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Cover Crop and Water Quality Field Day to be held near Oskaloosa November 4

Posted on by Sam Parsons

AMES, Iowa—Iowa Learning Farms will host a cover crop and water quality field day near Oskaloosa on Tuesday, November 4 from 12:00 p.m. to 2:00 p.m. at Drost Farms. The no-cost event is open to farmers and landowners and includes a complimentary meal.

This field day aims to equip attendees with best management practices for establishing and managing cover crops. Cover crops offer many benefits to farmers and landowners, including reduced soil erosion, weed suppression potential, reduced nitrogen and phosphorus loads entering water bodies, and increased organic matter in the soil.

Jackson and Amanda Drost are multi-generation farmers located in Mahaska County. While renting his first acres in 2002, Jackson has been involved on the farm as early as he can remember, noting that his dad would take him and the diaper bag with him to do field work and chores. Jackson is now passing down that love of farming to their sons, Richard and Andy, who have started their own popcorn business supplying the local Little League and selling to neighbors, friends, and family.

The Drosts raise corn, soybeans, and alfalfa along with an Angus cow-calf herd. Starting around 2010, the Drosts flew on their first acres of rye cover crop to graze with their cow-calf herd. Those initial acres have increased in recent years, and while using primarily rye and oats, they have begun incorporating other species like turnips and camelina. Additionally, they utilize buffer strips, contour farming, sediment basins, terraces, waterways, and are in the process of implementing a saturated buffer through EQIP.

In addition to the Drosts, the field day will feature Mark Licht, ISU Extension cropping systems specialist, sharing best management practices for cover crops during the field tour of nearby cover crops, weather permitting. The Iowa Learning Farms will present their Conservation Station On The Edge trailer and Liz Ripley, Iowa Learning Farms conservation and cover crop outreach specialist, will discuss a smart agricultural drainage project led by ISU researchers. Ryan Wolf with Iowa Missouri Seed, LLC will also be on hand to address cover crop questions.

The field day will be held at the Drost Farms located at 2215 212th St, Oskaloosa, IA 52577. The no-cost event and open to farmers and landowners, though we require reservations to ensure adequate space and food. For reasonable accommodations and to RSVP, please contact Liz Ripley at 515-294-5429 or ilf@iastate.edu by October 28.  Attendees will be entered in a drawing for ISU Prairie Strips honey.

Charges Filed Against EBF High School Student for Assault Incident

Posted on by Sam Parsons

EDDYVILLE – The student at Eddyville-Blakesburg-Fremont High School who was accused of assault earlier this month is now facing criminal charges.

The incident took place on October 7, when authorities in Wapello County were notified of a male student allegedly assaulting other students at approximately 1:35pm. The Wapello County Sheriff’s Office launched an investigation, which revealed that the student was also accused of breaking a classroom window and discharging a fire extinguisher. Multiple people were sent to the hospital as a result of the incident.

Following the investigation, deputies issued arrest warrants for 18-year-old Korbin Daniel Durbin of Fremont, and Durbin was arrested on October 17, when he turned himself in to the Wapello County Sheriff’s Office. He has since posted bond and has been released from custody, though he faces a total of 5 criminal charges, including 2 counts of simple assault, 4th degree criminal mischief, disorderly conduct, and 3rd degree harassment.

The Wapello County Sheriff’s Office was assisted in their investigation by EBF school officials and the Wapello County Attorney’s Office.

Ottumwa Superintendent Announces Retirement

Posted on by Sam Parsons

OTTUMWA – The superintendent of the Ottumwa Community School District has officially announced his retirement.

In a decision that was made public yesterday, superintendent Mike McGrory announced his intention to retire from the district at the end of this school year. The district published McGrory’s announcement letter to its Facebook page.

In his letter, he wrote that stepping down “was not an easy decision,” adding that serving as Ottumwa’s superintendent “has genuinely been one of the greatest honors and most rewarding experiences of my professional career.”

McGrory has been with the Ottumwa school district since the 2021-22 school year. His full retirement letter can be viewed here.

Massive Amazon cloud outage has been resolved after disrupting internet use worldwide

Posted on by Sam Parsons

LONDON (AP) — Amazon says a massive outage of its cloud computing service has been resolved as of Monday evening, after a problem disrupted internet use around the world, taking down a broad range of online services, including social media, gaming, food delivery, streaming and financial platforms.

The all-day disruption and the ensuing exasperation it caused served as the latest reminder that 21st century society is increasingly dependent on just a handful of companies for much of its internet technology, which seems to work reliably until it suddenly breaks down.

