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SPENCER-Life is often full of surprises
Ellen Stanley can attest to that.
Growing up, the New Haven, CT native never dreamed she would be a solo singer, songwriter and banjo player, sporting the stage name Mother Banjo.
"I was never one of those people that performed solos," Stanley said. "I liked participating, but I never quite knew what I wanted to do. I thought if I was going to be involved in music, I would be a music teacher or do something in the background."
That all changed when Stanley picked up a banjo five years ago.
Classically trained on piano, oboe and voice, Stanley was very much into rock, pop and classical music throughout high school. Then she got more and more into jazz and blues, and started taking jazz vocal lessons before she went off to Oberlin College in Oberlin, OH, where she began to immerse herself in folk and blue grass music.
"The banjo fits prominently in both," Stanley said. "I liked the sound of the banjo in not just the fast, but the more lonesome, mournful styles, as well. That really resonated with me. I thought the banjo could do so many unique sounds that the guitar couldn't, so I thought I might as well learn how to play."
Stanley did just that after she graduated from Oberlin - moved to Minneapolis, MN, bought a banjo and began taking lessons.
"That's when my songwriting opened up quite a bit," she said. "That was partly because I was just beginning, so I wasn't that good at the banjo yet, my chord knowledge was limited and my technical skills were limited. That allowed me to get back to the basics."
Basics were something she was never able to find in the piano pieces she composed, as Stanley felt they were too arts-y and complex.
"The banjo simplified everything," Stanley said. "I found that with singing and playing at the same time, I could interplay. I could do with my voice what I couldn't do on the banjo and I could play on the banjo what I couldn't do with my voice."
Stanley's skills have paid off. She released a 5-song EP entitled "Swing Low" in 2007, and two weeks ago, released her first full-length album, entitled "The Sad and Sound."
"It has 10 songs and was recorded in a professional studio," Stanley said. "It's a step up. It has more instruments, yet it's still pretty minimalist."
And, Stanley will be bringing her new tracks to Shaky Tree Coffee on Friday, May 15.
"I'm really looking forward to playing at Shaky Tree again," she said. "I played there last fall with Chad Elliot and it was so much fun. I'm really looking forward to coming back with my new CD."
Ben Tucker, a Minnesota-based singer/songwriter, will accompany Stanley at her performance.
"We were both Midwest finalists in the 2008 Mountain Stage NewSong Contest, so we're doing a little Iowa tour together," Stanley said. "I'm looking forward to bringing him to Spencer."
Mother Banjo:
After having worked a bit in the music world - doing promotions and hosting her own radio show, Ellen Stanley wanted to start fresh when she began her solo career as a singer, songwriter and banjo player.
"I didn't want to capitalize on my name or raise expectations," she said.
So, she settled on the stage name Mother Banjo.
"Ultimately, I felt like it had a nice strong, earthy quality to it. It's a woman with a banjo. It's simple, and that's what my music is like," Stanley said. "I went through all kinds of funny possible stage names and Mother Banjo is the one that stuck. You can't mispronounce it and it's a name that I can grow into forever."
This article appeared in the May 9, 2009 edition of DISCOVER! Magazine.
A warm and inviting place to call home.
That's what Denise Baar and Jud Pins of Sioux Falls, SD were looking for when they decided to have a new home built within The Grand Prairie, a private community nestled in the southeast portion of the city.
Denise said the couple was drawn to the location in part because of the exclusive amenities, including a full clubhouse, two pools, fitness room and tennis courts. The clubhouse also has an apartment, which allows for out-of-town guests to stay during visits.
"Five years ago, if you asked me if I would ever live at 77th and Minnesota, I would say, 'It's so far out there,'" Denise said. "Now, it feels like a part of the city."
Denise and Jud worked with Deffenbaugh Homes, a Sioux Falls based builder that specializes in custom homes. With close interaction between the couple and the builder, Denise and Jud were able to provide their specialized ideas and requests throughout the entire building process.
