Republican gubernatorial candidate Chris Rants is questioning the business acumen of rival Bob Vander Plaats, while an associate of Vander Plaats defends his work. Rants points to tax returns for "Opportunities Unlimited" -- a nonprofit based in Sioux City that was headed by Vander Plaats.

"Bob always claims that Iowa needs 'a turnaround C.E.O.' but taking an operating surplus and turning it into a deficit is something Governor Culver has already perfected," Rants says. "We don't need another C.E.O. who specializes in downturns. We need somebody who can actually balance budgets, not take on debt and improve Iowa's fiscal condition."

According to Rants, Opportunities Unlimited had an operating surplus when Vander Plaats arrived, but by 2003 it had a deficit. A spokesman for Vander Plaats dismisses the charges from Rants, saying they are "wholly inaccurate." Eric Woolson, a spokesman for the Vander Plaats campaign, says in 2001 Vander Plaats moved out of the C.E.O. role to became chairman, then in mid-2002 Vander Plaats assumed a "strategic vision role" for a sister organization called "Quality Living."

Rants counters that while Vander Plaats left the C.E.O. position in 2001, he was still a key manager. "He turned an operational surplus into a deficit. He doubled the debt that they took on. Their public support for their charity dried up during his tenure," Rants says. "It's a record of taking a good organization and putting it in the tank."

The chairman of Opportunities Unlimited has issued a statement defending Vander Plaats, saying it is "unfortunate that such negative statements would be issued based on inaccuracies."

Rants points to the tax records which show charitable contributions to the nonprofit were over half a million the year Vander Plaats arrived and had dropped to less than $30,000 in the year Vander Plaats left his job there as a consultant.

"He left the organization, I think, in worse shape than he started with," Rants says.

Rants is raising this issue today because Rants says Vander Plaats said this at a recent campaign forum: "At the last meeting we were at together he talked about how he had quadrupled the assets of the organization and it just seemed odd. It didn't seem realistic that net assets would go up by 430 percent as he claimed and so I figured it was time to check it out."

The chairman of Opportunities Unlimited says Vander Plaats was recruited in 1996 to lead the agency when it was in "grim" financial straits and after four-and-a-half years, Vander Plaats had "substantially improved" the nonprofit's financial condition and expanded its services.

"It is sad that Bob's success as a C.E.O. at Opportunities Unlimited would be questioned by someone who did none of that hard work," said Dr. Kim Hoogeveen.

A.A.R.P.'s state director says a new survey by the organization shows most of its 400,000 members aren't ready to give up on health care reform. Bruce Koeppl says they wanted to do the survey in the wake of the numerous congressional town hall meetings and the "well-documented concerns" and "myths" that came out of those meetings.

"As you'll see these results are a firm rebuttal of the notion that older Iowans don't want health care reform this year. In fact they show that our members believe just the opposite," Koeppl says. He says the findings also reject the notion that older Iowans are against changes in Medicare, as he says Iowa members of A.A.R.P. "overwhelming support" strengthening Medicare as a part of health care reform.

A.A.R.P. surveyed members 50 years and older the last weekend of August and 63-percent said the system needs major changes, while another 28-percent said at least minor changes are needed. Thousands of members have dropped out of A.A.R.P. over the health care issue, but Keoppl downplays those defections, saying he wasn't sure of the number of state losses.

Keoppl says he doesn't know the specific losses to Iowa, but he says nationwide they lost 60,000 members out of 40-million. He says this summer they also gained new membership and renewals that added up to over two million. Koeppl says A.A.R.P. plans to continue pushing ahead to get health reform passed.

He says they will keep talking to their members to keep them engaged, and will also be going back to Washington, D.C. to talk to congress. The group also plans telephone town hall meetings on health care on Wednesday and Thursday. Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley is one of the six Republicans and Democrats working on the health care bill. Keoppl was asked if A.A.R.P. will lobby Grassley to try to get the issue moving forward.

