By ANDREW MCGINN
a.mcginn@beeherald.com

’Twas the night before Christmas, when all through The Hague, not a creature in the detention facility was stirring, except for maybe an elderly Bosnian Serb army commander on trial for genocide.

No, it doesn’t rhyme.

Then again, for Pat McNulty, there’s hardly anything traditional about the way he’s spending this Christmas.

He’s far from his own bed, and after the testimony he’s read, might have visions of mass graves dancing in his head.

The Jefferson native, now officially retired after a 36-year law career in Des Moines, is at The Hague in the Netherlands, helping the United Nations prosecute Gen. Ratko Mladic, on trial for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes for his role in the conflict between 1992 and 1995 that claimed more than 100,000 lives in Bosnia and Herzegovina in the former Yugoslavia.

“What’s this kid from Jefferson doing in The Hague?” McNulty, 64, has found himself asking ever since he began work in the Office of the Prosecutor in September.

Technically, McNulty is just an intern.

“Needless to say,” he confessed, “I’m the oldest intern.”

The 1969 graduate of Jefferson Community High School — who served as assistant attorney general for the state of Iowa from 1977 to 1981 before joining the firm of Grefe & Sidney, where he retired as a senior partner — thought an internship with the U.N. tribunal sounded “fascinating.”

He went online and applied.

“It’s really a small role,” McNulty explained by phone, “but there’s a sense of history.”

“My role is small,” he reiterated, “but I’m witnessing it.”

What he’s a witness to is the first international war crimes tribunal since World War II, when trials in Nuremberg, Germany, and Tokyo sent surviving Nazi and Japanese leaders to the gallows.

Those trials introduced the terms “crimes against humanity” and “war crimes.”

The death penalty is now off the table, but the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, or ICTY, was established back in 1993 to hold those in senior positions accountable for a litany of horrific crimes across the Balkans following the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe.

“The facts are incredibly gruesome,” McNulty said.

Mladic has been on trial since May 2012, having been captured in 2011 after evading arrest for 16 years.

“He’s pretty calm,” McNulty said, describing Mladic in court. “He’s 72 years old, and he looks like he’s 72 years old.”

The trials themselves seem to be about as complex as the very ethnic fighting that ripped apart Yugoslavia in the ’90s.

Since the tribunal opened, 161 people have been indicted, with 80 sentences and 18 acquittals. The trials have so far generated 2.5 million pages of transcripts.

A judgment in Mladic’s trial isn’t expected until November 2017.

Three judges will decide whether he’ll spend the rest of his life in prison.

“I think they’re up to 7,000 exhibits in the prosecution case,” McNulty said.

McNulty is one of more than a dozen interns assisting with document collection and preparation — tasks he was doing, he said, as a 25-year-old lawyer in Des Moines.

“There’s never a dull moment,” he said.

Needless to say, though, this is new territory for a longtime civil lawyer.

“Our generation,” McNulty explained, “we grew up and all we knew about war crimes was watching Spencer Tracy in ‘Judgment at Nuremberg.’ That’s my point of reference.”

Some things have gone unchanged from the photos of Nazis on trial at Nuremberg, particularly the two guards flanking a headphones-clad defendant.

Since September, McNulty has been in court once, when he helped cross-examine a Portuguese diplomat who tried unsuccessfully to broker peace talks in Bosnia in 1992.

“I wouldn’t trade the experience for anything,” he said.

Lawyers are there from all over the world, he said, and the interns are mostly young lawyers from Bosnia, Croatia and Serbia.

“There’s a part of you that wishes you were in there asking questions,” McNulty said. “You can’t get rid of that impulse.”

Mladic, McNulty said, was “the number one guy in the Bosnian Serb army,” and at one point was the most wanted man in Europe.

“The case appears to be strong,” McNulty said, adding that Mladic’s motion for acquittal in 2014 was denied. “These are very serious charges, one of which is genocide.”

Mladic is accused of executing at least 7,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys in the town of Srebrenica in July 1995, an act the tribunal ruled to be genocide.

It marked the worst mass murder in Europe since World War II.

He’s also accused of establishing and carrying out a campaign of sniping and shelling against the civilian population of Sarajevo, the Bosnian capital.

McNulty described the proceedings as fascinating and gruesome at the same time.

“It’s opened my eyes to international law,” he said.

Admittedly, he didn’t know much about the 1990s turmoil in the Balkans.

He remembers his daughters in Urbandale attending school with Bosnian Muslims who came to Iowa during the war, and he recalls a Time magazine cover of emaciated Muslims in a Serbian prison camp that eerily recalled scenes from World War II.

The ICTY is trying war crimes and crimes against humanity committed between 1991 and 2001 across the former Yugoslavian republics of Bosnia, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Slovenia.

For Americans at least, the many conflicts were personified by Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic, who supported Serb separatists like Mladic in Bosnia.

Milosevic died of a heart attack in 2006 while in detention at The Hague, four years into his own trial in which he defended himself.

McNulty will continue to play his small role in history through February, when his internship ends.

His wife of 33 years, Mary Kundrat, a classmate in the class of ’69, is with him in the Netherlands.

When asked what she thought about his task at The Hague, he’s quick to note that he sought her permission before applying.

But it hasn’t been all work and no play.

“All roads eventually lead to Jefferson,” McNulty said.

This fall, he and Mary caught a show in Amsterdam by Dick Oatts, the jazz saxophonist who graduated from Jefferson two years after them, in 1971.

“You’re never too far from Jefferson,” he said.

“Needless to say,” McNulty added, “he was a bit surprised.”

By ANDREW MCGINN
a.mcginn@beeherald.com

There’s no question that Dan Meythaler has a sharp eye.

He’s the kind of wedding photographer who sees the potential for a good shot anywhere, like on the escalators at the Iowa Events Center in Des Moines, where a reception was taking place.

“One was going up and one was going down,” Meythaler said.

He put the bride and groom on opposite escalators — and captured the moment when they met with a kiss.

“The first one they completely missed,” he explained. “They were a little drunk.”

But even a drunk uncle whose cellphone pictures are always inexplicably blurry could’ve easily eyed a building in downtown Jefferson for Meythaler Photography to call home — the century-old building they bought is the one that needed the least work.

And that’s saying something.

“We have a lot of work ahead of us,” Meythaler, 28, said last week as he looked around his new, 130-year-old investment at 122 E. State St. that most recently served as the Metro Club.

“Tore out the bar last night,” he added.

The 35-foot bar had to be cut into 13-foot pieces to be removed.

“And it was solid,” Meythaler said.

The arrival in Jefferson of Meythaler and wife Britt, 29, both Fort Dodge natives, runs counter to how migration patterns in Iowa have worked for about the past 20 years.

Instead of leaving rural Iowa for Des Moines, they left Des Moines for rural Iowa, selling their Windsor Heights home — and their garage, which doubled as their photo studio — for a new life in Jefferson for their young family, which includes a 2-year-old son, Cooper.

The sale of their building on the Square was final as of Dec. 4.

“We stopped in here probably three times,” Meythaler said, describing how they began shopping earlier in the year for a new home for Meythaler Photography.

Jefferson proved to be picture-perfect, geography-wise, for the Meythalers — nearer to family in Fort Dodge, close to friends in Carroll and Ames, and within driving distance to existing customers in Des Moines.

“Jefferson is dead center for all of it for us,” Meythaler said.

“And,” he added, “there’s no actual studio here.”

They’ll also soon scout out a house in Jefferson, according to Meythaler, who kicked aside an air mattress and apologized for the stray Nerf darts left over from breaks in renovation work.

“With our son, we wanted a smaller community,” he said. “This is peaceful.”

For the time being, they’re living with parents in Fort Dodge.

Meythaler hopes the business will be up and running in late February or early March, although they’ve already booked a few gigs.

The business began six years ago when Meythaler, a 2006 graduate of Fort Dodge Senior High, realized a love of photography.

He’d been working for Gannett, the parent company of the Des Moines Register, as an image specialist, editing photos to run in the company’s numerous newspapers across the country.

Entirely self-taught, he began his photo business as a “shoot and burn” operation — for $500, he’d shoot your special occasion and give you a disc of photos in return.

His first paying job was a neighbor’s wedding.

“If I could go back and do that day over,” he recalled, “I would.”

He’s since done close to 50 weddings, not to mention senior pictures, family portraits and more.

This past October, they were trying to sell their house in Windsor Heights at the height of family photo season.

“Everybody wants the fall leaves,” Meythaler said.

He and Britt did 13 family sessions that month, but ultimately had to pass another 20 sessions onto other photographers.

