Kurt Warner & Casey Blake = Class Acts

Kurt Warner poster published in the Des Moines Sunday Register, January 31, 2010.

Iowans may not realize how fortunate they are to have the professional athletes who call Iowa home.

I’m not talking about Ricky Davis denying he played HS and some college basketball in Iowa, but the good ones.

The Kurt Warner story is well-known around the country and for good reason. His rise from stockboy to NFL MVP in an absolute storybook life to this point.

Warner played high school ball at Cedar Rapids Regis. We could do a whole post about CR Regis with famous alums of KW, Zach Johnson, Mary Brigid Arnold Christianson and Stacy Behmer.  The University of Iowa didn’t recruit him. Warner went north to Cedar Falls to play for the University of Northern Iowa.

He played for the Iowa Barnstormers where I got to cover him as an intern sports guy for WHO-TV. I still have my Arena Bowl X media gift bag somewhere in my house.

Warner makes the NFL, leads the Rams to the Super Bowl, gets benched, goes to another team, then the hapless Arizona Cardinals to the Super Bowl. I wasn’t sure how much of an impact Warner had on St. Louis. But even after his time was done, there’s still Warner jersey’s around town. Last year during the baseball Cardinals’s Winter Warm Up, an Arizona playoff game was on a TV in the hotel lobby in St. Louis.

The crowd cheered each time Warner was successful. They will always like Warner in St. Louis. Will he enter the Hall of Fame as a Ram, Cardinal or Barnstormer?

It has been very nice to see all the positive coverage Warner’s retirement has received this week.

Casey Blake and Chad Wood talk about the old days in Indianola. Taken July 27, 2009 in St. Louis prior to the Dodger/Cardinal game.

The other great Iowa professional athlete story involves Indianola’s own Casey Blake.

News came this week of Blake’s 1 million dollar check he wrote to the Indianola Community School District. The money will serve as a matching portion of a $2 million effort for athletic facilities in Indianola.

During my radio work for the 2008 football season, West Des Moines Dowling Catholic played at Indianola in late October. The Dodger’s season ended on a Wednesday I believe. Blake was at the football game talking to fans and friends on the Indianola sideline. He’s likes to come back home.

Casey Blake talks to Chad and Allison Wood in St. Louis on July, 27, 2009.

And if you’re writing part of your Major League salary to your hometown, then I call that  good act.

Blake also likes to hunt. That’s what he’s talking about with my brother-in-law Chad in the photos here from St. Louis in July, 2009. The Wood’s and Yeager’s were in St. Louis for game 1 of the regular season series between the Dodgers and Cardinals.

Chad and Casey talk at least once a year to get together and hunt.

Casey always is giving back of his time in town. So is Kurt Warner. He was there when Cedar Rapids flooded in 2008. He always has a soft spot for Iowa. Even when he’s visiting family in the Quad Cities and he picks up the tab of everyone bowling at an area alley like he did about 4 years ago.

Iowans should feel fortunate that Kurt and Casey call Iowa home.

Tax Credits get more attention

Certain topics need revisiting on The Iowa Journal. Tax credits is one of those. We looked at them back in November.

We will be looking at the issue as the Iowa Legislature gets into it as well. This goes beyond the Iowa Film Tax credit that is again making the news again this week.

This show will air Thursday at 8p in HD and then again on Friday at 630p.

Here’s the official release.