"This senator has put a lot of work into health care reform, he has done his homework, he's got a great staff, and I think that we're going to continue to put the pressure on from out point of view that folks want something to happen...He's clearly a national leader so it will not only be here in Iowa, but across the country. Koeppl says this poll will be part of the effort to try and convince Grassley to move health care ahead.

"You know as well as I know that you don't force Senator Grassley to do anything he doesn't want to do," Keoppl says, "but we will continue to talk, we will continue to reason and provide evidence and information that we think supports our position."

Keoppl says A.A.R.P. has not endorsed any plan yet because they don't know what the final plans will look like. For more information on the A.A.R.P. survey and health care stance, go on-line to: www.healthactionnow.org .

The Iowa Department of Public Health (IDPH) is reporting that most of the state's 82,000 businesses subject to the Smokefree Air Act are complying with the law. Bonnie Mapes is director of the department's division of tobacco use prevention and control. "We have only about 1% of the employers in the state who have actually (received) notices of a complaint," Mapes said.

"So, the vast majority of the businesses are in compliance with the law." IDPH has released the first Iowa Smokefree Air Act Annual Report. It includes data from July 1, 2008 - when the ban on smoking in most public places took effect - through June 30, 2009. Public health officials received more than 3,300 complaints over the year, but only 2,100 were validated. Mapes says around 300 complaints were filed anonymously.

"Most of the time we're able to talk to the person who submitted the complaint and sometimes we'll get complaints about things that are not actually violations of the law. They'll say, 'people are smoking five feet outside the door,' and of course that's not a violation," Mapes said. "We get more complaints than complaints that are validated." During the first month of the law, Iowans submitted nearly 600 complaints. Over the next month, there were just 315 complaints.

Mapes says reports of possible violations of the law have continued to dip from month to month. She says that's the same pattern that other states with similar laws have experienced. The full 19-page report is available on-line here .

A helicopter landed at an accident scene near Mediapolis in southeast Iowa late last night, and it's still there, being repaired today. A fire truck leaving the scene to go on another call hit the helicopter. 

"There's a spotlight up on top of the truck that's on a pedestal and that's what clipped the rotor of the aircraft," says Iowa State Patrolman Tom Law.

There had been a two-vehicle accident and a "MedForce" helicopter was dispatched to the scene. The helicopter landed on Highway 61, but the fire fighters at the scene were dispatched to a second accident near the gympsom plant south of Mediapolis.

"The driver of the fire truck and the assistant chief got in the truck, started to leave the area to go to the second accident," Law says. "That's when they struck the main rotor on the helicopter."

The fire truck suffered minor damage and was still drivable, but the helicopter was disabled. A second helicopter was dispatched to the scene to fly an accident victim to University Hospitals in Iowa City. When Law left the scene after midnight, the first helicopter was still there.

"It's sitting dead center of Highway 61, just south of 260th Street," Law says. That's north of the town of Mediapolis. The first wreck involved two vehicles that collided at the unlit intersection.

Republican Senator Chuck Grassley says there may be only one path Democrats can take to get Republicans to support for health care reform.

"There's a feeling that the only way to get a bipartisan agreement is to defeat a Democratic proposal on the first hand and then the Democrats will come to Republican leadership and then, at that point, they'll know the only way they're going to get health care reform is bipartisan," Grassley says.

The top Democrat in bipartisan, closed-door negotiations with Grassley, two other Republicans and two other Democrats said Monday the "sad part is a lot of politics has now crept in" and the Republican Party is pressuring Grassley and the other Republicans to leave the negotiations. Grassley says that statement is "not quite fair" because Republicans have offered a number of health care reform ideas.

"But, again, a Democratic plan shouldn't pass. Just a Republican plan shouldn't pass," Grassley says. "We ought to have something, when you're restructuring one-sixth of the economy, that's very broadly bipartisan."

