Dec 31

Five years since Insight Bowl victory

Posted on Wednesday, December 31, 2014, at 8:12 PM by Jeff

The second-best decade in Iowa State football history was capped off with a 14-13 win against Minnesota in the Insight Bowl on Dec. 31, 2009. It was the third bowl win for the Cyclones in a decade and the second in the Phoenix metro area.

That would also turn out to be the only winning season (7-6) of the Paul Rhoads era. Since that night, ISU has lost nearly 2 games for every win (22-40) and performed dismally in subsequent bowls after 6-6 seasons in 2011 and 2012. In addition, Conferencepocalypse I and II highlighted the precarious position of Iowa State University in the top echelon of intercollegiate athletics. Three Big Eight teams are permanently off the schedule, the Tempe game has been renamed and moved up in stature, and the Big 12 is now the outlier for not having a conference championship game.

So while tonight is only the fifth anniversary of that win, to the minute of this post, it already seems like a sports lifetime ago.

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Dec 31

Traer girl mourned after hunting accident

Posted on Wednesday, December 31, 2014, at 10:14 AM by Jeff

Liesl Casto, 12, was killed Saturday when her muzzleloader rifle accidentally went off. The DNR said this was the first firearm hunting fatality in Iowa since 2010.

Stories: KCCI, KWWL, KCRG. Inspiring community note from the latter: “Liesel’s church youth group quickly organized a spaghetti dinner fundraiser for the family. After seeing lines of people, organizers worried they’d actually run out of food.”

(I waffled on posting anything about this, but it would seem like an omission if I didn’t, you know?)

Posted in Tama County | Comments Off on Traer girl mourned after hunting accident
Dec 30

Diagonal school building turned 100 in 2014

Posted on Tuesday, December 30, 2014, at 10:24 AM by Jeff


April 1, 2010: View of the 1914 Diagonal school building. The round tube is a fire escape.

The home of the smallest high school in Iowa marked its centennial this year. The main building for Diagonal schools was built in 1914, meaning it’s been around for three-fifths of Iowa’s existence as a state. Last school year, Diagonal was the only district in Iowa with a certified enrollment under 100 that had a high school.

Half of the 10 smallest districts in Iowa in 2013-14 will not exist in 2015-16. Diagonal is in the half left standing, benefiting from the dissolution of neighboring Clearfield.

Another active school building in Iowa to turn 100 in 2014, Prescott, likely will not make it to 102 given current talks with Creston.

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Dec 29

Gladbrook-Reinbeck enrollment report

Posted on Monday, December 29, 2014, at 10:35 AM by Jeff

Like all rural school districts in Iowa, Gladbrook-Reinbeck is experiencing a long-term decline in enrollment. To get a better grasp of what’s going on overall, and the trends, the district hired a consultant.

The resulting report (PDF), on the macro level, doesn’t really find anything earth-shattering. What’s more interesting is how data-crunching strategies and boilerplate text more geared toward population-dense areas are applied to a rural, homogeneous school district. (Rural Tama County has a lot of pre-WWII homes.)

Then there’s this sentence, which makes you wonder if anything in the report can be understood at all:

The Gladbrook-Reinbeck Community School District is located in within Blackhawk, Grundy, Marshall, and Tama Counties is Southeast of Cedar Falls. 

Now my brain hurts.

Posted in Schools, Tama County | Comments Off on Gladbrook-Reinbeck enrollment report
Dec 24

Updates to IA 149 North, IA 163 East

Posted on Wednesday, December 24, 2014, at 9:56 AM by Jeff


Oct. 7, 2013: The genericization of exit signage is complete on all rural Iowa interstates. Only “End 149” survived at Williamsburg and got its own pole.

It has been embarrassingly long since I’ve made updates to the highway end pages themselves. But I finally finished up…with last year. (And since this year is going to be last year very soon, I’m still way behind.)

The two updates I’ve made involve two of the biggest recent changes to the Iowa highway system: The replacement of all signs at Iowa interstate exits with larger Clearview signs that do not include mileage, and the extension of IA 163 to the Mississippi River.

