Stories from Friday, September 18, 2020

Buena Vista University (BVU) and Wellman of Creston, have become Strategic Partners, paving the way for a host of educational benefits now available to 300-plus employees of Wellman, a leader in the production of aerospace castings. Under the Strategic Partnership initiative, Wellman employees and their families are eligible for tuition discounts and/or grants in taking courses through BVU. ...

August 31st marked the 20-year anniversary of Quad County’s incorporation, and during those 20 years, QCCP has enjoyed a strong relationship with the local fire departments. Without fail, firefighting personnel have always been quick to respond to any emergency that has required their assistance, one of the most recent being a dryer fire back in April of this year. ...

The region’s popular party players, the Johnny Holm Band, will perform Saturday, October 17 at the Little Sioux Event Center in Cherokee. Admission is $15 per person or $25 for couple. Showtime is 9:30 p.m. The band is based in Minneapolis, offering a wide array of danceable cover tunes...

Films dealing with reproductive rights don’t often announce it in the title. But “Unpregnant” is not a by-the-numbers entry into this genre and it is not coy about its subject matter. Based on a novel by Jenni Hendricks and Ted Caplan, this film is very unambiguously about abortion and what an ambitious 17-year-old Missouri girl must go through to get one without her parents’ permission...

The celebration begins! See the winners of the Scarecrow Contest, enjoy delicious fall foods, The Back 40 Playground, games, and rides to the pumpkin patch. Apple Fest at the Community Orchard in Fort Dodge is fun for all ages. Dates for the celebration this year are October 3 and 4, 10 and 11, and 17 and 18...

St. Mary’s Schools have received a $3,000 Dollar General Literacy Foundation Grant for the school library. The funds will be used to support new and ongoing youth literacy programs. Thirteen grants will be awarded in Iowa. St. Mary’s was among three schools in the region chosen for grants, with Okoboji and MMCRU in Remsen also funded...

On Friday September 11, the Sac and Ida County sheriff’s offices collaborated for a traffic enforcement project between U.S. Highway 71 in Sac County to Highway 59 in Ida County. The project ran from noon to 6 p.m. Officers issued 59 warnings and nine citations. A police dog search resulted in one narcotics arrest...

Storm Lake United in partnership with Buena Vista Regional Medical Center presents “Sassy Saturdays” scheduled for Saturday, October 3rd, 10th, 17th and 24th. During the event participating businesses will have the option to sell BVRMC P.I.N.K. bracelets for $3 each. The proceeds from the sale of the bracelets will be donated directly to BVRMC P.I.N.K. which provides breast cancer screening and knowledge to low income or underinsured individuals...

A Storm Lake company has completed a unique memorial for an area student-athlete who passed away suddenly at age 26, in 2012. Aaron Wernimont, from Pocahontas, was a two-time national NCAA wrestling champion for Wartburg College, a three-time academic All-American, a newlywed, a man of deep faith, everyone’s friend, an avid outdoorsman. He was attending optometry college in Indiana and in training to run a marathon, when he passed away...

February 16, 1974 - September 19, 2020

January 11, 1926 - September 13, 2020

A woman who conspired to distribute methamphetamine was sentenced Sept. 3 to more than six years in federal prison. Shana Mull, 33, of Spencer received the prison term after a March 19 guilty plea to conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine. Evidence at the plea and sentencing hearings showed that between June of 2019 and August of 2019, Mull and others conspired to distribute more than 10 pounds of methamphetamine in the Iowa Great Lakes area. ...

The fall harvest adds favorites such as watermelon, pumpkins and gourds to the selection at the Storm Lake Farmer’s Market. The markets continue into early October, at the parking lot across from Valentina’s Grocery, Saturday mornings and Thursday afternoons each week. /Pilot photo by Dana Larsen...

Federal regulators on Monday handed a victory to corn farmers and the renewable fuels industry by refusing to allow a group of petroleum refiners in 14 states to forego requirements to blend ethanol into the gasoline they make. Members of Congress from farm states have heavily lobbied President Donald Trump to reject the waiver requests for months. ...

On August 8th three friends were kayaking down the Little Sioux River from the Prairie Heritage Center in Petersen when they made an enormous discovery. Sherri Haan and Sheila Gengler, both from Cherokee, and Kathie Rowray from Cedar Rapids, were enjoying a lazy Saturday float down the river when Gengler, a practiced and self-proclaimed scavenger, spotted “suspicious points” peeking out of the water and the edge of a sandbar. ...

Ridge View Homecoming Court: Front: Hannah Grieme, Mikayla Kolpin, Anya Kistenmacher, Bailey Graff. Back: Caleb Kistenmacher, Brecken Conover, Bo Clausen. Not pictured: Autumn Henkel, Colton Dutler, Beau Blackmore. /Photo contributed by Ridge View High School...

Marty Barnes built a career in rodeo, as a competitor and a business owner providing bulls and bucking horses for events across the U.S. Barnes now seeks to build a rodeo team as coach of the new Buena Vista University rodeo team. “It’s a great opportunity to build a rodeo program at BVU,” says Barnes, who has directed his daughters, Micah Barnes, a 2020 BVU graduate, and Mary Barnes, a fourth-year BVU student, in rodeo competitions for the Beavers. ...

Buena Vista County needs 10 people to step up to man the precincts in Storm Lake and Alta on election day in November - and at least seven people who are fluent in Spanish. The county has tried everything it can to find workers - in a time of COVID threat, retirees who have worked in the past are in a high risk group...

Students encouraged to turn in peers not wearing masks or distancing

The Storm Lake Police Department has created a new community outreach vehicle, with help from a Tyson Foods community grant. The funds were used to repurpose a military surplus Humvee. The distinctive vehicle was painted black and white and equipped with an on-board ice cream freezer in the back hatch, so that officers can patrol Storm Lake neighborhoods and hand out free treats...

Uptick in local cases as school and college begins to be expected: local health leaders. “COVID spreads even faster than the flu, in my observation. We’ve been talking since the very beginning about how contagious this is. It spreads exponentially - if someone is exposed and brings it to school or work, they aren’t giving it to one person, they might spread it to nine or ten, and each of those nine or ten might spread it to nine or ten.”