Grassley believes Democratic congressional leaders are "rethinking strategy" on health care reform after what's been said at congressional town hall meetings in August.

"The public feels that the roof is caving in on this country," Grassley says. "There's a lot of fear expressed at my town meetings and it's fear about government running out of control and a trillion dollar health care bill is just the tip of the iceberg."

According to Grassley, public angst is greatly fueled by dissatisfaction with the government bailout of the banking and auto industries. Grassley made his comments this morning during a telephone conference call with Iowa radio reporters.

An Iowa State University extension agronomist says Iowa corn producers need a late run of warm weather to allow the crop to mature. Roger Elmore says corn needs a certain amount of heat to cause it to mature, and so far that's been lacking.

"Statewide, we're 12 days behind normal. That means it would take 12 normal heat unit accumulation days to catch up right now," Elmore says. July was the coldest on record and low temperatures in recent days have fueled talk of an early frost. Elmore says that's not good if farmers hope to gain back those lost heating days.

He says it's not going to be possible obviously to catch up unless we have a long growing season and a late frost. Elmore says parts of the state need the extended summer more than others.

"In southwest Iowa we're about nine days behind normal, and that's the best part of the state, the worst parts we're about two weeks, 15 to 16 days behind when you're talking about the north central or northeast part of the state," Elmore says.

The average first frost date in Iowa ranges from September 19th in the far northwest corner of the state, to October 22nd in the far southeast.  

As many as a thousand volunteers will be tackling dozens of chores, big and small, this week at the Little Sioux Boy Scout Camp in western Iowa. Four scouts were killed, dozens hurt, when a tornado hit the camp in June of 2008. Jeff Parness, spokesman for the New York Says Thank You Foundation, says his team will be in Harrison County on Thursday through Sunday.

"We're going to be bringing our largest group ever to the Little Sioux Scout Camp in western Iowa that, obviously, folks know was hit by this deadly tornado a year ago," Parness says. "We're going to help rebuild the camp." Three of the Boy Scouts who died in the storm were Nebraskans, all from Omaha; the fourth boy was Aaron Eilerts of Eagle Grove, Iowa.

Hundreds of trees were toppled in the storm and several camp buildings were flattened. Parness says the volunteers will be building a chapel on the site of the lodge where the four boys were killed using lumber from those trees. He explains their motivation for coming to Iowa.

Parness says, "After Nine Eleven, in the days and weeks that followed, we had so much support from people all around the United States, folks from Iowa, Nebraska, South Dakota, just all across America who poured into New York to help us, that our foundation was formed to honor all of that generosity and to pay it forward." He says it's an amazing team that continues to grow. They're joined by disaster survivors from all communities around the U.S. that they helped on previous anniversaries of Nine Eleven.

Parness says, "Every year, on the Nine Eleven anniversary, we send volunteers from New York to help rebuild communities hit by disaster as our way of saying thank you and celebrating the kindliness and neighborliness and humanity that we experienced not just as New Yorkers, but as a nation, and not just on Nine Eleven but on Nine Twelve."

For more information or to make a tax-deductible donation, visit: www.newyorksaysthankyou.org .

Ten Army Reserve soldiers from Iowa will be leaving soon for Afghanistan. The reservists from Des Moines, Ankeny and other communities are part of the 372nd Engineer Brigade based in Fort Snelling, Minnesota. Army Reserve spokesman Captain Bill Geddes says the soldiers will oversee all engineering assets within Afghanistan:

"That operation is going to include construction, route clearance missions, and everything from building military facilities to bridge and road design...basically just rebuilding the Afghani infrastructure," Geddes said. The mission will also include clearing landmines from roadways.

"If there's a road that has mines that's not safe and hasn't been cleared, they'll clear that road," Geddes said. Geddes says it's the first deployment for the newly-formed engineering brigade. The soldiers will leave for Afghanistan after training at Fort McCoy, Wisconsin.