While Denise and Jud had never been through the home building process before, they were surprised with the ease of it.
"I never thought I would build a house because of the challenges and decisions that need to be made, but it turned out to be one of the easiest things we have ever done," Denise said.
What resulted was a 4,500-square-foot traditional style ranch walk-out, complete with five bedrooms, four baths, a four-car garage and a rich decorating scheme, of which Jud and Denise moved into in May 2007.
"The process was so simple," Denise said.
Jud chose to incorporate wooden tray ceilings in most of the rooms on the main floor, while Denise picked out paint colors.
Although all of their ideas were their own, Denise worked with Amy Kruetzfeldt, a licensed interior designer on staff at the Stone Center, which provided all of the Cambria counter tops and tile throughout the home.
"We had the paint colors, flooring and rock picked out, and she helped me pick out the tile, bring everything together and confirm what I already had selected," Denise said.
Tiger wood floors wrap through the entryway and into the kitchen and dining area, where the formal dining room features a basket weave floor, mixing the Tiger wood with Cambria tile, surrounded by floor to ceiling tapered, roped wooden columns, which are also featured in other woodwork and furniture throughout the home.
For a unique look, Jud and Denise opted to have the island in the kitchen a lighter, distressed wood in comparison to the rest of the cabinetry throughout, something Denise says is not done very often.
To keep the main floor open and inviting, Denise and Jud opted for as few doors as possible.
"Part of the reason we built a house of this nature is because we wanted something simple that would be easy to entertain in," Denise said. "Because people gather so much in the kitchen, we wanted it open, with not a lot of walls."
And, to do something special with the doorway that leads from the living room to the master suite, Jud and Denise had the top arched, created specifically to the depth and width dimensions on the stone arch above the living room fireplace.
While the couple's home is designed for the possibility of five bedrooms, Denise and Jud only utilize four bedrooms. The fifth, located on the main floor, acts as a den, instead, which Denise wanted to stand out when she was selecting paint colors. Instead of the warm, deep tones that accentuate the rest of the house, Denise opted for a soft green within the den.
Denise had the staircase leading to the basement faux painted, which wraps from the warm tones of the main floor to more earthy tones throughout the basement, which features a wet bar, complete with a dishwasher and full-size refrigerator.
With five children, only one of which still lives at home, Jud and Denise knew they wanted a place their children could come home to.
"We wanted them to feel like it was their home as much as ours. A place where they felt at home and could have their friends come over and enjoy time together," Denise said.
And, while Jud and Denise couldn't be happier with their custom built home, they are already planning ahead for the future.
"We love our home and plan to be here a long time, but after you've been in your home for a long time, there's that urge to want to keep it fresh and start new," Denise said.
In order to keep their home remaining as fresh as possible, Jud and Denise added a dark brown tile back splash on either side of the range in the kitchen after Christmas. This spring, they plan to add on to the deck, which is situated off the four-season room on the main floor and sometime in the future, Jud and Denise hope to finish off the wine cellar in the basement, a space that is currently used for storage.
TECH SAVVY:
Keeping up-to-date with the latest technology, Jud and Denise made sure their home Internet system was completely wireless.
"That makes it easy for the children to take their laptop to any room in the house, whether to surf the net or chat with friends on Facebook or Skype," Denise said.
In addition, the home has a complete security system with cameras, a surround system with speakers inside and out and built-in audio system with iPod docking system in both the kitchen and wet bar.
This article appeared in the April 2009 edition of Okoboji Magazine.
"Every Day with Rachael Ray" has been receiving a lot of e-mails from readers wanting to know where LeMars, IA is.
Just ask 46-year-old Bob Rand, owner of Archie's Waeside.
But, why the sudden interest?
The LeMars based eatery caused quite a stir in the March issue of Rachael Ray's monthly food and living magazine.