Dan Meythaler is the business’ primary shooter, although Britt, a 2004 St. Edmond grad, shoots weddings as well, in addition to duties keeping the business together “and making sure I’m on task,” Meythaler said.

Their work is decidedly modern.

In other words, these aren’t your parents’ wedding photos. And senior pictures have changed from the days when all you had to do was put a kid in a chair with their hand on their chin.

Meythaler is always open to new ideas.

“You can be sitting there watching a movie and think, ‘Man, that light from back looks cool on James Bond,’ ” he said.

He also takes cues from the music he plays while working.

“It can completely change everything,” he said. “Things just pop into your head.”

One of the best things about moving to the country?

He’s looking forward to being able to use smoke bombs, which give off a cool effect for four to five minutes.

In Des Moines, they were frowned on by the fire department, he said.

And why is Des Moines so cool again?

Come to rural Iowa, where there’s enough room for everyone to burn something.

Special to The Jefferson Herald

Grant applications for 2016 funding from Grow Greene County and the Greene County Community Foundation are now available at growgreenecounty.org.

Grow Greene County will accept grant applications for $35,000 or more, while the Community Foundation will accept applications for less than $35,000.

The due date for applications to either group is Feb. 11.

Grow Greene County expects to grant about $200,000 in its first competitive grant cycle.

“This competitive grant total is separate from non-competitive grants to be allocated to Greene County municipalities and school districts, counties contiguous to Greene County, and other recipients. That total is about $500,000,” said Grow Greene County president Norm Fandel.

Fandel emphasized that the grants represent only half a year of operations from Wild Rose Jefferson, which opened in July.  

Next year’s totals will come from the proceeds of the full 2016 year.

The Community Foundation has received gaming proceeds from the state as a non-gaming county and has awarded grants totaling $900,000 to nonprofit organizations the past 10 years.
With the opening of Wild Rose Jefferson, Grow Greene County agreed to continue funding the Community Foundation for at least the same level. The Community Foundation anticipates having at least $100,000 to award in the 2016 grant cycle.

“We have reduced the amount of matching funds required this year, which should make it easier for nonprofit organizations to qualify for Community Foundation grants. We really encourage organizations around the county to submit a grant application this year,” said Linda Hedges, co-chair of the Community Foundation’s grant-making committee.

The Community Foundation will fund up to 75 percent of a project.

Grow Greene County, with its own grants, specifies only that it will not fund 100 percent of a project.

Community Foundation grant application forms are available at the county’s public libraries and at the Investment Center office at Home State Bank in Jefferson, in addition to the Grow Greene County website.

A grant writing workshop is planned for 7 p.m. Tuesday at the Greene County Extension office for those who have questions about the Community Foundation grant process.

Community Foundation board members will score applications on Feb. 20, and grants will be awarded and available March 28.

By DOUGLAS BURNS
d.burns@carrollspaper.com

PANORA — Cheryl Castile echoed other Guthrie County supporters of Ben Carson in describing the physician’s White House campaign as long on Christian conviction, light on self promotion.

“He just really connects with every person so individually,” Castile said. “You can relate to him because he is so real. I think one of the things that really brought things together is his ability to really use common sense.”

Castile, who chairs Carson’s efforts in Guthrie County, added, “There’s not one ounce of ego.”

Carson, a retired neurosurgeon and best-selling author living in West Palm Beach, Fla., drew about 300 people to Veterans Auditorium in downtown Panora Wednesday afternoon for a speech and question-and-answer session.

Carson compared modern America to the Roman Empire before its fall, saying voters today are “rightly worried.”

“What will bring America down is the ‘what-can-you-do-for-me’ mentality,” Carson said.

Carson said he’s visited 57 nations, but never encountered one with the force of ideas found in the United States.

“Is there a Canadian dream or a French dream or a Brazilian dream or Nigerian dream?” he asked.

Carson pulled sustained applause when he said Muslims who accept Sharia (Islamic) law hold views that are incompatible with American democracy and should not be elected to the presidency.

“We have an incredible culture, and American way,” he said.

Immigrants of all faiths and races should be accepted into the United States as long as they are properly screened and willing to assimilate, Carson said.

“If they want to change us, they need to stay where they are,” he said.

Vietnam War-era Air Force veteran Bob Lebischak, of Guthrie Center, asked Carson if he’d place constraints on the U.S. military to prevent men and women in uniform from doing their jobs in combat zones.

“There is no such thing as a politically correct war,” Carson said.

Moving to economic issues, Carson proposes a six-month tax hiatus for companies who bring the money back to the United States. His only requirement: 10 percent of that money must be invested in poorer parts of the nation in so-called enterprise zones.

“That would be the biggest stimulus since FDR’s New Deal and it wouldn’t cost the taxpayers a penny,” Carson said.

Citizens for Tax Justice and the U.S. Public Interest Research Group Education Fund reports that the 500 largest American companies hold more than $2.1 trillion in accumulated profits offshore to avoid U.S. taxes, and would collectively owe an estimated $620 billion in U.S. taxes if they repatriated the funds, according to Reuters.

Another Carson proposal: keep students responsible for the principal payments on college loans, but require the colleges they attend to pick up the interest costs.

“It’s always about skin in the game,” he said, predicting that post-secondary costs would fall under such an arrangement.

Carson also pledged strong support for the 2nd Amendment and criticized the Obama administration’s efforts at more restrictions on gun sales through executive orders.

“Taking guns away from law-abiding citizens does nothing,” Carson said.

Several presidential candidates have visited Guthrie County this cycle, but Carson is only the second, along with former U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, to campaign in Panora.

“It speaks well of Panora, really,” said Tom Bacon, a resident of the city who also serves as chairman of the Veterans Board that oversees the auditorium.

He helped organize the event, which involved a heavy Secret Service presence.

Juanita Greenlee, 76, of Panora, said she plans to support Carson in the Iowa Republican presidential caucuses.

“I like his faith,” said Greenlee, who attends the Baptist Church in Guthrie Center. “I like his willingness to put it on the front line. I like his quiet demeanor. I like the way he realizes he can’t do it all. He’s going to need some help, but he’s going to pick the help that knows what needs to be done. I think he has a very reasonable agenda.”

Greenlee said she would like to see a Carson-Sen. Ted Cruz ticket, but wondered if the Texas Republican senator would have the humility to politically co-pilot a White House run for Carson.

“I doubt it,” she said. “But they might actually compliment each other.”

Mike Arganbright said Carson has strong philosophical moorings.

“The things I liked about his message is it’s back to the basics that made us a great country,” said Arganbright, 76, a retired lieutenant colonel in the Air Force living in rural Guthrie County, southeast of Panora.

Carson was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor in the land, in 2008.

In 2001, Carson was named by CNN and Time magazine as one of the nation’s 20 foremost physicians and scientists.

Carson is a prolific writer and author, having published eight books, including his autobiography, “Gifted Hands,” and two titles that were New York Times bestsellers, “America the Beautiful,” “Rediscovering What Made This Nation Great,” and “One Nation, What We All Can Do to Save America’s Future,” which was on the New York Times Best Sellers List for 20 weeks, five of those weeks at No. 1.

“Gifted Hands” was the subject of the award-winning, made-for-television movie under the same title in which Cuba Gooding Jr. played Carson in the leading role.

“He may be too smart to run for president,” joked Craig Williams, of Manning, a member of the Iowa Republican Party’s state central committee who is neutral in the presidential caucuses at this point.

Carson in Jefferson: How to go
Who: Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson
When: 11:45 a.m. Monday, Jan. 11; doors open at 10:30 a.m.
Where: Abundant Life Ministries, 1308 W. Lincoln Way

Staff report
As Norm Fandel, president of the Grow Greene County Gaming Corp., noted, this is exactly why the county wanted a casino.

With separate pledges of $100,000 — for a total of $200,000 — Wild Rose Casino and Grow Greene County have pushed the Greene County Medical Center’s $4 million capital campaign beyond its goal.

“This is the vision the board had in getting the casino in Greene County — using the funds on projects like the medical center’s,” Fandel said this week in a statement. “With revenues available on an annual basis, we are looking for projects like this to enhance and improve lives in Greene County.  

“It is a privilege, as well as rewarding, to be a part of a successful project like the medical center’s. We look forward to new projects to enhance more lives far into the future.”

The “Investing in Tomorrow’s Care” capital campaign, co-chaired by community leaders Rick Morain and John Gerken, was jump-started in early 2014 with an anonymous, $2 million gift.

To Morain’s knowledge, the $4 million campaign is the largest, non-governmental fundraising effort in Greene County history.

