Stories from Friday, July 24, 2020

Kiley Miller, President & CEO of the Iowa Lakes Corridor Development Corporation, has been awarded recertification by the International Economic Development Council (IEDC) through April 2021. Miller first achieved the Certified Economic Developer (CEcD) designation in 2015. Recertification required that he fulfill demanding standards for continuing education and service to the profession...

Iowa is the leading producer of field corn. In 2016, Iowa produced 18% of all corn grown in the United States. While there are endless rows of field corn across the state, this is not the corn on your dinner plate. In this week’s edition of the Sow, Grow, Eat and Keep Webinar, Iowa State University Extension and Outreach specialists discuss sweet corn...

State Medical Director Caitlin Pedati said Friday she never accepted an offer of federal assistance to deal with COVID-19 outbreaks in meatpacking plants because Iowa didn’t need the help. Emails from federal agencies show that on April 15, Pedati declined an offer of on-site assistance from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention with regard to COVID-19 outbreaks in Iowa’s meatpacking plants. ...

You know what I mean by “guilty pleasure” movies, right? No redeeming qualities, A-list talent slumming in a script they wish they could forget, films you probably wouldn’t tell anyone you watched. Yet so witless, they rock? Here’s a 12-pack of sweaty goodies to get you through a summer with most of the real movies postponed. You won’t find a whiff of an Oscar nominee in this bunch, and yet somehow, they are entertaining as heck...

Storm Lake city officials are continuing to work on trash concerns in the downtown business district. After the council expressed concerns earlier this month, a second “work session” on the topic was held this week. City officials agree that trash is not being properly secured in some places, overflowing containers or being allowed to blow around...

Sunday afternoon, DNR staff met with a hog producer near Albert City to investigate a manure release from his above-ground storage tank. Kris Ehlers reported Sunday that a valve on the tank had failed, releasing an unknown amount of manure. DNR staff found manure pooled near the tank and found that it had run into a grassed waterway...

The Community Education Performing Arts Series 2020-2021 season has been cancelled due to concerns with the coronavirus pandemic. The safety of our patrons is the primary reason for this decision. Travel restrictions and performer safety were also concerns that would have made holding some shows impossible. We also had to take into account the shared spaces that the Performing Arts Series and our Storm Lake youth utilize...

Olivia Wieseler, the shy freshman who wrote a documentary script, landed a national journalism honor, and interned in Washington, D.C., now heads west to start her career as a copy editor at the Star Herald, the newspaper serving Scottsbluff, Neb. “The official position is copy editor,” says Wieseler, who, in 2019, was named the national Arthur H. ...

May 24, 1953 - July 17, 2020

January 27, 1951 - July 21, 2020

Due to Covid-19, the Hayes School reunion for August 8, has been canceled. It is rescheduled for August 14, 2021. If there are any questions, call 712-275-4322 or 712-732-3491.

The Storm Lake Public Library will be open on Saturday, July 25, from l0 a.m. to noon to help patrons in need of tax forms for the State filing deadline on July 31. Library hours will be extended until 6 p.m. on Thursday, July 30 for last-minute forms...

Gary & Connie Herpst will be celebrating their 49th Wedding Anniversary on Friday, July 24. We love you! Love, Tammy & Jeremy, Todd, Leah, Ali, Ty & Rylea. / Photo submitted

Pocahontas County Economic Development Commission (PCEDC) has been awarded $20,000 from the State of Iowa in support of their Jump-Start Accelerator Grant program for new startup businesses in Pocahontas County. The $20,000 Rural Innovation Grant that PCEDC has received was developed in 2019 by the Governor’s Empower Rural Iowa Initiative which supports creative, non-traditional ideas that focus on current issues and challenges faced by rural communities...

Rik Zortman, of Coralville, runs like a man on a mission. He is. Zortman, also known as “the human etch-a-sketch,” first began running as a connection to his son Armstrong, who loved to run and had passed away after battling cancer in 2009. Experimenting with his cellphone GPS and a running app in 2017, Zortman found that he could sketch out words as the GPS followed his route through city blocks and his calling began...

President Donald Trump’s executive order Tuesday omitting undocumented immigrants from census data used for reapportionment will harm Iowa and “is wrong in every way there is,” a leader of a group representing Iowa Latinos said. A spokesman for Sen. Chuck Grassley, however, said the order might help Iowa gain seats in Congress...

Local officials pushed Monday for more comprehensive study of data on police stops to guard against bias, while a top state law enforcement official pushed back on the idea of eliminating some traffic stops altogether.  The Black Lives Matter movement is pushing for new local ordinances protecting citizens from unfair treatment by police based on race or other factors not related to violation of the law. ...

Iowa’s COVID-19 testing initiative — Test Iowa — had performed 100,000 tests as of July 9, according to Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds, but Iowa’s Auditor of State Rob Sand recently took issue with Test Iowa’s reporting methods. Results are to be reported immediately to the Iowa Department of Public Health, according to Sand, but state auditors found Test Iowa results were first being sent to three different entities before reaching IDPH. ...

Buena Vista County hopes to push off its flood plain planning for a while. Like the rest of the state, the county is required to produce and adopt new flood plain maps to reduce potential impact in future flood events, but zoning official Kim Johnson told county supervisors Tuesday that the timing isn’t right...

A Texas man was arrested Saturday after allegedly threatening to kill an officer and inflicting an injury on an officer following an arrest at Casey’s General Store, 825 Flindt Avenue in Storm Lake. Police were called to Casey’s for a customer causing a disturbance. ...

“What an adventure,” reflects Ashley Hammen Hoff, the Storm Lake native who has for the past few months been feverishly manufacturing “2020 Relief Ribbons” and selling them to help support frontline workers in the pandemic and programs for seniors impacted by it...

A voluntary plea for water conservation in Storm Lake hasn’t slowed public usage levels - in fact, consumption went up after the city requested the measures. With drought conditions continuing into this week, the city council acted to make conservation mandatory...

In a county nearing the grave milestone of four million COVID-19 infections, masks have become a socially-charged and politicized debate. Nearly 40 states have declared some form of face covering policy - with Iowa not among them. Even President Trump, who had long declined to wear a mask in public, tweeted a photo of himself covered Monday, suggesting he is “patriotic” to mask up. The administration has resisted a nationwide mask mandate, Trump wanting people to have “a certain freedom.”...