Tax Credits
On the Thursday, February 4 edition
of The Iowa Journal

(Johnston, Iowa) –Thursday’s episode of The Iowa Journal will take a look at how a call for reforms in tax credits may affect Iowa’s business climate as well as affect the state budget for services Iowans depend upon. This program airs Thursday, February 4 at 8 p.m. It will be rebroadcast Friday, February 5 at 6:30 p.m. on statewide Iowa Public Television and Saturday, February 6 at 8:30 a.m. on IPTV World. It will also be available online at iptv.org/iowajournal.
In the wake of last year’s alleged abuses of tax credits by the film and movie industry, Governor Chet Culver has called for reforms of a variety of tax credits designed to grow business and create jobs in Iowa. Before delving into a discussion of the pros and cons of tax credits, The Iowa Journal will present a short primer on how many tax credits actually work.
Host Paul Yeager will discuss the economics of tax credit policy in the studio with Senator Joe Bolkcom, a democrat from Iowa City and chair of the Senate Ways and Means Committee; Ed Wallace, president of the Iowa Taxpayers Association which represents more than 150 businesses in the state, and Victor Elias, a senior associate with the Child and Family Policy Center and also with the Iowa Fiscal Partnership advocating for tax credit reform.
For more information about The Iowa Journal, visit http://www.iptv.org/iowajournal or call (515) 242-3146. For information on how to watch IPTV WORLD in your area, visit Iptv.org.

The Iowa Journal looks at the Vision for Iowa

Judy Blank, Daniel Shipton, Michael Gartner, M. Shawn Crahan, Kesho Scott, Nancy Crowfoot, Paul Yeager following the taping of The Iowa Journal episode #317. Show recorded in Johnston, IA at IPTV studios. (Credit: Iowa Public Television)

Thanks to all who watched our Vision for Iowa program that aired Thursday. Here’s a look at the producers of the show and the guests.

We’ve had a couple of stories about the preview to the show. Here’s my take, here is the version the Silicon Prairie News website posted on us.

You still have a few chances to see the show in full HD on IPTV.

The Iowa Journal will air Friday night at 630p on Iowa Public Television ahead of the Penn State @ Iowa wrestling meet.

If you have over the antenna or converter box or access to all 3 Iowa Public Television signals you can watch the rebroadcast Saturday morning on our .3 service. So, if you’re in Raymond, you can watch on 32.3.

Or, you can just click here for the full program that is already on our website. Please, tell your friends. Share with neighbors, then tell us what you think of Michael Gartner‘s big idea for Iowa. Will it work? Not sure what that big idea is? Then you’ll have to watch the program.

What about Slipknot’s M. Shawn Crahan and his view for Iowa. What does he think will solve our problems? Click here to find out.

How about Kesho Scott of Grinnell College? Her views on what great strides Iowa has made were very complimentary to the state. But, does she consider herself an Iowan?

Is Iowa on the road to success or is it a hard road to run like the Brady Street Hill in Davenport?

And Daniel Shipton? Where does he think resources need to go to keep more young people, like him, here in Iowa?

Please visit here and leave your comments about our program. Where did we miss on this show?

Would you like to see what other shows we’ve done on the Iowa Journal? It just so happens there’s a page for that to list all our programs.

Did you know we looked at the Iowa Wine industry?
How about the art in public places including the display in the Pappajohn Art Sculpture?
Autism in Iowa? And we looked at the floods of 2008 and what, if anything can be done to prevent future disasters.

We want to hear that you care about this show and want to see it continue. As of now, we are slated to leave the air in June because of the budget reduction here at IPTV and the State of Iowa. Your comments are valued and appreciated. Again, just drop your comments here about our show. And if you like us, tell your friends about why you think this show is important in discussing topics that have an impact on all Iowans.

Next week we go after tax credits again. This issue is again a hot one in the Iowa Legislature. We visited the topic once, but feel it needs to be looked at again.

Great Voice Goes Silent at IPR

Front page tribute to Greg Shanley on the Iowa Public Radio Website

Iowa Public Radio lost a long-time voice on Wednesday.

Greg Shanley died overnight Tuesday from complications from diabetes. He was 49.

Shanley by name or face may not be familiar, but the voice was. Most recently He hosted Talk of Iowa for Iowa Public Radio. Prior to the merger into Iowa Public Radio, Shanley served at KUNI in Cedar Falls. You could also hear him on local cutins on Morning Edition.

Shanley also served as president of the Iowa Broadcast News Association.

The stories were plentiful Wednesday for Shanley.

Kay Henderson of Radio Iowa first told me this morning of Shanley’s death. Here’s her story.

Kathy Obradovich of the Des Moines Register penned this story.

