Nov 21

North Tama football opponents: Where are they now?

Posted on Monday, November 21, 2022, at 10:00 AM by Jeff


Traer Star-Clipper, October 10, 1930

North Tama’s discussion about moving down to 8-player football, as covered by the North Tama Telegraph, had much input from the current athletic director, but just as much from a former coach, principal, and superintendent, Tom McDermott.

For over a year, I’ve had a map of North Tama opponents whipped up, and now’s a good a time as any to serve it. Here is a map of the teams North Tama has played in the regular season since the move to district football in 1992, and their status in the 2022 season.

I am not sure how McDermott and I arrived at different numbers of regular-season opponents, especially since I went to a 30-year span and used his website. It might be due to reorganizations and sharing. 2020 created some one-off situations plus a none-off: Lynnville-Sully had to cancel and West Burlington/Notre Dame was a last-minute fill-in after its opponent for the week cancelled. WB/ND, Alburnett, South Winneshiek, St. Ansgar (as a home-and-home), and Starmont are all opponents only played in the last three years. Ironically, in a move to 8, Starmont will have been the last opponent in the 11-player era. However, Grundy Center will have been the last district opponent, and a fitting one: the first Traer-Grundy game was in 1897, then they played every year from 1921-63, and the Spartans shut out the Redhawks in 1988 (twice!) and 2022 on the way to state championships.

McDermott in the article updated one data point: North Tama this year was the second-smallest school playing 11, but Belle Plaine replaced Le Mars Gehlen as the smallest by BEDS number. Only these three schools have the option of going to 8 for the 2023 and 2024 seasons based on the cutoff. Belle Plaine, in a school board meeting held the night of the North Tama football discussion, voted to do just that.

Now that so many schools North Tama’s size around the district have moved to 8, not doing so would create its own set of problems. Just please don’t put us in with Don Bosco all the time.

The school board meets tonight. The deadline for deciding is Dec. 15.

OMG Mr. McDermott can smile! Only being slightly sarcastic here.

NOT AN UPDATE BUT: The North Tama Telegraph and Sun Courier aren’t showing up on the Iowa Newspaper Association’s map, and I have no idea why.

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Nov 18

Unclear on the concept, NBC graphics department

Posted on Friday, November 18, 2022, at 10:15 AM by Jeff

[rising electric guitar chords]

THUNDER! SNOW!

Um, that’s not Buffalo, that’s Watertown.

why yes I have a lovely glass house thank you for asking
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Nov 16

Happy ending for Tama County newspaper archives

Posted on Wednesday, November 16, 2022, at 10:00 AM by Jeff


May 26, 2019: Can I have too many pictures of the Winding Stairs?

When the Traer Star-Clipper offices closed in 2018, I and others expressed deep concern about the future of the bound volumes of that and the five other Tama-Grundy Publishing newspapers.

About a month ago, they found safe homes.

“Following the resignation of the Telegraph’s publisher Abigail Pelzer earlier this year, the decision was made by Marshalltown Newspaper’s managing editor Robert Maharry to donate the bound archive books including those dating back to the 1800s to the local museum,” says a story in the Oct. 7 North Tama Telegraph. A similar story, with the same happy ending, appears for the Northern-Sun Print archives going to Gladbrook and Garwin.

Robert Maharry was editor of the Grundy Register for about eight years before taking a job in Marshalltown.

In a bonus happy twist, the Star-Clipper archives were brought “back to where it all began – into the former Star-Clipper Newsroom.” Not the one that closed — the one at the top of the Winding Stairs, that can only be reached by going up the Winding Stairs. You can see the doors in the picture above; the bottom of both sections is occupied by the North Tama Veterinary Clinic. The Traer Museum will work with the University of Northern Iowa to restore the bound volumes.

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Nov 14

Benton County US 30 update

Posted on Monday, November 14, 2022, at 10:00 AM by Jeff

This is the second blog post covering news from the Nov. 1 Benton County Supervisors meeting. The Star Press Union (via Jim Magdefrau, who also writes on his personal website) has a recap. Then he had a later update from the county engineer.

Benton County Engineer Myron Parizek told the supervisors Nov. 1 about the Iowa DOT’s plans for US 30 wrapping up construction season. He said traffic will be shifted to the new lanes from the US 218 interchange west to 16th Avenue (County Road V44, or the Luzerne corner) and all intersections on the north side, including V66 to Van Horne, will be closed. In Magdefrau’s next update, Parizek said the shift happened Nov. 9.

This shift moves traffic off the section line and thus the Lincoln Highway roadbed. The new concrete has head-to-head traffic and eventually will become the eastbound lanes. The future westbound lanes will be built just to the south of the present roadbed, as seen here.

Parizek’s second update also included the news that the four-lane through the IA 21 intersection is set to open today (Nov. 14). This is only a 2-mile segment, X Avenue in Tama County to 11th Avenue in Benton County. Access to IA 21 remains blocked here, however. That’s why a five-mile stretch that includes both the former IA 200 and IA 131 corners will not be shifted to new concrete, because those roads serve as the detour for IA 21.

