Stories from Friday, September 17, 2021

Buena Vista Regional Medical Center received the American Heart Association’s Mission: Lifeline® EMS Silver Plus Achievement Award for implementing specific quality improvement measures to treat patients who suffer severe heart attacks for the second consecutive year...

Buena Vista Regional Medical Center received the American Heart Association’s Mission: Lifeline® EMS Silver Plus Achievement Award for implementing specific quality improvement measures to treat patients who suffer severe heart attacks for the second consecutive year...

Mediacom Communications announced this week that its advanced fiber optic network was recently extended to serve three underserved Iowa communities. As a result, residents and businesses in Cushing (Woodbury County), Meservey (Cerro Gordo County) and Schaller (Sac County) now have access to Mediacom’s high-speed Xtream 1 Gig internet...

Fresh food fans have a few more chances to shop the Storm Lake Farmer’s Market, which continues into early October - the best of summer and fall all in one market. The market is open Saturday mornings and Thursday afternoons, in parking lot C downtown, across from Valentina’s Market on Erie Street. This week, the market had many of favorite summer and fall homegrown produce choices like pumpkins, okra, peppers and squash, homemade baked goods, farm fresh eggs, local honey and more...

Once again, I’m reminded that I wouldn’t want to be in Stacey Cole’s shoes. I look awful in heels. Aside from that, presiding over one of the most complex, challenged, and fastest-growing school districts in the state is no small feat for her, the school board, the principals, and for that matter, the teachers. aides and staff...

Face it - those of us who have pets, love them as family. We bond with our pets, and our pets grow close to us. According to some reports, some military service dogs were left behind in Kabul, in the evacuation of Afghanistan. After doing some fact checking on my own, this isn’t true - according to several military sources, at the least the ones that I have looked up, all military dogs were evacuated. ...

“If you don’t have time for things that matter, stop doing things that don’t.” - Courtney Carver

Tickets are on sale now for a concert by legendary midwest band Head East, November 5 at Hard Rock Resort in Sioux City. Tickets start at $20, must be 21 or older to attend. Doors open one hour prior to show start time. Head East has long set the standard for authentic, full-vocal, upbeat rock harmonies that few bands can equal. ...

Northwest Iowa’s own She’s With Us good-times band will wrap up the outdoor stage season at InnSpiration Wines & Vines, Linn Grove, Friday, Sept. 24. Showtime is 6:30 p.m. Beginning in the fall of 2014, She’s With Us started with powerhouse lead vocalist and all around female force of nature Iesha Toft (the She in She’s With Us) placing some calls to friends old and new. ...

Society of Broken Souls, the folk noir songwriting duo of multi-instrumentalists Dennis James and Lauryn Shapter, will perform at Byron’s in Pomeroy Sunday, October 3, 5-9 p.m. The two never expected the name of their band to become such a lightning rod. It just seemed a fitting name, one that resonated deeply with each of them, as well as with their most dedicated fans. But a lightning rod it seems to have become. ...

The Bango Haunted Crib in Schaller will be open this year! Dates for the spooky fun are October 1, 2, 8, 9, 15, 16, 22, 23, and the 29th through Halloween night. DJ and live music performances will add to the fun. More announcements on this season’s haunted attraction will be coming soon...

It is not uncommon for the Storm Lake City Council to be asked to approve change orders to increase costs for current projects due to what contractors claim are unforeseen situations. Faced with such a request at their most recent meeting, one of the council members felt the City should be looking more closely at the companies that routinely ask for increases...

By DANA LARSEN Pilot-Tribune Editor Buena Vista County Supervisors are working to seek avenues to continue funding non-profit outside agencies after a state crackdown on the use of public funds donated for such purposes. Although agencies were approved for funds in this fiscal year’s budget earlier, they had to resubmit applications to provide more data, in hopes of meeting the more stringent state requirements...