Emily Christensen wrote this story for the Waterloo/Cedar Falls Courier.

Fellow IPTV producer Nancy Heather Brown told me today that she had done a Iowa State Fair Feature with Greg as he cooked up double burgers in a cooking competition. She told me that Greg’s reaction when he found out he won was priceless.

And Greg’s longtime co-worker and friend Pat Blank put this story together. The Iowa Public Radio homepage pays tribute to this wonderful human.

Funeral services are now set.

Vision for Iowa

Iowa. Don't come here. Maybe that should be our motto. If you don't come here, you would not see this sunrise over Bellevue and the Mississippi River.

Thursday night you’ll get to hear the view of 4 Iowans on the future of the state. Where are we headed? Are we all about year-round school? Is it keeping the best and brightest here through education incentives? Or is it all about the love?

We do drop a couple of good points on you, but you may be surprised in how our varied panel agreed on some things.

A little background here.

View of the Iowa State capital from Downtown Des Moines

We wanted to take a different approach to the beginning-of-the-year-what-can-we-expect show. We also didn’t want to totally do the show on politics or what the Iowa Legislature needs to do in the upcoming session. That’s what Iowa Press is for.

We wanted to do something a bit different. The producers of the show, Nancy Crowfoot, Judy Blank and myself started heading to a roundtable-type discussion show. Bring in some guests and ask their views on the future of the state.

Producer Judy Blank said one day during a meeting, “how about putting Michael Gartner next to Shawn Crahan?”

That would mean putting the former president of NBC News, editor of the Wall Street Journal, Iowa Board of Regents member, owner of the Iowa Cubs next to a percussionist of the heavy-metal and Grammy award-winning band Slipknot.

I loved the idea. Just the 2-shot of them next to each other was worth the price of admission.

We then went back and forth on the rest of show. I wanted to put 8 or 10 people on a panel and just go crazy for an hour. I did not win that part of the discussion.

Have the brightest days of Iowa already passed and now we're watching the sunset? View over Clear Lake, IA.

We started a list, even soliciting several of your ideas on visionaries or people who are doing some rare things in Iowa, could easily have left the state, or would offer some good discussion points.

I may at a later time post who we started with and how we pared it down. I think the list grew to 40 before Christmas.

We used this criteria to see who would best fit our idea. We asked the question, “what is Iowa’s biggest hurdle and how does that impact your life and livelihood?”

Daniel Shipton, Michael Gartner, M. Shawn Crahan and Kesho Scott, on the set of The Iowa Journal at Iowa Public Television. The picture was taken following the taping of the January 28th, 2010 program. Image from IPTV.

Kesho Scott of Grinnell College has been to Iowa Public Television before to serve other shows. She had views on her role as a college professor and grew up outside of Iowa. She’s been here 20+ years and now calls herself an Iowan. Scott is an associate professor at Grinnell. She’s an author, diversity trainer and won a Cristine Wilson Medal for Equality.

Daniel Shipton was recommended by several people and garnered attention as our pick for the panel. He’s a native Iowan, went to Iowa State for their virtual reality program and stayed in Iowa to do what he does. He is CEO at BitMethod and director of operations at Impromtu Studio in Des Moines. BitMethod does among many things, designs iPhone apps. He’s got 3 on the market now that he’s helped designed. Impromptu has hosted Ignite Des Moines and Movement Bash. He’s interested in fostering the growth of Iowa’s hi-tech industry.

Our program airs Thursday at 8p on Iowa Public Television. It will re-air Friday at 630p. You will be able to view it online at www.iptv.org/iowajournal sometime Friday, if not before.

Here’s where you find the official release.

Gartner was on our program about college sports spending and our media matters or who will report when the reporters are gone show.
Shawn Crahan talked about his role in Slipknot on our Music Industry in Iowa program. He was next to Jason Walsmith of the Nada’s.

Will our future of Iowa be in the urban areas like Cedar Rapids?

