Home News KLEM News PM Update April 15, 2011

KLEM News PM Update April 15, 2011

 (LE MARS) Forty-one volunteers working to change lives are in Honduras to help children and provide a basic need for life.

The Gehlen Catholic Mission Honduras trip began Thursday with a sendoff ceremony. Richard Seivert is the co-director of Gehlen Catholic Mission Honduras.

Listen here
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Through Gehlen Catholic Mission Honduras, Mission Honduras Le Mars and Rotary International. 28 water projects have been done in Honduras. This year’s water work is the last of five project done through a Rotary International grant spearheaded by Le Mars Rotary.

Students from Gehlen Catholic who are not part of the trip carry in dozens of bags weighing about 50 pounds each with donations to be left in Honduras and items the 41 travelers will need between the time they leave from Omaha for Honduras and their return from the mission trip. The bags are placed in the center of the Gehlen Catholic gym during a sendoff ceremony.

 

Gehlen Catholic Kindergarten students bear a wooden cross that will be placed in the center of a heart outline formed by the young people and adults making the Gehlen Catholic Mission Honduras trip, their families and clergy.

Also at the sendoff ceremony, two volunteers, Mission Honduras co-director Carolyn Bickford and Al Vonnahme of Gehlen Catholic Mission Honduras, Mission Honduras Le Mars and Then Feed Just one received the cross of Gehlen Catholic Mission Honduras for their years of service.

Listen here
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Vonnahme and Bickford will each do a blog about the trip at www.gehlenmissionhonduras.org

(LE MARS) Plymouth County residents who quality for a state credit on their house taxes or mobile home taxes may sign up before June 1st.

Treasurer Linda Dobson and her staff will offer have hours at communities outside of Le Mars beginning May 2nd.

The tax credit is for Iowa residents who own their own homes, are 65 years of age or older by December 31st of last year or are totally disabled and older than age 18 and also had a total household income under 20-thousand 741 dollars for 2010. The income amount includes Social Security earnings. Application can be made for rent reimbursement using the same qualifications.

Dobson asks those signing up for the credit to bring their 2010 income tax return, Social Security statement of earnings and other income information with them to her office at the courthouse or outlying areas.

Sign up is offered May 2nd at the Hinton Community building from 9-10 in the morning followed by a stop at the Merrill Civic Center from 10:15-11:15 in the morning on May 2nd. In Remsen, hours at the Remsen Library are May 3rd in the morning from nine to 11.

Dobson and her staff will offer sign up for the tax credit on May 4th at the Kingsley City Hall from nine in the morning until eleven and at the Akron Library from 9:30 to 11:30 a-m. Also on May 4th at the Westfield City Hall from 1-2 in the afternoon.

Application can be made for rent reimbursement using the same qualifications. Sign up is at any time between eight a-m and 5 p-m at the Courthouse treasurer’s office until

 

(LE MARS)–A bridge replacement project will close a portion of

a rural Plymouth County road northwest of Oyens beginning Monday.

Engineer Tom Rohe reported the closing plans for Noble Avenue from 150th Street to 160th Street.

Graves Construction of Spencer is the contractor for the new 130 by 30-foot concrete slab bridge. The cost for the work is 367-thousand dollars.

The area on Noble Avenue is expected to reopen at the end of July.

 

(SIOUX CITY)–Sioux City Police are searching for a man who robbed two convenience stores early Thursday morning.

Police report the man demanded money at the Kum and Go and Sinclair convenience stores, both in Morningside, between 3:45 and four Thursday morning.

He fled on foot from both robberies with an undisclosed amount of cash.

The suspect is described as a white male who is five foot six to five foot seven inches tall weighing about 145 pounds. He had a black semi-automatic style pistol.

Anyone with information is asked to call police or Crime Stoppers.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) Iowa’s top prosecutor is warning residents affected by last weekend’s outbreak of tornadoes to beware of scams that may follow.

