January
On Jan. 6, Des Moines Water Works officials announced they planned to sue Sac, Calhoun and Buena Vista County drainage districts for high nitrate concentrations in the waterways and tributaries that feed into the Des Moines system. At the time of the suit Carroll County Attorney John Werden stated that there is little merit to the lawsuit as there is no law that would allow the Water Works to sue a county for a drainage district, which is its own separate entity. The lawsuit is being closely monitored by Carroll County and City officials alike. In early April, the three counties named in the lawsuit sent letters to the 96 other Iowa counties asking for their monetary support in the lawsuit and came together in the development of a legal defense fund.
A water leak that occurred inside a commercial building on Sunday morning Jan. 11 drained the 250,000 gallon City of Coon Rapids Water Tower. The leak was discovered on the 2nd floor of the former Syngenta Quality Assurance Building at around 6:30 a.m. The pressure from all the water burst open the back door of the building, but not before the entire basement had been flooded. Officials theorized a nearby crack in the exterior north wall allowed cold, strong south winds to penetrate the area and freeze a pipe in the sprinkler system. Crews completed repairs and had the water tower filled by late Monday evening.
February
Vern Henkenius announced his retirement as President of the Kuemper Catholic School System on Tuesday, Feb. 17, setting an effective date of June 30. Henkenius, who had taught and coached at Kuemper from 1965 to 1974, returned as President in 2008. At a meeting of the Kuemper Board of Directors on that Tuesday evening, John Steffes, who was then the Director of the Kuemper Catholic School Foundation and Development was approved as the new President.
After 36 years on the Audubon Police force, eight of those serving as Chief of Police, Chief Dave Simonsen announced his resignation in mid-February. Simonsen resigned due to medical reasons, and City Clerk, Joe Foran, cited this action as a sign of Simonsen’s commitment to the city and his fellow officer. Officer Matt Starmer was named interim chief.
A tragic fire occurred on the morning of Feb. 28 at the farm home of Leroy and Julia Schlichte north of Manning. The home was completely engulfed in flames and Julia lost her life in the fire. The family also lost everything they own, and over 700 people showed their support at a special fundraising event held on March 22 in Templeton.
March
Thirty-two-year-old Jason Michael Watson of Carroll was arrested and charged with Homicide by Vehicle-Operating Under the Influence on Friday, March 20. The charges stem from single-vehicle accident that occurred on Wednesday, Nov. 5, 2014 on Velvet Ave. near Coon Rapids that resulted in the death of 43-year-old Evon Eastman of Morehead. Watson pled guilty on Aug. 3, 2015 to Homicide by Vehicle, Burglary and Criminal Mischief. He was sentenced to 10 years for the Homicide charge and five years on the Burglary charge to be served concurrently. He was also sentenced to two years for the Criminal Mischief charge to served consecutively after the others.
Carroll Police Chief Jeff Cayler served 34 years on the Carroll Police force, with over 30 of those years at the helm as Chief. He made public his retirement on March 30, citing an effective date of June 8. Cayler said he is leaving a qality force and is proud of their work with city leaders and in maintaining some of the lowest crime rates seen in cities of like size. In June, the firm hired to conduct a search for the new Chief announced four finalists had been selected and they would be meeting the public in a special reception before the final selection was made. In a special meeting on July 6, the Carroll City Council announced that the new Chief of Police, Bradley James Burke, would be rising up from within the ranks of the Carroll Police Department to take over the position.
April
The Audubon County Sheriff’s office, Audubon Police Department, Audubon Fire and Rescue and Exira, Harlan and Atlantic Fire Departments all assisted at a grain bin accident on April 16 near Audubon. The teams worked to break the corn in the bin loose and free 62-year-old Glen Fancher who had become submerged in the grain. Francher was pronounced dead at the scene.
Mid-April saw heavy equipment and truckload after truckload of dirt being moved in the farm field across the street to the south of the IKM-Manning school in Manning as groundbreaking gets underway for the new Char-Mac Assisted Living complex. Owner and General Manager, Jeanine Chartier said the 36-apartment complex will employ between 24 and 29 employees. The anticipated fall opening was delayed due to extra construction requirement, but the facility is now expected to be open in spring of 2016.
May
The jury trial of 54-year-old Thomas Guy Henderson of Lake City for the double murder of 48-year-old Tammie Devore and her son, 30-year-old Karl Devore got underway on the morning of May 13. Assistant District Attorney Susan Krisko and Carroll County Attorney John Werden prosecuted Henderson for the May 18, 2014 murders in Glidden in which Tammie Devore was killed by blunt force trauma and Karl Devore was killed with a Yoshi Blade knife. After just three hours of deliberation on Friday, May 15, the jury returned a verdict of guilty on both charges of murder in the first degree. On June 26, Judge Timothy Finn said these murders were the most violent crimes Carroll County has ever seen and he sentenced Henderson to two life sentences to be served consecutively. Henderson filed an appeal in early July. A ruling from the Iowa Supreme Court in 12 to 18 months.
