Gehlen Jazz Band Selected For Iowa Jazz Championships
(Le Mars) — Gehlen Catholic’s Jazz Band has received a Wild Card invitation to the 2014 Iowa Jazz Championships (IJC), which will be held Tuesday, April 8th, at the Iowa Events and Convention Center. The IJC Committee met Sunday, March 16th, at Valley West Des Moines High School. The announcement was made Sunday evening at 7:00 p.m. To receive an automatic invitation for the IJC, jazz bands throughout all of Iowa’s six districts had to place 1st or 2nd in at their district qualifier.
To be considered for a Wild Card, jazz bands had to meet one of three criteria:
• Place 3rd at their district qualifier,
• Place 1st in an open contest, or
• Place higher than a qualifying jazz band at an open contest.
Director, Paul Niebuhr, stated, “Gehlen Catholic was placed on the Wild Card list earlier this year because we placed higher than a qualifying band at an open contest during the 2014 season.”
Niebuhr, says Gehlen was selected because of Gehlen Catholic’s 3rd place in Class 1A at the 2013 IJC, was unable to participate in Sunday’s discussions and vote for Class 1A. This is the fourth time in the school’s history Gehlen Catholic competed at the IJC.
King To Address Constituents In Le Mars
(Le Mars) — Iowa’s 4th District Republican Congressman, Steve King has announced he will be in Le Mars at the Le Mars Convention Center on Wednesday morning. Congress is on a spring break recess and King, is scheduled to address the crowd at 10:15 a.m. King will offer an update on legislative issues currently facing Congress. The public is welcome to attend.
Woodbury County Supervisor Defends Funding For Agency
SIOUX CITY, Iowa (AP) – The Woodbury County Board of Supervisors chairman is defending more than $180,000 in county funding for the nonprofit organization he manages.
George Boykin says that it would not be fair for Sanford Community Center to suffer because he’s on the county board.
Boykin is the center’s executive director. It operates after-school and summer programs for at-risk young people, as well as coordinates numerous outreach efforts.
Boykin says he has never had a say in funding that goes to the center and abstains from funding discussions on it.
James Van Bruggen, of the Taxpayers Research Council, says it seems to him that the center is “getting favoritism, because they are getting six figures of money.”
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House Republicans Want Senate To Act On Telemedicine Abortion Bill
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) – Republicans in the Iowa Senate want legislative leaders to revive a measure that would ban the remote distribution of abortion-inducing drugs.
The bill cleared the Republican-majority House, 55-42, but has since been declared dead in the Democratic-controlled Senate. In a press conference Monday, minority Republicans called on leaders in the Senate to bring the legislation to the floor for a vote.
The measure would prohibit the use of webcams or teleconferencing as a means of dispensing abortion pills to patients in remote locations.
Sen. Joe Bolkcom, a Democrat from Iowa City, says in a statement that such a measure would mean refusing health care for rural Iowans. Republican Sen. David Johnson, of Ocheyedan, says the ban is to protect the well-being of women across the state.
