Stories from Friday, December 11, 2020

As a nationwide leader in wind energy, Alliant Energy continues making progress toward a cleaner energy future. The Iowa Utilities Board has verified that more than 26.5% of the electricity Alliant Energy’s Iowa customers used in 2019 was generated by renewable resources, up from 9.9% in 2018...

Registration is now open for Practical Farmers of Iowa’s 2021 virtual annual conference, “Coming Home,” which will take place Jan. 21-23. The event will feature over 50 practical, farmer-led sessions – as well as a raft of new offerings, from bilingual and youth sessions, to the premiere of PFI’s first feature-length film, to interactive formats planned specifically for the virtual environment...

The COVID-19 pandemic canceled the Valero Texas Open, like it did so many prominent events across the country, but it didn’t stop the tournament’s legacy of giving back. Business partners, sponsors and individual donors of the tournament and related events including the Valero Benefit for Children still contributed more than $14 million in net proceeds for charitable organizations across the United States, including those in the Albert City area...

There are some great sports movies out there - everybody knows ‘em. Rocky. Bull Durham. Chariots of Fire. Pride of the Yankees. Hoosiers. Then there are some that would make Thomas Edison reconsider the value of inventing the motion picture camera. (Think Adam Sandler’s gut wrenchingly awful remake of The Longest Yard). ...

Coming up at Sanford Museum in Cherokee

The St. Mary’s dance team competed at the Iowa State Dance and Drill Team Championships in Des Moines, November 17th. The results have now been announced - the team received 1st place in Class 1 Pom, 4th place in the Small School Hoopla category, and Soloist Ellie Bacon received a division 1 rating for her class 1 solo. / Photos by Patti Demers...

It seems that taking photos runs in Bob Ansorge’s family – both his grandfather and father were hobbyists in that field. So it seems through natural lineage, that Bob would take up the photographic mantle. Fifty years later, the art of taking photos is a craft that Bob still excels at, as owner of Buntrock Salie in Storm Lake...

November 17, 1957 - December 5, 2020

May 1, 1937 - December 8, 2020

On the morning of Sunday, December 6, the Storm Lake Fire Department was dispatched to 707 Bradford Street in reference to a smoke odor in a bedroom. The residents were evacuating the home. Firefighters arriving on the scene located and extinguished a smoldering fire in the attic space in the southwest corner of the house. The ceiling in a bedroom was pulled down to expose the burning insulation so it could be removed...

Randy Lee Valdez, age 32 of Storm Lake, was sentenced Dec. 7 in the Iowa District Court by the Honorable Andrew Smith for the crime of Assault While Displaying a Dangerous Weapon. Valdez was sentenced to a term not to exceed two years.

The Boards of Directors of First Cooperative Association, Cherokee, and Alceco, Albert City, IA., have signed a letter of intent to conduct a unification study between the two cooperatives. “Marketplace dynamics are changing dramatically. The Board of Directors of both cooperatives believe this is the right time to conduct this study. ...

The Storm Lake HyNoon Kiwanis Club has recently made its annual donation to Upper Des Moines Opportunity to assist with the Adopt-A-Family project during the holiday season. The club generally collects money from members through its “Happy Dollars” during its weekly Monday meetings and then donates the cumulative total collected throughout the year to Upper Des Moines in early December each year. This year, however, has been a bit different due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic...

The Adopt-A-Family for Christmas program still needs help, with 209 families adopted, and 27 still to be served. The Pilot-Tribune and Upper Des Moines Opportunity co-sponsor the program each year, matching generous individuals, families, businesses, clubs, classrooms and church groups with needy local families to provide the Christmas experience they might otherwise not have...

A Storm Lake man caught with child pornography was sentenced December 9 to more than 18 years in federal prison. James Alan Sievers, 35, received the prison term after a June 19, guilty plea to one count of receipt of child pornography and one count of possession of child pornography. Sievers has three prior sex-related convictions in Buena Vista County...

The dredging process at Cherokee’s Spring Lake began last week and will continue as long as funds last. According to Duane Mummert, Cherokee Parks Superintendent, the City of Cherokee has allocated $10,000 to the project with another $8,750 donated by concerned local citizens wanting the dredging to include more of the lake...

Buena Vista County Treasurer Sherie Elbert announced her pending retirement this week during a board of supervisors meeting. She plans to leave office in February. Elbert first took office in December of 2014 in a special election, following the death of former treasurer Kathy Bach. After being re-elected, her current term runs to the end of 2022. Supervisors will have the option of appointing a person to serve until the next election, or to hold a special election...

Thirteen percent of school-age children in the Storm Lake school district were living in poverty as of 2019, according to a report on school districts and counties released by the U.S. Census Bureau this week. According to the data, 284 students in the Storm Lake district were in poor households even before the pandemic hit...

The Storm Lake City Council dug through five years of future plans for spending this week, the first step in the annual capital improvement planning process. Some of the items getting the most discussion were spending on the golf course, the future of the city’s tourist cottages, and priorities for road repair...

Public health officials are beginning to get word from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Operation Warp Speed about arrival of long-awaited coronavirus vaccine - which will far fall short of need. Buena Vista County Public Health was told this week that its first allocation after the vaccine is approved will be 500 doses...

Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds spent a portion of her press conference last week detailing COVID Recovery Iowa, a federally funded resource offering free counseling and mental health resources. “While the virus is a threat to our physical health, living with its uncertainty over several months can also affect our mental health,” Reynolds says...

Newell-Fonda High School National Honor Society is lending a hand to the Adopt-A-Family charitable program. The group had adopted a single family in past years, but this holiday season the 22 honor students felt it was the year to step up, and conducted their own fundraising drive to purchase food for the Pilot-Tribune/Upper Des Moines Opportunity program. ...

Mayor: 176-unit Sunrise Pointe plan ‘fantastic’