Heroda Kaiji, when he sensed that he was dying, asked his friends to take him from his rooming house apartment in Stuart to a shady hill beside the South Raccoon River near Dexter. He wanted to spend his final moments looking out across Dexfield Park, the amusement park where he had performed as a palmist […]
Central Iowa Community/News
Posted inCommunity/News
Democrat Sarah Trone Garriott is running for Congress in Iowa’s 3rd District: ‘Zach Nunn has failed us’
State Sen. Sarah Trone Garriott announced on Monday she is running for Congress in Iowa’s 3rd District. The West Des Moines Democrat is the first candidate to launch a run for the seat currently held by two-term incumbent Republican Zach Nunn. “Zach Nunn has failed us,” Trone Garriott said in her announcement video. “As Iowa […]
Posted inCommunity/News
Gov. Tim Walz says at Iowa town hall he is ‘soul-searching’ after 2024
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz told Iowans on his first stop of a national town hall tour that he wanted to give a voice to people who feel unheard by Republicans in Washington. But he said there was another motive for these events: he is “soul-searching” following the 2024 general election, when he and Vice President […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
80/35 officially canceled after nearly 20 years in Des Moines
In October, the future of 80/35, one of Iowa’s biggest annual musical festivals, was “not currently determined,” but even at that time it seemed unlikely the festival would return. That’s because the statement about 80/35’s future was part of the Greater Des Moines Music Coalition’s (DMMC) announcement that it was shutting down, and the coalition […]
Posted inCommunity/News
Iowa State University rescinds some admission offers for graduate students
Iowa State University graduate school programs have started rescinding offers to prospective students as departments scramble to respond to funding uncertainties. Someone who identified themselves as an international, prospective Ph.D. student posted a letter online they received from ISU on March 5 stating an offer the student had previously received from the university’s department of […]
Posted inCommunity/News
Peak Iowa: A far-out suburban mansion
Sucker for a spiral staircase? Look no further than Des Moines suburb Urbandale and LeMar Koethe’s Spaceship House! A gorgeous one curves around a central pillar rising 35 feet—from the ground-floor garages to the main living area, with an elevator as well—in this stunner of a mansion. Koethke had the home built in 1993, far […]
Posted inCommunity/News
Peak Iowa: ‘The knot that launched an industry’ was tied in Clinton a century ago
Often maligned by fashionheads but never completely exorcized from the wardrobe of surly young boys forced to attend weddings, bar mitzvahs and funerals, the clip-on tie was created in Clinton, Iowa amid the rip-roaring excess of 1928. Presumably, chaps were so busy attending various Gatsby-adjacent parties that it became necessary to save tie-tying time — […]
Posted inCommunity/News
Bumper Crops: Pinball bans and the Des Moines mafia
There was never an amendment to the Constitution prohibiting pinball, but that didn’t stop some major cities from banning the game from the 1930s through the mid-’70s. In fact, Oakland, California still had a ban on pinball machines as recently as 2014. I first learned about pinball’s checkered history after trying to cajole my mom […]
Posted inCommunity/News
Peak Iowa: History’s most prolific book bandit is an Ottumwa man. Librarians helped bring him down.
“Organized crime” usually refers to illegal activity as a collaborative enterprise, involving large networks of people and undertaken for profit or power. That’s too damned bad, really, because there is no better turn of phrase to lean on when discussing the wild work of the Guinness World Record holder for Most Prolific Book Thief: Ottumwa’s […]
Posted inCommunity/News
Sen. Nate Boulton concedes race to GOP challenger Mike Pike after recount
Iowa Sen. Nate Boulton, D-Des Moines, conceded his race for reelection Friday after the recount for Iowa Senate District 20 concluded and found Republican Mike Pike maintained his lead. Boulton served in the Iowa Senate since 2017 and held the position of Iowa Senate Democratic whip in the most recent General Assembly. In his concession […]
Posted inCentral Iowa
New study documents costs, stress and confusion unhoused families face in Des Moines area
A study from Drake University, in partnership with homelessness planning organization Homeward, found that the amount of family shelters and affordable housing need to be expanded in order to meet the need from families experiencing homelessness, and the community needs to come together and try to lower barriers for those putting everything they can into […]
Posted inCommunity/News
Street-level aid groups do battle with bulldozers and broken systems as Des Moines’ anti-homeless ordinances encroach
On Sept. 16, the Des Moines City Council passed a pair of ordinances designed to prevent unsheltered citizens from sleeping or living on public property. The first ordinance will make sleeping in public places like sidewalks, streets, doorways, pedestrian and vehicular entrances punishable by a $15 fine, and bans camping under bridges, in parks, and […]