Taking a play off the source of March madness - NCAA basketball play-offs, "Every Day with Rachael Ray" created its own single-elimination tournament bracket. Not of college basketball teams, though. Steakhouses seemed a more appropriate choice for the magazine.
For what the magazine deemed the "Great American Steakhouse Challenge," it composed a list of 200 restaurants from recommendations give by well-traveled colleagues, restaurant reviewers and industry experts.
Just being selected for a spot in the top 200 steakhouses in the country pleased Rand, but when he found out Archie's Waeside had advanced to the top 64, he was beside himself.
"That was wonderful," he said. "After 60 years of being here, to be recognized like that is just wonderful. In my eyes, those restaurants, almost all of them, which I've either eaten at or I know of them or know the owners, they're iconic to me. I mean, they're from all over the country."
After the list was narrowed down to 64, Archie's Waesdie, the only Iowa steakhouse on the list, was pitted against big city restaurants like Annie Gunn's in Chersterfield, MO, Five O'Clock Steakhouse in Milwaukee, WI, Ray Radigan's in Pleasant Prairie, WI, St. Elmo Steak House in Indianapolis, IN, Plaza III, The Steakhouse in Kansas City, MO, Gorat's Steak House in Omaha, NE, Cattlemen's Steakhouse in Oklahoma City, OK, Ferris Steak House in Cleveland, OH, Mitchell's Steakhouse and The Top Steak House in Columbus, OH, Murray's Restaurant and Manny's Steakhouse in Minneapolis, MN and Gene & Georgetti, Keefer's Restaurant and Gibsons Bar & Steakhouse in Chicago.
Archie's Waeside competed head-on against Annie Gunn's for a spot in the top 32, and after beating out Gene & Georgetti, advanced to the sweet 16, along with Five O'Clock Steakhouse, Plaza III, The Steakhouse and Gorat's Steakhouse in the Midwest, Carnevino in Las Vegas, NV, Cut in Los Angeles, CA, Perini Ranch Steakhouse in Buffalo Gap, TX and El Raigon in San Francisco in the West, Peter Luger Steak House in Brooklyn, NY, Robert's Steakhouse in New York City, NY, Barclay Prime in Philadelphia, PN and Grill 23 & Bar in Boston, MA on the East coast and Bern's Steak House in Tampa, FL, Pappas Bros. Steakhouse in Houston, TX, Doe's Eat Place in Greenville, MS and Kevin Rathburn Steak in Atlanta, GA in the Gulf South.
"Every Day with Rachael Ray" hired 16 eaters to test the semifinalists. As they each traveled to their assigned steakhouse, the reviewers were armed with worksheets with a rating system that totaled 100 points. No restaurant received a perfect score, but Archie's, along with Gorat's Steak House, Carnevino, El Raigon, Peter Luger Steak House, Grill 23 & Bar, Bern's Steak House and Kevin Rathburn Steak advanced to the final eight.
The restaurants were all reviewed once again, narrowing the field down to Grill 23 & Bar, El Raigon, Bern's Steak House and Archie's.
"It's kind of funny," Rand said. "You look at the final four, and it's Boston, San Francisco, Tampa and LeMars, Iowa."
John T. Edge, a contributing editor at "Gourmet" and "United Tastes" columnist for the "New York Times" and the "Oxford American," boarded a plane and for four consecutive nights, flew to each restaurant - starting with El Raigon, then to Grill 23 & Bar and then to Archie's, where he snacked on house-corned beef and devoured a dry-aged porterhouse. To Edge, Archie's was the clear winner, until he sliced into his medium-rare porterhouse at Bern's, declaring the Tampa steakhouse the overall victor.
Archie's may not have taken home the grand prize, but Rand was still pleased with his restaurant's second-place finish.
"It's unbelievable, actually," he said. "Some of those steakhouses have been around for 100 years and they're the benchmark of our industry, but, like I said, we're very fortunate to even be mentioned, much less to get to the final four and then to get second place."
