A Sheldon man has pleaded not guilty to murdering his mother in March.
According to court documents, Nathaniel Kassel, 41, entered the plea Friday on his charge of first-degree murder.
WHO-Television in Des Moines reports court documents stated that Kassel had contacted family, telling them that he was planning to kill her. Kassel was staying with Duskin on the day of the incident.
Kassel has requested a speedy trial. A jury trial has been scheduled for June 20, with a pretrial conference on May 15.
Lawmakers moved forward with several measures last week, including a bill to allow gun owners to keep their firearms in their cars at certain public buildings and sending a bill that tightens eligibility requirements for public assistance programs to the governor’s desk. There is also bipartisan support for a bill moving through the House that would cap property tax increases.
Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas reported income from a real estate firm founded by his wife and her family, even after the company ceased to exist, The Washington Post said.
The Nebraska real estate firm, Ginger Ltd. Partnership, was founded in the 1980s and was shut down in 2006, the newspaper reported, citing state incorporation records. A separate firm, Ginger Holdings LLC, was created to assume control of the shuttered company’s land-leasing business, according to the report.
That firm, which is managed by the sister of Thomas' wife, Ginni, has a designated office address at a home in Lincoln, according to records with the Nebraska Secretary of State's office. However, Lancaster County Assessor records show that the sister, Joanne Elliott, sold the home in 2012.
Thomas has continued to report income from the defunct company without mentioning the newer firm on forms, including between $50,000 and $100,000 annually in recent years, The Post said.
The misstatement follows reports by ProPublica this month that Thomas and his wife accepted vacations and flights for years from Harlan Crow, a wealthy real estate developer and Republican donor. The media outlet also reported that the justice and his relatives sold three Georgia properties that include Thomas’ boyhood home to Crow in 2014.
The Thomases didn’t respond to requests from The Post for comment. The justice has previously defended himself, saying he’d been told he didn’t have to report the trips.
One of the nation’s largest state gatherings of agricultural education students is underway at Iowa State University. For more on the story check out this link from Radio Iowa.
Submitted news releases:
Sioux City Community Schools raise graduation rate to highest level in 10 years
Sioux City, Iowa –Nearly nine out of 10 high school students graduate in four years from Sioux City Community Schools according to recent figures released by the Iowa Department of Education.
State data shows 89.91 percent of students in the District graduated within four years, the highest graduation rate for Sioux City Community Schools in the last decade. According to the data for the 2021-2022 school year, the District’s raised its graduation rates within the majority of subgroups reported by the state including students with Individualized Education Programs (IEPs), students who qualify for free or reduced meals, and homeless students.
“The Sioux City Community School District has invested significant dollars in programs and initiatives, including those dedicated to supporting our most at-risk students, to ensure all students reach their potential. All students in our district have the opportunity to earn a diploma,” says Dr. Rod Earleywine, superintendent of Sioux City Community School District. “Our team members and departments are vital to helping our students succeed. Their commitment to student excellence is evident in the District’s rising graduation rates.”
Iowa graduation rates are calculated with a formula established by the U.S. Department of Education. Unique student identification numbers allow school districts to account for all ninth- grade students as they move through high school.
The graduation rate for Sioux City Community Schools aligns with the state’s graduation rate of 89.9 percent. Iowa’s graduation rate is higher than neighboring states including Illinois, Missouri, Nebraska, and South Dakota.
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About Sioux City Community School District:
The Sioux City Community School District exists to educate students to believe in their talents and skills, achieve academic excellence, and succeed in reaching their potential. Students of the Sioux City Community School District experience boundless opportunities at every grade level; that is because SCCSD teachers guide every child to discover a love for learning. Serving over 14,500 students annually, the District ensures our students develop the critical-thinking, problem-solving, and analytical skills needed to be successful now and into the future. For more information, visit siouxcityschools.org.
North High School Students Raise $15,054 for St. Luke’s Children’s Miracle Network
(Sioux City, IA – April 17, 2023) North High School Student Council students raised $15,054 through their annual Dance Marathon in support of UnityPoint Health - St. Luke’s Children’s Miracle Network (CMN) on Friday, April 14.