A spokesperson with the Iowa National Guard expects that eventually its units will also be deployed to Afghanistan since the Pentagon has shifted its focus from Iraq.

Sixteen domestic violence and homeless shelters around Iowa are getting state funding for renovations and new construction. Governor Chet Culver visited the Willis Dady Emergency Shelter in Cedar Rapids today to announce that nearly 10-million dollars in I-JOBS funding will go to shelters throughout the state.

"Last year more than 17,000 people sought help at Iowa's shelters, Culver said. "Nearly 8,000 of these clients were members of families and close to 40% of them were children. As long as there is one family in need of services, it's our goal and our responsibility, I think, to try to help those individuals and those families."

Tim Wilson, executive director of the shelter in Cedar Rapids, says there is an increased demand for services. "We have been very full from the spring through the summer on the men's beds and particularly the family units. Lately, we've been turning away many more people than we can actually accommodate," Wilson said.

Most of the shelters, including the one in Cedar Rapids, are receiving funding for renovations. The I-JOBS money will also help finance the construction of three new facilities in Des Moines, Iowa City and Sioux Center. 

More and more Iowans have cut the cord and gone to wireless phones which means less money from the E-9-1-1 surcharge for Iowa counties. Counties set the surcharged for land-line phones, while the state sets and collects the money from the cellphone surcharge. Barbara Vos is the E-9-1-1 program coordinator for the state and says the surcharge funds from cellphones are given out based on a formula.

She says they pay 65% of the money to the wireless carriers and telephone companies that are part of the networks that provide the service, and then they pay 25% of the funds to the local entities based on the number of calls the local public safety answering point has handled each quarter.

Vos says cellphone usage in Iowa has jumped more than 20% in the past three years. Linn County is considering a surcharged to increase the E-9-1-1 fees on land-lines to make up for the loss. Hamilton County supervisor David Young is also chairman of the county E-9-1-1 board, and says the loss of land-line revenue has not become a problem yet.

He says they have been close to the same revenue for the last couple of years, but they know it will be declining as the land-line usage drops. Young says the E-9-1-1 boards will face an even bigger challenge as technology advances. Young says the next real threat is voice-over I-P equipment where someone can call in from their computer into 9-1-1 dispatch.

He says that brings a whole other requirement for expensive equipment to handle those type of calls and he says Hamilton County is not ready for that yet. Counties can set a surcharge from 25 cents to one dollar per land-line for E-9-1-1 service.  

The Iowa Department of Human Services is implementing a new policy for cases of potential child abuse. D.H.S. spokesperson Roger Munns says the agency is assembling a team of medical experts to be on call for consultation to help determine the cause of injuries to children.

Socials workers already have access to task forces of police officers, medical officials and prosecutors, but Munns says they aren't always available on short notice. "These groups meet regularly and they have brief meetings. They're not paid," Munns said.

"What the director believes is needed is a standby group of medical authorities who can, on very short notice, give us an opinion on a particular case." D.H.S. Director Charles Krogmeier announced the decision today in a letter to Governor Culver, who requested a review of child welfare regulations.

Munns says it's not clear yet how many medical experts will be involved, how much they'll be paid or when the group will be in place. "It's not a group that will be sitting around waiting for our phone calls. They'll be a group we can call on short notice and who'll be able to render an opinion quickly," Munns said.

Krogmeier, in his letter, said the new system should help the D.H.S. take quick action when the child's safety is at risk. His decision came on the same day that two parents pleaded not guilty to charges of child endangerment in Des Moines. Jonas Neiderbach and Jherica Richardson, both 20, are accused of injuring their son, Ethan, who was 7-weeks-old when he was hospitalized in mid-July.

The infant is still in the hospital with head and chest injuries, but his condition is not being released.

Officials says Ethan was born with marijuana in his system and suffered a broken arm before he was one-month-old. But, the D.H.S. did not remove him from his parents' care. Munns says Krogmeier still believes there is no cause to remove a newborn from a home based solely on the finding of marijuana in a child's system.