“This combined gift clearly shows the commitment that Wild Rose Casino and the Grow Greene County Gaming Corporation has to helping this community grow,” Medical Center CEO Carl Behne said. “We are extremely grateful for both of these gifts.”

Since 2014, an additional $2 million was raised, but it was end-of-year commitments from Wild Rose and Grow Greene County that took the campaign over its goal.

The campaign was launched in support of a major expansion and renovation project at the medical center, which is expected to be complete this summer.

Phase one was finished in September, and includes a 52,000-square-foot expansion on the east end of the medical center campus, which features a more visible and accessible ER.

By ANDREW MCGINN
a.mcginn@beeherald.com

In the final push to the Iowa caucuses, Ben Carson might be the living embodiment of “Speak softly and carry a big stick.”

The fabled neurosurgeon’s delivery on the campaign trail is soothing to the point that it has to be wondered if he ever even needed an anesthesiologist for a single one of his 15,000 career operations.

But since Dec. 31, the 2016 Republican presidential candidate has been carrying around a big stick in the form of a two-star general, and during one of two introductions of Dr. Carson Monday in Jefferson at Abundant Life Ministries, Retired Army Maj. Gen. Bob Dees said Carson has the “right reflexes” to be commander in chief.

Dees said Carson is the most qualified candidate based on a career spent making life or death decisions when the phone rings at 2 in the morning.

“That’s been his whole life,” said Dees, who was named Carson’s campaign chairman during a widely publicized campaign shakeup during the holidays.

For his first appearance in Jefferson — not counting a confusing, Carson-less visit to town before Christmas by the candidate’s tour bus — Carson also was joined by leadership expert, author and pastor John C. Maxwell, who essentially vouched for Carson as the anti-Trump.

“Ben Carson is a man who is bigger on the inside than he is on the outside,” Maxwell said, explaining that Carson has “got his act together.”

“And God knows we need leadership,” Maxwell added.

Speaking to a crowd of about 140 — the largest yet in Greene County this caucus season for a candidate — Carson highlighted his new, 14.9-percent flat tax plan, called for a six-month hiatus on corporate taxes in order to bring more than $2.1 trillion back to U.S. shores and repeatedly said he’s not a politician.

He said he was looking forward to retirement — after 29 years as director of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins Children’s Center in Baltimore — when he undertook a presidential bid funded by the people.

“I was never going to have to set an alarm clock again,” he joked.

Carson said he believes special interests are ruining the country, which is why he forgoes money from “billionaires.”

“The pundits forgot about one important source of funding: We the people,” Carson said.

That much was evident by a booth set up Monday in the church lobby to sell Carson hats, buttons and other memorabilia. The guy running the booth was particularly proud of a button with Carson’s head on Superman’s body proclaiming, “SUPERBEN 2016.”

Whether he’ll be able to beat Republican frontrunner Lex Luthor — er, Donald Trump — in Iowa on Feb. 1 isn’t looking likely.

According to a new poll of Iowa Republicans released Monday by Quinnipiac University, Trump continues to lead the field of GOP candidates with 31 percent support, followed by U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, of Texas, with 29 percent and U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, of Florida, with 15 percent.

In the new poll, Carson finds himself in fourth place with 7 percent support (down from 10 percent in Quinnipiac’s December poll).

Even so, Jefferson Republican Matt Gordon, who attended the event Monday at Abundant Life wanting to hear Carson in person, said he believes the former surgeon is the most electable of his party’s candidates.

“Carson has a chance,” Gordon said, saying he feels Carson is one of the most honest and intelligent candidates. “And I don’t think we need another lifelong politician in office. We need something different.”

Gordon said he also likes Carson’s Christian values, which Carson himself would reference multiple times during his speech.

Only the second person behind Billy Graham to be asked to speak twice at the National Prayer Breakfast, Carson provided some insight into “Gifted Hands,” the title of his autobiography, saying he once encountered a 4-year-old boy with a seemingly inoperable brain stem tumor.

“The parents said, ‘The Lord is going to heal our son,’ ” Carson recalled.

Even Carson doubted whether surgery would be successful.

“Today,” Carson said, “he is a minister.”

“From then on,” he added, “God became the neurosurgeon and I became the hands.”

He said he based his tax plan — in which deductions and all loopholes would be eliminated  and everyone would be assessed a flat, 14.9 percent rate — on the Bible and the concept of tithing.

God, he said, didn’t say to give triple in the event of a bumper harvest.

“There must be something fair about proportionality if it works for God,” he said.

Carson also presented himself as a Washington outsider, saying the government has $200 trillion in unfunded liabilities (including Medicare and Medicaid), yet holds trillions in assets and owns 900,000 buildings (77,000 of which are underused).

“We don’t run the government like a business,” he said. “We run it like amateur hour.”

His six-month hiatus on corporate taxes to bring trillions back to the U.S. from overseas would stipulate only that 10 percent has to be used in poor parts of the nation he calls enterprise zones.

“That would be the biggest stimulus deal since FDR’s New Deal and wouldn’t cost taxpayers anything,” he said.

He also said that the U.S. was designed by and for the people, saying that when the government begins to dictate, as in the case of the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare), it “changes America.”

“If we accept it, it’s really the beginning of the end of America as we know it,” he said.

Carson fielded only three questions from the public during his visit, which was marked by a heavy Secret Service presence.

Carson’s wife, Candy, made a brief cameo on stage at the end of his remarks, delighting the crowd with her only words: “I’m Candy Carson and I approve this message.”

By MATTHEW REZAB
m.rezab@carrollspaper.com

ALTOONA — Gov. Terry Branstad wants Ted Cruz defeated.

With an unconventional intervention just two weeks before the Iowa caucuses, Branstad battered presidential hopeful Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, calling him the “big oil” candidate and saying it would be a “big mistake” for Iowans to support him.

The comments came at a news conference after Branstad spoke at the Iowa Renewable Fuels Summit in Altoona on Tuesday.

“Ted Cruz is ahead right now,” Branstad told reporters. “What we’re trying to do is educate the people in the state of Iowa. (Cruz) is the biggest opponent of renewable fuels. He actually introduced a bill in 2013 to immediately eliminate the Renewable Fuel Standard. He’s heavily financed by big oil. So we think once Iowans realize that fact, they might find other things attractive but he could be very damaging to our state.”

Branstad has generally stayed clear of endorsing or criticizing Republican presidential candidates during his six terms prior to the caucuses.

The lone exception was his endorsement of Republican White House contender Bob Dole, then a U.S. senator from Kansas, during the 1996 GOP nominating cycle. In his role as a former governor in 2000, Branstad supported George W. Bush prior to the Iowa caucuses.

Cruz, who is either leading or a close second in most Iowa polls, did not immediately respond to Branstad, but the campaign emailed supporters asking for donations.

“The longest serving Republican career politician in the nation and his politically connected family is coordinating with establishment politicians and super PACs to lead an 11th hour attack against us and sink our campaign,” the email partially read.

Cruz’s lack of support for the Renewable Fuel Standard has put him in the crosshairs of biofuel supporters.

The Renewable Fuel Standard is a federal program that requires transportation fuel sold in the U.S. to contain a minimum volume of renewable fuels. The RFS originated with the Energy Policy Act of 2005 and was expanded and extended by the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007. Control of fuel standards is set to become the providence of the EPA in 2022 unless Congress extends the program.

Critics cite the Cruz-sponsored 2013 “Renewable Fuel Standards Repeal Act” and his ties with the oil industry as reason for concern. Cruz did declare support for the RFS until it expires in 2022 at a recent campaign stop in Sioux Center.

According to Politico, Cruz did respond to reporters’ questions later Tuesday afternoon. He said this attack was all about the “establishment” and “cronyism” in Washington.

“I’m saying Iowa corn farmers are wonderful Americans, but Iowa corn farmers are not career politicians,” Cruz said, taking another shot at Branstad. “Iowa corn farmers are frustrated with career politicians. They’re fed up with politicians who make deals every day to grow government, to expand the debt.”

Other candidates, especially front-runner Donald Trump, jumped at the opportunity to pile on Cruz.

“Wow, the highly respected Governor of Iowa just stated that ‘Ted Cruz must be defeated.’ Big (shocker)! People do not like Ted,” Trump wrote on Twitter.

U.S. Rep. Steve King, a Kiron Republican and high-profile Cruz supporter, called Branstad’s move an “unendorsement,” saying that Branstad is supporting Donald Trump by default, according to the Associated Press.