So, how did the LeMars restaurant go from being one of Northwest Iowa's hidden gems to the second-best steakhouse in the country?
"Probably the greatest advantage we had in the contest is that the bets beef in the world is raised right here in Northwest Iowa and Northeast Nebraska," Rand said. "We're purchasing the best of that meat every day, and we take it and dry age it and hand cut every steak right here."
But, the dry-aged, hand-cut steak hasn't been the only menu item gaining notoriety at Archie's Waeside.
Rand makes frequent trips to Napa, CA, in constant search of the finest wines to compliment the menu selections at Archie's.
"I spend a lot of time in Napa. I've made a half a dozen trips a year for the last 10 years looking for small artisan wineries," he said. "To get a lot of our wines, you'd have to see wine lists in Chicago, Denver, New York, cities like that to find even close to what we carry."
While Rand said the restaurant carries a fair amount of Australian wines as well, California varieties are where he focuses the most attention.
"We have as few as a couple hundred cases from many of the wineries we carry, and many of the wineries that we have on our list are only on a half a dozen lists in the whole country," he said.
But Archie's quality selection of wines must have piqued someone's interest, as the restaurant is also one of the top 20 semifinalists for the John Beard Foundation Award for Outstanding Wine Service.
To even be considered for what Rand refers to as "one of the pinnacles of being in the business," a restaurant must display and encourage excellence in wine service through a well-presented wine list, a knowledgeable staff and efforts to educate customers about wine. Candidates also must have been in operation for at least five years and have to be nominated by several people.
"They kind of pair it down from there and then they go and visit your establishment," Rand said. "The further they get the process down, the more often they visit. I know they've been here once for sure."
While the 2008 award winner, Eleven Madison Park in New York City, is not on the top 20 list this year, the previous second- through fifth-place finishers - Acquerello in San Francisco, Bin 36 in Chicago, Blackberry Farm in Walland, TN and Picasso in Las Vegas - are.
Rand said Archie's Waeside has never been a candidate for the award, but as with the "Great American Steakhouse Challenge," he feels fortunate just to be considered.
"It's an honor just to be nominated with the other restaurants that are on there," he said.
FAMILY BUSINESS:
Archie's Waeside was originally opened by current owner Bob Rand's grandfather, Archie Jackson, in 1949.
But, the concept of the LeMars based restaurant, which marks its 60th anniversary this year, goes back a little further in history.
Going back three generations in Jackson's history, before his family immigrated to the United States from Russia during the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917, they were involved in the cattle business. After they came to the United States, they began running a kill floor in Chicago.
"When Sioux City became home of the largest stockyards, a lot of people from Chicago came over to Sioux City," Rand said. "My grandfather always wanted to take individual steaks and open a restaurant, so he looked around the area and liked LeMars."
Jackson owned the restaurant until 1973, when Rand's mother, Valerie, took over the business. Rand has owned the restaurant since 1994.
But why did he decide to go into the family business?
"It's kind of interesting," he said. "I have four siblings, and they all have different career paths across the country, and mine just seemed to be that I was in love with this place when I was a child. I don't think that I thought I was going to do anything else but this. The exciting thing for me is, I'm very fortunate to do what I love. I can't wait for the front door to open every night to see what's going to happen."
This article appeared in the April 2009 edition of Okoboji Magazine.
SIOUX CITY-It was near the end of October.
Business was better. The war scare was over. More men were back at work. Sales were picking up.
On this particular evening, Oct. 30, the Crosley service estimated that 32 million people were listening in on radios.
It aired over the CBS radio network as a "Mercury Theatre on the Air" Halloween episode on Oct. 30, 1938.
Directed and narrated by Orson Welles, many Americans became instilled with a fear of panic,a s they thought the 60-minute adaptation of H.G. Wells' novel "The War of the Worlds" was actually happening, and Martians were invading the planet.