The only remaining wooden grain elevator in Audubon County underwent major reconstruction and owners, Bob and Janet Nelson held a unique contest to raise matching funds for a $25,000 Iowa Barn Foundation Grant. Part of the renovation includes lifting of the log-cabin style structure to replace the foundation, and the Nelsons opened a competition where people could buy a chance to guess the weight of the elevator. The winners name was to be displayed in the elevator once renovations were completed.
June
The community of Lake City participated in a special fundraising effort to help offset costs of the Lake City Pool project by competing in the State Farm Neighborhood Assist Program. They project needed to collect votes on Facebook and land a place in the top 40 to earn the $25,000 prize purse. On June 2, the voting closed with the project coming in within the top 40 spots. The official award was designated on Tuesday, June 16.
On the morning of June 3, as the leadership of West Central Cooperative in Ralston was celebrating 30 years of production of SoyPlus, a dairy feed ingredient, announced plans for a $27 million expansion to their soybean processing plant. The expansion will increase storage by 50 percent and include an additional line of presses, soybean oil treatment, load-out access and added control over the supply chain. The addition will create the ability for West Central to process nearly every soybean grown in Carroll and Greene County into their value-added feed ingredients.
July
The summer shooting at the Emmanuel AME Church in Charleston, S.C., a Denison ice company came under fire for their logo, and was asked to remove it for any product stocked in Walmart store. Owner of the Crawford Ice Company, Arnie Poggensee said he had to make special concessions in July and find plain bags that were free of the “Poor Rebel” dog with a confederate flag logo that has been emblazoned on the company’s packaging for decades. Walmart officials would not comment on the sale of items with confederate flags in their stores.
Templeton Rye faced a lawsuit brought by Christopher McNair in early July that alleged the whiskey was being marketed in a deceptive manner. Representatives of Templeton Rye said that this is not an isolated incident, and that many beverage companies have been coming under increased scrutiny and under fire in recent years in similar lawsuits. They had decided to take a leadership role and resolve the litigation, stating that Templeton Rye is not a stock whiskey sourced from a third party and their relationship with the Indiana-based distillery was described on the company’s website. They made changes to the labeling and offered a refund of $3 per bottle up to six bottles.
August
The Carroll Area Development Corporation hosted the first meeting of a county-wide housing assessment technical committee on Aug. 16 that had representatives present from county, city and the CADC. RDG Planning and Design has been hired to gather information and administer the assessment and then to present the findings to the committee. Stakeholders, from lenders, builders, developers and employers will be represented and the final recommendations arising from the assessment will encompass the needs of several communities throughout the county. RDG design had originally expected to have results ready by the end of the year, but unexpected delays have pushed back the results presentation to the first of 2016.
There was no prior notice before and estimated 400 workers lost their jobs when the Tyson Food plant in Denison abruptly closed its doors on Friday, Aug. 14. The beef slaughter plant, which was opened by Iowa Beef Processors in 1961, had been operated by Tyson since 2001. The city of Denison jumped into action immediately with the help of the Denison Chamber and the Denison Development Corporation, implementing and economic emergency plan that had been developed ahead of time. They integrated counseling for the displaced workers, hosted a job fair and announced they had been working to bring more jobs to the community through a $20 million expansion of the Quality Food Processors bacon and processed meat plant.
Tuesday, Aug. 18, West Central Cooperative of Ralston announced they intention to move forward with a potential unification with Farmers Cooperative Company of Ames. An outside consulting firm was brought in as an objective third party to evaluate the benefits and drawbacks of the merging of FCs 52 sites and West Centrals 24 as well as the strong balance sheets of closely aligned net incomes of both cooperatives. After the study is completed, informational meetings were conducted to inform both memberships of the findings. In the first week of November, the boards of both cooperatives voted unanimously to move forward with the unification process after hearing the report from the consultants. More meetings were scheduled and ballots for member votes were mailed out on Nov. 20. A deadline was set for receipt of all votes by noon on Friday, Dec. 18. At approximately 6 p.m. that night, the voting results were in and it was announced that the two cooperatives would be merging effective April 1, 2016. The new Landus Cooperative will be headquartered in Ames, will have West Central President and CEO as the new cooperative’s leader and will seat nine member representatives from each cooperative on their board. This merger makes Landus Cooperative one of the largest in the state of Iowa and the seventh largest cooperative in North America based on storage capacity.