"The director reviewed that whole issue and got advice from experts who told him that - unlike other drugs with greater risks of addiction - cases involving marijuana do not always indicate an imminent threat to the health and safety of a child," Munns said. "So, (Krogmeier) is not recommending a change at the current time."

A trial date for Jonas Neiderbach has not been set. Richardson's trial is scheduled for November 2. 

Central Iowa authorities are looking for a hit-and-run driver who killed a bicyclist on Sunday morning southwest of Des Moines near the town of Cumming. The victim is identified as 54-year-old Mark Grgurich of Des Moines. Warren County Sheriff's Deputy Neil Gurwell talked with the witnesses who say the driver of the white pickup truck hit the cyclist and kept going.

Deputy Gurwell says it's unclear what sort of pickup it was, Chevy, Dodge or Ford, but it had a black ladder rack in the back. There was also some sort of placard on the passenger door that was damaged in the collision. "I'm guessing it's some type of business sign that's made out of white plastic and it was bolted to the door," he says. "We've got a piece of it but really not enough to make an identification on the company name."

Gurwell says they'll be checking with body shops to see if anyone's trying to get their pickup repaired. "It's going to have some obvious damage to the front quarter-panel and probably down the door," Gurwell says. "If they see this type of a white logo, it'd be plastic, bolted to the door, give us a call at the sheriff's office."

The accident happened about 10:50 Sunday morning on Warren County Road G-14, not far from the Great Western Trail, a popular bike path that goes from Des Moines to Martensdale. Gurwell says the witnesses thought the truck was speeding and evidence at the scene backs that up.

"The driver of the pickup was traveling in excess of the 45 mile-an-hour speed limit which is in the area," Gurwell says. "The bicyclist was next to the bicycle. I'm guessing, from my initial investigation, both the bike and the cyclist were thrown about 60 feet." Both the bike and the truck were eastbound on the hilly county road and Gurwell says the truck hit the bike from behind and continued east. Contact the sheriff's office at (515) 961-1122.

The first day of Autumn is still 22 days away, but plenty of Iowans had to close their windows and throw a quilt on the bed last night -- and some likely switched on the furnaces. One Iowa city hit a new record low temperature this morning, while several cities came close. Brad Fillbach, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Johnston, says it was quite chilly overnight.

He says Mason City had a new record low of 38 degrees, breaking the old record of 40, which was set in 1967. Many communities in northern Iowa saw upper-30s overnight while southern Iowa had more temps in the low and mid-40s, well below the norm for late summer. Fillbach says the end of August saw temperatures well under average for the month, following a July that was the coldest Iowa July on record. He says warmer weather should be returning soon.

He's expecting warmer highs that may reach 80 by the weekend. It was just a few weeks ago, Iowans were sweltering in the upper 80s and lower 90s.

A family of six is homeless after a weekend fire in eastern Iowa. The fire was reported early Sunday morning at an old farmhouse near Troy Mills in Linn County. Several fire departments spent over three hours dousing the flames which destroyed the home. Investigators believe an electrical problem sparked the fire.

No one was in the home at the time of the fire, but two adults and four children lived there. The American Red Cross' Grant Wood Area Chapter is providing the family with temporary lodging.

The man wanted in connection with the 2001 murder of a rural Clare woman made his initial appearance in Webster County court in Fort Dodge on Saturday.Fifty-year-old Mark Anthony Wilson is being held under one-million dollars bond on a charge of first degree murder in the death of 43-year-old Joni Lee Manning at her home in July, 2001.

Wilson returned to Iowa late Friday night on flight from California. He was accompanied by Webster County Chief Sheriff's Deputy Jim O'Brien and an agent from the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation. In addition to the first-degree murder charge, Wilson is facing charges of forgery and second-degree theft with the bond on those two charges set at a total of 110-thousand dollars.

There will be a preliminary hearing for Wilson this Wednesday. Wilson is being held in the Webster County Jail in Fort Dodge.