Over 70 years later, Steven Dolginoff hopes to instill that panic once again,by way of his musical "Panic: The Story Behind the War of the Worlds Broadcast," now making its world premiere at LAMB Productions Theatre in Sioux City.
But, the way the big city production made it's way to a stage in the Midwest is a story in and of itself.
"I produced Steven's show 'Thrill Me,'" said Russ Wooley, "Panic" director and LAMB co-founder. "When we did the show, we chatted many times on the phone. At one point, I said, 'Hey Steven, if you'd ever like to workshop your show, I know a great theatre in Sioux City that could do that.' By the end of 'Thrill Me,' he had sent a script for 'Panic,' and said, 'Let's do this.'"
And doing it, they are.
But, don't let the term "musical" fool you.
"It's not the type where there is a lot of dancing and so forth," Wooley said. "The songs are very much character driven."
One such song, set at 11 minutes, is a distilled version of the original 60-minute Orson Welles broadcast, which will undoubtedly make sure viewers will feel like they're experiencing the influential segment for the first time.
If that's not original enough, the stage will also feature a vintage looking 1930s set, complete with a radio broadcast booth and era relevant costumes.
"It will put you right there in that world," Wooley said.
So goodbye everybody, and remember, please, for the next day or so the terrible lesson you learned tonight: that grinning, glowing globular invader of your living room is an inhabitant of the pumpkin patch, and if your doorbell rings and nobody's there, that was no Martian - it's Halloween.
70 Years Later:
Emerging technology is a common message director Russ Wooley sites in "Panic."
"Radio was a new thing in the 1930s," Wooley said. "It was the place to be - where you reached the most immediately."
Sound familiar?
"It parallels exactly what's going on now with the Internet," Wooley said.
Take Susan Boyle, who became an overnight YouTube sensation after her audition on "Britain's Got Talent," was made public. Now, over 40 million people have heard her sing.
"It's absolutely amazing," Wooley said. "When they heard that on Halloween night, several hundreds of thousands of people heard it, and because of the way it was approached, some actually believed it really was happening."
This article appeared in the May 2, 2009 edition of DISCOVER! Magazine.
ORANGE CITY-They had five hours to solve 11 programming problems.
They and more than 100 other top minds from around that world, that is.
Northwestern College students Ben Kester of Urbandale, Curt Van Wyk of George and John Calsbeek of Orange City, competed in the IBM-sponsored Association for Computing Machinery International Collegiate Programming World Finals on Tuesday, April 21, in Stockholm, Sweden.
But, getting there wasn't easy.
Kester, a senior computer science and actuarial science major, Van Wyk, a senior mathematics teaching and computer science major, and Calsbeek, a junior computer science major, won a bid to the international computer programming competition after successfully completing all nine problems to finish fourth in the North Central regional contest on Nov. 15 at the University of South Dakota in Vermillion.
The top 100 finishers from across the globe then were invited to the world finals, which ran April 18-22 in Sweden.
During the competition, each team had five hours to successfully complete up to 11 real-world problems using open technology and advanced computing methods.
The winning team was the one that solved the most problems in the fewest amount of attempts in the least amount of time and was announced last Tuesday. Top honors went to Saint Petersburg State University of IT, Mechanics and Optics from Saint Petersburg, Russia.
Although the Northwestern trio did not place at the competition, the students came back to Orange City having experienced what was most likely a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
Here is a look at the experiences Kester, Van Wyk, Calsbeek and Northwestern computer science instructor Michael Wallinga had while at the ACM-ICPC:
Q: How much time did you spend preparing before you traveled to Sweden?
Calsbeek: About an hour a week for eight weeks.
Kester: Not as much as some of the other schools.
Wallinga: We did find that we were the smallest school there, at least as far as we could tell. We were at least one of the smallest schools there, but the level of preparation definitely varied, and you could see that the schools that performed very well definitely took the competition quite seriously.