I’ve interspersed the pictures of the new signage style with all the old photos I had with IA 149 at I-80, creating (so far) the clearest comparison of old and new. These photos were taken way back in October 2013, at the end of my second long vacation of that year, just before I discovered that I could’ve been importing trip data from the GPS to my computer all this time. (D’oh!)

Pictures and text for the IA 163 East page clarify some things about the old intersection with IA 92, and also show the “greenout” panels used as 163 approached the interchange on the south side of Oskaloosa that was its endpoint from 1997 to 2009.

Posted in Highway Miscellaneous | Comments Off on Updates to IA 149 North, IA 163 East
Dec 23

Tom Harkin notes of assorted significance

Posted on Tuesday, December 23, 2014, at 10:17 AM by Jeff

Let the record show:

  • Tom Harkin, the most senior junior senator of the 113th Congress, cast his last vote Dec. 16 to confirm a judge for the Western District of Missouri. He voted aye.
  • Harkin’s last non-confirmation vote was on retroactive extension of assorted tax breaks, including a wind energy tax credit. He voted aye.
  • According to reader J Dreger: “Assuming neither Chuck Grassley or Tom Harkin die before Harkin finishes his term in the Senate, Harkin will become the longest-serving Senator (on 1/1/15) without ever becoming his state’s senior Senator (currently, that record belongs to J. William Fulbright (D-Arkansas), 1945-74, resigned at the end of 1974, three days before his term concluded, to allow his successor (Gov. Dale Bumpers) to be seated. Fulbright lost to Bumpers in the Primary.)” The 114th Congress convenes Jan. 6.
  • Harkin was the last active politician with a cameo as himself in the 1993 political comedy “Dave”.
Posted in Iowa Miscellaneous | Comments Off on Tom Harkin notes of assorted significance
Dec 22

Oskaloosa bypass plans narrowed

Posted on Monday, December 22, 2014, at 10:00 AM by Jeff

Last week the DOT showed off its proposals for a western bypass of Oskaloosa for US 63. There are four permutations, based on the locations of the start and end points of the bypass.

The south end would be either in direct line with gravel Jewell Avenue, or come at a slight angle from County Road G43. This is about where the IA 163 bypass of Oskaloosa from the old two-lane (former IA 432) begins. In either case, it is clear that US 63 is the subordinate route, and the overall distance will be longer than going through Oskaloosa.

The north end would be either by the Oskaloosa waterworks or farther to the north. The key difference is that the former does not include a new bridge over the Skunk River, but leaves intact a pair of slight curves of the road at and just north of where the bypass would meet present 63.

In either case, the bypass would meet the present road north of the railroad tracks, where a whole new overpass was recently built. If you look at the PDF maps (Option 1/2, Option 4/5), you can see a very old alignment for 63 just below (and beneath) the 63 and G39 shields.

Posted in Highway Miscellaneous | Comments Off on Oskaloosa bypass plans narrowed
Dec 19

Elma Elementary closed; is Lime Springs next?

Posted on Friday, December 19, 2014, at 12:17 PM by Jeff

“On roll call, all answered aye, although Duane Bodermann of Elma hesitated before voting to close his alma mater.”

After years of debate and declining enrollment, the Howard-Winneshiek school district closed Elma Elementary at the end of last school year, leaving only a preschool.

In the briefs posted at the Lime Springs Herald online news site, the news of the closure (source of the passage at top) also indicated that Lime Springs-Chester Elementary could follow if the district continues to lose students. Ridgeway Elementary closed in 2010.

Howard-Winneshiek is the third-largest school district in the state by area. Its population is weighted toward the east half of the district in Cresco. Elma sticks out on the west end. If you drew a line straight down Kent Avenue and attached Elma to Riceville, Elma students would have a closer school and Riceville would gain some much-needed enrollment. Of course, it doesn’t work that way.