So how do you see Iowa in the next 20-30 years?
Who needs to lead change in the state? Does the leadership come from the golden dome in Des Moines or does it come from mainstreet Sioux Center?
What is not being talked about that needs to be?
How and why do we keep young people in our state?
What is your big idea for Iowa?

Welcome to Iowa. We have seasons.

All good questions and I’d like to hear your thoughts on all of them.

If you have any thoughts on the program send them to the bosses here at IPTV.

Want to view the show now? Go ahead and click here for an explanation of clips and more back ground on the show. Or just click here for the video of the show.

Longtime Farm Director dies

We’ve lost another member of the long-standing Iowa Broadcasting family.

This time from Mason City and the news of Al Heinz’s death. This was announced Monday.

Al also worked on the TV side of things back in the day when KIMT-TV was known as KGLO-TV.

We’ve also got to mention the passing of the farm broadcaster. There are fewer and fewer of these around Iowa. It used to be you’d watch the noon news to hear ag news. KWWL had Dale Hanson, KGAN had Wage Wagner and those are just the recent names that have been off the air for almost ten years already.

Iowa Broadcasting legend Jack Shelley would be a main part of many Iowan’s mid-day activities as farm operations would stop to hear what the markets were doing and the rest of the world’s news was.

Now farmers get that market information as it happens on their cell phones or on-board computers in their tractors.

At least we still have Market to Market, the longest running agri-business show in the country.

Back to Al’s death. From the folks at the radio ranch of KGLO in Mason City.

Tood Dorman of the Cedar Rapids Gazette grew up in Belmond, a NFL QB’s stone’s throw from Mason City. He wrote this note about Al’s career.

Longtime KGLO Farm Director Al Heinz dies

MASON CITY — A voice heard on radios throughout north-central Iowa for over six decades has been silenced. Word came earlier this morning that longtime KGLO Farm Director Al Heinz has passed away at his winter home in Texas. Heinz came to Mason City and started at KGLO radio back in 1943 and stayed through 1998. Heinz was also the second voice ever heard on what was then known as KGLO television, now KIMT, when the station signed on back in 1954. Heinz says he didn’t even think about being on television when starting his broadcasting career. Chris Frenz worked with Heinz for a number of years and told us earlier today that Heinz was the ultimate professional in his job. Funeral arrangements are incomplete at this time for Al Heinz, and of course we’ll give you the details of those as soon as they become available here on KGLO.

What is Iowa’s Future

I gotta tell ‘ya, this upcoming Iowa Journal is a show I really think you should watch.
I think you should watch every show we produce, but this one has something different.

We are looking into the future.
Specifically, what is Iowa’s future?

I will write more as the week goes on, but this show puts the former president of NBC News next to a percussionist of the band Slipknot. The picture alone is worth the tune-in Thursday night at 8p, Friday at 630p on Iowa Public Television.

Daniel Shipton of BitMethod and Impromptu Studio was next to Kesho Scott of Grinnell College. That side of the table was much better looking.

Here’s the official release that is going out now on the inter-webs.

What Is Iowa’s Future?
On the Thursday, January 28 edition
of The Iowa Journal

(Johnston, Iowa) –Thursday’s episode of The Iowa Journal will ask a diverse group of Iowans what they want to see for Iowa’s future. This program airs Thursday, January 28 at 8 p.m. It will be rebroadcast Friday, January 29 at 6:30 p.m. on IPTV and Saturday, January 30 at 8:30 a.m. on IPTV WORLD. It will also be available online at iptv.org/iowajournal.