The most recent Des Moines Register/Bloomberg poll shows Cruz with a 25 percent to 22 percent lead over Trump among those likely to attend the Republican caucuses Feb. 1.

By REBECCA MCKINSEY
r.mckinsey@carrollspaper.com

TEMPLETON — With his young head held proudly high, he picked his way through the fields between Templeton and Manning on a frigid Friday morning.

Cars and trucks lined the highway to watch him as, undeterred, he roamed, a distinct black figure on otherwise unmarked white snow.
Frozen toes slid across ice and fell through packed snow, cold hands rolled down windows and chilled fingers snapped shutters as area residents took in the rare sight — a moose in the wild, in Iowa.

It’s possible the moose came from Minnesota, one of the closest states that has the animals, said Dan Pauley, a conservation officer with the Iowa Department of Natural Resources who covers Carroll and Greene counties.

If so, it’s likely from the northern part of the state, as moose don’t roam freely in southern Minnesota — so Western Iowa’s visitor has traveled a long way. DNR officials who received reports of the moose or saw it believe it was near Early, traveled toward Atlantic and then headed toward Templeton and Manning, Pauley said.

In the past, he added, moose who have ventured into Iowa have found their way home, although others have been illegally shot.

Pauley estimated the young bull is one or two years old, based on the size of his antlers. Those who saw the animal estimated he stood six or seven feet tall.

This isn’t the first time moose have been spotted in Iowa, but it’s unusual. The animals aren’t native to Iowa because they need marshy, lowland habitats, Pauley said.

“This is a rarity,” he said.

The DNR doesn’t take action when a moose is spotted in the area.

“We let it go, just let it roam and let people enjoy seeing it,” he said.

Sylvia and Dave Sporrer, who live near Templeton, were among several people who spent a few hours watching the moose Friday morning. They drove back and forth on one stretch of road south of Highway 141 several times as the moose roamed through fields in the area. At one point, it crossed the road right in front of them, clearing a fence and continuing on its way.

“It looked like it hopped the fence, but it had such long, dangling legs, it just stepped over it,” Sylvia said with a laugh.

It was less than 20 degrees out that morning, but that didn’t stop passers-by from rolling down their windows to try to snap pictures of the animal.

“Even semi trucks along the highway stopped and were watching it,” Dave said.

Although those watching the moose said their presence likely made him move around more than he would have otherwise, they noted that he never seemed intimidated.

“He never ran hard — he never was in any hurry,” Dave said.

The couple said seeing the animal in the wild in Iowa was likely a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

“We love seeing wildlife,” Sylvia said. “When I was a little kid, it was amazing thing to see a deer, and now that’s a normal experience. To see a moose — we’ll probably never see one out in the wild again.”

Moose are protected in Iowa and can’t be hunted, Pauley said.

“I really enjoyed watching him, and I think the public really enjoyed watching him,” Pauley said. “I personally think it’s really neat that the Iowa people get to see a moose in the wild; that’s something unusual, and they may never get that opportunity again.

“It’s really cool. I really hope nobody causes it any harm.”

A hunter who shoots and kills one could be fined more than $3,000, Pauley said. It’s also possible they could lose hunting privileges for at least a year.

He added that other than posing the same threat to cars on the road that deer would, moose typically aren’t dangerous animals and wouldn’t threaten people.

It’s unusual for a moose to travel this far, and although some wondered if an illness had caused the animal to become disoriented and wander into the state, it’s possible he simply got lost, Pauley said.

“He might just be a young moose who was looking for females in the fall who went south, got into Iowa and didn’t know his way back,” he said.

In the meantime, the visiting animal has been an interesting diversion for those braving the cold.

“It’s brought so much joy to people watching it,” Sylvia said. “I hope nobody shoots it or that it doesn’t get hit on the road.”

They haven’t heard of anyone seeing the animal since Saturday.

“I’m kinda worried about him,” Sylvia added. “It was cold this weekend — I hope the moose was OK.”

Although, she noted with a laugh, if he’s from up north, he’s used to it.

“Maybe he’s like the rest of us and just wanted to go south for the winter,” she said. “That’s why he came here — he’s heading south toward Florida.”

But they hope he turns around.

“I feel sorry for it,” Pauley said. “It’s gotta be lonely — there are no other moose in Iowa. I hope he finds his way back home.”

By MATTHEW REZAB
Jefferson Herald staff

In advance of an impending application for a Community Development Block Grant to spruce up building facades downtown, the Jefferson city council last week unanimously approved a set of non-binding downtown building design guidelines.

Peg Raney, Jefferson Matters: Main Street program director, said the guidelines are part of an effort to help business owners stay consistent with historical preservation standards and are really suggestions for do’s and don’ts when renovating or remodeling a business.

Jefferson building inspector Nick Sorensen said he reviewed the guidelines to make sure they don’t contradict with existing building codes.

“It’s nice because while it’s non-binding, it opens up a dialog a little bit between myself and property owners,” Sorensen said. “Maintenance can be tricky and it’s nice to make sure everything is in order.”

Because of a suggestion by Main Street: Iowa, a design committee was assembled by Jefferson Matters: Main Street to produce guidelines for business owners about four years ago. Those suggestions were recently updated at the suggestion of City Administrator Mike Palmer.

The guidelines are only applicable to buildings located downtown.

Highlights include encouraging the maintenance of or restoring the traditional facade, storefront configurations and architectural design, while discouraging adding elements not original to the building, changing roof design and the use of vinyl or metal screen/storm doors.

Raney said it’s really about educating business owners.

“We’re trying to emphasize the educational aspect of understanding how (renovations) make our Main Street district become more involved in historic preservation,” Raney said. “That’s been a goal of Main Street, and the city of Jefferson is onboard with that.”

While the suggestions are non-binding, Raney said now was a good time to establish the guidelines because so many downtown businesses will be affected if the CDBG is approved by the state. She said the architects — Franks Design Group — have already been meeting with individual business owners to review what can or should be done to their properties.

Raney said interest in the grant project has been high and she believes the involvement of about 20 businesses would be ideal. The application is due Feb. 5.

“In order to be a part of the application, we‘ve sent business owners a letter of commitment they need to sign (and return) with $500 to be held in escrow to save their spot,” Raney said. “This is a requirement of the application because they need to know who is interested in being involved.”
 

By ANDREW McGINN
a.mcginn@beeherald.com

Back in the summer of 1983, longtime Bee & Herald columnist Fred Jess wrote in his ever-innocuous “Etc.” column of a chance meeting with a Jefferson native in the men’s room of a Clear Lake restaurant.

Like all good Iowans encountering one another for the first time in a public bathroom, the conversation centered around the weather.

One thing led to another, and Jess divulged he was from Jefferson.

“Wow,” the stranger said, “I graduated from JHS!”

It turned out to be Randy Weaver, a member of Jefferson High’s class of 1966.

“He and his wife Vicki and three kids have lived in Cedar Falls for about 10 years,” Jess reported, “but at the time they were on their way to a new home in far northern Idaho.”

We all know how that story ended.

The details of the story still bend and change depending on who tells it — from the family’s very rationale for moving to the Pacific Northwest to how an FBI sniper came to take up position 200 yards from their cabin home in 1992 —  but it always ends the same way, with Vicki Weaver, their 14-year-old son and a U.S. marshal shot dead.

What happened at Ruby Ridge in Idaho more than 23 years ago continues to haunt the federal government and inspire those who distrust it.

“After Ruby Ridge and Waco, authorities keep a low profile in Oregon,” a headline in the Los Angeles Times read earlier this month.

“Ghost of Waco stays FBI’s hand in Oregon siege,” read the Jan. 6 headline in Newsweek for a story that makes mention of Ruby Ridge, that 20-acre patch of wilderness near the Canadian border where Jefferson’s Randy Weaver and his family garnered national attention in 1992 during an 11-day standoff with federal agents that began with a simple weapons charge.

Randy Weaver’s oldest daughter, Sara, who was 16 and standing right beside her mother when the sniper’s bullet passed through her head, has now watched the Bundy family of Nevada take two stands against the federal government in as many years.

“They’ve been given some second and third chances, and those chances need to be put to good,” Sara Weaver, 39, explained last week during a phone interview from her home in Montana, her first interview on the subject and also her first interview with The Jefferson Herald.

On Jan. 2, a group of militiamen led by brothers Ammon and Ryan Bundy began their occupation of a national wildlife refuge in Oregon to protest the federal prison sentences of two ranchers.

They want federal land turned back over to ranchers and loggers.

In 2014, rancher and family patriarch Cliven Bundy stared down federal agents with a “citizen militia” over unpaid fees for grazing on federal land in a belief that the federal government can’t own land.