About three hours after the outage began early Monday morning, Amazon Web Services said it was starting to recover, but it wasn’t until 6 p.m. Eastern that “services returned to normal operations,” Amazon said on its AWS health website, where it tracks outages.

AWS provides behind-the-scenes cloud computing infrastructure to some of the world’s biggest organizations. Its customers include government departments, universities and businesses, including The Associated Press.

Cybersecurity expert Mike Chapple said “a slow and bumpy recovery process” is “entirely normal.”

As engineers roll out fixes across the cloud computing infrastructure, the process could trigger smaller disruptions, he said.

“It’s similar to what happens after a large-scale power outage: While a city’s power is coming back online, neighborhoods may see intermittent glitches as crews finish the repairs,” said Chapple, an information technology professor at the University of Notre Dame’s Mendoza College of Business.

Amazon blames domain name system

Amazon pinned the outage on issues related to its domain name system that converts web addresses into IP addresses, which are numeric designations that identify locations on the internet. Those addresses allow websites and apps to load on internet-connected devices.

DownDetector, a website that tracks online outages, said in a Facebook post that it received over 11 million user reports of problems at more than 2,500 companies. Users reported trouble with the social media site Snapchat, the Roblox and Fortnite video games, the online broker Robinhood and the McDonald’s app, as well as Netflix, Disney+ and many other services.

The cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase and the Signal chat app both said on X that they were experiencing trouble related to the outage.

Amazon’s own services were also affected. Users of the company’s Ring doorbell cameras and Alexa-powered smart speakers reported that they were not working, while others said they were unable to access the Amazon website or download books to their Kindle.

Many college and K-12 students were unable to submit or access their homework or course materials Monday because the AWS outage knocked out Canvas, a widely used educational platform.

“I currently can’t grade any online assignments, and my students can’t access their online materials” because of the outage’s effect on learning-management systems, said Damien P. Williams, a professor of philosophy and data science at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.

The exact number of schools impacted was not immediately known, but Canvas says on its website it is used by 50% of college and university students in North America, including all Ivy League schools in the U.S.

At the University of California, Riverside, students couldn’t submit assignments, take quizzes or access course materials, and online instruction was limited, the campus said.

Ohio State University informed its 70,000 students at all six campuses by email Monday morning that online course materials might be inaccessible due to the outage and that “students should connect with their instructors for any alternative plans.” As of 7:10 p.m. Eastern, access was restored, the university told students.

Record of past outages

This is not the first time issues with Amazon cloud services have caused widespread disruptions.

Many popular internet services were affected by a brief outage in 2023. AWS’s longest outage in recent history occurred in late 2021, when a wide range of companies — from airlines and auto dealerships to payment apps and video streaming services — were affected for more than five hours. Outages also happened in 2020 and 2017.

The first signs of trouble emerged at around 3:11 a.m. Eastern time, when AWS reported on its “health dashboard” that it was “investigating increased error rates and latencies for multiple AWS services in the US-EAST-1 Region.” Later, the company reported that there were “significant error rates” and that engineers were “actively working” on the problem.

Around 6 a.m. Eastern time, the company reported seeing recovery across most of the affected services and said it was seeking a “full resolution.” As of midday, AWS was still working to resolve the trouble.

Sixty-four internal AWS services were affected, the company said.

Just a few companies provide most internet infrastructure

Because much of the world now relies on three or four companies to provide the underlying infrastructure of the internet, “when there’s an issue like this, it can be really impactful” across many online services, said Patrick Burgess, a cybersecurity expert at U.K.-based BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT.

“The world now runs on the cloud,” Burgess said.

And because so much of the online world’s plumbing is underpinned by so few companies, when something goes wrong, “it’s very difficult for users to pinpoint what is happening because we don’t see Amazon, we just see Snapchat or Roblox,” Burgess said.

“The good news is that this kind of issue is usually relatively fast” to resolve, and there’s no indication that it was caused by a cyberattack, Burgess said.

“This looks like a good old-fashioned technology issue. Something’s gone wrong, and it will be fixed by Amazon,” he said.

There are “well-established processes” to deal with outages at AWS, as well as rivals Google and Microsoft, Burgess said, adding that such outages are usually over in “hours rather than days.”

School bus safety is the focus across Iowa this week

Posted on by Sam Parsons

By Pat Powers (Radio Iowa)

This is National School Bus Safety Awareness week. State Trooper Paul Gardner says drivers need to remember the buses are out there every week day through the school year.

