This summer, Iowa State became a 100% Pepsi school with Pepsi products (most notably Gatorade) sold at Jack Trice Stadium and Hilton Coliseum.
In keeping with that, ISU women’s basketball coach Bill Fennelly, noted for his Diet Coke habit, showed up at the press conference after Sunday’s game vs. South Carolina Upstate…
…with two cans of Diet Mountain Dew.
North US 30/59 intersection in 2003 and 2012
While comparing photos taken in Denison, I noticed that a sign that had said “Stop Ahead” on westbound US 30 had been replaced with a graphic version of the same. I really noticed it when signs on gravel roads in Tama County got the same treatment.
As it turns out, the 2009 Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD) deleted the text version of the Stop Ahead sign, and made the symbol the only version. All those text signs will be phased out.
That change has led to at least one “Stop Behind” or “Stop Down” sign, found in Hardy in Humboldt County this September. Oops.
This year, in an effort to cut down on travel in first-round (32) and second-round (16) games, the IHSAA did not set football brackets. Instead, each round’s pairings were based on who was playing. After the games are played out, a full bracket can be created retroactively, but not until then.
Because of this non-structure, Gladbrook-Reinbeck and Denver, the first- and third-place teams in Class A District 4, will play each other Friday morning in the UNI-Dome. Under the old arrangement they would have met in an earlier round.
In another upcoming change to playoff structure, the IHSAA wants to move all the games to Friday, which will require the beginning of the season to be pushed up a week. That means it is highly likely, at least in some years, that there will be football games the second Friday of the Iowa State Fair. I don’t think this would be on the table if districts weren’t using waivers to blatantly thumb their noses (August 13!) at the law that’s supposed to stop school from starting earlier than the week before Labor Day. Thus, the ever-earlier school start dates make the overly expanded football playoffs possible. Call it a minor case of the Law of Unintended Consequences.
The Marshalltown Times-Republican says the East Marshall school district is considering closing its elementary in Laurel and possibly also the junior high in Gilman. The decision will come Monday. Keeping all three locations (with Le Grand) is a possibility, but East Marshall has lost a quarter of its enrollment since the 2001-02 school year.
The 2014 Iowa state volleyball tournament starts Wednesday in Cedar Rapids, and for the second time in three years, private schools make up half the field for the smallest division.
Among the eight teams for Class 1A are Fort Madison Holy Trinity*, Le Mars Gehlen (now including Spalding Catholic of Granville), Bellevue Marquette, and Grand View Christian**. The same four also made up half the state tournament field in 2012. Also just like 2012, two of them will play each other in the first round.
*Holy Trinity was formed in 2005 when Marquette Catholic in West Point and Fort Madison Aquinas merged.
**Technically not formerly Grandview Park Baptist, but more or less a linear descendant.
With the election a week behind us, let’s run through the superlatives of an unprecedented sixth (nonconsecutive) term for Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad:
Outgoing U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin has some records of his own. Harkin spent 30 years in the Senate and finishes as the most senior junior senator. He is only the second Iowan to hold that particular Senate seat for a decade (and the other lasted 11 years). He is Iowa’s third-longest-serving senator and second-longest popularly elected senator, behind Chuck Grassley and William B. Allison. He was one of the last “Watergate Babies” in Congress from the 1974 midterms.
Story from KWWL. All K-6 students in the district will go to Allison and 7-12 to Greene. The story notes that the district was running a $213,000 budget deficit, which is concerning not just because of its size but because North Butler was only (“only”?) formed a decade ago.
Today’s Iowa State-Kansas game is on Fox Sports North and Midwest. It’s been a year since ISU had a football game there, but Mediacom in Des Moines had two different Fox Sports regional channels (Midwest and North/Plus), so everything should be OK, right? Wrong.
As you can see on this stylized map, Fox Sports regionals blanket the country except Chicago and some places in the Mid-Atlantic. Comcast Sports Net has many of Chicago’s pro sports…and when it comes to pro teams, eastern Iowa leans in that direction.
That means Mediacom sees it as more advantageous to carry CSN in Cedar Rapids and the Quad Cities…and since the only games with Iowa interest on FS regionals are the occasional football game and ISU women’s basketball and the Minnesota Twins… No FSN for me. No FS regionals for the sports tier, either, as far as I can tell. “Fox College Sports” is a different thing although those might carry some of the regional games.
Because TV contracts are funny things, today’s UNI-NDSU game is on two channels, KCRG 9.2 and Comcast Sports Net Chicago Plus. In fairness, it’s probably going to be a better game than the Big 12 Battle for the Basement.
(Also: Today is Iowa-Minnesota. Floyd was once a real pig. There are Joni Ernst jokes waiting to be made here.)
UPDATE: Game is being carried on KFXA – so not only is it on, it’s on broadcast TV.
A couple of the questions posed in Monday’s post about transferring IA 926 (Business US 169) to the city of Fort Dodge have been answered after the Transportation Commission’s meeting Tuesday.
First, the bridges aren’t going away, so to speak. The item in the minutes specifically says the transfer is “excluding bridges.” So the state will still be responsible for them. (Whether they stay under the 926 designation in route logs, I don’t know.)
Second, an amendment to the highway plan (PDF) adds $9 million for pavement rehabilitation on that route during the current fiscal year. There’s the price tag for the transfer.
There are other items in that amendment as well, including US 218 between US 30 and Vinton (which needs it).
The Council Bluffs interstate project continues its slow progress. Another piece happens tomorrow with a lane shift on I-29/80 west of the IA 192 exit. I saw the concrete nearly ready on my trip last month, and a sign assembly that might raise your eyebrows if you’re paying attention:
It’s not the best quality, I know. This is before the west split. The left sign gives distances to the next three exits on I-29 in Iowa, including I-480/US 6 at the bottom. The exit tab uses I-29’s number (meaning it’s exiting from itself, at least for now). Both of these changes are likely in preparation for the lanes underneath becoming the I-29 “Local lanes” when the expansion is complete a decade from now.
UPDATE: I’ve been told that left sign was not intended to be installed yet and will be removed.
