Aug 27

Seven score and three wins ago

Posted on Monday, August 27, 2018, at 10:00 AM by Jeff


September 12, 2015: C.J. Beathard (16) runs the ball for Iowa, one play before a 48-yard pass. Iowa State was the only team in the 2015 regular season to lead Iowa in the second half. It ended with what the Gazette has dubbed the 82nd-best win of the Kirk Ferentz era.

You may have heard that Kirk Ferentz is going to become the winningest coach in Iowa football history. He has 143 wins with the Hawkeyes in a coaching record that sources say dates back to the 20th century and started closer to the launch of the space shuttle than the present day. (Sources are sketchy.) Coincidentally, his 144th win — Northern Illinois on Saturday — would bookend the first, Northern Illinois on September 18, 1999, his only win of that year.

How many coaches do you have to go back to get the same number for Iowa State? Technically, seven. It was September 14, 1985, the season opener against Utah State, when ISU was coached by Jim Criner. To get 143 wins, you have to go through Criner, Chuck Banker (interim when Criner was fired, one win against a pre-Snyder Kansas State), Jim Walden, Dan McCarney, Gene “5-and-19” Chizik, Paul Rhoads, and Matt Campbell.

Iowa has conducted one search for a football coach since Disco Demolition Night. Iowa State has conducted … more than that.

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Aug 24

North Tama the smallest with 11 on the field

Posted on Friday, August 24, 2018, at 10:00 AM by Jeff

High school football season starts Friday (for most of us, anyway) and while there are new districts, one thing is the same from 2016: North Tama is the smallest public school playing 11 instead of 8.

The BEDS numbers (total grades 9-11) remove a previous qualifier — Le Mars Gehlen is now larger than NT. Of the nine teams with a BEDS under 120, the new cutoff for 8-man football, four of them are private schools. Two, NT and GMG, both in Class A District 7, are the only teams in the Iowa Star Conference playing 11.

Oh, and North Tama has a new football coach, who was a previous football coach, and it was a comparatively last-minute thing. Mr. McDermott — er, Tom McDermott — is back in the director’s chair after being inducted into the Iowa Football Coaches Association Hall of Fame last year. Former coach Austin Pink, who was only at NT for two years, bolted (cough) for a school that has much newer and way way way fancier facilities. (Liberty’s BEDS alone is two-thirds of Class A District 7 combined, and that district is one of the two with seven teams instead of six.)

The 8-man Districts 2, 3, 4, and 5 are peppered with teams North Tama played at some point in the past 20 years — including Midland, which had a Week 0 opener, has its 40-yard line at center field, and was my excuse for polishing off serious chunks of IA 38 and IA 64 in 2007.

District 5 is where Gladbrook-Reinbeck will experience its first year at 8, along with Baxter and Collins-Maxwell who now get official status and will have to play each other. It was almost geographically compact except that Twin Cedars and Melcher-Dallas are involved, and there seriously is no good way to get from Ackley to Bussey. There’s a gravel gap of S62 in Marshall County that would make it straighter, but still not a picnic.

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Aug 23

IA 346 in Nashua going from four lanes to three

Posted on Thursday, August 23, 2018, at 10:00 AM by Jeff

IA 346 in Nashua is going to get new pavement markings that turn it from a four-lane road, with two lanes in each direction, to a three-lane road, with one lane in each direction and a center turn lane, from old US 218 eastward about eight blocks.

It’s a minor item in the DOT’s contract lettings, but interesting if similar projects should expand.

Posted in Construction | Comments Off on IA 346 in Nashua going from four lanes to three
Aug 22

Long-idle southeast Iowa pages get new photos

Posted on Wednesday, August 22, 2018, at 10:00 AM by Jeff


June 18, 2018: Old IA 79 remains labeled “DMC Hwy 79” but Des Moines County changed it to J20 — while not doing anything to Old US 34, which runs east from here. Middletown prettied up the intersection with a welcome sign.

For the first time in (gulp) more than a decade, I’ve augmented a handful of end pages in southeast Iowa.

  • IA 68 and IA 97 are twins in a lot of ways, and my second ever trips to Melrose and Russell carry on that pairing.
  • More information and new photos for IA 405, which from 1980 to 2003 was the shortest signed state highway, but went a little farther south before then.
  • IA 406 gets a couple more shots from the US 61 endpoint.
  • IA 305 gets a digital photo of its west endpoint, along with an update about the US 61 expressway on its east. (This my second time to Letts. It was pretty empty.)
  • Updated photo for IA 213 in Blakesburg, which has been confirmed to use one east-west block.
  • Updated photos for IA 79 in Middletown, showing the revision to J20 at Old US 34.
  • One more go-round for the east end of IA 78 before the US 61 four-lane is built in the next decade. I also had to update the information about Sterzing’s potato chips.
  • New photos for the east end of Business US 34 (Fairfield), which has no “End” sign but still square IA 163 shields.
  • Elsewhere, I put some new photos with IA 51. Nothing changed there except the new-style shields and arrows.
Posted in Highway Miscellaneous, Iowa Miscellaneous | Comments Off on Long-idle southeast Iowa pages get new photos
Aug 21

When Thanos comes for your football team

Posted on Tuesday, August 21, 2018, at 10:00 AM by Jeff

The ISU booth in the Varied Industries Building had, as always, football schedule posters for fans. This is the largest version I can find online. A few things about it jumped out. It wasn’t the issue of this year’s upcoming outfits, because in fact the uniform on the poster is NOT the style unleashed this summer. The poster’s uniform has “Iowa State” across the front while the actual outfits inexplicably don’t.

The schedule at the bottom has the opponent logos and game dates in gray. In the real product, it’s even lighter than the graphic. WHO KEEPS THINKING IT’S A GOOD IDEA TO PUT TEXT IN GRAY???