He still owes the federal government more than $1 million.

That first time, the feds withdrew.

This time, there are seemingly more Facebook memes poking fun at the militiamen than there are armed agents at the ready.

Sara Weaver believes she sacrificed a mother and brother so that future lives could be spared.

“I hope it’s not taken lightly,” she said.

Sara Weaver, who wound up living briefly in Grand Junction with father Randy in the aftermath of Ruby Ridge, has emerged in recent years as the public face of the Weaver family, finding her calling as an author and speaker.

“My dad was just joking with me, ‘You’re my PR girl,’ ” said Sara Weaver, who also repurposes furniture on the side.

To date, she maintains that the best interview she’s ever done on Ruby Ridge was in 2010 with the one and only William Shatner, believe it or not, for his Biography Channel series “Aftermath.”

“He had the guts to go ahead and do it,” Sara Weaver said. “He’s just a really personable guy and just really easy to talk to.”

The Weaver family bid farewell to Greene County in the late ’90s, looking for a fresh start after being awarded $3.1 million in a wrongful death suit against the government. (The government settled out of court, with one Department of Justice official back in 1995 indicating that the family probably would have been awarded $200 million had it gone to trial in Idaho.)

Today, Randy Weaver and his three daughters — Sara, Rachel and Elisheba — live within 25 miles of each other in northwest Montana, Sara Weaver said.

“There was just a big hole in me,” Sara Weaver said. “I saw the Northwest as my home. Iowa was foreign to me.”

“I felt like Idaho was too painful,” she added. “Montana just had a romantic ring to it.”

She was the first to leave in 1996. Her dad and sisters soon followed.

Now 68, Randy Weaver doesn’t grant many interviews, Sara Weaver said.

Admittedly, he’s been having a “rough time” health-wise, she said, but he’s “on the upswing now.”

Sara Weaver refuses to answer questions on behalf of her dad, saying she can only speak for herself.

With the 2012 publication of her book, “From Ruby Ridge to Freedom,” Sara Weaver came into her own, publicly forgiving the federal agents who shot and killed her mother and brother.

“People are super surprised,” she said. “It makes them question their own emotions and their own grudges and what they hold onto.”

“That’s the gift out of it,” she added. “In the end, this wasn’t for nothing.”

Her embrace of Christianity has allowed her to forgive, and has helped others to forgive as well.

“Everyone has their own Ruby Ridge in their life,” she said.

But she doesn’t believe we should ever forget.

“We don’t want to make the same mistakes,” said Weaver, who’s also been featured in recent years on the “700 Club.”

Ruby Ridge is now a permanent part of the nation’s psyche.

Had it never happened, federal agents may very well have already put the hammer down on the Bundys.

Without Ruby Ridge, there likely wouldn’t be a marketplace for “Don’t Tread On Me” flags, either.

But what Sara Weaver espouses is a belief that both sides need to take a step back.

“The government should listen to her people,” she said. “And the people should listen to their government. There has to be a compromise.”

Sara Weaver is hoping to have a revised copy of her book out later this year.

Last summer, she returned to Ruby Ridge with a crew from the PBS series “American Experience” for a documentary to premiere in 2017 on the anti-government fervor of the ’90s, which culminated in the bombing of a federal building in Oklahoma City by Timothy McVeigh in 1995.

While their cabin is long gone, she and her sisters still own the land.

This time, she took her 14-year-old son Dawson, from her first marriage, with her to Ruby Ridge for the first time.

The “American Experience” filmmakers followed her as she left flowers for her mom, Vicki, and brother, Sam.

“It’s painful in both good and bad ways,” Sara Weaver said. “It’s a place I can feel close to them and let them go at the same time.”

In recent years, Sara Weaver also has trademarked the name Ruby Ridge, a name the media cobbled together in 1992 from Ruby Creek Drainage and Caribou Ridge.

Not long after her marriage seven years ago to a man she met at church named Marc — they refrain from giving out his last name to protect what little privacy they have — a friend asked if she’d ever Googled herself.

“What I found was not representative of my life or what God had done in my life,” she said. “I found a lot of anger and hatred and people using it as a platform for their own violent ideas.”

That’s not the legacy she wants her son to someday inherit.

“People take liberty with your life, your story, your pain,” she said.

She still remembers hearing the words “Ruby Ridge” as a motivating factor in McVeigh’s decision to bomb a federal building.

“I wanted to crawl into a hole,” she said.

“Don’t take life in my name and think you’re doing something good,” she continued. “I’ve lost those close to me in a violent manner, and I wouldn’t wish that on anybody.”

Eleven days
The aggressive tactics used by federal agents in August 1992 at Ruby Ridge — and again in 1993 at the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas — reaffirmed a belief that without the Second Amendment, we’re this side of a police state.

Others just call it paranoia.

At the time, Randy Weaver was suspected of having ties to white supremacists when he sold two sawed-off shotguns to a government informant.

When he, in turn, refused to become an informant himself, the government pursued weapons charges against him.

One missed court date later and U.S. marshals were on his property. Things instantly escalated when marshals shot the family dog, whose barking gave them away.

The incident is widely regarded as a debacle for the government, from the FBI never announcing its presence to the sniper’s shot that mistakenly killed Vicki Weaver, a Fort Dodge native, as she held her 10-month-old daughter.

Intended for family friend Kevin Harris, the shot would later be declared unconstitutional because Harris and Randy Weaver were running for cover.

The saga made for a TV movie in 1996, “The Siege at Ruby Ridge,” starring Randy Quaid as Randy Weaver and Laura Dern as Vicki Weaver.

Kirsten Dunst played Sara.

“I wanted to throw my TV out the window,” Sara Weaver said. “It made us look like a bunch of idiots.”

“And,” she added, “I don’t have blond hair.”

The movie, she said, portrayed the family as wackos. (Ironically, Randy Quaid turned out to be way nuttier in real life. Have you seen him lately?)

In the aftermath of the siege, the FBI sniper, Lon Horiuchi, was acquitted of manslaughter. Harris also was acquitted of all charges. Randy Weaver was acquitted of the most serious charges, serving 18 months for failure to appear.

It was during that time that Sara Weaver and her sisters were sent to live with family in Iowa.

Sara Weaver was enrolled in Johnston High School, graduating in 1994.

For a girl who had been home-schooled up until that point by parents who taught their children to fear the God of the Old Testament, Johnston High School proved to be a surreal place to wind up.

“I felt like an alien,” she recalled.

She still remembers the twin girls who received matching cars for their birthday.

“I couldn’t relate to that,” she said.

Kids at school asked few questions about the family’s ordeal in Idaho.

“I think they were too afraid to approach me about it,” Sara Weaver said.

After graduation, she moved to Grand Junction to be with her dad and sisters. According to a 1995 New York Times story, Randy Weaver had to stay in Iowa under the terms of his probation.

Sara Weaver found work in Jefferson at the Sierra Theatre and the now-defunct Family Table restaurant.

In September 1995, the same month he testified before a Senate hearing on Ruby Ridge, Randy Weaver also served as the marshal of East Greene High School’s Homecoming parade.

“I know I wasn’t a super-happy person,” Sara Weaver remembered. “The people of Grand Junction were great. I myself was a very guarded person.”

She struggled with depression and PTSD.

She also rejected God for a long time, she said, knowing how devoted her mom was, in particular.

She felt God turned his back on them.

“I definitely still do have triggers,” Sara Weaver said. “When a helicopter flies over my house, my first reaction is to hit the deck.”

The memories have scarcely faded.

“I can go right back there,” she said. “It’s always there, but the pain doesn’t have as much control over me.”

She last visited Iowa in 2013 for a grandmother’s funeral.

The drive back to Iowa that year with son Dawson reminded her of that initial trip to Idaho in the early ’80s that Fred Jess chronicled by chance in the local newspaper.

She remembers the family stopping at the Corn Palace, Reptile Gardens and other tourist attractions during their move West.

“When we made the trip to Iowa, we were able to stop at those same places,” Sara Weaver explained. “It was very full circle.”

Sara Weaver online
Stay up to date on Sara Weaver’s writing and speaking career at rubyridgetofreedom.com.

By ANDREW McGINN
a.mcginn@beeherald.com

Jefferson firefighters still weren’t sure at daylight Wednesday what caused an overnight fire that left the Pizza Ranch scorched.

A fire inside the North Wilson Avenue business was reported about 12:15 a.m. Wednesday,  Jefferson Fire Chief Randy Love said, still on the scene after more than eight hours.

“We could look through the windows and see flames in the kitchen area,” Love said. “And it was full of smoke.”

