Stories from Friday, October 29, 2021

MidAmerican Energy is alerting its customers that higher natural gas prices will impact most monthly heating bills during the upcoming winter season. Natural gas market prices have more than doubled from this time last year, as increased global demand coupled with both limited production and inventory have heavily increased the cost for MidAmerican to purchase the natural gas it delivers to its customers...

New business Beer Thirty hosted a grand opening and Storm Lake United Ribbon Cutting ceremony Thursday. Beer Thirty hosts a wide range of beverages ranging from hard lemonade to the most complex cognac, and staff prides itself on customer service, according to owners Kaurav “KV” and Sarah Randhawa, who have owned another Beer Thirty store in Denison since 2019, as well as One Stop Shop gas stations around the region...

Attention: Residents of Storm Lake and Alta. As newspaper readers, you are
probably aware of the proposed rezoning of agricultural land just south of Lake
Creek to industrial so that a soybean crushing plant could be constructed there.
You may have heard about our protests based on noise, odor, sight pollution,
increased truck traffic, hazardous intersections, and the fact that such rezoning
is contrary to the county’s comprehensive plan. ...

I would like to thank all the kind people that have been calling lately and looking after me. Since I don’t always get a chance to reply - my car warranty isn’t expired on my new vehicle and my other vehicle is so old you wouldn’t cover it. It is nice that you are so concerned, that you have given me a final courtesy call 43 times in the last month. In the interest of useless energy consumption, turn off your Robo-call machine for my numbers...

Sorry Mr. Editor but it seems there are too many people in my old hometown that have somehow got their head on backwards. First is that spoil site near the lake where lake bottom sludge was deposited just a few years ago. Now the powers that be want to change it into a rec area for kids... essentially trying to make silk out of a sow’s ear...

Scapegoats are easy to come by, when the daily news hits your pocketbook. “Biden Ruins Christmas” was the Fox headline that I saw, while I was job coaching at a local establishment this week. Sure, he did - brother. Like he is the only one involved? When it comes to the lack of workers for job, the supply chain clog, and lack of certain goods on the market, the players in the blame game are vast, far-reaching, and global. ...

When I was a kid, Halloween came and went almost as fast as the belly-ache did. Unless your folks were rich, you made a costume of what you could pilfer from other family members’ closets. You went around the neighborhood and filled your paper grocery bag with SweetTarts and candy corn, maybe a popcorn ball if you were lucky (they hadn’t invented terrorism)...

Buena Vista University will host Simon Estes’ 99 Counties Root & Wings Tour at 3 p.m. on Sunday, Nov. 21 in Schaller Memorial Chapel. The free afternoon concert features Simon Estes, the BVU Concert Choir, and Buena Vista County high school choirs...

Local favorites Gary & Dani return to the Innspiration Wines and Vines stage for the Friday Night Music series, Nov. 12, 7:30 p.m. The Gary & Dani Show are a husband-and-wife duo from Sioux City. They perform music from the ’50s to present, with guitar, harmonica, percussion, and a few jokes thrown in for good measure...

Mark your calendars, Sunday November 7, come hear Touch of Grey play at the Deadhead Capital of Iowa, Byron’s in Pomeroy, starting at 5 pm. Put on your dancing shoes. Self-described as “only mostly dead,” the band from Omaha/Council Bluffs plays tunes in the spirit of the Grateful Dead, mostly the way the Dead played them. The band includes Matt Wilber (lead vocals), John Scherle (guitar), DaVal Johnson (keys), Sandy Steckman (bass), Josh Mason (drums)...

The Cherokee Symphony will be presenting its “Pops” concert on November, 7 at 4p.m. in the upper level of the Cherokee Community Center. This will be the 66th season of the Cherokee symphony. Ted Hallberg, an educator and cellist from LeMars, will be entering his 9th season as the conductor of the symphony. ...

After a brief chase, a Storm Lake man was arrested on charges including Contraband in a Correctional Facility Sunday night. Storm Lake Police were called to McDonald’s around 6 p.m. by a victim reporting that a man was following them and trying to start a fight. ...

A Storm Lake man was held on multiple charges after a high speed chase early Saturday morning that reached 90 m.p.h. in the Emerald Park area. A police officer observed a vehicle traveling at a high rate of speed on West Milwaukee Avenue around 1 a.m. When the officer attempted to make a traffic stop, the driver refused to pull over and accelerated away, triggering a chase through the west side of town...

Iowa gas prices have risen 1.8 cents per gallon in the past week, averaging $3.13 to start the week - up 15.5 cents per gallon from a month ago and a whopping $1.12 higher than the same date a year ago. Storm Lake pump prices were fluctuating - from the lowest at $3 per gallon at Yesway to $3.19 at many stations this week. This is the first time gas has been above $3 for this date locally since 2014...

Buena Vista County Supervisors this week agreed to a strategic partnership with Buena Vista University. The university if forming such partnerships with schools, community colleges and leading employers to offer discounted education to their employees and their families...

Storm Lake High School presents Richard Rodgers & Oscar Hammerstein’s prize-winning musical classic South Pacific on stage at the Storm Lake High School Auditorium November 4-6 at 7 pm. Based on James Michener’s Pulitzer Prize winning book Tales of the South Pacific, Rodgers & Hammerstein’s South Pacific has music by Richard Rodgers and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein Set on a tropical island during World War II, the musical tells the sweeping romantic story of two couples -- US Navy nurse Nellie Forbush & French plantation owner Emile de Becque and Navy Airman Joe Cable & a young local native girl Liat -- and how their happiness is threatened by the realities of the war and by their own prejudices.. ...