Wind turbines in Iowa and across the country are showing up on weather radar and looking like tornadoes. Recently, the Des Moines National Weather Service office received a call from an emergency worker who mistook a wind turbine for a twister on doppler radar.

Meteorologist Jeff Johnson says only an amateur would make that mistake. "Wind turbines can produce a false radar echo and you can see it on reflectivity on the internet," Johnson said. "They look like splotches, they may look like a storm, but to a trained eye it's obviously what it is - it's not a meteorological echo."

But, elsewhere in the country there have been discussions about shutting down wind farms prior to bad storms. In Kansas, a computer program misidentified a wind turbine on radar and mistakenly issued a tornado warning. A meteorologist quickly called off the alert.

"To the lay person out there looking at radar data...a lot of things look false," Johnson said. "You can have bird interference that shows up on doppler radar that shows a signature that may be confused with something that isn't there." Weather radar recognizes motion to warn of storms, and there's no way to filter out the spinning blades.

Johnson says the National Weather Service is working with the wind power industry so new wind farms might be located to minimize interference with weather radar.  

Organizers are preparing for a second two-day event that offers free dental care, and are looking for volunteers to help. It's called "Iowa Mission of Mercy" or I-MOM and the chair of the event, dentist Richard Hettinger of Sioux City, says you don't have to know how to drill a cavity to get involved.

He says they need dental professionals, they also need lay volunteers for a variety of things from escorting people through to serving food to patients. "Just about anybody that wants to help somebody, we can find a place for you to work," Hettinger says. He says all it takes is a little time.

Hettinger says they need far more lay volunteers who are not dental professionals than they do dental professionals. The last mission was in Waterloo last fall and there were over 1,200 people show up to take advantage of the care. Hettinger expects a similar turnout this time.

Hettinger says there are a lot of people who can't pay for the care they need to have and this is a way for dental professionals to help the people who can't get into a dental office. Hettinger says the first event helped a lot of people, and it left all those involved with a good feeling.

"This is very gratifying for those of us that participate in it," Hettinger says, "one of the hallmarks of the event that we Waterloo last year was that everybody was smiling, didn't matter whether you were one of the professionals that were actually giving the care, or you were one of the people bringing water to the people who working of food to the people who were being cared for. The workers were happy, the patients were extremely happy."

The free dental care will be given Friday, September 25, and Saturday, September 26, at the Iowa Speedway in Newton. If you would like to volunteer, you can go to the mission website here.

Former Iowa Congressman and U.S. Senator John Culver was among those who eulogized Massachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy in Boston last night.

Culver met Kennedy in 1950 when the two were freshmen at Harvard, but it was a story about an event in 1953 when the two were in summer school. Over the course of about 15 minutes, Culver told the story of his first sailing trip on Kennedy's boat and it had the crowd erupting in gales of laughter.

"We only got about 200 miracle yards out and I lost the, um, sandwiches," Culver said, tactfully explaining how was overcome with nausea on the boat. The crowd erupted in laughter. "I thought I was going to die and I've never been so miserable and I'm hanging over the side of the boat and he's screaming at me."

According to Culver's account, it was a nearly a gale the day he and Kennedy set out on the 26-foot boat.

"This friend of mine that I thought I knew quite well started screaming at me, shouting at me. I was terrified and after a while I was more terrified of him than the storm," Culver said. "...So he kept screaming at me: The spinnaker! The jib! The port side! Secure that, you know, whatever!' -- and you know, Ted's not always easy to understand when you know what he's talking about." Culver's story was being punctuated with laughter from the assembled friends and family, but at this point the crowd both laughed and applauded.

"The incredible roar, now, of the ocean and the waves and this little, tiny -- it's like a cork on the (ocean) and we're being bounced all over -- and it's my fault!" Culver said, to more laughter. As Culver tells the story, he had warned Kennedy he was no sailor.

