Senior prom queen Johnnie Townsend (right) smiles at prom king Frank Frauenholz during the prom for residents of Greenwood Manor in Iowa City on March 29, 2009. The event was organized by University of Iowa students involved in the Career Leadership Academy. / Photo by Liz Martin

By Carla Keppler
The Gazette

IOWA CITY – The red crepe paper streamers, heart-shaped balloons and songs from past decades that filled the activity room at Greenwood Manor on March 29, 2009, sent residents on a trip down memory lane – all the way to their high school prom.

Velda Werling holds her flower during the senior prom celebration organized by UI students at Greenwood Manor in Iowa City on March 29, 2009. / Photo by Liz Martin

Decked out in suits, ties, dresses and jewels, about 20 care center residents gathered with friends and family for music, games and snacks as part of their 2009 Senior Prom celebration, an event put on by University of Iowa students involved in the Career Leadership Academy.

“They (residents) love this,” said Jennifer Schroeder, 43, of Tipton, who works as a nurse at Greenwood. “They get to dress up and relive old memories. A lot of them took this very seriously.”

One such resident was Judy Brown of Ottumwa, who had been looking forward to the event for months.

“We couldn’t wait for the day to get here,” said Brown, 51, adding that it was a chance for her to relive an event turned sour decades ago.

“This is a lot better than the one I had in high school when my boyfriend stood me up,” she said with a laugh. “But I can tell you, he wasn’t my boyfriend the next day. This feels more like the real thing.”

For others, like Donald Kennis, who missed his prom in Ottumwa years ago, it was simply a chance to “have a little fun.”

While Kennis was most complimentary of the food – especially the cinnamon bread and watermelon – he was also pleased with the opportunity to listen to some of his favorite tunes and visit with a new crowd.

“I’m glad to have the chance to do prom now,” Kennis, 82, said.

Habie Timbo, UI student

Habie Timbo, a UI sophomore from Cedar Falls who helped plan the festivities as part of the leadership program, kept busy serving food and mingling with residents at the event.

“I have cultivated relationships and am excited to see everyone enjoying themselves this weekend,” Timbo, 19, said, adding that she thought the idea of prom was a good fit for the Greenwood group.

But no prom would be official without crowning a king and queen. Residents Frank Frauenholz, 97, and Johnnie Townsend were all smiles after hearing of their newfound royalty.

“I can’t explain it in words it made me feel so good,” Townsend, 66, said, a plastic tiara resting atop her head. “I am so happy and so surprised.”

Townsend recalled her Lincoln, Ill., high school prom in the 1950s when strolling was a popular dance. And though she did not dance at the prom, the music, food and company were enough for her to request another such event in the future.

Bianca Franke, UI student

That’s a hope shared by students like Bianca Franke, another UI sophomore who helped set up this year’s prom.

“We all liked the idea for prom for senior citizens right away,” Franke, 19, said. “I think we’ve done a good job of getting to know everyone on a more personal level … and this is a great place to come and do (service project) things.”

Stepping outside the routine of bingo, blackjack and banjos was enough for Brown to agree.

“It really broke up the weekend,” she said. “There was pretty music and food and was something different. I would definitely come again.”

© Gazette Communications 2009

By Terry McCoy

News correspondent

AMANA – Under normal circumstances, operating heavy machinery while swilling a lager isn’t a great idea. Fun? Sure. But safe? Not so much.

But these weren’t ordinary circumstances at the Millstream Brewing Co. in Amana on Saturday afternoon as dozens of people staggered into the brewery to bottle beer, beer and more beer. And, oh yeah, maybe drink a couple if that wouldn’t be too much to ask.

Up and down an assembly line, people worked to the din of clanks and whistles, all the while trying – mostly unsuccessfully – to dodge lager leaks and pilsner perspiration.

“This is probably not something we should do,” said Millstream owner and event planner Tom Albert. “But the people just love it so much.”

How much is that?

Well, there was that snowstorm to account for, the work was unpaid and the benefits included blisters and sopping shoes from beer runoff. But without hesitation, all answered that, yes, it was worth it. What a dumb question.

Josh Marunde of Davenport stacks a box of Millstream Pilsner during the third annual bottling party at Millstream Brewing Company in Amana. / Photo by Liz Martin

“This is extreme male bonding,” asserted Justin Vorwald, 24, a UI law student. “What can be more manly than a brewery? Maybe a shooting range. But then only if we were drunk AND shooting would it be.”