Students raised donations through sponsorships, product fundraising and coin competitions leading up to the event. More than 100 attendees participated in this year’s Dance Marathon event for an evening full of dancing, games and entertainment with all proceeds benefiting CMN.
“This event was entirely put on by Siouxland kids for Siouxland kids,” said Stacey Selk, director of Children’s Miracle Network at UnityPoint Health – St. Luke’s Foundation. “They brainstormed all the fundraising ideas and set a goal of raising $15,000.”
North High School Dance Marathon was supported by the following: Sunflower Boutique, Northwest Bank, Perry Way Bouquet, Midwest Mobile Glass, The Greenwell Family, Pizza Ranch, Kletschke Wealth Management Group and T’s to Pleeze.
Dance Marathon is a nationwide movement involving college and high school students at more than 250 schools across the country, all raising money for the Children’s Miracle Network Hospital in their community. Each event is entirely student-run, and 100% of the funds raised are donated directly to their local Children's Miracle Network. Students learn invaluable leadership and life skills while raising funds and interacting with children’s hospital patients and families.
Gifts to St. Luke’s Children’s Miracle Network are used to enhance children’s healthcare services at UnityPoint Health – St. Luke’s including the purchase of new equipment and supplies as well as funding special services and health education for children and families.
For more information about St. Luke’s Children’s Miracle Network visit unitypoint.org or call UnityPoint Health – St. Luke’s Children’s Miracle Network at (712) 279-3900.
Healthy Ways to Cope With Stress
Lincoln – Stress Awareness Month has been recognized every April since 1992. The Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) recognizes the importance of learning to cope with stress and finding healthy ways to deal with situations in our lives that cause stress, which can go a long way to helping Nebraskans live healthy, productive, and positive lives.
“We all experience stress throughout our lifetimes but we may experience it in very different ways,” said Tony Green, Interim Director of Behavioral Health. “Stress is a reaction to a situation where an individual experiences physical, mental, or emotional strain or tension. Learning healthy ways to cope, receiving proper care and support, and spreading awareness about available resources can help reduce feelings and symptoms of stress and take steps towards building stronger communities throughout Nebraska.”
Stress management starts with identifying the sources of stress in your life. It is important to try not to get caught up in the hustle and bustle of life and forget to take care of your own needs. A quick way to reduce stress is by taking a deep breath and using your senses. In a stressful moment, focus on what can you see, hear, taste, and touch. Viewing a favorite photo, smelling a specific scent, listening to a favorite piece of music, tasting a piece of gum, or hugging a family member, friend, or pet, can help you feel relaxed and focused on yourself and your body.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends these healthy ways to cope with stress:
Take breaks from watching, reading, or listening to news stories, including those on social media. It is important to be informed about what is happening in the world, but hearing about a traumatic or stressful event constantly can be upsetting. Consider limiting exposure to news to a couple of times a day and spending time away from the phone, TV, and computer screens.
Maintain balance with a healthy lifestyle. Eating a healthy diet, getting exercise, focusing on the quantity and quality of sleep, reducing caffeine and sugar, and taking breaks when feeling stressed are not only beneficial for overall health but can also decrease feelings of stress.
Make time to relax. Try scheduling time to do activities that you enjoy every day, setting aside leisure time, or taking up a relaxation practice. Some examples of common relaxation practices are deep breathing, meditation, yoga, aromatherapy, journaling, music, or art therapy.
Talk to others. Confiding in individuals that you trust about your concerns and how you are feeling can help reduce stress. Consider sharing your experiences or how you are feeling with a parent, friend, counselor, doctor, or pastor.
Avoid drugs and alcohol. These substances may seem to help in the short term, but they can create additional problems and increase the stress you are experiencing.
Recognize when you need help. There is hope and there is help. If problems continue or you are thinking about suicide, talk to a psychologist, social worker, professional counselor, or pastor. Contact the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline – call, text, or chat 988.
Need to talk or get immediate help in a crisis? Help is available. If you or a loved one need assistance, please reach out to:
- The Suicide and Crisis Lifeline – call, text, or chat 988
- Your faith-based leader, your healthcare professional, or your student health center on campus.