Van Wyk: One of the professors we talked to said they had three practice sessions a week.
Q: What were your feelings going into the competition?
Calsbeek: Bring it on.
Kester: We were excited.
Q: What was going through your mind while you were attempting to solve the problems?
Kester: When I first started reading the questions, I thought that it wasn't going to be too bad, but by the end, we weren't getting any and were continually getting rejected on our attempts. I was just hoping we could solve one problem.
Q: Do you know what you were doing wrong?
Calsbeek: We think we know, but we can't confirm anything. They don't give out the final answers.
Q: What was your strategy?
Kester: We had maybe three or four problems that we were all trying to solve around the same time.
Van Wyk: Then we brought those together.
Q: Talking with some of the other teams, did you learn any other strategies that might work better?
Kester: I think the strategy was fine. It was just that we couldn't do the problems.
Van Wyk: I think we were just caught up on a few little things. I think we could have had them and moved on and got problems solved. We were just unlucky and couldn't get the pieces put together in the time limit they gave us.
Wallinga: It is kind of unfortunate that we can't get the judges' data and the judges' results and see exactly where we were getting tripped up. I don't think by any means that they were overwhelmed by the problems. The problems they were working on were solvable and it sounded like they had a good approach, too, and were probably well on their way to solving some of them, but a couple of things just kind of stumped them. It would be nice to know exactly what those were, but I think if you look at the standings, those couple of little things that were holding us up were also holding the majority of the other teams up. The teams that take it very seriously and answer seven, eight, nine problems - they're the exception really. They're the elite of the 100 there. If you answer two or three problems, you're placing in the top half, and I still think we were right there. On a different day or with a slightly different set of problems, worded a little differently, I think we would have been fine.
Q: What else did you do in Sweden while you were there?
Kester: They wined and dined us pretty nicely. We were also able to meet up with some of the other teams.
Wallinga: The accommodations were great. The three different hotels were top of the line. IBM funded quite a few meals, which was nice. We got there a day or two early and just went out and found our own places to eat and explored the city. Taking in the atmosphere of the city and the history and the architecture was a really nice opportunity. On one of our free days, we had lunch with some of the other teams from our area - the students and professors from Iowa State University and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln - so that was a neat opportunity, to be halfway around the world and be able to meet up with these people that are just a couple of hours away. There were also some opportunities for sight-seeing. One of the restaurants we ate at was in what they call the "Old Town" part of the city, which is even more historic than the rest of it. One of the days, IBM sponsored a trip out to the Fortress, which no longer serves a military purpose. It's now a bed and breakfast, but it used to be a military stronghold, so there were still cannons and cannon balls.
Q: What was your favorite part about being there?
Kester: The actual competition. There was just a lot of excitement. There were so many teams that had spent so much time getting ready for it. It was just a great atmosphere.
Van Wyk: Second to that, I'd say just being in the city. It was the first time I had ever been out of North America.
Wallinga: The contest itself involved some historic sites. The opening ceremonies were held in the city hall area. I don't even know how to describe it. The awards ceremony and the closing ceremony were held in the same auditorium where the Nobel Prizes are given out each year. That was a neat feeling - to be sitting in those seats wondering who else had sat there in the past.
Q: Is there anything you took away from the trip, either from the competition or from being in Sweden?
Kester: It was good just to have the experience. Many of the top young minds were there, and it sounds a little odd to talk about it, but actually seeing their faces and interacting with those people, we realized they weren't much different from us. They had to work with the same problems we did.
Calsbeek: It gives me a new appreciation for the problems. They give you 20-some years of previous questions to practice, but really going over those and sitting down for five hours and trying to solve one is completely different. It was very interesting.
Van Wyk: The appreciation of the minds of other people - how gifted and bright and smart they are. To be able to solve nine of those problems in five ours is very impressive.
Wallinga: It was one of those make the world seem smaller type of experiences. You're surrounded by all different people speaking different languages, but they're all working on the same problems. It was just a neat experience to be part of.