On the line, Albert showed them how it’s done. Using a clamp of sorts, he picked up groups of bottles, placing them on the conveyor belt before they were whisked away, a new home for 12 ounces of beer. His work seemed simple, but wasn’t. This reporter can attest to it, having broken and tipped over many a bottle.

Albert wore waterproof hunting boots and a shirt that bore one of Benjamin Franklin’s more inspiring pronouncements: Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.

“Smart man, that Benjamin Franklin,” Albert said.

Saturday’s bottling was the third-annual, said Albert’s wife, Teresa, and was begun to mark Millstream’s 3 millionth bottle of beer. With a brats cookout and live music after the heavy lifting, the party has become a well-loved tradition.

It shows in the output. Teresa Albert estimated that between 6,000 and 8,000 bottles were bottled during the three hours of work. That’s nearly 45 bottles per minute.

But that’s nothing, Millstream owner Chris Priebe said. Normally when Millstream bottles beer every Tuesday, it doubles that number, moving with dazzling speed.

From the Amana brewery – one of 19 microbreweries statewide – the beer is shipped to all corners of the state and into parts of Minnesota, Illinois and Wisconsin. It’s a small operation, but the owners are content with it staying that way.

“Budweiser is good at what they do,” Teresa Albert said, “and we’re good at what we do.”

The Alberts and have owned Millstream with other partners since 2000 – an endeavor that began as so many do, with an offhand comment.

Driving back from Cedar Rapids, the Alberts heard that Millstream was up for sale. It was always Teresa Albert’s hope that she could one day own a business – but no ubiquitous restaurant or knickknack shop. She wanted something distinguished.

So they thought: Let’s buy it.

Back at the brewery, Solon resident Amy Tygart taped up boxes, but mostly clutched her beer, watching others and laughing – or as she called it, “supervising.” She had only one assessment of her duties:

“This is my dream job.”

©Gazette Communications 2009

Paul Goetzman

Paul Goetzman, 18, Hiawatha
Freshman@ Mount Mercy College
Web Developer and Designer @ CancerReallySucks.orgIt all started five years ago as a class project as a sophomore at Cedar Rapids Kennedy High School.

Paul Goetzman agreed to design a Web site for a local non-profit that was just getting started, Gems of Hope, an organization that gives gifts of jewelry mounted on inspirational cards to cancer patients.

Since then Paul has gone on not only to continue to maintain Gems of Hope’s Web site, www.GemsofHopeNet.org, but also helped launched that group’s sister site specifically for teens, www.CancerReallySucks.org

With the help of a panel of teens who have been affected by cancer, Paul created a site for teens to connect, vent and deal with the illness.

The class ended years ago and Paul has since graduated from high school and started as a student at Mount
Mercy College.
Still, he maintains CancerReallySucks.org

“I had no idea what would come of it,” he says. “There’s always different things to tweak.”

Web design isn’t his passion though. He could take it or leave it.

He may have a lot of experience building sites, but “my plan is to do nothing with computers,” Paul says.

That doesn’t mean he doesn’t have a plan. He does. A very specific one.

“I plan to be a Cedar Rapids police officer,” he says. “Not just a police officer. A Cedar Rapids police officer.”
Most little boys dream of being a police officer someday. Paul was no different.
He just never got over it.

“I’m pretty set on it,” he says.

At some point, he’d like to pass the daily responsibilities of the site over to someone else. But until that person steps up, Paul says he’ll continue to fill the need.

It helps, he says, that he’s a teen heading up a site that’s built for teens.
“The whole site is pretty interactive,” he says.

There’s a wall, for example, where visitors can post what they’re thankful for. The result is a rainbow of thoughts of thanks for ” the greatest BFF Sarah D and The Sound Of Music,” and “my sister being given a second chance
at life.”

There’s also a section called “How to Deal” designed by counselors and social workers to help teens identify their emotions. A message board provides a place for teens to ask questions or share their story.

Paul says the hardest part of the site is getting the word out. But someone is noticing. In high school, he won Kohls’ Kids Who Care award for his work and more recently he received a National Philanthropic Award for his efforts on behalf of Gems of Hope and Cancer Really Sucks.

“I help them a lot, but I see it the other way around,” Paul says. “I love to do it because I love to see the end result: people using it.”