Tornadoes hit western Iowa last Saturday. No deaths were reported. The Red Cross says 142 homes and businesses were damaged in Mapleton alone, where the damage was the worst.

Attorney General Tom Miller says residents who have storm damage need to watch out for con artists and consumer protection issues. Miller says price gouging is against the law in counties under a disaster declaration. He also says residents need to be wary of online schemes and charity scams.

(Copyright 2011 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

VERMILLION, S.D. (AP) Two University of South Dakota students have been arrested in a vandalism spree on campus.

The students are accused of damaging several properties with orange spray paint, including buildings, trees, vehicles, sidewalks and a statue of legendary faculty member William “Doc” Farber.

The students from Deadwood and Mitchell face a misdemeanor charge that’s punishable by up to a year in jail and a $1,000 fine.

(Copyright 2011 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) Republican U.S. Rep Tom Latham says he will run for election in Iowa’s new 3rd Congressional District in 2012.

Latham announced his decision Friday, a day after Iowa lawmakers approved a new congressional map, which reduced the number of districts in Iowa from five to four.

The move means Latham will seek the GOP nomination in a district that would include Polk County, the home of incumbent Democrat Congressman Leonard Boswell of Des Moines.

Under the new map, Latham found himself in the same district as Republican Rep. Steve King. It also means Latham will have to move his official residence from Ames to a city in the 3rd District, which includes Polk County and much of southwest Iowa.

JOHNSTON, Iowa (AP) Gov. Terry Branstad says he will sign into law a new map of congressional and legislative districts approved this week by the Legislature.

The governor says he spoke with all five of the state’s congressmen before reaching his decision. He says not all five are happy with the map, but agree a second plan could be worse. Slow growth in the state’s population led to the reduction in the number of Iowa’s congressional seats from five to four.

The governor says he will sign the new map as soon as it arrives in his office, which he expects to happen early next week.

He says during a taping Friday of Iowa Public Television’s “Iowa Press” program that the new map is fair and doesn’t give an edge to either party.

COLUMBUS JUNCTION, Iowa (AP) An investigation by the State Fire Marshal’s office has concluded that a fire at an apartment building in Columbus Junction last month that killed two residents was accidentally started, and originated on a kitchen stove.

The Iowa Department of Public Safety said Friday the investigation into the March 26 fire is completed. Killed in the blaze were 52-year-old Timothy Miles and 57-year-old James Mitchell, who were found dead inside the building by firefighters.

Two others were injured.

The department did not immediately release any more details about the cause of the fire.

DAKOTA CITY, Iowa (AP) Trial for a Minnesota teenager charged in last fall’s slayings of two Iowa convenience store clerks has been moved to Carroll County.

Michael Swanson is charged as an adult with first-degree murder and robbery in Kossuth and Humboldt counties. The St. Louis Park, Minn. teenager is accused of killing a clerk in Algona on Nov. 15, then driving to Humboldt and killing another clerk.

The 17-year-old’s attorney asked that the first of two trials be moved from Humboldt County to western Iowa because of extensive publicity. Prosecutors didn’t oppose the request.

The Fort Dodge Messenger reports that the trial is still set to begin June 20. The second trial is scheduled for July 27 in Kossuth County.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) Authorities say an Ohio man is charged with making a threatening phone call that led officials to cancel a training drill at an Iowa high school that involved a mock shooting.

The drill was scheduled for March 26 at Treynor High School in southwest Iowa. It was canceled the day before after authorities said a real shooting was threatened.

Pottawattamie County Sheriff Jeff Danker says Friday that Robin Elston was arrested on an Iowa warrant charging him with one count of threat of terrorism and one count of threats.

Danker says the Columbus, Ohio man is accused of leaving an expletive-laced message on the school’s phone that said the “training exercise might come into reality.”

Elston was brought to Iowa on Thursday.

(Copyright 2011 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)