But the other thing was that the football player, in what I presume was an effort to convey intensity, looked more like someone in the early stages of the climax of a certain blockbuster…

Now, the date-stamp of the web address indicates the poster was released before the movie (and would also explain the old uniform). It’s probably just a coincidence, but a really weird one.

(On a related note, the dark tone and bleed of reds and blacks did NOT translate well to a JPEG version of last season’s women’s basketball poster.)

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Aug 20

US 20 completion ceremony October 19

Posted on Monday, August 20, 2018, at 10:00 AM by Jeff

The first media outlet I saw reporting it was KSCJ radio. Now, with additional confirmation from the Sioux City Journal and the Storm Lake Pilot Tribune…

Iowa’s ultimate US 20 ribbon-cutting will be 3 PM October 19 at Boulders Inn at Holstein, right in the middle of the segment that has taken SIXTY YEARS to go from four-lane concept to four-lane reality.

I’m going to make every effort to be there, but I doubt I’m dignified enough to qualify for the “private banquet celebration for invited dignitaries.”

Posted in Construction, Highway Miscellaneous | Comments Off on US 20 completion ceremony October 19
Aug 17

A State Fair scheduling snafu?

Posted on Friday, August 17, 2018, at 10:00 AM by Jeff

For years now, a hypnotist has performed on the Riley Stage in the evenings during the full week of the Iowa State Fair. I typically try to catch a show, because it is good clean fun. I don’t have any flexibility in my fair attendance days, so seeing that he was scheduled for Monday night made things look good.

It was not the case. He was listed in both the Register’s annual fair section and the program handed out that day. True, there’s always the “schedule subject to change” disclaimer, but this seems like something that would have been one way or the other months in advance.

I don’t know where the error came in, and most likely, it just slipped through the cracks somewhere. It’s not uncommon for long schedules to miss an update from the previous day’s/week’s/year’s list, especially when repeated throughout.

There was a nice consolation prize, though — the band Redhead Express. Kick off with a cover of “I’m in a Hurry” — real country, not bro country — and yeah, I’m going to stay.

Posted in Iowa Miscellaneous | Comments Off on A State Fair scheduling snafu?
Aug 16

The other mall between two school districts

Posted on Thursday, August 16, 2018, at 10:00 AM by Jeff

Last month I wrote about how Coral Ridge Mall was divided between two school districts. It turns out it’s not the only one like that in Iowa.

Merle Hay Mall is split not just between the Des Moines and Urbandale school districts, but the cities of Des Moines and Urbandale as well. Below is a display of the mall from the Polk County Assessor’s Office.

MallPoCoAssessor

The thick black line is the parcel separation, city limits, school district boundary, and what would have been an extension of 62nd Street if the mall hadn’t beaten the development here. The Des Moines Register says the original open-air mall opened in 1959. Aerial photos show it started entirely on the Des Moines side. The line is almost, but not quite, down the north-south interior hallway of the mall south of Kohl’s (upper left corner).

Like Lindale Mall in Cedar Rapids, MHM is losing two anchors in a short span of time. Younkers is going out of business on the Urbandale side (mid-left corner), and the second-to-last Sears in Iowa (upper right corner) will close in mid- to late October. That leaves the Kohl’s and Target (lower right) as anchors.

Posted in Geography, Schools | Comments Off on The other mall between two school districts
Aug 15

GR breaks with NT, signs with DNH on wrestling

Posted on Wednesday, August 15, 2018, at 10:00 AM by Jeff

The success of the Gladbrook-Reinbeck boys’ basketball program has pinned down its wrestling participation.

According to this story from the Parkersburg Eclipse/News-Review, GR will be sending its wrestlers to Dike-New Hartford next year. That will end a very long time of program-sharing with North Tama, which will have its own wrestling team.

The RebelHawk program has been tilted toward NT as of late, and GR only has three wrestlers, according to the story. Until this decade, when North Tama started sending girls’ soccer players to Union, wrestling was the only sport NT shared with another school.

Posted in Sports, Tama County | Comments Off on GR breaks with NT, signs with DNH on wrestling
Aug 14

I-29 supersedes exit numbers in Council Bluffs

Posted on Tuesday, August 14, 2018, at 10:00 AM by Jeff

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
August 2, 2016: These exits for IA 192 and 24th Street are becoming Exits 49 and 50, respectively, heading north on I-29, as the dual divided freeway project advances in Council Bluffs.

The two exits on the shared I-29/80 segment in Council Bluffs are getting new exit numbers tonight, according to an e-mail (and then press release) from the Iowa DOT. As part of the Council Bluffs interstate program expanding I-29/80 to dual sets of “express” and “local” lanes, the ramps come off part of the outer/local/I-29 lanes.

The 24th Street exit will be I-29 Exit 50 and South Expressway (former IA 192) will be Exit 49. I-80 Exit 3 won’t go away completely, though, because there will be an exit from westbound mainline I-80 to South Expressway before the I-29 lanes join the local. The east 29/80 interchange will be Exit 48 (NB 29 to EB 80) and Exit 3 (WB 80 to SB 29) but unnumbered heading west.

This “corrects” an anomaly in interstate exit numbering that happens twice in Iowa. Generally, the lower-numbered interstate is supposed to take precedence, which means that these two exits in Council Bluffs should have been I-29’s to begin with, and I-35/80 around Des Moines should use I-35’s exit numbering. This convention is why the Avenue of the Saints got remarked around Charles City when US 18 was rerouted, creating an official Mile 218H. One case where the rules were bent for a positive outcome is US 18/63, where the New Hampton bypass uses 63’s exit numbers because 63 is clearly the more important route.

Posted in Highway Miscellaneous, Maps | Comments Off on I-29 supersedes exit numbers in Council Bluffs