©2009, Gazette Communications

Dale Lenz works on create an elaborate mat with windows for two pictures, each tilted an angle at Gallery One in Iowa City. / Photo by Cliff Jette

Career change paved way for I.C. business

By George C. Ford
From The Gazette

IOWA CITY — Sometimes, if you’re fortunate, your passion becomes your profession.

Ron Mason, owner of Gallery One, 705 Highway 1 West in Iowa City, initially taught biology at a high school near Independence, Mo. Observing unsatisfactory changes in secondary education, Mason moved to Iowa City to attend graduate school at the University of Iowa with a major in botany.

“When I left Kansas City, people were calling you up wanting you to apply for positions,” Mason said. “In five years, it went to 600 applicants for every job.

“I saw what my academic future was, and because of my culture background at the university, I was good fit for medical research. I worked in medical research for 14 years.”

While he was going to graduate school, Mason began a part-time career in professional photography that led to custom framing.

“My wife suggested that I frame my photographs because they would be more appealing to clients,” Mason said. “What it boiled down to is, they liked my framing more than the photography.”

Mason set up a custom framing operation in his basement. Nine years later, when he would have been forced to take a pay cut at the UI, Mason made a career-changing decision.

“When research funds were going down, my business was going up,” he said. “I was grossing nearly $60,000 a year in my basement part time, so it really was a no brainer.”

In 1988, Mason opened Gallery One on Highway 1 West to have a storefront presence. His business grew 45 percent in the first year with clients from Kalona and the North Liberty-Lone Tree area.

“We were doing well until this recession hit,” he said. “When I talked with other store owners at this year’s Professional Picture Framers Association convention, most of them were down between 32 percent and 40 percent. We’re totally dependent on discretionary income.”

Mason, 72, had planned to sell Gallery One this year to Dale Lenz, who formerly worked for Cornerhouse Gallery in Cedar Rapids. With the recession, Mason and Lenz have agreed to delay the sale for about three years.

“I just started a three-year term on the national board of directors of the Professional Picture Framers Association,” Mason said. “We will probably make the transition when I finish my term.”

Mason, who was honored March 3 with the Chapter Volunteer of the Year award from PPFA, is passionate about his profession. He believes customers need to be educated about the proper way to preserve and display art.

“Customers desire custom framing because their treasured items have sentimental or monetary value,” Mason said. “We emphasize the importance of proper hinging methods, rag matboards, conservation or museum glass, and backing support.”

Mason said technology is driving some of the changes in custom framing. He said the industry is “cherry-picking” state-of-the-art technology from other areas.

“Our computerized mat cutter came out of the sign industry,” he said. “We’re also seeing the same thing with … our conservation products.”

Contact the writer: (319) 398-8366 or george.ford@gazcomm.com

©2009, Gazette Communications

By Meredith Hines-Dochterman
The Gazette

HOMESTEAD – There’s so much Rinthea Satterlee would do for Safe Haven of Iowa County, if she had the money.

Install a washer and dryer. Build a training facility. Add more kennel space.

Sarge, a Jack Russell Terrier mix, sits in a cat basket in the office area of Safe Haven of Iowa County in Homestead. Safe Haven is one of 20 animal rescue organizations and shelters in the country vying for a $1 million dollar makeover prize from Zootoo.com. Photo by Brian Ray.

Satterlee, director of this non-profit animal rescue organization, has a million ideas to improve the lives of the stray animals taken in by Safe Haven. And she might get $1 million to do just that.

Safe Haven is one of 20 animal rescue organizations and shelters in the country vying for a $1 million makeover prize from ZooToo.com. It’s an online forum for pet lovers that operates as a user-generated platform, allowing participants to share and receive information based on personal experience.

ZooToo.com sponsored its first national Shelter Makeover Contest last year in an effort to connect communities with their shelters. Any U.S. shelter may enter the competition by starting a profile on ZooToo.com. When community members log on to their shelter’s page at ZooToo.com, each click, review, journal entry or photo results in points for the shelter.

“I received an e-mail from ZooToo six months ago, and instead of deleting it like I usually do, I opened it,” Satterlee said.

She read the information, registered Safe Haven on the Web site and began posting information about the shelter and its pets.

Rinthea Satterlee, Safe Haven director.

Word spread, thanks to the organization’s 70 volunteers, and more people visited the site. By the end of the competition’s first round, Safe Haven accumulated enough points to place 14th in the Top 20.

“I still can’t believe it,” Satterlee said. “There were 3,500 shelters across the country in this contest, and Safe Haven, a little shelter in Iowa County, made the Top 20.”