Firefighters knocked out a front window to gain access to the popular downtown eatery.

“The kitchen was pretty much fully engulfed,” he said.

Firefighters also quickly noticed fire in a back office area, in addition to the basement.

The blaze was largely brought under control within an hour and a half, he said.

“We’ve been fighting it all morning through all the roof levels,” Love said.

No one was hurt fighting the fire, Love said, although the January cold caused some slush to form in the water lines.

He estimated they used 25,000 gallons of water on the fire.

The Jefferson Fire Department was assisted on scene by the Grand Junction and Churdan fire departments. A ladder truck was called from Carroll, but firefighters ultimately didn’t need it.

At the start of business Wednesday, nearby businesses were each dealing in their own way with the thick smell of smoke.

Greene Bean Coffee chose to temporarily close, with a sign saying to watch their Facebook page for updates. Employees could be seen cleaning the large storefront windows from the inside.

Aside from yellow caution tape wrapped around the building and the broken front window, the exterior Wednesday of Pizza Ranch appeared mostly undamaged to a parade of onlookers driving and walking by.

“This is a bad block,” Jefferson resident Noel Drewry observed.

The fire recalled a January 2013 blaze just a few doors down — three years ago, almost to the day — that ravaged Larry’s Restaurant and Lounge after three decades of business. Witnesses then reported seeing flames 20 to 30 feet in the air.

By ANDREW MCGINN
a.mcginn@beeherald.com

At 74, is Bernie Sanders too old to be elected president?

Susan Sarandon put it into perspective Wednesday during a stop on behalf of the Democratic presidential candidate at Homestead Coffee and Bakery that drew upwards of 150 to see, hear and seek autographs from an Oscar winner.

“In my business,” she explained, “when you were 40, you were done.”

Sarandon is now 69 and remains no less an A-lister than when she co-starred in “Bull Durham,” a movie she made, coincidentally, when she was 41.

“Age is a really evil concept,” she said. “It’s a great thing to get past that.”

Sarandon, a well-known progressive activist, was the latest this week in an invading army of celebrity surrogates in Iowa for presidential candidates leading up to Monday’s caucuses.

Sanders, a U.S. senator from Vermont, has seen his support surge among Iowa Democrats in the month of January. A new poll released Wednesday by Quinnipiac University showed Sanders holding onto his lead in Iowa with 49 percent support to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s 45 percent.

Clinton, for her part, sent actress Jamie Lee Curtis out onto the campaign trail earlier in the week, visiting Carroll on Sunday.

Frankly, pitting one of the original horror movie scream queens (Curtis) against Janet from “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” (Sarandon) clearly shows how eager the two camps are to lock up the cult-movie fan vote.

Sarandon — who won an Oscar for her 1995 role as death penalty opponent Sister Helen Prejean in “Dead Man Walking” — believes Iowa on Monday could again upset the status quo like the state did in 2008, when Barack Obama won the Iowa caucuses from under Clinton.

“You guys are so cool,” she said. “You didn’t listen to what anyone was saying. You were the state that proudly got him going.”

“Iowa,” she added later, “did the right thing before.”
The 2016 election, however, might be the last time a grassroots candidate like Sanders could have a viable shot at the White House in the post-Citizens United era, according to Sarandon.

In other words, corporations and special interests are driving our democracy off a cliff — and as one half of Thelma and Louise, Sarandon knows a thing or two about driving off cliffs.

This election is the last time, Sarandon said, “that there ever will be a candidate who can get to this point who isn’t owned.”

Sarandon spoke of her opposition to Clinton, citing the then-senator’s vote in favor of the Iraq War, in particular.

“It was not cool to question the war,” she said.

She also said Clinton has been slow to come around on issues such as gay rights and the minimum wage — issues Sanders has long supported. (He also voted against the war in Iraq.)

“As a woman,” Sarandon said, “I find it incredibly patronizing to assume I’m going to vote for a woman.”

Sarandon complained about the national media’s lack of coverage of Sanders, other than being Hillary Clinton’s opponent.

“The first thing anybody says is, ‘He could never get elected,’ ” Sarandon said.

“Nobody can give you a reason why he can’t get elected,” she added.

The democratic socialism he touts, she said, is lifted straight from FDR.

In a Q&A after her remarks, Sarandon, a New Yorker, was asked her thoughts on Donald Trump, the Big Apple billionaire and Republican front-runner.

“In the beginning, Trump was funny,” Sarandon said, adding that he’s since “normalized” hatred.

“He’s running out of material when he brings Sarah Palin in,” Sarandon said to laughs, adding, “He reminds me of your drunk uncle at a wedding.”

Patti Edwardson, of Churdan, who co-stars in a Sanders TV commercial with partner and Greene County farmer George Naylor, said she admires Sarandon’s activism.

“She has the stature to bring people out,” Edwardson noted.

Jamie Kelley, 35, and wife Ronda came to the event Wednesday from Boone as first and foremost Sanders supporters.

“And we brought our Blu-ray of ‘Bull Durham’ for her to sign,” Jamie Kelley, an independent voter, said beforehand.

Ronda Kelley, a native of Canada who works as a librarian and waitress in Boone, is hoping to become a U.S. citizen by Election Day.

She likes Sanders’ single-payer, Canadian-style health care plan.

“I’ve never had to pay for anything,” Ronda Kelley said of health care back home in Ontario.

It’s safe to assume that more than a few people in attendance Wednesday were on hand just for the rare sight of a movie star in Jefferson.

Sarandon’s visit could very well go down in local history, much like when Donna Reed came to town in 1942 to sell war bonds. At that time, the Denison native was relatively new to Hollywood, too.

Nhan Nguyen, co-owner of Homestead Coffee and Bakery, was admittedly skeptical at first that someone of Sarandon’s stature would be coming to Jefferson.

“I thought it was a hoax,” he confessed.

All morning Wednesday, he said, the phone rang at Homestead from people wondering the same thing.

“I remember watching her in ‘Thelma & Louise’  and ‘Rocky Horror.’ She’s just awesome,” Nguyen raved.

“I get celebrity-struck,” he added. “I want my selfie with her.”

Staff report
A Jefferson man who began serving a five-year prison term for theft on Dec. 28 escaped Friday night from the Greene County Jail, but was found several blocks away inside a camper.

Andrew Lee Jensen, 33, had been brought back to Greene County on Jan. 28 from the Iowa Medical and Classification Center in Coralville for a court date related to the theft of a pickup from the Jefferson Hy-Vee in October, according to Greene County Sheriff Steve Haupert.

That was the truck Jensen was driving when he fled from police in Perry, touching off a chase.

Shortly before 10:15 p.m. Friday, Jensen showed his determination to keep running, reportedly bolting from the Greene County Jail as he was being taken back to his cell, according to a Greene County Sheriff’s Office report.

Jensen made his way out the front door of the Greene County Law Enforcement Center by running through an unlocked security door and then by throwing the weight of his body through another door adjacent to the visitation area.

It took just minutes for Jefferson police to find Jensen inside a fifth-wheel camper in a backyard in the 300 block of East Harrison Street. He was arrested without incident.

A deputy charged Jensen with escape and criminal mischief.

Jensen’s Oct. 26 chase in Dallas County ended about five miles south of Minburn, where stop sticks were deployed. He then ran from the pickup into a pasture, where he was taken into custody.

Ironically, the Greene County hearing Jensen was brought back for was postponed, Haupert said.

Haupert said deputies transported Jensen back to Coralville on Monday.

By ANDREW MCGINN
a.mcginn@beeherald.com
The Uptown Cafe is that kind of place where you don’t need KCCI to tell you how much snow we’re supposed to get, or how much rain just fell.

Inside, where they like their coffee black, you don’t need the local newspaper to tell you who got pulled over for speeding.

They know who’s at home with a bum knee and who’s not at home at all.

But the one thing the regulars didn’t see coming was the recent sale of the Uptown Cafe itself by Wayne and Beth Hougham to Wayne’s brother, Ora Stevens, and his partner, Nhan Nguyen.

“A lot of people are surprised they sold,” Stevens said last week.

A Grand Junction native and restaurant industry veteran who returned home to Greene County in 2013 from California with Nguyen to open Homestead Coffee & Bakery on the Square, Stevens has been spending most of his time since the Jan. 1 sale out front answering the questions of regulars.

“I’m just reassuring people that the menu is staying the same,” Stevens, 48, said, “and that the people are staying the same.”
“Don’t panic,” he joked. “Everything’s good to go.”