Also included in Magdefrau’s report was a note that final construction on the Urbana roundabout, including signage, is finishing up.

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Nov 11

Historic Shellsburg bridge will be bypassed

Posted on Friday, November 11, 2022, at 10:00 AM by Jeff


May 16, 2017: A marker for Shellsburg depicts the bridge right behind it, at the south end of the business district.

The Nov. 1 Benton County Supervisors meeting had some updates from the county engineer that affect noteworthy locations. The Star Press Union (via Jim Magdefrau, who also writes on his personal website) has a recap.

The video of the meeting (timestamp: 19:45) shows the engineer explaining that the city of Shellsburg has secured funding for a new bridge just south of downtown. The historic arch bridge will be restricted to pedestrians and bicycles. The road makes a sharp turn to cross this bridge, so the new one likely will be designed to cross Bear Creek south of it and align to the railroad crossing to the south.

The Iowa DOT has a page about this 1915 bridge because of its significance in early Iowa State Highway Commission history, although this bridge was never part of the state system. The bridge features “a more studied architectural expression with bichrome concrete detailing, molded concrete balustrades and incised spandrel panels” due to its location in a town rather than a rural setting, the webpage says. If you see concrete elements like this on other old bridges, although not as elaborate, you can be sure it’s either a 1910s bridge or designed to mimic one.

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Nov 09

North Tama to discuss dropping to 8-player football

Posted on Wednesday, November 9, 2022, at 10:00 AM by Jeff

The inevitable has, in all likelihood, arrived.

North Tama, the smallest public school in Iowa with 11-player football, is having a meeting tonight about dropping down to 8.

For 2021-22, North Tama had a BEDS number of 108 students in grades 9-11. Le Mars Gehlen, officially the smallest, had 107. Belle Plaine had 114. The maximum for 8-player is 120. North Tama was also the smallest in 2016 and 2018 (the two-year district setup has switched to odd/even after a COVID one-off).

The vast majority of schools that North Tama has played to the south and east over the past two decades have dropped to 8.

North Tama finished the 2022 season 2-7, with a win over Starmont in the optional ninth game for teams not in the playoffs. Here is a photo gallery from Starmont. The Redhawks were winless in district play.

I am not sure when schools have to declare for 8 or 11. Moving up a class has a due date of Dec. 1.

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Nov 07

Speaking of getting an hour back

Posted on Monday, November 7, 2022, at 10:00 AM by Jeff

Did the Iowa State Fair make any actual announcement about cutting back its hours, or did it just happen?

It was easy to remember, and there were stickers if you forgot: Buildings Open 9 to 9. But now the buildings close at 8 PM.

The Des Moines Register‘s 2019 Iowa State Fair “what you need to know” story, a compilation of information from the fair, says the buildings are open from 9 AM to 9 PM, and the fairgrounds overall open from 7 AM to 1 PM. That’s backed up by a KHAK radio information piece.

The fair announced on January 8, 2020, that ticket prices that year would increase from $12 to $14, the first increase since 2016, and advance tickets would go up from $8 to $9, the first increase since 2013. In a WOI-TV story, a Facebook commenter bet there would not be a record high in attendance that year. (“Amazing Race” sound effect of doom goes here, or at least a link referencing it.)

In the Register’s similar fair information story for 2021, building hours had been cut to 9-to-8, without any acknowledgement of change. In addition, the fair hours overall were cut to 8 AM to midnight! What’s the deal? I, of course, will not be showing up to any location that early unless my life depends on it, but this seems like a very notable change for an event that prides itself on having attendance over 1 million every year.

And while I’m on the subject: The murals in Ye Olde Mill incorrectly put an apostrophe in Richard Rodgers’ name, spelling it “Rodger’s”. I don’t do that ride every year, so I don’t know how long that’s been the case, but it’s embarrassing and needs to be fixed.

Posted in Iowa Miscellaneous | Comments Off on Speaking of getting an hour back
Nov 03

I-380 unifying southbound Exit 0

Posted on Thursday, November 3, 2022, at 10:00 AM by Jeff

This morning, southbound I-380 Exit 0A and 0B became Exit 0. After a few months where the exit for Iowa City came before the exit for Des Moines, the two exit points are unified. Now all traffic exiting to I-80 will leave I-380 at the same place, then that exit will fork. I’m not sure if that is the optimal way to do it. It is easy to say “keep left” or “keep right”, but specific designations might be beneficial anyway.

I was waiting for a DOT press release, but one never showed up, and apparently the DOT Twitter account doesn’t do this sort of thing. Here’s the Gazette article about it.

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Oct 31

Tama County vote about more than board size

Posted on Monday, October 31, 2022, at 10:00 AM by Jeff

Wind energy is on the ballot in Tama County — indirectly.

A successful petition last summer placed a question on the November general election ballot on increasing the membership of the Tama County Board of Supervisors from three to five. The question is at the end of the ballot (PDF) as Public Measure TX.