Safe Haven will receive $5,000 for making the Top 20. If the shelter makes the Top 10, to be announced in Las Vegas next month, it will receive $10,000 and will be in the running for the grand prize.

America will vote for its favorite in the Top 10 April 13 through 19.

“If we make it to the Top 10, we need everybody in Iowa to vote for us every single day,” Satterlee said.

Princess Leiah, a white American Shorthair, sits on top of a climbing post in the office area of Safe Haven of Iowa County in Homestead. Photo by Brian Ray.

The Top 10 shelters will be chosen by ZooToo.com representatives who toured all Top 20 facilities. Three of those representatives visited Safe Haven last week, greeted by dozens of supporters who braved the chilly day to show their support.

“Seeing everyone there to support Safe Haven was incredible,” said Kathryn McNabb, Safe Haven’s dog coordinator.

The representatives toured the facility, a large white barn leased to the organization at no cost from supporters. Safe Haven moved to the site in June 2007, transforming the open space to accommodate cats and dogs without a home.

“They told us if there was an award for doing something with nothing, we would get it,” Satterlee said.

Safe Haven of Iowa County's dog coordinator Kathryn McNabb lets Ella, a Pit Bull Terrier mix, lick frozen peanut butter out of a Kong dog toy at the shelter in Homestead. Photo by Brian Ray.

Safe Haven began in December 2005 with nothing more than a desire to help homeless animals. Satterlee and volunteers worked to find the space and the items necessary to keep animals healthy and happy while waiting to be adopted. It has rescued 625 animals. Walls of photographs inside the barn showcase those who found new homes.

“It’s our Hall of Fame,” Satterlee said.

Safe Haven accepts all strays and abandoned animals, even those with special needs. Donations fund Safe Haven’s monthly veterinary bills – the facility averages $5,000 a month in pet care – as well as food, bedding and toys. And while Safe Haven acts as a temporary home for the animals it houses, everyone works to ensure it doesn’t feel that way.

“It’s more like a family than a group of people and animals,” said Karen Kolb-Lawing, Safe Haven’s cat coordinator.

© Gazette Communications 2009

Coggon barber, 98, shuns easy chair for barber chair

Tom Waters, 98, is reflected in a multi-panel mirror at one end of the barbershop in Coggon where he’s been cutting hair for 63 years. Overall, Waters has cut hair nearly 80 years in Coggon, Winthrop, Jesup and Independence./Photo by Dave Rasdal/The Gazette

By Dave Rasdal
The Gazette

COGGON – Tom Waters has been cutting hair so long:

• Short hair has been the style many times.

• Someone stole his barber pole 25 years ago and he never replaced it. “No use putting up another one,” he says. “Everybody knew where I was by then.”

• The Great Depression came and went.

Yep. July 19, 1929, reads Tom’s original barber license.

“I was in Winthrop then,” he says. “A few months later the Depression hit.”

Tom was 18. He’d already been an apprentice barber in Coggon, in Linn County, for a couple of years. The price for a haircut went down – 35 cents to 25 cents.

Last Oct. 15, Tom turned 98. The economy isn’t so hot now, either. But he’s still charging $8 for a haircut, the price he charged on my last visit eight years ago.

At that time I never would have guessed he’d still be standing at his chair in 2009.

“I didn’t think I’d still be cutting hair, either,” Tom says.

A little gray fuzz litters the floor beneath the barber chair where Tom reads The Gazette, waiting for a customer.

“I don’t think it’s going to be a very busy day today,” he says. “It was busy yesterday. It’s not usually busy two days in a row.”

We chat in his shop below ground level, below City Hall, where he’s been cutting hair the last 63 years. The multi-paned mirror on the opposite wall, the white pedestal sink, the pendulum clock on the wall were here when he arrived. The rent is $25 a month, same as it’s been for years.

Tom gives 10, maybe 20, haircuts a week. He’s here 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Mondays, Tuesdays and Fridays, 9 a.m. to noon on Saturdays. You used to know he was at work when his bright yellow 1979 Mitsubishi Mirage was parked outside. It died four years ago. Now look for a white 2002 Ford Focus.

Imagine working for nearly 80 years, cutting hair longer than the average life expectancy.

Tom’s dad, Ed, died at age 79. His mother, “Nette,” lived to be 65. The last of his eight siblings, a sister, died 20 years ago at age 84.

“I’ve got a niece that’s 100,” Tom jokes. “She doesn’t live here – Green Bay. She baby-sits her younger sister.”

