Mar 08

Rule of 106

Posted on Tuesday, March 8, 2016, at 10:00 AM by Jeff

In one of its few non-property considerations, the Board accepted the resignation of high school math teacher Terry Stamp and voted to hire Judith Lyons to replace her.

Ms. Stamp taught here one year. She asked to be released from her contract so she could accept a position in the Waterloo school system.

Ms. Lyons was one of three first-year teachers interviewed for the position. She will teach algebra, geometry, and general math in addition to serving as faculty sponsor for the pep club and cheerleaders. A native of Goldfield, she is a 1974 Iowa State University graduate.

— Traer Star-Clipper, July 11, 1974

4) Approve Early Retirement Request & Resignations:

Judy Morrison-Secondary Teacher: Dvorak made the motion to approve the early retirement request and resignation of Judy Morrison. Zobel seconded the motion. Motion carried 5-0. (Kennedy and Pargeon absent)

— North Tama school board minutes, February 22, 2016

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Mar 07

Private schools make up half of 2A boys’ state basketball field

Posted on Monday, March 7, 2016, at 10:00 AM by Jeff

Des Moines Christian joins perennial/semi-perennial state basketball tournament teams Kuemper Catholic (Carroll), Pella Christian, and Western Christian in this year’s Class 2A boys’ bracket. It’s the most private schools in one class in a state tournament since last year’s girls’ basketball Class 2A, where there were also four private schools in the eight-team bracket. (North Linn’s run to second place was against three of them.)

Private schools got seven of the 16 spots in this year’s and last year’s Class 2A boys’ tournaments. They got six of the 16 in this year’s and last year’s Class 2A girls’ tournament in the five-class setup. This year’s girls’ 2A final was Unity Christian over Western Christian.

Switching gears, Gladbrook-Reinbeck is back in the Class 1A tournament even while tensions continue to simmer about the closure of the school in Gladbrook.

Posted in Schools, Sports | Comments Off on Private schools make up half of 2A boys’ state basketball field
Mar 04

Former NT coach doing double duty as superintendent

Posted on Friday, March 4, 2016, at 10:00 AM by Jeff

The Boyer Valley and Woodbine districts in far western Iowa are sharing a superintendent to cut down on administration costs. That superintendent is none other than 1998-2001 North Tama football coach and math teacher Doug Gee.

In 2014, Gee was assistant principal and AD at Adel-De Soto-Minburn and considered for principal at Carroll. Instead, he was hired as as a hybrid principal/superintendent at Boyer Valley. Then Woodbine, who was in financial trouble, asked if Boyer Valley would share, and BV agreed.

Last month, the Boyer Valley board narrowly voted to end the sharing agreement, but then reversed itself. Key paragraph (from the Nonpareil):

By moving to a 50-50 share, the sharing agreement approved by Boyer Valley and Woodbine moves away from the current 60-40 split, where Woodbine only pays for 30 percent of Gee’s salary. By having a sharing agreement, both districts will receive about $51,500 from the state in incentive payments, easing finances in both districts.

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Mar 03

T is for Thornton

Posted on Thursday, March 3, 2016, at 10:00 AM by Jeff

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
July 29, 2010

The Thornton school in all its Art Deco glory met the wrecking ball in April 2012, leaving both a literal and metaphorical empty space in the heart of town. It lives in photos like these.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

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Mar 02

Chuck Offenburger writes about Diagonal

Posted on Wednesday, March 2, 2016, at 10:04 AM by Jeff

Former “Iowa Boy” Des Moines Register columnist Chuck Offenburger is still a prolific writer and blogger — he wrote a book about Bernie Saggau and the IHSAA in 2005. Recently, he made the trip down to Diagonal to see basketball games at Iowa’s smallest high school. Accompanying him were Bud Legg of the IHSAA and former sports writer Chuck Schoffner, making for a serious wealth of knowledge going to check out a small-town event.

The it’s-a-small-world/I’m-getting-old connection is that Diagonal’s girls’ coach, Gina Gunsolley, is the sister of Zach Gunsolley, who contacted me after I wrote a column for the Iowa State Daily about the pressures rural Iowa roads and schools were facing. That was in January 2003, two years and change before Gina Gunsolley graduated from Diagonal High School. (IAGenWeb already has a Class of 2005 page up.)

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Mar 01

The appointment that never happened

Posted on Tuesday, March 1, 2016, at 10:00 AM by Jeff

IF
December 31, 2015: Dr. Haldy’s dentist office in Traer, on his last official day in business.

I was supposed to see my dentist on caucus day. Instead, though, I found out in October that Willard Haldy, Traer’s dentist, planned to retire at the end of the year. He had been in practice since 1959. His first business card has two letters at the beginning of the phone number.

Haldy may well be Traer’s last dentist. It’s hard to recruit young professionals of any type to rural Iowa, let alone those with crushing student debt. The Iowa Public Policy Center recently raised the alarm (as reported by KCRG) that rural areas are facing an imminent if not already happening shortage of dentists as active ones retire.

Go ahead and make it a Mad Lib: Rural areas are facing a shortage of [profession] as Baby Boomers start retiring and young adults are not interested in living there.

It is unfortunate that when Iowa had the nation’s attention in the presidential race, “rural issues” got boiled down to the Renewable Fuel Standard and nothing else, this Detroit political cartoon notwithstanding. The decrease in services for rural areas is something that deserves more attention.