Storm Lake Fire Department participated in the State Firemen’s Convention last week in Grinnell. Adam Kutz earned 2nd place in one-man coupling competition with a time of 4.11. The team of Sam Ortmann, Josh Fevold and Adam Kutz got 4th place in Extending. Scott Mack was second in old-timers waterfights. / Photos courtesy Angie Kutz...

Buena Vista Regional Medical Center has been awarded a Top Workplaces 2021 honor by The Des Moines Register. The list is based solely on employee feedback gathered through a third-party survey administered by employee engagement technology partner Energage LLC. The anonymous survey uniquely measures 15 culture drivers that are critical to the success of any organization: including alignment, execution, and connection, just to name a few...

An amazing quilt show takes place in Sac County biennially and 2021 is the year. Visitors from most counties in Iowa as well as several other states regularly make their way to the Sac County Fair Grounds in Sac City to participate in the beauty and fun of this rural event. This year’s Sac County Quilt-A-Fair will be September 25-26. Around 300 entries have been received for the show and these quilts will be spread throughout two large buildings on the grounds...

On September 30th Dick and Ardyce Anderson, of Alta, will celebrate their 70th anniversary. Their daughters and families will be celebrating with them. Please help them celebrate by sending a card or a note with a memory to 321 Highway #3 Alta, Ia . 51002...

Clark and Nancy Gordon are celebrating 50 years of marriage. Congratulations Mom and Dad! Love, your family.

May 28, 1939 - September 11, 2021

April 13, 1956 - September 11, 2021

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) today announced that Harrison Swift, a veteran of the United States Marine Corps and resident of Ankeny, will work as the new veterans fellow based in his Des Moines office. Dave Allen, who has worked as Grassley’s veterans fellow since 2015, is retiring...

This fall, the University of Iowa welcomed the most academically accomplished class in its history for the fifth year in a row. The incoming undergraduate class again topped previous records in achievement with a higher average high school grade-point average (GPA), at 3.81, than any previous class...

The 2020 redistricting process has been abnormal from the start, and we’re just getting to the good stuff. This week, the nonpartisan Legislative Services Agency will propose a new set of state legislative and congressional maps, setting off Iowa’s redistricting process months after it would usually happen...

Enrollment fell at Iowa’s three public colleges this fall, continuing a years-long decline complicated by the COVID-19 pandemic. The University of Iowa, Iowa State University and the University of Northern all reported smaller 2021 enrollment as classes began last month. ...

For the third consecutive year, Buena Vista University experienced enrollment growth fueled in part by new programming and record-setting graduate school participation. BVU’s Fall 2021 enrollment totals 1,959 students—up from 1,863 one year ago—an increase of five percent over the past year and eight percent since 2018. Enrollment on the Storm Lake campus grew from 733 in 2020 to 777 this fall, a six-percent climb...

Latino advocacy group Dream Iowa featured Storm Lake native Monica Figueroa in its “Immigrants of Iowa” series this week. Figueroa is currently raising funds to fulfill her dream, as a master’s degree student at Harvard. Monica was born in Valle de Santiago, Guanajuato, coming to the U.S. at 5 years old. After graduating from Storm Lake High School and Buena Vista University, she has taught in the Teach For America program in Colorado, a job she found “challenging, but beautiful.”...

Pelicans feeding off Starr Park on Sunday evening. They fish cooperatively, swimming in a line and beating their wings to drive their fish into shallow water and then catching them in their pouched bills. They hold their bills vertically to drain off the water before swallowing their meal. This group is probably heading toward the gulf coast for the winter. /Photo Hugh Perry...

On COVID-positive students: “We use as strong a language as we can without saying they can’t come in. We try to let parents know that this is the only way we can keep this out of our schools. I can think of about three cases where they said, ‘Nah, we’re going to send them anyway.’” - Supt. Stacey Cole

May 23, 1933 - September 13, 2021

Scores from tonight Storm Lake 14-Carroll 27 Alta-Aurelia 14-South O'Brien 36 Newell-Fonda 59-Bishop Garrigan 14 Sioux Central 29-Sibley-Ocheyedan 2 Ridge View 12-Western Christian 31