Tom has cut hair for generations of families, for so long many of his customers have died of old age. So have most of his fishing buddies.

Tom used to take off on occasion to land a few walleye in Canada. He hasn’t taken a vacation for four or five years now. His longtime sweetheart, Myrtle Orcutt, 93, used to fish with him along Turtle Creek near Manchester and along the Mississippi River near Guttenberg. But she left their home for a care center 1 1/2 years ago, so he visits her on days he doesn’t work.

“I like it now,” Tom says about barbering. “I didn’t used to like the long hours and the shaving part. That played itself out.”

Later this year Tom will attend a day of school required every two years to extend his license.

Retire? Nah. Tom Waters will be here tomorrow.

©

This original barber certificate was presented to Tom Waters of Coggon on July 19, 1929, when he began cutting hair in Winthrop. At age 98, he still cuts hair in Coggon./Photo by Dave Rasdal/The Gazette

 Gazette Communications 2009

Jeff Groff of Cedar Rapids sets a nearly 100 pound amethyst on his patio table. Groff and Dave Malm of Cedar Falls found and dug up the huge amethyst in the Lake Superior area of Canada. / Photo by Dave Rasdal

By Dave Rasdal
For The Gazette

CEDAR RAPIDS — Forget walleye and northern pike. Or elk and caribou.

When Jeff Groff visits Canada, he’s pursuing the elusive perfect purple amethyst.

Yep. A purple rock with quartz-like crystals that shimmer in the sun. The birthstone for February.

“It’s kind of like hunting mushrooms and fishing,” says Jeff, 57, of Cedar Rapids. “For the chance of finding something good.”

Last August, for example, Jeff and fellow rockhound Dave Malm of Cedar Falls returned with a 100-pound amethyst that required as much work as hunting big game. From a 4-foot-deep pit they removed 200 gallons of water, then masses of muck and clay, to unearth the huge gem.

“I remember when we got it out of the pocket,” Jeff says. “It was a bear.”

In 2008, they ventured to Pearl Lake Mine, near Thunder Bay off the western shore of Lake Superior. And they were after the amazing amethyst, Jeff’s favorite rock.

“Oh, yeah,” Jeff says. “Because of its rarity, you don’t find it in many spots in North America.”

After a decade of hunts, Jeff displays plenty of the crystallized stones around the house he shares with his wife, Ilse.

“Much to my wife’s dismay,” Jeff chuckles, “it’s really about collecting.”

Jeff’s interest in rocks began half a century ago on a fishing trip with his father and uncle to Harpers Ferry.

“I was walking in the gravel pit and found a rock. I asked my dad, ‘What’s this?’ He said, ‘It’s an agate.’ I’ve been interested ever since.”

As any skilled hunter will tell you, you’ve got to know your quarry. In this case, a little about geology and glaciers, a little about rocks and minerals, and even a little about quarries.

Quarries are the best rock-hunting grounds in Iowa, but you’ve got to secure permission from the owner, wear the proper safety equipment (shoes, glasses, hard hat) and beware of falling rock. It’s a good idea, Jeff says, to stay 50 feet away from a quarry wall.

“Maybe you shouldn’t be so close to this wall,” he says. “Then you hear this zzzztttt, zzzztttt. It’s cracking. Next thing you know, there goes this guy pell-mell …

Because of the glacier movement centuries ago, Jeff says, Canada mines yield some of the best amethysts.

He and Dave must secure permission to hunt there, too, and usually must pay for what they find.

At expedition’s end, Jeff says, the land owner examines your finds and sets a price.

If the owner wants, say, $150 and you don;t agree, “you dicker for it,” Jeff says.

As a result, when your game is valuable rocks, there’s no limit as long as the money lasts.

Sometimes the weeklong expedition ends early when the cash runs out.

Or, like last year, it requires renting a trailer to haul all the amethysts back.

Contact the author at: (319) 398-8323 or dave.rasdal@gazcomm.com

©2009, Gazette Communications

Partners John Schafer, right, and Brian Smith of Cedar Rapids are strong proponents of diversity and inclusion. / photo by Mark Tade/EdgeBusiness

By Janet Rorholm
From The Gazette

How do you define diversity? That’s a topic many diversity experts in the Corridor hope to tackle given that preliminary reports from a new diversity study show residents in the Corridor have a limited view of diversity.”When people think about inclusion and diversity, people think of race immediately. Then they may think of gender, but there really are eight dimensions of diversity,” said Hazel Pegues, executive director of Diversity Focus in Cedar Rapids.

