Saturday News, March 11th

(Des Moines) — A former Le Mars Community school district teacher was honored this week at the Iowa High School Boys State Basketball Tournament. Craig Ihnen was the recipient of the prestigous Bernie Saggau Award of Merit.

Ihnen is currently the executive director of the Iowa High School Speech Association, and the Associate Executive Director of the Iowa Girls High School Athletic Union. Ihnen directs speech, theater, and debate activities for over 40,000 Iowa high school students, and 378 member schools. He is also in charge of coordinating
judges training for over 700 certified IHSSA judges, and annual coaches convention attended by over 260 individual coaches and 42 district and state contests per season. Craig has been the National Chair of the NFHS speech, theater, and debate committee and also has served the national office as a
committee member for three terms or 12 years. He has also served in the Educational Theater Association as a National Leadership Coach for 12 years. He has been a member of the EDTA National IE Committee and has worked in the tab
room and help run the IE Contest at the national festival. Ihnen has also been the state tournament Class 1A Tennis Manager for the IHSAA for the last 29 years. He has served the IHSAA on the State Tennis Committee and Master of Ceremonies for the Governor Scholar Day since its conception. Ihnen has received two awards from the USTA Missouri Valley Tennis Section with the last one being the Distinguished Service Award for youth tennis. He has been the coordinator of tennis and swimming for the Iowa Girls High School Athetic Union and assists with other events.  Ihnen taught speech at Le Mars Community between 1981 and 1994.

(Des Moines) — This past week the Iowa Legislature passed a gun rights 2nd Amendment bill, referred to as”Stand Your Ground”. The bill was controversial, but essentially it allows a home owner the opportunity to defend themselves if
they feel threaten by an intruder. State Representative Chuck Holz, a republican from Le Mars, explains the premise of the bill.

Holz says the permit to carry a gun provisions has been modified with in the bill.

Holz says the bill passed along party lines.

SIOUX CITY, Iowa (AP) – A woman has pleaded not guilty to a charge related to a chase and a Sioux City man’s gunfight with a sheriff’s deputy.
27-year-old Brittney Hood, of Sioux City, entered the plea Thursday to a charge of eluding.
Authorities say she was driving a vehicle carrying 24-year-old Melvin Spencer and another man on Feb. 26 when a deputy tried to pull her over. Prosecutors say she sped away but finally stopped and fled on foot into a field, where the deputy caught her.
Authorities say Spencer then drove away in the vehicle and later exchanged shots with another deputy. The other man in the vehicle was wounded.
Spencer’s been charged with attempted murder. His attorney hasn’t returned calls seeking comment.

GRAETTINGER, Iowa (AP) – The Palo Alto County Sheriff’s Office says residents of three households that were evacuated near the site of a train derailment and fire in northwest Iowa have been allowed to return home. The department says the three homes were each at least a half-mile from the site, where the ethanol-
fueled fire was still burning late Friday afternoon.

MAXWELL, Iowa (AP) – An official says a fire that burned hundreds of acres of grassland at a Polk County wildlife area appears to have been intentionally set.
Doug Romig says the fire was reported early Friday at the Chichaqua Wildlife Area, near Maxwell in northeast Polk County.
Firefighters had extinguished most of the fire by midday Friday, but by then it had burned up to 700 acres of grassland. No structures were damaged and no one was injured.
Romig says the fire appears to have started in three spots, so it likely was intentionally set.
Although the fire didn’t cause damage, Romig says it could have destroyed structures if not for the quick work of firefighters and conservation officers.
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DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) – Iowa agriculture officials say a beetle that infects and eventually kills ash trees has been found in two more counties.
The emerald ash borer is now confirmed in Grand Junction in Greene County and in Corydon in Wayne County.
The insect has now been confirmed in 43 Iowa counties.
The adult ash borer is metallic green and measures about one-half inch long. It can be noticed during the summer months.
Infected trees usually lose leaves at the top of the canopy and the die-off spreads downward. Trees usually die within two to four years.
A federal quarantine, enforced by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, remains in effect restricting movement of hardwood firewood and ash articles out of Iowa into non-quarantined areas of other states.
Iowans should use only local firewood.