January 29, 1932 - October 24, 2021

Buena Vista County Supervisors approved a fiscal year budget amendment this week, reflecting $217,520 in additional revenue and $340,886 in additional expense. Part of the additional cost comes in donations that had to be taken out of the budget earlier due to changing state policy, which were later added back in the form of contracts for services or economic development agreements. ...

The 2020 - 2021 Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) has been established to help qualifying low-income Iowa homeowners and renters pay for a portion of their primary heating costs for the winter heating season. Applications will be taken November 1, 2020 to April 30, 2021...

Paxtons Jewelry held their annual Pink Rocktober Balloon Bash and Cake Dig on Saturday, October 9 during Sassy Saturday. Proceeds benefit BVRMC P.i.n.k., a program designed to help women with financial barriers have access to mammography services. Gary and Rhonda Ringgenberg presented a check for $1260 to Katie Schwint, BVRMC Executive Director of Community Development...

An Ankeny resident and Iowa State University student has become the first woman enlisted infantry soldier in the Iowa National Guard. Pfc. Taylor Patterson returned from basic training at Fort Benning in Georgia last month and is with Company C, 168th Infantry, the Guard said. There are approximately 9,000 service members in the Iowa National Guard...

A first-of-its-kind study of rural Iowa creeks and rivers found traces of synthetic chemicals that are toxic and persist in the environment indefinitely at sites across the state. “They’re all over the place,” said Dana Kolpin, a research hydrologist for the U.S. Geological Survey who led the study, the results of which published this month...

The Ridge View volleyball team took a 3-1 win over East Sac County on Monday to advance to the Class 2A Region 1 championship match, but fell in three sets to Boyden-Hull to end their season. On Monday the Raptors hosted East Sac County and took a 3-1 win in front of a massive and loud home crowd. ...

The Newell-Fonda volleyball team took a 3-1 win over Bishop Garrigan at home on Monday to advance to the Class 1A Region 4 Championship match, but fell 3-2 in a heartbreaking match to Janesville to end their season. Against Bishop Garrigan on Monday the Mustangs took a 3-1 win at home. ...

The Newell-Fonda and Ridge View football teams are the last area football teams standing and will play in the second round of the playoffs tonight. The 8-man #10-ranked Mustangs will travel to face #8-ranked undefeated Lenox tonight at 7 p.m. The Tigers took a 52-8 win over Lamoni in the first round of the playoffs last week...

STORM LAKE - Seniors Jade Hays and Sydney McLaren put on their Buena Vista University volleyball jerseys one final time on Wednesday night, and the duo will not soon forget the team's thrilling five-set American Rivers Conference victory over Simpson College Siebens Fieldhouse...

“I am genuinely frustrated to find that veterans in my district feel that the VA is treating them with a lack of decency,” says western Iowa Congressman Randy Feenstra. After hearing from veterans frustrated by a lack of timely access to quality health care, Rep. Feenstra penned a letter to Department of Veterans Affairs Secretary Denis McDonough this week demanding answers. According to the VA, a veteran seeking mental health care in the 4th District is forced to wait 27 days on average...

Buena Vista County Supervisors passed a second reading this week of rezoning to make way for a $350 Platinum Crush soybean crushing plant between Storm Lake and Alta. A third and potentially final reading is set for Nov. 2, 9 a.m. at the secondary roads building...

A second set of redistricting maps approved last evening will divide Buena Vista County into two different Iowa House districts, and throw both the current local state representative and senator into new districts with a fellow Republican incumbent. The plan heads to the governor for a signature...

“We didn’t start the rumor that room 305 in Swope Hall was haunted,” says Matt Wagner Buena Vista University Class of ‘98, later BVU director of academic technology. “That floor makes weird noises -- or you feel weird drafts of air, or doors will shut. The feelings were already there; people were afraid of third floor Swope. We just sort of played off them.”...

The numbers of meatpacking workers infected and killed by the coronavirus are much higher than previously known, a congressional review has found. More than 59,000 workers of the country’s five largest meatpackers were infected, and about 270 died, according to a report by the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis that was made public Wednesday...

An exercise three years in the making came to fruition at the Buena Vista University Homecoming celebration as nine students, freshmen who came to campus in the fall of 2018, hosted a STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Math) Festival for the public to enjoy...

For area farmers, 2021 will go down as the year of a near miraculous comeback. Crops that were stressed in the summer drought were saved by the gentle rains of late August, and now are returning yields much higher than could have been expected earlier in the year...

LENOX - For the second week in a row the Newell-Fonda football team has taken on a playoff opponent on the road, and for the second week in a row the Mustangs have won those games. This past Friday the Mustangs traveled down to Lenox to face the Class 8-man #7-ranked Tigers, and came home with a 39-14 win to advance to the quarterfinals and continue their season...

HAWARDEN - The Ridge View football team had their season ended at the hands of Class 1A #9-ranked West Sioux in a 45-20 loss in the second round of the playoffs on Friday. The Raptors received the opening kickoff and were brought down on their own 15 yard line. ...