Those eight dimensions are race, culture, ethnicity, age, religion, social economic status, disabilities and sexual orientation or lifestyle.

Karen Brown, director of Diversity Partnership at Rockwell Collins in Cedar Rapids, agrees that the Corridor has to better define diversity to residents.

“I think the community as a whole has made some baby steps in how a great number of people understand diversity and inclusion,” Brown said. “I think we have raised the bar in what diversity is through Diversity Focus. It’s a strong and highly respectable brand and its image has given this area a lot of recognition.”

Pegues said the recent survey shows most people don’t think about gays and lesbians, bisexual and transgender groups, and people with disabilities barely were acknowledged.

“Given that we are fighting two wars, more people are going to return home disabled,” Brown said. “Our question as an employer is how can we tap into that for talent.”

Call it a matter of survival or an enlightened viewpoint, but while government continues to bicker about what rights gay and lesbian people should have, businesses and other organizations are taking the lead on these diversity and inclusivity issues.

Organizations and businesses are beginning to understand there are other aspects of diversity than just race, ethnicity, gender and age, Brown said.

Because so much discussion about diversity is about race, ethnicity and cultures, Brian Smith of Cedar Rapids, who is gay, was encouraged by his employer’s inclusion for gay, lesbian and bisexual and transgender employees.

“As a gay person, it’s extremely important,” said Smith, who is manager of performance and development for GE Commercial Finance and chairman of the Cedar Rapids company’s diversity group, Inclusiversity.

“One of the things we value is inclusiveness and GE stresses being inclusive,” he said.

Every other month, the group holds a book club where members read books from different cultures and then get together to talk about them. It also supports cultural diversity week which highlights difference cultures, like India where the company has employees and the Czech and Slovak Republics to honor part of Cedar Rapids’ heritage, Smith said.

Recently, Smith and other members of GE’s Inclusiversity group went to GE’s annual affinity group conference that brings together employees of these different groups. Smith, who attended the GLBT event, called it a great experience.

“We felt very empowered and engaged. We felt the company valued our diversity. It didn’t see it as a negative,” he said.

GE’s openness has helped create dialogues. It also has offered same-sex partner benefits for about five years.
“It’s all about looking at it from a business perspective. Can this person do the job? Yes. Does it matter if they are — whatever? No,” Smith said.

One reason many businesses are further ahead of the curve than society is that they need quality employees and welcoming, accepting and supporting these diverse groups can help attract the talent they need. But it also makes good business sense.

“I think a lot of businesses see the buying power of the GLBT,” Smith said. “A lot of us don’t have children and so we spend a lot of money on our dogs or going out.”

So whether its offering networking groups or sponsoring GLBT events, that support doesn’t go unnoticed.

Support of GLBT issues is growing among businesses nationwide. The Human Rights Campaign Foundation’s State of the Workplace report shows rapid expansion of protections for GLBT workers in the private sector in the past decade.

About 35 percent, or 175, of the nation’s Fortune 500 businesses have gender identity protections, including 60 of the top 100 Fortune-ranked businesses. In 2000, just three of the Fortune 500 businesses had such protections.
And 85 percent of the Fortune 500 businesses have protections based on sexual orientation, compared with 51 percent in 2000.

“This report shows that the country’s largest and most competitive employers are most likely to have added protections based on gender identity and sexual orientation, setting consistent expectations of equal opportunity for their employees and job applicants regardless of where they work in the United States,” said Joe Solmonese, president of Human Rights Campaign Foundation.

Employers also have improved benefits to ensure fair treatment of GLBT employees and their families. Today, 57 percent, or 286, of the Fortune 500 companies offer domestic partner benefits.

Removing discriminatory exclusions for medically necessary, transgender-specific treatment is a rapidly-emerging trend. Eighteen of the Fortune 100 provide transgender-inclusive health insurance, compared with one in 2001.

In Iowa City, the more liberal end of the Corridor, support for GLBT community is much more prominent. Businesses have openly supported and catered to the GLBT community, throwing support to the four-year-old magazine Outlook, which caters to those who are gay and lesbian.

Carlton Blackburn, founder of Connections, a networking group for GLBT and the Outlook resource guide, said selling ads for the magazine has been “real easy.”

“Most of our sponsors of Outlook magazine are straight,” he said.