The Howard-Winn district was briefly in the news earlier this year when it was discussing a potential renaming. The junior high and high school in Cresco are named “Crestwood” rather than Howard-Winneshiek JH/HS, and the teams are Crestwood in athletics matters (see, for example, the 3A football standings, where the Cadets went 0-9).

Howard-Winn is one of only two single-high-school districts in Iowa that has a name for the high school that is not the name of the district. The other, Cherokee, has Washington High School but only applies that to the building.

UPDATE: No change in Howard-Winneshiek name.

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Dec 17

Creation, analysis of retroactive football brackets

Posted on Wednesday, December 17, 2014, at 10:17 AM by Jeff

When the IHSAA said it would no longer pre-set a full bracket for the football postseason, instead setting up an “as-you-go” for each round, I wondered if there would be final brackets made after the finals. That did not happen.

So I made my own. I started with the championships, worked backward round by round, and then finally, determined seedings based on the order given in the online district standings. Here are the brackets: Class 8, Class A, Class 1A, Class 2A, Class 3A, Class 4A. The seeding is the district number plus the letter of finish, i.e. “5B” means the second-place team in District 5. Please note that they are not necessarily home team on top, as I did not have that information. Regular-season records are included for every team in the first round.

After looking at these retroactive or reverse-engineered brackets, here are some statistics of note. Remember: There are 192 teams overall and 96 first-round games overall.

  • Two 2-7 teams made it, both in 4A: Cedar Rapids Kennedy, which was technically third place in District 5 based on district record and point differential, and Clinton.
  • Three Four 3-6 teams were included: Des Moines Lincoln, Dubuque Wahlert, Underwood, and Lake Mills.
  • 21 teams had four wins (4-5), including 4-4 Des Moines East.
  • Nine teams with 7-2 records, as well as 8-1 Graettinger-Terril/Ruthven-Ayrshire, would have been left out in the previous 16-team-per-class postseason structure. There was a three-way logjam in 8-man District 2 with three teams posting 6-1 district records. This scenario is one of the justifications for the expanded postseason.
  • District champions played fourth-place teams with five exceptions: AHSTW and Panorama in 1A; Clear Lake in 2A; and Waverly-Shell Rock and Washington in Class 3A. They all played third-place teams.
  • There were only three games where the fourth-place team won: 8-man, Harris-Lake Park over district champion Boyer Valley; 3A, Webster City over district champion Ballard; 3A, Newton over Clear Creek Amana.
  • By the quarterfinals, there were only two third-place teams still alive, both in Class A: Denver and Earlham.
  • Four of the six classes, all except 1A and 4A, made their western Iowa District 1 teams play each other again in the first round. That was unavoidable given the geographic limitations. (However, 3A District 1 champ Sioux City Heelan ended up playing District 2 fourth-place Webster City in the next round anyway after the aforementioned upset.)
  • Overall, 16 first-round games were district rematches.
  • Class 4A had a clean east-west split in the two halves of the bracket. Class A would have had the same thing, generally south+west vs. north+east, if BGM and Van Buren had been swapped.

EDIT 6/16/15: Corrected number of 3-6 teams.

Posted in Schools, Sports | Comments Off on Creation, analysis of retroactive football brackets
Dec 16

Seymour school replacement vote narrowly fails

Posted on Tuesday, December 16, 2014, at 10:11 AM by Jeff


September 13, 2011: Top center of the original Seymour school building. Sadly, medieval-themed school flourishes just aren’t in vogue anymore.

In today’s climate, steady to slightly-higher student enrollment is a victory for small districts. The Seymour school district in Wayne County is among those so blessed.

Earlier this school year, the district campaigned for a new building to replace the oldest structure in its complex, partially seen above. Instead of rearranging everything, or moving across town, the district proposed to replace in place, putting the new two-story building in the same location as the three-story one. That can be a challenge especially when, as in Seymour’s case, structures have been added along three of the four sides.

Because bond issues require a supermajority, a Dec. 2 vote failed by 14 votes.

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