(Sioux County) The employees of the Sioux County Jail are among six county jails in Iowa being praised for going “above and beyond” the minimum state standards for those facilities.
Delbert Longley, the chief jail inspector for the Iowa Department of Corrections, selected the jails as the 2018 “Best of the Best” award winners.
The awards were recently handed out at an annual banquet held by the Iowa State Sheriffs and Deputies’ Association.
Longley commended all six for being responsive to the needs of inmates.
The jails also scored high marks for cleanliness.
Another priority for Longley is making sure the county employees keep “thorough and complete” records of all jail proceedings.
Besides Sioux County, the other top jails are located in Madison, Shelby, Iowa, Dubuque and Marshall counties.
(Undated) Hundreds of Iowa high school students may lose access to required foreign language classes if lawmakers don’t provide a cash infusion to a state-run initiative.
The program is called “Iowa Learning Online” and Iowa Department of Education director Ryan Wise uses the shorthand “I-LO” (EYE-loh) when discussing it.
The program was launched six years ago with an annual budget of one-and-a-half million dollars in state tax money.
That funding ended three years ago and schools are now charged 260 dollars for each online course offered to each student.
Once the fees went into effect, enrollment dropped by 40 percent and Wise says federal funding to supplement those fees is no longer available.
Wise says that’s especially critical for students in rural Iowa, and nearly 75 percent of the Iowa Learning Online courses being taken now are foreign languages.
Wise says about 17-hundred Iowa high school students are enrolled in the program’s online courses for this school year.
He’s asking the legislature and governor to provide half a million dollars in state tax money so the program can continue in the next school year.
MISSING ANCHOR
MASON CITY, Iowa (AP) – Police say tips have picked up on the 1995 disappearance of Iowa news anchor Jodi Huisentruit after she was featured on CBS’ “48 Hours” this month.
Mason City Police Chief Jeff Brinkley told the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier that police received at least two dozen calls and emails since the episode aired Dec. 15.
Brinkley didn’t comment on the information in the tips, citing the ongoing investigation. But he told the newspaper that he hopes the exposure from the program will help spur more people to come forward with information.
Huisentruit was 27 when she went missing on her way to work June 27, 1995, at station KIMT in Mason City. Investigators have never found Huisentruit, who was declared legally dead in 2001. No one has been charged in her disappearance.
SURPRISE CHRISTMAS SHOPPING SPREE-IOWA DEPUTIES
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) – Instead of issuing a ticket, two Iowa sheriff’s deputies have treated a woman to a Christmas shopping spree after pulling her over.
Television station KCCI on Monday reported that the Jasper County sheriff’s deputies pulled the woman over for not having license plates on her truck.
When they asked if she was ready for Christmas, she said “no.” Reserve Deputy Rod Eilander says she had no money and was on her way to borrow $10 from a friend to buy dinner for her kids. He also noticed that her gas tank was empty.
Instead of giving her a ticket, the deputies bought her children Christmas gifts at Walmart.
The deputies then wrapped the gifts at the Jasper County Sheriff’s Office as the woman went through donated clothes at the jail.