The Uptown is that kind of place.
“People come in here multiple times a day,” Stevens explained. “They’re vested into it being their own little restaurant. They don’t want to see changes.”

That’s the very reason Nguyen and Stevens bought the Uptown.

“This restaurant is established,” Stevens said. “It’s a mainstay in Jefferson.”

“I’m just going to maintain what we’ve got,” he added.

In other words, Homestead’s lattes will be contained to Homestead.

“This is not your latte crowd,” Stevens said. “Over here, it’s just regular, black coffee.”

In fact, if he’s heard anything repeatedly since taking over the cafe, it’s this: “Don’t mess with the coffee.”

The Uptown crowd savors its Farmer Brothers-brand coffee.

Stevens is happy to oblige if it means he gets a restaurant of his very own.

“It just kind of happened,” he said of the recent sale, explaining that the Houghams were ready to retire.

A 1986 graduate of East Greene High School, Stevens always wanted to own a restaurant. His partner, Nguyen, always wanted his own coffeeshop.

“He has his coffeeshop and I finally have my restaurant,” Stevens said.

When Homestead opened in July 2013 at the corner of Lincoln Way and Chestnut Street, the goal was to eventually open a higher-class restaurant in the back of the building.

That’s still the plan, Stevens said, with the Uptown Cafe now providing them with a reliable stream of income to make it happen.

When anyone outside of Iowa thinks of the Iowa caucuses, it’s safe to say they automatically picture a place like the Uptown, which the Houghams owned for close to 20 years. It’s a gathering place for real Iowans to eat real food and have real conversations over semi-real coffee.

“They want that home-cooked meal, and a place they can get it everyday,” Stevens said.

Every four years, a candidate or two seemingly drops in to shake hands.

This past September, the Uptown’s pies were named the best on the 89-mile-long Raccoon River Valley Trail after months of voting.

In his first month as owner, Stevens has been working his way through the Uptown’s entire menu.

“I was just saying these pants were loose when I started,” he joked.

If change comes to the Uptown at all, it will be slow and methodical.

“It is what it is,” Elaine McDowell, the longest-tenured of the Uptown’s 13 employees, said of the change in ownership as she ladled gravy onto a plate. “So far so good.”

Valentine’s Day will see the Uptown open on a Sunday night for possibly the first time in existence.

Stevens would like to add regular Saturday night hours in March, followed by Thursday nights if all goes well.

Stevens, who spent his last six years in San Jose, Calif., as an area manager of eight Chipotle restaurants, and Nguyen, a Californian who last served as an assistant manager at a Starbucks, knew they would have better luck opening their own business in Stevens’ native Greene County than on the coast.

“I’m from here. I grew up here,” Stevens said. “It’s more of a supportive community. Out there, you’re just another business going in.”

But aside from helping introduce the concept of fancy coffee drinks to small-town Iowa, Stevens and Nguyen are also expanding horizons just by being themselves as an openly gay couple.

In another era, they probably would have been all the talk over breakfast at, well, the Uptown Cafe.

“We are who we are, and that’s how it’s going to be,” Stevens said. “If you just strengthen up your back, you can be who you are.

“The world has changed.”

But for the love of God, don’t mess with the coffee.

By DOUGLAS BURNS
d.burns@carrollspaper.com

LAKE PANORAMA — The apple is still the apple of Jerald Deal’s eye.

But there’s more to this iconic Greene County orchard west of Jefferson than pies and cider.

“More and more, people are starting to look for an experience,” said Benji Deal, a member of the family who has operated Deal’s for 99 years — and its hard cider maker.

That means, among other things, a pumpkin cannon, a fun-lover’s device that fires the Halloween-time vegetables for sport.

“It shoots probably a good quarter mile,” said Jerald Deal, the patriarch of the orchard operations.

The Deals spoke Jan. 28 at the Midwest Partnership economic development annual dinner at the Lake Panorama National Conference Center in Panora. The organization supports progress in Adair, Audubon, Greene and Guthrie counties.

In 1917, the Deals planted 16 acres in apple trees. Jerald Deal, the youngest of three children, and only son of Forrest and Edna, joined in partnership with his father in 1974.

Now, his wife, Cindy, and their sons Chris and Benji are involved in the family project.

Deal’s today has 46 acres of apples, 10 acres of sweet corn, 10 acres of pumpkins and 4 acres of Christmas trees.

About five years ago, Deal’s got involved in producing hard cider. In 2015, the business distilled 1,200 gallons for sale in many stores in the region, including Hy-Vee and Fareway.

“I’m excited about the potential for hard-cider growth,” Benji Deal said.

Chris Deal talked about the orchard’s incorporation of a concept known as ag tourism.

“The game has changed a little bit,” Chris Deal said.

The business added a concessions barn in 2013, and in the fall, there are plenty of games and attractions for the family, including “wiggle” cars, slides, some show farm animals, and an entertainment venue available for rent that holds about 60 people. There’s a new commercial kitchen and even a doughnut maker that churns out delicious apple delights.

In coming years, Deal’s may expand the offerings at the concessions barn and perhaps add pedal go-karts and even a pedestrian tunnel.

One thing’s for certain: this fourth-generation business doesn’t just sit around waiting for apples to ripen.

“It’s a special thing to be able to take pride in that,” Chris Deal said.

By ASHLEY SCHABLE
For The Jefferson Herald

YALE — It’s 84 years old, and it needs some work.

During a special election held in Yale on Dec. 29, 1931, voters agreed to build a gymnasium. The vote passed 134 in favor and 23 against, with those in favor arguing that the school needed the improvements to become accredited. They agreed that the cost would not exceed $3,000, and that the money would come from the surplus funds on hand at the time.

By Jan. 7, 1932, a contract had been awarded to H.H. Thomas and Son, from Adel. Planned as a round building, it would be the only gymnasium of this form in the state of Iowa.

The Dexter Roundhouse, built 16 years prior, was for hosting social events and community gatherings, so at the time, Yale’s project would be the only round gymnasium. The New Providence School Gymnasium, built in 1936, is the only other round block gymnasium in Iowa.

Yale High School officials scheduled a dedication ceremony on March 24, 1932, with a doubleheader between the Yale and Panora boys and girls basketball teams. From that point on, the building hosted many community events, including school plays, band concerts, basketball games and tournaments, until Yale High School merged with the school in Jamaica in the mid-1950s.

It’s been a testament to the small town’s history, and one that needs preserving, locals say.

“I figure the worst thing that happens is you run into a brick wall and it halts and it sits here,” said Brandon Godwin, a 33-year-old Yale resident and city council member who is leading the charge on the restoration project of the historic Yale Round Gym.

While he’s admittedly no expert in architecture, Godwin, who works as a transportation assistant to the commercial transportation officer at Camp Dodge, has become Yale’s resident expert on the old gymnasium.

After all, it sits in his backyard.

Yale is the hometown of his wife, Amber. Godwin owns Yale Pallet Designs, a small side business based on his longtime interest in woodworking.

Godwin has single-handedly helped lead the push to get the gym on the Register of Historic Places, requesting an evaluation of the round block gymnasium building at 414 Lincoln St. in Yale in September 2015 to determine its eligibility.

A measure of eligibility would allow the city council and Godwin to begin preservation planning, including seeking financial incentives to undertake a future rehabilitation of the gym.

In September, Nate Buman prepared a Iowa Site Inventory under the Technical Advisory Network (TAN) program of the Historic Resource Development Program of the State Historical Society of Iowa.

This site form contains an evaluation of the current condition of the historic gymnasium, as much history and architecture of the gym as could be gathered and its eligibility for listing in the National Register of Historic Places.

Godwin learned in January the gym met the criteria to be placed on the National Register of Historical Places.

“We got the report pushed through, and it’s looking pretty positive,” he said. “This really opens things up for money and for grants.”

There are multiple reasons accounting for the building’s status on the register.

Foremost among them is the architecture.

The one-story round gymnasium is located in the southwest quarter of the city block in the small town of Yale in northeast Guthrie County.

The building has a round footprint, roughly 77 feet in diameter and approximately 242 feet in circumference. It includes a basement with concrete flooring and block walls, while the exterior of the building is constructed of clay block. The main, public entrance is on ground level on the northwest side of the building. It’s a simple industrial double-door entrance featuring a large piece of limestone that reads “19 Yale Gym 32.”

The entrance leads to the area where attendants would have sat on the north side of the basketball court. There is another entry point directly opposite, but it bears only a single, metal door and opens directly onto the southeast corner of the basketball court.

A third entrance into the building is located on the southeast side of the building. This single metal door opens onto a landing allowing visitors to go either down to the old locker room area or up onto the stage. A fourth door leads from the southwest side of the building directly onto the stage.