Iowa faces a recession, unemployment, and out-migration of young people. The Legislature and government leaders work to find solutions. But what solutions can come from the private sector?
In the studio to discuss how to overcome challenging socioeconomic concerns, and who can help harness the state’s potential are four guests:
Michael Gartner is chairman and principal owner of the Iowa Cubs, a member of the Board of Regents, former chairman of Vision Iowa, and a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist.
Kesho Scott is an associate professor of American Studies and Sociology at Grinnell College, a Fulbright Scholar, author and diversity trainer, and winner of the Cristine Wilson Medal for Equality and Justice.
M. Shawn Crahan is a songwriter, producer, director and founder of Sopra Evil Records. He is a founding member of the Grammy award-winning band Slipknot, and is a member of the band Dirty Little Rabbits.
Daniel Shipton is a web and mobile technology entrepreneur. He is CEO at BitMethod, director of operations at Impromptu Studios, and sponsors events aimed at fostering growth of Iowa’s hi-tech industry.
For more information about The Iowa Journal, visit http://www.iptv.org/iowajournal or call (515) 242-3146. For information on how to watch IPTV WORLD in your area, visit Iptv.org.

Here’s a longer version of the above story. Enjoy. Complete with color pictures. I’m amazed at technology today.

More Public Cravings

Love the bottom screen crawl.

It seems we’ve had one storm after another whacking us upside the head and knocking us to the ground taking our lunch money. This winter has many in the media working overtime. This week it was the ice.

When working in a newsroom you can get a little burned out on the weather. Especially if you answer the phone for an extended period of time. After awhile you don’t care if Brownie Troop 312 is calling off the skating party, even if you are the station that cares for you.

You’ve heard from what seems everyone and every group out there.

That’s when the pranksters got you. They know you’ve had a long day and they are tired of seeing the endless crawl on tv.

One of the finest assignment editors I had the priveledge of working under was in Davenport. Andrea Davidson was cool under pressure and had a good sense about her while on the desk.

But after a long stretch of answering the phones one got by her and onto the air.

She wasn’t craving any thing more than her head to stop processing all the cancellations.

We are not sure how many times this particular closing ran. But we did find out that people actually read the crawl at the bottom of the screen.

Craven Moorehead Accounting Service closed early that day. We are not sure if it was a franchise business. But I’m sure there would be plenty of guys looking to invest in such a company.

This may a close second. It comes to us from Robert Fisher in North Iowa and KRIB/KGLO and the 12 other stations he does news for.

Robert Fisher: “I’ve been told that on a radio station outside of our market, this weather related announcement was said on the air….”Today’s smoking cessation class has been cancelled….so smoke’em if you got’em”….DOH!”

New Videos of Levi and Noah

Levi in his red puppy shirt

Amy was enjoying a night on the town, so I thought I would post a few videos of the boys.

You can see all sorts of videos, mostly Noah and Levi, here.

Here’s one with Noah and a new song.

Levi got a chance to get some camera time as well.

This one is a little longer with Noah. Here he talks about his friends at his school.

Here’s the link to the previous updates on the boys.

Great talent here in Iowa

There is talent in all corners of Iowa. The talent isn’t just math brains or a jump shot, but now the world of design is taking notice of some Iowa talent.

Mark Roberts of the Cedar Rapids-based Larry Roberts Interiors company, needs your help.

Mark is a finalist in the Traditional Home’s Top 20 Young Designers in the U.S. contest. Mark is an Iowa State University alumnus, based in Cedar Rapids, married to a Wartburg graduate (Kris Erickson) from Denver, Iowa, (tough for a Jesup guy to admit). Plus his father-in-law is the ever cool Virg Erickson. Sister Lis is like my 4th sister. Great family and plenty of reasons for all parts of Iowa to care.

Please take time to vote for Mark and his design. If he wins, he may redesign one of your rooms.

Here’s a link to the press release.
Here’s Lis’ note.

Hi everyone!

My brother-in-law, Mark Roberts, has been named one of Traditional Home’s Top 20 Young Designers in the U.S. – which pretty much rocks for an Iowa State alumnus whose business is based in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. But in addition to being one of the top 20, there’s also a readers’ choice contest. Can you please take three minutes to register & vote for Mark? http://my.traditionalhome.com/photos/photo-contests/young-traditional-readers-choice/

You might even be selected to have him redesign a room, if he wins. And you know how competitive the Ericksons are, so Kris & I REALLY WANT him to win.

If you want to check out other awesome work Mark has done, go to http://www.larryrobertsinteriors.com/. There’s more info in the press release, too…