Kester: It would have been nice to know what those Russians were saying, though.
This article appeared in the May 2, 2009 edition of The N'West Iowa REVIEW.
ALTON-Heith Riechle and Andy Van Ommeren want to better the community of Alton.
Which is why the two, along with more than 20 other Alton residents have banded together to form the Ambassadors of Alton.
"We're a private, nonprofit organization that works in conjunction with the city," Reichle said. "We want to help the city, so we'll ask them what they maybe want us to help out with."
Although the group has not held an official meeting yet, Reichle and Van Ommeren said the group has met with the Granville Improvement Club to get a better idea of what their purpose and goals should be.
And the group already has a project line up - one that has been two years in the making.
Van Ommeren and his brother Wes, who own Van Ommeren Carpentry in Alton, held a three-on-three basketball tournament two years ago. The event raised $2,000, which was donated to the city.
"The city wanted that first $2,000 that was raised to go toward matching grants for soe park equipment," Van Ommeren said.
While that was more than fine with Van Ommeren, he started talking to Reichle and some of his other friends, and the possibility of starting their own betterment club began sounding like a definite possibility.
"The more we thought about it, we thought we could build up some funds and better the community in ways we want to," Reichle said.
And first on the agenda is a nine-hole disc golf course at Roadside Park.
"The city and county both own the park, so it's going to be on both city and county property," Van Ommeren said.
Wrapping around the entire pond, the course will begin and end at the shelter house and feature nearly a mile-long stretch of secluded, spaced-out holes, making it the first in Sioux County.
But, before the Ambassadors of Alton was ever even formed, Reichle and Van Ommeren knew it was a project they wanted to bring to Alton.
"We had started playing disc golf a lot in LeMars and Cherokee, and we thought it would be nice to have one around here, so we started looking at places to put it, and in Alton, Roadside Park was an obvious choice," Reichle said. "So, then we went around to all of the businesses in town and ended up raising $6,000. With that, you can realize how much work it's going to be, but then the ambassadors came along and took the project over."
Take it over, they did.
Group members bonded together Saturday, April 25, to clean up Roadside Park. Reichle said that while the county side of the park is regularly maintained, the city side is not, so they were able to haul away nearly 60 dead trees as well as overgrown brush, making way for the disc golf course, which Reichle said is scheduled to open sometime in May.
"We also want to have an opening day where we can bring down a big grill and have brats and burgers for all of the donors," Reichle said. "There are 23 businesses that donated, so that's 23 families. Anybody inside or outside the community will also be invited to come out. While the course will open in May, the grand opening day may or may not be in May."
After the disc golf course is open, Reichle and Van Ommeren know they want to have an annual cleanup day of Roadside Park, but other than that, they have not completely decided on future projects and fundraisers for the Ambassadors of Alton.
"We do know we want to do a sandbox fill, where we would go around town with a bunch of sand and fill up kids' sandboxes, but we don't know if that would be every year or every other year," Reichle said.
But, Reichle and Van Ommeren know there will be plenty of community members willing to help.
"In a small town like Alton, everybody can kind of come together, and you can see how much people want to help," Reichle said. "People don't always have the time to put in and do stuff, but they're willing to help in other ways. That's the big thing. We realized how many people want to improve Alton, because there are plenty of things that could be picked up and improved upon around town."
This article appeared in the May 2, 2009 edition of The N'West Iowa REVIEW.
PAULLINA-Andrew Van Beek may not be to the level of Albert Enstein yet, but he's working on it.
After qualifying at a local Great Plains Math League competition last month at Dordt College in Sioux Center, the South O'Brien High School senior talented and gifted student earned the chance to compete at the state tournament last Saturday at Iowa City West High School.
In both advanced level math tournaments, Van Beek had to compete in two individual and two team rounds, in which he was paired with other participating students.
