ALTOONA, Iowa (AP) — The managers of an Iowa amusement park say they will never reopen a ride where an 11-year-old boy was killed. Adventureland’s general manager announced the decision in a letter posted on the park’s website Friday. He said the park spent months reviewing the safety of the Raging River ride. The company that bought the park in the wake of Michael Jaramillo’s death decided it would be best to focus on other park enhancements. Jaramillo’s bother and father were also injured on July 3, 2021 when the family’s raft overturned and trapped them in the water. The family’s lawsuit against Adventureland’s former owners remains pending in court.
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — The founder of an educational program for at-risk youth in Des Moines says he will remain “all in on helping kids that are not reachable in so many peoples’ eyes” after he was wounded in last month’s shooting that killed two students. Forty-nine-year-old Will Keeps made his first public comments about the Iowa shooting this weekend in a video released by the police department. In the video, Keeps’ cast-covered right arm was held up by a blue sling, and a walker sat next to his chair. He is a former Chicago gang member who founded the Starts Right Here program. Two teens have been charged with murder in the Jan. 23 shooting.
NORWAY, Iowa (AP) — There are half as many American dairy farms today as there were 20 years ago and the ones that survive are trying something new. For Austin and Jenna Schulte, of rural Benton County, that means building a creamery where they can use milk from their 186 Holsteins to produce Gouda, Jarlsberg, quark and cheddar cheeses. “We have to do something different or we’ll be done,” Jenna Schulte told Xochitl Torres Small, undersecretary for rural development for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, during a tour last week of the farm. The dairy has been awarded a $36,000 Value-Added Producer Grant from the USDA to create a business plan and conduct a feasibility study on making and marketing cheese produced on site. It’s one of 21 projects that have received $74.7 million in loans or grants to improve infrastructure and expand business in rural Iowa. Much of the investment goes to rural hospitals to buy equipment or recover from the economic impact of the pandemic, and to water treatment and distribution projects. The funding comes from several federal pots, including the American Rescue Plan Act, disaster aid and regular rural development funds.
CEDAR FALLS, Iowa (AP) — The Honors Cottage and Alumni House have been “offline” for several months at the University of Northern Iowa and are not being used for anything. But no concrete plans exist outlining what might be in store for the two century-old buildings, according to Pete Moris, director of university relations. It’s been a little more than a year since UNI officials proposed the houses be demolished, primarily to be good financial stewards of state resources. They said an estimated $1.6 million in deferred maintenance needed to be completed on the buildings at the time. The Board of Regents later tabled the request after Regent David Barker, who now happens to be the chair of the property and facilities committee, questioned whether all of those repairs were “absolutely necessary” and asked the university to take a step back to look at its campus needs. No timeframe exists for when a decision may be made as the university’s needs are continually being evaluated, Moris said. Conversations that had been ongoing with an outside individual about possible preservation efforts are no longer happening, according to Moris. The focus had been the Honors Cottage, the former home of the late UNI president Homer Seerley and his family. Meanwhile, the university has begun the final fundraising push for its $250 million “Our Tomorrow” campaign with a focus on “carefully chosen capital projects that renew and elevate campus facilities that are central to our future.” But neither home was among the selected facilities.