Just over a third of Iowa counties (38) have five-member boards of supervisors. That does not include Linn, Iowa’s second-largest, which went from three to five in 2007 and from five to three in 2016. Based on the 2020 censuses and maps approved earlier this year, Linn (map here) has 76,766 people per supervisor district, and Tama (map here) has 5712. (Major props to both counties for easily findable map links, but Tama County’s homey website should work on fixing outdated information at the bottom after the election.)

The supervisors ballot question isn’t just, or even mostly, about representation. It’s about wind farms.

Salt Creek Wind LLC, which is incorporated in Delaware, wants to build dozens of wind turbines in central Tama County in a wide area between Garwin and Traer (large map here). Conditional use permits were cleared in December 2020, according to the Tama-Toledo News-Chronicle. Bechtel Construction of Virginia would be the builder, the story said.

Earlier this year, Winding Stair Wind, a project of Apex Clean Energy of Charlottesville, Virginia, announced plans to build dozens of wind turbines in the eastern half of Tama County, the North Tama Telegraph reported. It’s this latter project that sparked the creation of Tama County Against Turbines, whose meeting in Dysart in April was covered by KCRG (video via KCCI), a few weeks after Apex had a well-attended informational meeting in Traer.

The Winding Stair Wind website is identical to that of Black Maple Wind in southwest Iowa. There are three search hits for Black Maple Wind — the website itself, the Taylor County supervisors minutes of Oct. 6, and an LLC registered in Delaware on Sept. 7. This blog post is the fourth. Another division of Apex, Great Pathfinder Wind, started construction in Boone County this fall. Its website, stock photos, and YouTube videos align with the other two. It’s been around since at least the end of 2019, judging from this KQWC story at Radio Iowa. To be clear, it’s no secret that all these wind farms are projects by the same company, which had a majority stake acquired by an investment firm in October 2021.

No turbines in either Tama County project have been built yet. The ones near Gladbrook are in a separate MidAmerican Energy wind farm. Those were built under the terms of Tama County’s 1998 wind ordinance that was reaffirmed in 2010 and again this year, an ordinance that TCAT calls “weak” and outdated. The reaffirmation came May 16 in the largest and most heated Tama County supervisors meeting in decades, extensively covered in this Telegraph article.

Richard Arp, a farmer and former president of the North Tama School Board, alleged in a lawsuit that the supervisors’ decision was illegal and void. The Tama County District Court ruled against him in early October, the Telegraph reported. There’s another lawsuit against the Tama County Board of Adjustment regarding the permits issued for the Salt Creek project, the News-Chronicle reported.

Multiple counties in Iowa have passed moratoriums against wind turbines in the past three years, including Grundy, Montgomery, Page, and Worth. Worth’s Planning and Zoning Board chairman spoke to TCAT this summer. Woodbury County doubled the distance required for a setback, that is, the distance between a turbine and a residence or other feature such as a road. Its new regulation is twice the distance recommended by the Iowa Environmental Council and substantially more than any other county.

Should the Tama County board expansion measure pass Nov. 8 by simple majority, a new map would be drawn in 2023 and a new board with staggered terms would be elected in the 2024 general election. A five-member board would have 3427 people per district — equivalent to the city of Tama plus 300. A five-member board would not be able to enact any policies until January 2025.

Longtime supervisor Larry Vest is retiring this year. Both the Democratic and Republican candidates for his replacement in the 1st District support a moratorium, with the latter saying “Tama County needs to make it virtually impossible for any more turbines.” The Winding Star Wind area is in this district.

The ballot says, “Shall the following public measure be adopted? The number of Tama County Supervisors shall be increased from three members to five members.” What the ballot doesn’t say is just as important.

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Oct 28

The Crimson Monkey: Interlude

Posted on Friday, October 28, 2022, at 10:00 AM by Jeff

He slowly opens his eyes to see a figure clad in cardinal and gold.

“Hello, Norman.”

He squints. “Ames?”

“Amy. Only my friends can call me Ames.”

“Where am I? What am I doing here?”

“It’s that unfamiliar, I see. Welcome to the basement of the Big 12, the place you tried to set fire to and got four years of house arrest instead. Tex pushed you down here.”

“This place has a basement?”

“Sure it does. You were here once, 25 years ago. For the past decade it’s pretty much been Jay’s place.”

“That explains the basketball memorabilia. Where is he, anyway?”

From somewhere upstairs, as if on cue, a loud voice screeches, “FREEDOM! AND MAYBE BOWL ELIGIBILITY!”

Amy sighs. “Only two years ago I was in the penthouse suite for the first time ever, wearing that slinky black number. But then YOU had to spoil my fun and take the crown jewel away.”

Norman smiles. “And then I threw it in the drawer with the rest of them.”

Amy sighs again. “Now I’m back here, after Tex pushed me down too. I did not expect this so soon. It’s time for one of us to start crawling back up those stairs. Shall we play a game?”

“Global thermonuclear war?” Norman says, a little too eagerly.

“Too realistic right now. How about NCAA Football?”

“You’re on.”

“Did you know Tex is terrified of turtles?”

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