"The two individual rounds include a target round and sprint round and the two team rounds include a team test and relay round," said TAG teacher Denise Erdmann. "in order to advance from the local to sate tournament, the students needed to meet the minimum cutoff scores. Andrew went to state because he met those qualifying scores."
And at the state tournament last Saturday, Van Beek advanced once again, after tying for third place in 12th-grade target round. He will vie for a spot in the top three gain in Friday, May 8, when he travels to the regional Great Plains Math League tournament at the University of Missouri in Kansas City.
Van Beek is not the only Wolverine that has been stretching his brain muscles lately.
Model United Nations
South O'Brien High School seniors Emily Hill and Andrew Van Beek and sophomores Seth Wester, Kari Lenz and Kaitlin Thiel are nearly experts on the government and foreign policy of Iran.
The five Model United Nations members traveled to compete April 16-17 at the University of Northern Iowa in Cedar Falls.
At the conference, which is a simulation of the actual United Nations, participating teams chose a country to represent and do background research on that particular country. In South O'Brien's case, it was Iran.
"We conducted research based on what Iran would do, or how it would act," Erdmann said. "When we went to the competition, we then used that information to role play or simulate the actual United Nations."
While there, Hill, the team's head delegate, served on the International Court of Justice Committee, while Van Beek was on the Political and Security Committee, Wester was on the Social Humanitarian and Culture Committee, Lenz was on the Legal III Committee and Thiel was on the Legal II Committee.
Although there is a total of nine committees for each country to utilize, Iran only has delegates on a certain amount, so the students chose which committee they wanted to serve on from that list, based on the topics they were most interested in.
Quality delegating is a must - as evidenced by Wester, who earned outstanding delegate honors for the Social Humanitarian and Culture Committee.
"One to two delegates out of the whole committee are recognized for their outstanding work during the whole conference," Erdmann said. "It's something that is an excellent honor for Seth."
IT Olympics
Seven South O'Brien High School TAG students recently went to the Olympics, but they exercised their minds instead of their bodies.
South O'Brien Senior Andrew Van Beek, junior Phil Hilla, sophomores Kaitlin Thiel, Seth Wester and Kari Lenz, and freshmen John Crowhurst and Heath Negus competed at the Information Technology Olympics April 20-21 at Iowa State University in Ames.
The students competed as two teams - Hilla, Theil, Wester and Crowhurst were on one and Van Beek, Lenz and Negus were on the other.
The first team competed in game design, in which they were challenged to create a game geared toward middle school students that emphasizes STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) education by using ELLIS programing software.
The primary challenge was worth 50 percent of the team's points, but throughout the two days, they also were encouraged to compete in real-life contests, which accounted for 30 percent of the team's score.
"Those may include logic puzzles or challenges where there are incomplete worlds and the students have to add components or complete the game," Erdmann said.
The team finished second overall.
The second team competed in robotics, in which the primary challenge involved creating a sumor robot using LEGO Mindstorms.
After the robot was completed, the South O'Brien team had theirs sumo wrestle 20 other teams in a three-foot diameter ring.
"In addition to that, their real-time challenges included creating a race car for drag racing, creating a monkey bot and catapult," Erdmann said.
Although the robotics team did not finish in the top three, Erdmann still thought the team made a solid showing.
"We were only 47 points away from third place, so it's safe to say that we were one of the top teams there, we just didn't place in the top three," she said.
That was quite a feat considering there were 400 high school students at the competition and this was only South O'Brien's second year competing.
Both teams also had to hold a community service project prior to attending the IT Olympics.
"Our project this year was a program that the kids entitled, 'Word to the People,'" Erdmann said. "The purpose of the project was to teach adults the various functions and practical applications that Microsoft Word has to offer, so they held an interactive session at the high school on one of the inservice days for adults who wanted to learn more about Microsoft Word."
This article appeared in the May 2, 2009 edition of The N'West Iowa REVIEW.