Iowa City has a high percentage of gays and lesbians and businesses recognize it’s a good angle to support these people, Blackburn said. He estimates that 10 percent to 15 percent of Iowa City residents are gay or lesbian.

Blackburn created Connections as a welcome magazine for new residents, many of whom are associated with the University of Iowa. Articles and features make up half of the magazine and the other half is a business guide. Gay and lesbian people wanted to know who could they go to, whether it be a physician or therapist.

“It’s important to find people who are open to your life,” Blackburn said. Hazel Pegues Mark Tade/EdgeBusiness

Partners John Schafer and Brian Smith of Cedar Rapids are strong proponents of diversity and inclusion.

©2009, Gazette Communications

Joan Banse helps kindergarten student Imoni Cardine link and unlink a chain of plastic toy in the library at Kenwood Elementary in Cedar Rapids. Banse, a teacher for the visually impaired, uses the toy to help Imoni develop the finger strength need to operate the keys of the Perkins Braille Writer. The two also work on activities that develop fine motor skills. / Photo by Cliff Jette, The Gazette

Services for blind children move from Vinton into students’ homes, home schools

By Diane Heldt
From The Gazette

VINTON — The stately campus of the Iowa Braille School here is home to 12 students this year.

Just a few years ago, it had three times that number, and a few decades ago the campus was home to 160 students.
The 12 students, who are blind or vision impaired, live on campus during the week and go home on weekends. All of their classes, meals and dorm rooms are in the same historic building, Old Main.

The shrinking on-campus enrollment at the 157-year-old school is part of the transition to a Statewide System for Vision Services that aims to provide more and better services to students in their local schools and environments.

“The Iowa Braille School is intended to be a part of that whole continuum, but not necessarily the significant part that it once was,” said Patrick Clancy, who recently became superintendent of the Braille School and administrator of the new Statewide System for Vision Services.

The new system was established one year ago, a joint agreement of the four state agencies responsible for providing services to the blind.

In 2005, just 23 percent of the Braille School’s state appropriation was spent on services for students with vision impairment in Iowa, with the rest supporting the small residential program. This year, 45 percent of the school’s $5.6 million in state money goes to help more than 400 students across Iowa.

Imoni Cardine is one of those students. The 6-year-old is a kindergartner at Kenwood Elementary in Cedar Rapids.

Three times a week, she meets in the school library with Joan Banse, a teacher of visually impaired students.
Imoni punches the large keys on a Perkins Braille Writer, which is similar to a typewriter but spits out Braille-imprinted pages. She and Banse read a book with Braille phrases and plastic buttons for Imoni to put into slots.

During an exercise to strengthen her fingers for the Braille Writer, Imoni connects bumpy, curved toy pieces.

Casey Duggan, the Kenwood paraprofessional who helps Imoni during class, said the time Imoni spends with Banse makes a difference.

Kindergartener Imoni Cardine types her name on a Perkins Braille Writer with some help from Joan Banse in the library at Kenwood Elementary in Cedar Rapids. Banse is a teacher for the visually impaired who travels to teach seven students in Cedar Rapids, Marion, Anamosa and Lisbon. Banse meets with Imoni three times a week for a total of about 1.5 hours. / Photo by Cliff Jette

“It’s a slow process, but you can tell it’s a consistent, positive influence,” he said.

Banse formerly taught at the Braille School but now travels to Cedar Rapids, Anamosa, Marion and Lisbon to teach seven students with varying visual impairments.

“They’re in their home community, and they make friends, stay with their families,” Banse said.

It’s good to “blur the lines” that divided services before, said Guy Fisher, a teacher of the visually impaired based in Keystone Area Education Agency’s Decorah office. Under a statewide system, all resources and experienced staff are coordinated to best help students, he said.

“We’ll be able to provide services to more kids, kids who maybe sometimes slipped through the cracks,” he said.

In the first year of the statewide system, the budget savings and shifting of positions from the Braille School to other services allowed the addition of three orientation and mobility specialists and two math and literacy consultants who work with students around the state, Clancy said.

Eventually, all 31 teachers of Iowa’s blind and visually impaired and the 13 orientation and mobility specialists will be employed by the statewide system. Currently, about half of the teachers are employed by AEAs. That reorganization streamlines the budget, referral services and operating procedures, Clancy said.

Cedar Rapids parent Renee Henderson said it’s comforting to know her son, who turns 3 in July, will continue to get the services he needs in his home community. Her son, Terrel, was born almost completely blind. Banse comes to the Henderson home twice a month to read Braille books with Terrel. When he starts school, the services will be provided there.

