-like creature that attaches to shells. In November 2016, environmentalists George and Marian McNabb were working at Padre Island National Seashore, where they lived and volunteered during the winters...

It’s caucus season once again, and Storm Lake, like most of Iowa, has already been thrown into the mix of dozens of touring presidential candidates. But with two of the 20-some candidates leading the polls, the Democratic Party’s bubble could be burst before February with discouraged turnout as the party attempts to amp up its base in the first battle en route to November 2020...

In what may be a first for Storm Lake, teams of competitors engaged in a wild bow-and-arrow battle recently on the campus of Buena Vista University. The Correctionville Fire Department uses the game - similar to paintball but using heavily padded arrows to take out opponents and their home base - as a fundraiser. ...

STORM LAKE - It was the final home game for a handful of seniors on Thursday night for the Storm Lake boys soccer team. The green and white welcomed in the Western Christian Wolfpack and claimed a 3-0 victory for their 14th win of the year. Neither team found success on the scoreboard in the first 40 minutes of the contest as Storm Lake’s keeper, junior Elijah Santellan, and Western Christian’s, senior Jeff De Kam, denied every shot that came close to the goal, keeping the score deadlocked at 0-0.. ...

DES MOINES - The State Track meet continued on Friday and Saturday despite some wet conditions during Friday’s session as rain caused a delay in the start, and they had to make up events from Thursday night’s delay through Friday and Saturday. Newell-Fonda’s Edwin Rosas took eighth in his 1A 400 meter dash section and finished 24th overall with a time of 53.93 seconds. ...