September
It was a wetter than normal year for the Carroll area, and on Sept. 6, residents of Bagley saw a record that had been set in 198 shattered. After seven inches of rain poured down on the small community on Highway 141, the high water mark set on June 30, 1986 at nearly four feet deep was surpassed by several inches and closed the highway from Coon Rapids to Highway 4. Sump pumps worked overtime and one couple had to be rescued from their home at the height of the flash flooding.
The Carroll Athletic Association received permission from the Carroll City Council to utilize prison labor for a portion of the demolition work to be completed at Merchants Park in Carroll. The agreement with North Central Correctional Facility offered a time-saving and money-saving alternative for the most expensive portion of an estimated $850,000 renovation that has been funded by donations from the city, the county, both Kuemper and Carroll schools and booster clubs and private citizens. The first bid to come in fro the project was rejected earlier in the year because it was well over the estimated costs. With the savings on the demolition, the association will be putting the project back out to bid at the beginning of 2016 and will be expecting to see a sizeable reduction in the bids with this part of the project completed.
It started as an ordinary day for 56-year-old Linda Wonder earlier this year, on Feb. 18, but with no warning and in only seconds, her life was hanging in the balance, relying on the expertise of a Carroll County dispatcher, a new program, the fast work of her husband of 35 years and some luck for good measure. Linda suffered a cardiac arrest in her bathroom that morning, and her husband Ron worked with the dispatcher to begin the first steps that not only beat the slim, seven-percent odds of Linda’s survival, but to come through and beat the even slimmer three to four percent odds of coming out of the incident with no permanent damage. The new 911 emergency medical dispatch program had only been installed a few months before in December of 2014, and was instrumental in assisting Ron, who had never performed CPR, in getting immediate help to his wife while help was on the way.
October
A Carroll prisoner, 49-year-old Jeff Huegerich of Carroll made an unusual escape attempt on Friday, Oct. 9 while in the back seat of a patrol car that was stopped for a train at the Clark Street crossing. Heugerich managed to get the car window down and falling backward out of the window with the train noise muffling his escape. A foot pursuit ensued and Heugerich was quickly apprehended and back in custody and booked into the Carroll County Jail on charges of Domestic Abuse Assault with an added charge of Interfering with Official Acts after his escape attempt.
The first ever We Are All Charlie, anti-bullying event took place at the end of October in Graham Park. The idea was born after Summer Parrott learned that the garage door of a local family had been vandalized with a spray-painted derogatory message that targeted the little boy, Charlie, who lived there. Both the Kuemper and Carroll school districts and several other local organizations joined forces to bring activities to the park in the family-friendly event that not only educates children about bullying but their parents as well. Hundreds of people turned out for the first of what Parrott hopes will be an annual event.
November
It was a special anniversary for the 2015 Fall Affair fundraiser for the
Family Resource Center as they celebrated the 10th anniversary of the event and the 35th anniversary of the resource center. They set a goal to match that anniversary amount of $35,000, which was nearly double what had been raised at last year’s event. The outcome of that event on Nov. 5 surpassed everyone’s wildest expectations as the early tally the next morning revealed over $40,000 had been raised to be used for to provide goods to those in need from the Client’s Closet.
Another change in the leadership at Kuemper Catholic Schools was announced on Nov. 18 as high school Principal, Penny Miller, tendered her resignation effective at the conclusion of this school year. Miller moved to Carroll 14 years ago to take over the position, but says now is the time to step away and devote more time to family obligations, including having the free time to spend with two new grandchildren arriving in the spring. Kuemper began the search for a new principal in December.
December
As many were decorating their homes and property for Christmas in early December, one homeowner on south Center Street in Manning was busy hanging a sign that voiced his displeasure over a city policy that limits the number of household pets to three. Levi Gray said he was upset by what he interpreted as dishonesty by the local police force and by the city council’s lack of consider to his request to keep his animals, so he designed and purchased a custom vinyl sign to hang on the front porch of his home. The sign, which read, Manning, Iowa where the local police lie and the city council tells you how you can and can’t live in the privacy of your own home,” also included contact information for the sale of the home. Gray said he felt the local government was overstepping its bounds and this was his way of using his freedoms to express that dissatisfaction of the six cats and three dogs that were family pets.
The Parks and Rec Department of Carroll brought forth a proposal to the city council requesting permission to place an outdoor skating rink kit on the tennis courts at Rolling Hills Park. The outdoor activity was received very positively and the council approved a larger kit than was initially proposed to allow for more skaters and to cover more area of the tennis court to help with preventing damage. The rink kit is expected to be received and installed in January.