The ground floor holds the basketball court that measures 30 feet, 6 inches by 65 feet, 8 inches, with all four corners rounded off by the exterior block wall.

The stage rises at the southern edge of the basketball court, bounded by two brick chimneys with movable walls at the stage level.

The bleachers once sat on the northern side of the basketball court. Old photographs show the bleachers were very steep and rose from the basketball court all the way up the northern wall toward the rafters; the bleachers came right to the basketball court.

Six windows overlook the court from each of the west and east ends of the court. The stage features 10 windows.

The basement is a symmetrical space underneath the stage and served as the locker rooms for both the girls and boys teams. The basement contains miscellaneous items, from old shelving to chairs and a Yale High School scoreboard.

The last time the building was open to the public was 2009. Several photographs including former students and graduates, and memorabilia dating that reunion adorns a table in the middle of the row of chairs along the basketball court.

“Everything in here now is how it was then,” Godwin said of the 2009 opening.  “They opened it up and gave a brief history on it.”

The strength of the building’s design and materials have protected the building from ruin, and its largely-unaltered state make it a unique window to the past.

Now, Godwin, hoping to revive the building that has served as a pillar to this small community, is searching for ways to fund the restoration project.

“I can’t imagine what the price tag would be on it,” he said. “Or how long it will take.”

He has support, as many in Yale and surrounding communities agree the gym needs restoration, Godwin said.

“I have had nothing but support from the community,” he said. “I have had a lot of people wondering about the status on it and saying, ‘When can we get in there and work?’ ”

Godwin has help in applying for grants and ideas of what to do with the building.

“We don’t want to do all this work and then leave it sitting empty,” he said. “I would like to see it back to its original form and have it — not take away from the community building, but to have a community events center.”

He envisions musicals, plays, open gyms and basketball tournaments.

The gym has a colorful and storied history.

“It’s actually pretty awesome,” Godwin said.

Brandon Godwin has started a Facebook page — Yale Round Gym Restoration/Renovation Project — to keep Yale and surrounding communities informed on the progress of the Yale Round Gym Project.

He welcomes stories and photos from the historical gymnasium.

Staff report
BOONE — A Grand Junction man was flown by helicopter Sunday to Mercy Medical Center in Des Moines after being thrown 150 feet off his snowmobile west of Boone.

Damion Louk, 35, was third in a line of five snowmobiles traveling eastbound in the median of U.S. Highway 30, according to the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, when the left front ski caught deep snow near a culvert, snapping the connections and sending him and the snowmobile airborne.

Louk was traveling an estimated 60 mph, according to the DNR, and landed near the shoulder of the highway.

It’s believed his helmet may not have been fastened, the DNR reported Sunday night, as it came off during the incident and landed separately.

Louk was taken to Boone County Hospital, where he was transferred by air to Mercy.

The incident remains under investigation.

The Boone County Sheriff’s Office and Iowa State Patrol assisted at the scene.

By JARED STRONG
j.strong@carrollspaper.com

Police have obtained the cellphone text messages sent and received by the manager of Pizza Ranch — which burned in an arson late last month — to help determine who intentionally set the fire, according to court documents.

It’s unclear what the messages say. They were obtained with a search warrant issued in the days that followed the Jan. 27 fire that scorched the restaurant’s office and kitchen.

A state fire marshal who investigated the fire determined it was arson because it had started in several locations inside the restaurant. Someone reported it about 12:15 a.m.
Melinda Marie Wood, 43, the restaurant’s manager, denied any responsibility for the fire in a police interview the next day.

Court records show she is a felon who admitted in 2011 to stealing more than $12,000 of bank deposits over about five months from Subway in Jefferson, where she was an assistant manager. She pleaded guilty in April 2012 and served three years of probation.
There was about $800 in cash-register drawers in the Pizza Ranch office the night of the fire, owner Rob Schultz said this week in an interview with The Jefferson Herald. No money was found after the fire, he said.

“The office was pretty well destroyed,” he said. “But I found the one (cash drawer) sitting there. ... There was some change in there, but there were no bills.”

Jefferson Police Chief Mark Clouse declined to comment about the investigation.

Wood and a state fire marshal did not respond Wednesday to interview requests.

Schultz said he did not know about Wood’s criminal history when he hired her, but that someone told him later.

“I never really looked into it,” he said. “I decided that it was something from her past that was dealt with, and she moved on.”

Schultz said he kept a closer watch on the restaurant’s money, and that he did not notice any missing before the fire.

“I hate to point any fingers because Mindy was a good manager,” he said. “I’m just still trying to wrap my head around the fact that it was arson. ... I would never think somebody would do that.”

A police officer also obtained surveillance video from a nearby bank that recorded the hours before and after the fire, according to court documents.

Schultz has owned the restaurant since 2009. It has been closed for repairs since the fire, and Schultz has said he plans to reopen it.

By MATTHEW REZAB
Jefferson Herald staff

When there’s a hole in the marketplace it will eventually get filled.

Dr. Keith Van Beek realized only two dentists operate in Greene County and thought he’d be the perfect fit.

Van Beek, 29, plans to open his new office in the West Business Park along Highway 4. The building is already under construction and scheduled to be finished by May when he plans to open for business.

Van Beek, his wife Kelsie and their 8-month-old son plan to move to Jefferson in April.

He currently works at Ankeny Dental Arts and originally hails from Sheldon.

“There are a couple reasons we’re moving to Jefferson,” Van Beek said. “We decided we wanted to move to a smaller community. We’ve lived in Ankeny for a few years, but we’re both from small towns. We miss the family-friendly atmosphere and we like the schools.”

Van Beek graduated from Iowa State University in 2009 with a B.S. in Biology. He then earned his Doctor of Dental Surgery at The University of Iowa College of Dentistry.

He said he was looking for a location in need of a dentist and Jefferson fit the bill. His new practice will be called Jefferson Family Dentistry.

Outside the dental practice, Van Beek loves to spend time with family, friends and his wife. They enjoy biking, running, golfing and spending time outdoors. They also have a new puppy that keeps them busy.

The Greene County Development Corp., which owns the West Business Park, has been working with Van Beek as the first business to occupy the 24-acre lot.

GCDC Executive Director Ken Paxton said he thinks Van Beek will be a great addition to the business park.

“One, it helps the business park itself as a first move-in,” Paxton said. “And two, it’s just wonderful to have a new dentist come into the community.”

Paxton said the property is zoned for commercial or industrial use.

“We have two categories,” Paxton said. “We have frontage lots, which is the three main lots along Highway 4 and the dentist is going to be in one of those. And then we have lots more inland in the property. We’re hoping to get retail in the frontage lots and small manufacturing in the back lots.”

Van Beek said he’s looking forward to integrating into the community.

“My hope is to get involved in some volunteer work and to really get to know the community quickly,” he said. “I’m excited to get there.

“Everyone so far has been so friendly and helpful.”

Staff report
DES MOINES — After his grand entrance in 2014 into the multi-billion-dollar UFC, Jefferson’s Johnny “Hollywood” Case told The Jefferson Herald he might like to, you know, buy a few rental properties around town.

He explained his financial situation to the newspaper in early 2015:

“I haven’t gone out and bought any hookers or cocaine,” he said. “It’s just a little less stressful.”

On Friday, the 2007 graduate of Jefferson-Scranton High School dropped word via social media that the fixer-uppers around town can apparently wait — he’s now got his own MMA organization to run.

Case is the new owner of the Midwest Cage Championship after purchasing the Des Moines-based mixed-martial arts promotion company.

The homegrown cage fighter, who’s 4-0 in the popular UFC, is himself an alum of the MCC and its former lightweight champion.

“Throughout the years,” Case said in a statement on the MCC website, “one of my goals has always been to bring my knowledge and success back to Iowa where it all started, by giving the fighters a better platform and the fans a better product.

“The biggest problem with Iowa MMA is all of the shady promoters that scam and abuse the fighters and fans. We have thrown out the trash and will continue to clean all of the MMA problems up quick. With my understanding as a fighter, fan and businessman, I’m going to revamp the whole model and take MCC to a much higher level.”

MCC has been a leading MMA promotion company in the Midwest since its debut in 2006 at the Iowa Events Center.

It features both professional and amateur fights.

Outside of the UFC, Case entered into a partnership last year with Fox Sports, with plans for “The Johnny Hollywood Show” to be released soon on the MCC site.

Case’s next bout in the Ultimate Fighting Championship is set for March 19 in Brisbane, Australia.