"I said, 'I come from Iowa and the only boats I ever saw were barges on the Mississippi River. And he said, 'There's nothing to it. There's nothing to it,'" Culver said, drawing laughter from the crowd. "How many times did we all hear Ted say: 'There's nothing to it?'"

Culver's first sailing trip lasted more than 48 hours, involved sleeping overnight in the boat, and a sailing competition he did not comprehend.

"I didn't even see any of the other boats, but we kept going around and around and around," Culver said. "Finally, this thing was mercifully over and Ted seemed satisfied. Probably I was satisfied -- I lived through it."

The emcee introduced the chorus to sing another song after Culver's turn at the microphone, joking that they might not be able to sing because their sides may have been in stitches from all the laughter Culver's tale had engendered. However, Culver's speech had concluded with a poignant farewell.

"In the following years I was very, very fortunate to take many, many sailboat trips with Ted...always full of fun, always full of joy and full of laughter and Ted was awfully good about it -- I never learned to sail and but Teddy always gave me a pass on those voyages and for that I'm always grateful and for those memories. Smooth sailing, Teddy," Culver said, then gestured to Kennedy's coffin, ending with: "Talk to you" -- a reference to meeting up with Kennedy again on a distant shore.

Culver is the father of Iowa Governor Chet Culver and both father and son were at the invitation-only celebration last night in Boston.

The Iowa Woman's Hall of Fame inducts a new class into its ranks today. Lori SchraderBachar of the Iowa Commission on the Status of Women talks says the four inductees this year are Linda Kerber of Iowa City, Mary Kramer of Clive, Lyn Stinson from Burlington and Adeline Lavonne McCormick-Ohnemus a doctor from rural Milo. McCormick-Ohnemus is being inducted posthumously.

Kerber was the first professor of women's history at the University of Iowa in 1971. Kramer served as an Iowa state senator for 13 years. Stinson is a longtime volunteer working with several local programs in Burlington. SchraderBachar says each of the women was nominated by someone in their community.

She says there is a Hall of Fame selection committee that reviews the nominations and says it is difficult task to select just four women each year. SchraderBachar says the women in this year's class epitomize the things they look for in the nominations. SchraderBachar says the women have outstanding achievements in the fields of academia, politics, medicine and civic involvement.

"Generations of Iowans can look to these women as role models," SchraderBachar says. SchraderBachar says there is another award they'll make at the ceremony. SchraderBachar says the Commission on the Status of Women will give out the "Cristine Wilson Medal for Equality and Justice" to Sister Mary McCauley of Postville. McCauley has worked with immigrants in the Postville area, most recently those involved at the Agriprocessors plant.

The events begin at 10:30 at the State Historical Building. You can find out more here.

Residents of eastern Iowa are cleaning up after heavy rains over the past two days. State Climatologist Harry Hillaker says it’s not unusual for Iowa to have heavy rainstorms in late August, but the storms this week were unique.

"When you usually think of really big summer time rainstorms, they're more of the very intense, short lived variety, but this has been more of a long lasting type," Hillaker said. Perhaps the hardest hit area was Monticello in Jones County, where officials say at least 200 homes and more than a dozen businesses were affected by Thursday's flash floods.

While parts of eastern Iowa are waterlogged, other parts of the state remain drier than usual. "Especially the extreme northwest corner of the state, the Rock Rapids area and also from about Storm Lake eastward to Humboldt, Algona, Emmetsburg, Clarion...those areas are also a bit on the dry side," Hillaker said. "Even some far northeast counties are a little drier than usual as well."

Some areas of northwest Iowa are 5 to 6 inches below the normal amount of rainfall for this time of year. "What's kind of been the saving grace, why it really hasn't caused any major problems, is all this cool weather we've had. It's greatly reduced how much moisture the crops need to progress," Hillaker said.

Eastern Iowa should get a chance to dry out. Hillaker says cooler and drier weather is in store for the weekend and next week.