- Nebraska Family Helpline – Any question, any time. (888) 866-8660
- Rural Response Hotline, (800) 464-0258
- Disaster Distress Helpline: 1-800-985-5990 (oprime dos para Español) or text TalkWithUs to 66746.
- National Domestic Violence Hotline: 1-800-799-7233 or text LOVEIS to 22522
- National Child Abuse Hotline: 1-800-4AChild (1-800-422-4453) or text 1-800-422-4453
- National Sexual Assault Hotline: 1-800-656-HOPE (4673)
APRIL 16, 2023 --- SPENCER, IOWA
Bill Lee, formerly of the Boston Red Sox and currently with the Savannah Bananas, to workout with the northwest Iowa American Legion baseball teams of the Iowa Great Lakes, Ruthven, and Milford, at Cardinal Field in Spencer, Iowa on Monday, April 17. OPEN to the Public! Bring your glove and have a catch.
Total Baseball Development of Sioux City, Iowa and the Iowa Great Lakes will be hosting 76 year old former Major League Baseball left-handed pitcher Bill Lee with a three team American Legion baseball practice & scrimmage that will include the Iowa Great Lakes Okobojis from Spencer Post #1, the Ruthven Blues of Palo Alto County from Ruthven Post #33 & Ayrshire Post #173, and the Milford Muskellunges of Milford Post #384 at Cardinal Field, located at 1169 East Milwaukee in Spencer, Iowa on Monday, April 17 from 5:30pm-8:06pm. Street Parking ONLY. From 5:30-6:30 there will be an off-field side practice west of Cardinal Field, with the on-field scrimmage beginning at 6:45 and will last until sundown at 8:06pm.
This event is free of charge and OPEN to the public. An autograph session will follow including a Vintage Wood Bat sale of baseball bats that Lee produces and oversees production on.
Lee was born in 1946, and on Monday at Cardinal Field he will strike out a high schooler, guaranteed! Tell your friends, tell your family. Bring your cameras. And bring balls, pennants, and items to be autographed. There will be a lot of fun had and it is your chance to meet a living legend and real life national baseball treasure!
Lee's connection to U.S. Veterans, Legionnaires, and American Legion baseball are strong and extend back to the 1960's as he then served in the US Army Reserve for six years during the Vietnam War in communications, as a Military Police officer, and was also a chemical, radiation, and biological officer for the 1173rd in Fort Polk Louisiana.
On the baseball side of things Lee is a legendary former Boston Red Sox and Montreal Expos left-handed pitcher of the 1970's and 1980's, and is a current showman extraordinaire and active pitcher with the traveling Savannah Bananas out of Savannah, Georgia. Harlem Globe Trotter like, the Bananas host games in Savannah and the very historic Grayson Stadium, and on the road they are a barnstorming team like no other. In just a couple of years the Bananas have become a world-wide social media sensation. The Bananas have been featured by ESPN, The Wall Street Journal, Sports Illustrated, and have been highlighted on CBS Sunday Morning with Jane Pauley. In late summer of 2022 ESPN did a documentary titled "Bananaland", where they captured the origins of the Bananas' wild, new style of baseball as it follows the team's owners, players, coaches and staff as they embark on one of their mini world tours.
Bill Lee was drafted by Major League Baseball's Boston Red Sox out of the University of Southern California in 1968 after winning the College World Series that year. He went on to pitch the very next year in the big leagues. Lee pitched for the Red Sox from 1969 to 1978 before he was traded to the Montreal Expos where he pitched from 1979 to 1982.
Lee's MLB career totals include a 119–90 record and a 3.62 Earned Run Average and 713 strikeouts.
About strikeouts he says: "Everybody knows I don't believe in strikeouts. They're fascist. I believe in ground balls, they're more democratic. Everybody gets to play.”
With the Expos, Lee won 16 games in 1979 and was named The Sporting News National League Left Hander of the Year.
With the Red Sox, Lee was inducted into the Boston Red Sox Hall of Fame in 2008, and at that time was the team's record-holder for most games pitched by a left-hander (321) and the third highest win total by a Red Sox southpaw (94).
The career high point in his 14 years in a Major League uniform was starting Game 2 and Game 7 of the 1975 World Series versus the Cincinnati Reds.