“Be aware of how frequent these buses stop. They’re obviously carrying precious cargo, so when you’re having children that have to cross the street to get on or off a bus, we really want to emphasize how important it is to stop,” he says.

Gardner says be aware of the signals the buses are sending. “Amber lights come on warning drivers that they are needing to stop. And once the red lights come on, it is in violation to be passed or go past the school bus. When you have those red lights flashing,” Gardner says.

The Iowa State Patrol does the bus inspections for the state to look for any problems. “Make sure the red lights are working. Any kind of any kind of safety equipment such as first aid kits, fire distinguishers. Also things on the bus such as brakes, tires, anything that would become a safety hazard, we inspect those,” Gardner says.

National School Bus Safety Week is held during the third week of October every year.

OCSD Finance Director Announces Resignation

Posted on by Sam Parsons

OSKALOOSA – The Finance Director for the Oskaloosa Community School District announced her resignation yesterday.

Sarah McGriff tendered her resignation effective on November 17, 2025, and in her resignation letter to the district, she cited what she described as “personal vendettas” and a “smear campaign” targeting district superintendent Mike Fisher as reasons behind her decision.

McGriff alleged that three members of the school board “have continued to spread misinformation to damage reputations and erode trust to advance their personal agendas,” and praised superintendent Fisher, calling him a “compassionate, moral, and faith-driven leader.” She went on to reference a state audit that she described as “wasteful” that was conducted “out of spite” by board president Kathy Butler: McGriff wrote that “the board president and her allies” initiated the audit as “a direct attack on the integrity of both Dr. Fisher and me.”

The district’s next school board meeting will be held on October 28.

Oskaloosa City Council Passes First Reading of Alternate Enforcement Action Ordinance

Posted on by Sam Parsons

By Sam Parsons

The Oskaloosa city council held a regular meeting last night and passed the first reading of an ordinance for “Alternate Enforcement Action,” allowing city police to issue civil “notices of violation” in place of traditional citations or municipal infractions. The change affects specific minor traffic and municipal violations and enables those who commit the violations to pay a set civil penalty directly to the city. City staff said that the goal behind the change is to streamline enforcement, reduce court caseloads, and offer a more efficient and cost-effective option for addressing minor offenses, and that the model they followed is based on similar ordinances currently in use in several nearby cities, including Ottumwa and Bloomfield. They added that civil penalties being remitted directly to the city rather than through the state court system could potentially increase the city’s general fund revenue.

Notices of Violation may be issued for violations of city ordinances, including but not limited to: minor traffic violations, animal leash law/animal at-large violations, open burning/garbage burning, nuisance animal noise, animal immunization violations, violations of dangerous dog ordinance, and nuisance sound amplification.

The first reading of the ordinance was passed unanimously by the council. Two more readings of the ordinance need to be conducted before it is officially added to the municipal code.

The council also evaluated City Manager Shawn Metcalf’s performance at the 6-month mark of his employment with the city. The council praised Metcalf for following up on promises made during the hiring process and agreed to raise his salary by $5,000 from $165,000 to $170,000.

The next regular meeting for the Oskaloosa city council will be held on November 3.

Indians Drop Road Contest at Marion

Posted on by Sam Parsons

By Sam Parsons

The Oskaloosa Indians remained winless on the season following a road trip to Marion that yielded a 21-13 defeat at the hands of the Wolves.

The game featured two offenses that had been struggling mightily on the season: Marion and Oskaloosa’s offenses had been shut out 7 combined times and had been averaging under 7 points per game over the previous month of action. Friday night’s contest began with both of those units continuing to search for answers, as no points were scored in the entire first half. The Wolves had been able to move the ball with some success, but their drives stalled in Oskaloosa territory when they entered it. The high point for the Indians defense came late in the 2nd quarter when junior defensive back Courtland Metier picked off Marion QB Lucas Stearns deep in Indians territory to prevent the Wolves from striking first.

When the second half began, the rain got started. After a dry first half, the second half was characterized by the onslaught of rain and slippery footballs. It was also characterized by a sudden explosion of action.

Oskaloosa’s Omar Garcia got the second half underway with a squib kick that the Indians were able to recover at the Marion 32 yard line after a member of the Wolves saw the ball ricochet off his chest plate. Two plays later, Osky QB Tyler Edgar scampered to the end zone from 27 yards out to put the Indians on the board with a 6-0 lead. On the extra point, Edgar served as the holder, and he got hit hard after kicker Ayden Plumb split the uprights. That resulted in a 15 yard personal foul penalty for Marion, which prompted a vocal response from a Marion player who was flagged for an additional 15 yard unsportsmanlike conduct penalty that got him ejected from the game.