“I think that is a really big deal,” Henderson said. “Even though he’s different, he won’t feel like he has to be separated from everyone else.”

But some parents still prefer the residential school model.

Clancy, the Braille School’s director, said the residential school remains an important component of services. But it’s possible the school’s future will come up again, he said, adding he thinks residential enrollment will never break 30 again.

The Braille School is becoming more of a short-term option, he said, as more students attend for only one semester or year, or perhaps for intense summer instruction in Braille or independent living.

“We’ll continue to look at what’s the function and what can be offered here,” he said. “What’s important is that the children get what they need.”

©2009, Gazette Communications

Darin Burco of rural Independence appears as a line drawing in a 30-second television commercial for SureStart herbicide made by Dow AgroSciences./ Photo by Dave Rasdal, The Gazette

By Dave Rasdal
The Gazette
 
INDEPENDENCE – When Darin Burco speaks, his voice sounds just like that black-and-white line drawing caricature on the herbicide commercial. But what comes out of his mouth is a lot more down to earth.

Instead of commercial speak – “It gave us a lot more flexibility on our spraying and we got up to four to six weeks of residual and our crops were very clean” – the real Darin will say, “We were real happy. It held the weeds down.”
Yep. That’s the real Darin. Not the caricature that has given him the proverbial 15 minutes of fame in 30-second airings of the commercial for SureStart, a herbicide made by Dow AgroSciences.

Darin Burco of rural Independence stands adjacent to one of his farm fields to simulate the “cartoon” line-drawing character of him as seen by television viewers in a 30-second commercial for SureStart herbicide for Dow AgroSciences. Photo was taken Thursday, March 12, 2009. (Dave Rasdal/The Gazette)

Make no mistake about it, Darin is a firm believer in SureStart. But he’s a lot more than the line drawing.
He’s 45 and a lifelong Buchanan County resident.

He farms 11,000 acres in Iowa and Missouri, having expanded the operation begun by his father, Jerald, who is semiretired in Florida.

He sells about 150 used tractors a year, at an average price of $70,000, from his Burco Sales about seven miles north of Independence.

He’s a husband and father to wife, Niki, and children, Jordyn, 14, and Dustin, 10.

And he got a charge out of filming the commercial in Chicago last December, even though it was a lot of work.
“Every time you did something, you had to do it 10 to 15 times,” he says. “I wouldn’t want to do that for a living.”
But he and Niki did receive first-class accommodations, were wined and dined, and she got a $250 shopping spree.
“I got a T-shirt and a coat,” Darin laughs.

The gig began when Denny Schrader, a chemical representative from Parkersburg, suggested Darin for the commercial. After a couple of telephone interviews Darin was picked to become a star.

“I figured it would be a fluke deal,” he says. “They were going to interview a bunch of farmers.”

Instead, Darin joined a couple of other farmers, one from Minnesota and the other from Southern Illinois, to sit under hot lights in front of a green screen to recite his lines. He constantly received makeup and pointers. Once filming wrapped, his facial features and voice were transformed into the speaking line drawing for the commercial.

Because Darin is so busy – he works 12- to 14-hour days, seven days a week – he’s seen the commercial only a couple of times.

“I think it’s kind of funny, myself,” he says.

“It’s about 75 percent like you,” says Niki. “It’s cool.”

They aren’t even sure what the children think.

“They laugh at it, probably,” Darin says. “They don’t say much. They don’t like commercials.”

But folks around Independence and some of his 20 employees have commented. He’s even received handshakes from strangers who recognize him.

“They say, I see you’re on one of those icky commercials,” Darin laughs. “We just got done with the political commercials. Now we have to put up with chemical commercials.”

Darin plans to use SureStart this year on about a third of his corn acres – 2,500 out of 8,000. The remaining 3,000 acres around Independence and northern Missouri will be planted in soybeans.

Darin farms in Missouri because equivalent land costs about half what it does here – $2,700 to $3,000 an acre compared with $5,700 to $6,400.

As far as tractors are concerned, Burco Sales buys and sells them all around the United States. Not only does the company refurbish them – about a dozen are in the shop while another two dozen stand at the ready in a nearby field – it transports them. That means a lot of weekend travel, plenty of tractor knowledge and hard work.

You see, to become a commercial success, Darin first had to become an astute businessman.

© Gazette Communications 2009