As a lifelong player of baseball and lover of the game, Lee has traveled the United States and the world since his 'official' retirement playing in such places as Canada, Cuba, and Russia on goodwill barnstorming tours. Lee returned to national prominence once again here in 2022 and at the age of 75 years old began pitching for the Savannah Bananas exhibition traveling team.
Lee's dedication to the game of baseball and love of the National Pastime along with his infectious personality and Paul Bunyan sized real life stories are cherished by millions of Americans and baseball fans all over the world.
Lee's extraordinary life has been chronicled in print and film, that includes such book credits as: The Wrong Stuff; Have Glove, Will Travel; The Little Red (Sox) Book: A Revisionist Red Sox History; and Baseball Eccentrics: The Most Entertaining, Outrageous, and Unforgettable Characters in the Game. And on the big screen: The Brett Rapkin documentary film 'Spaceman: A Baseball Odyssey'; 'Bill "Spaceman" Lee, High and Outside'; and a feature length Hollywood movie starring Josh Duhamel titled 'Spaceman'.
This will be Lee's third stop in four years in northwest Iowa to work with and spend time with young baseball players from Total Baseball Development. In 2020 Lee spent four days in Milford, Arnolds Park, and Spirit Lake with the TBD Fall League and in Orange City with the Northwestern College Red Raiders Baseball Team. All along with a stop in Granville to visit Dave Heying of Spalding Catholic fame and to see the very famous Vosburg Field; western Iowa's Field of Dreams. In 2022 Lee spent two days with the GTRA (Graettinger-Terril-Ruthven-Ayrshire) High School Baseball Team in Ruthven where on one of the days he pitched to both sides in a seven inning intersquad scrimmage that took only 55 minutes and he never issued a walk. This stop here in 2023 in Spencer, Iowa and beautiful Cardinal Field with his wife Diana and their dog is part of a cross country route and baseball tour that started in Spokane, Washington and will extend to the southern east coast of the United States where he will re-connect with the Savannah Bananas. A southern California native, Bill and Diana reside in Craftsbury, Vermont.
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About
Total Baseball Development (TBD) is a baseball school and organization based in Sioux City, Iowa with locations at the Iowa Great Lakes, and offers individualized personal and group instruction, Out-of-Season leagues, camps, clinics, showcases, round table events, and player placement services for high school, college, and professional baseball players alike.
Total Baseball Development serves as a local resource for baseball in the Siouxland region and greater Northwest Iowa area for local baseball opportunities here at home, as well as state-wide, nation-wide, and international baseball opportunities.
Total Baseball Development founded and operated the Sioux City Bancrofts American Legion Baseball Team sponsored by Monahan Post #64, Morningside Post #697, and Nelson Post #1981 from 2010 to 2012. The Bancrofts also played as a Summer Tournament team and Fall College Prospects team from 2008 to 2012 including fall tournament trips to Phoenix, Arizona.
With new ventures for Total Baseball Development in the Iowa Great Lakes and again into American Legion baseball, the Iowa Great Lakes Okobojis were established on October 20, 2020 with Milford Post #384 as sponsoring post. On-the-field play began in the spring of 2021. The 2023 version of the Okobojis boasts 19 players from 11 different high schools in northwest Iowa. Home games are played in Spencer. In 2022 the Ruthven Blues were born and created for the GTRA High School baseball players interested in extra baseball. The Blues roster has been rounded out for the second year here with players from Spencer and Spirit Lake. The Blues enjoy fantastic support from sponsoring Post #33 from Ruthven and the Ayrshire American Legion Post #173. Home games are played in Ruthven. The Milford Muskellunges find their fresh start here in the spring of 2023 with this new team created for the Okoboji High School players in similar fashion to the Blues. This first-year Muskellunges roster is added to by players from Sioux Central, Estherville, Sheldon, and Harris-Lake Park. The Muskies are sponsored by Milford Post #384 with home games in Milford, while the Okobojis are now sponsored by Spencer Post #1.
Total Baseball Development has sent hundreds of players on to play college baseball and has provided extra baseball opportunities for thousands of high school and youth baseball players since 2004.