The 30 yards in penalties allowed Omar Garcia to kick the ball off from the Marion 30 yard line, prompting an onside kick attempt that he executed perfectly: Osky recovered the kick and scored 2 plays later, courtesy of a short TD run from senior Brock Beerbower. The PAT was blocked, and Osky’s lead stood at 13-0.

Unfortunately for Oskaloosa, Marion was able to reenter the game in a hurry. On their first offensive play of the 2nd half, they ran a trick play, pitching the ball to slot back Logan Hendricks, who then threw it deep to Matt Danninger, who was all alone past the Indians’ secondary and took it 84 yards to the end zone to cut the lead to 13-7. In the first 90 seconds of the second half, 20 points were scored by the two teams, after 0 points were scored in the first 2 quarters.

Marion maintained their momentum by locking down the Osky offense and striking again with a 24 yard touchdown run late in the 3rd quarter to take a 14-13 lead. The Indians appeared to be on their way to responding with a score when they embarked on a 13-play drive that began at the end of the 3rd quarter and bled into the 4th, but they were turned away on a 4th-and-2 rushing attempt at the Marion 26 yard line. Late in the 4th quarter, Marion put a dagger in Osky’s hopes with a 46-yard TD run to extend their lead to 8 points with under 2 1/2 minutes left. With the rainy conditions, getting the passing game down the field in such little time proved to be too big of a mountain to climb, and the final score was 21-13 in favor of the Wolves.

Oskaloosa (0-8) will travel to Clear Creek Amana on Friday night (10/24) to close out their season. The game will be broadcast on KBOE 104.9 FM and kboeradio.com starting at 7pm.

Iowa DOT getting equipment ready for winter work

Posted on by Sam Parsons

By Dar Danielson (Radio Iowa)

October continues to remain unseasonably warm, but the Iowa DOT has started putting snow plows and salt spreaders on some trucks.

Winter Operations director Craig Bargfrede says they start their winter prep every year at this time. “We have to start installing the wedge tanks in the back of the truck that holds some of our liquid brine, installing the spreaders and what not on the back end of the truck, getting the plows out and getting them mounted. Making sure everything is set and ready to go,” Bargfrede says. They check all the controls to make sure the plows go up and down and the right amount of salt or salt brine is being spread.

Bargfrede says the big orange trucks are used year round, so they have to start getting some set up for winter operations. “We’re continuing to do summer time, fall maintenance activities, getting those projects wrapped up,” he says, “but yeah we still have to have a certain percentage of trucks ready to go should we get anything that we need to go out and do some application or do some plowing.”

Bargfrede has been overseeing winter operations for 12 years and says planning ahead is always the key.
“I think we got a good routine, yes. But you know, there’s always those crazy things that get tossed at you that make you kind of take a step back and go ‘hmm’, never had that happen before,” he says.

The wind storm last March in western Iowa that toppled power poles like dominoes is an example of Mother Nature throwing in something new.  “When we had to close I-29 down, that’s the first time in my career that I’ve had to close down the interstate because we had live power lines down across the interstate. So obviously that was a huge safety issue,” Bargfrede says.

The DOT hires a lot of part-time workers to help them handle winter operations and Bargfrede says they are still looking to fill the ranks. “So if anyone is interested in coming to work for us part time, contact the nearest DOT garage. Last I saw, would have been the end of last week, I think we had about 175 of those 630 positions that have been not filled. So we’re getting a good start,” he says.

The DOT has 1,072 full-time equipment operators, mechanics, and supervisors to go along with the temporary employees. The equipment fleet includes 910 trucks, 40 motor graders, 33 tow plows, and 10 heavy-duty, self-propelled snowblowers.

Oskaloosa City Council to Meet Tonight

Posted on by Sam Parsons

By Sam Parsons

The Oskaloosa City Council has a regular meeting scheduled for tonight. The council will receive an update on their 28E agreement with Wastewater, as well as a monthly update on the YMCA Natatorium Completion project. They will also receive the Fiscal Year 2025 annual report on operations for each city department. 

Other items on the agenda include a public hearing for the adoption of the amended and restated City-Wide Housing Urban Revitalization Plan, a discussion regarding the replacement of the concrete walls surrounding the city square, and an evaluation of the City Manager’s performance and possible salary adjustment (from $165,000 to $170,000) as mandated by his employment contract with the city.

The meeting will begin at 6pm in the Oskaloosa City Hall council chambers.

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