Update 3/2: I KNEW THINGS WERE GOING TOO WELL. I KNEW IT.

Posted in Iowa Miscellaneous, Tama County | Comments Off on The appointment that never happened
Feb 29

Meeting about US 30 in Toledo this week

Posted on Monday, February 29, 2016, at 10:00 AM by Jeff

The Iowa DOT will hold a meeting in Toledo on Thursday to discuss the plan to four-lane US 30 in eastern Tama County.

It won’t be completed for years, but the first step is acquiring right-of-way. The project statement says an all-new four-lane will be built north of the existing lanes, which will be removed “with the exception of some minor areas where the existing roadway may be used as a frontage road.” This indicates that Alternative 3 shown in June 2011 was the final selection, which was far enough north the old road can remain. The four-lane will take out whatever’s left of the extinct village of Gladstone and negate the need for a bridge over the old railroad grade.

Building four all-new lanes while eliminating the existing roadbed has gained traction in Iowa recently. The new plans for US 61 north of Burlington have a mixture of that (PDF) and leaving old 61 as a frontage road (PDF) with the exception of a couple intersections where the road will “bow out”. (The closest analogue to the latter is in central Illinois, where I-55 was built right beside US 66, except overpasses are involved there.)

(There is also a meeting the night before in Le Grand regarding two miles of IA 146 in and south of town, including replacement of the bridge over the railroad.)

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Feb 27

Top ‘structurally deficient’ bridges on replacement cycle

Posted on Saturday, February 27, 2016, at 10:00 AM by Jeff

Getting attention this week was an update to a type of report that gets issued in various forms semi-regularly since the I-35W bridge collapse in Minneapolis in 2007, regarding the condition of bridges nationwide. One-fifth of Iowa’s bridges, over 5000 of them, landed on the most recent “structurally deficient” report. But of those 5025 bridges, 3462 of them are rural local roads (read: gravel) and another 1309 are classified as rural collectors.

For an article interviewing a DOT engineer about what the designation truly means, check this reprint of an Ottumwa Courier story that Emergency Management magazine inexplicably topped with a picture of the High Trestle Trail PEDESTRIAN Bridge, which opened in 2011. (“Iowa…bridge…yep, plug that one in.”)

The report from the American Road & Transportation Builders Association is curiously a couple of years out of date. Comparing the list of top 25 by daily traffic to recent Iowa DOT five-year plans reveals changes to multiple entries. Here’s the 2013-17 plan; here’s the 2016-20 plan.

  • Three of the four Sioux City bridges on the list are being replaced right now as part of the I-29 reconstruction and expansion.
  • The Centennial Bridge over the Mississippi River had extensive repairs made in 2014 and again in 2015. As a signature bridge, it’s not going anywhere.
  • SB I-35 over Grand Avenue in West Des Moines was replaced as part of six-laning the interstate there in 2013.
  • In Warren County, SB I-35 over the North River was replaced in 2013, NB I-35 over the North River was replaced in 2015, NB I-35 over the Middle River was replaced in 2014, and SB I-35 over the Middle River will be replaced in 2017.
  • The IA 415 bridge over Northwest 66th Avenue in Polk County will be removed in 2019.
  • The Edgewood Road bridge over US 30/151/218 in Cedar Rapids had rehab work done in 2013.
  • Three of the top 10 are maintained by cities (Davenport, Des Moines, and Cedar Rapids), so information on those will have to be found elsewhere, and the DOT is desperately trying to unload the 11th (University Avenue in Waterloo).
  • Of city projects I could track down, the Des Moines Area Metropolitan Planning Organization has put in a request for rehabilitation money for the 30th Street Viaduct — old IA 46, at the southwest corner of the State Fairgrounds — in fiscal 2019.
  • Also a city project, Cedar Rapids’ third bridge on the list is scheduled to be replaced this year (FY16) (large PDF, page 23).

The bridges that have had rehabilitation work may still end up on the list for some reason, but they’re not being neglected. It’s a deep infrastructure hole, and there is only so much gas tax money and only so many contractors to go around.

Posted in Construction, Highway Miscellaneous | Comments Off on Top ‘structurally deficient’ bridges on replacement cycle
Feb 26

U is for Ute

Posted on Friday, February 26, 2016, at 10:00 AM by Jeff

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAJuly 20, 2012

The Ute school building last had students in May 2012, despite its continued inclusion on a statewide directory of active buildings in 2014-15. The Charter Oak-Ute school district sold it for $10,010 on Oct. 21, 2013, according to an article from the Mapleton News.

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Feb 25

Wagon Wheel Bridge irreparably damaged

Posted on Thursday, February 25, 2016, at 10:00 AM by Jeff

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAJuly 7, 2013: The Wagon Wheel Bridge in Boone County was accessible to pedestrians after its closure to traffic. In the foreground is the portion of the bridge that was damaged in early August 2015 and removed.

One of Iowa’s most impressive but little-publicized early 20th century bridges is going to have to come down.

The Wagon Wheel Bridge in Boone County over the Des Moines River, just upstream from the Kate Shelley High Bridges, had suffered a significant blow in August when the east approach was set on fire.

Earlier this week, during a period of warm weather that caused springlike flooding, ice jams slammed into the bridge, skewing the pilings and making what remained of the bridge unstable. It’s going to have to be torn down. (As if we needed another reason to hate freeze-thaw cycles.)

It was a beautiful summer day when I visited the bridge. It will be sad to lose this historic structure.

(h/t Austin Draude)

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