Thursday, September 22, 2016 | Volume 212 | Number 23 | 40 cents | iowastatedaily.com | An independent student newspaper serving Iowa State since 1890.
Erin Stuckey/Iowa State Daily
Chinese Home Style Cooking owner Tina Song’s sister, Lee Bahn, works Wednesday. The restaurant, which is located at the corner of Lincoln Way and Sheldon Avenue, will shut down within the next few months. It provides homemade Chinese food for low prices, attracting Iowa State students for the past 20 years.
Kennedy DeRaedt/Iowa State Daily
Top: Customers enjoy their food from Chines Home Style Cooking on Wednesday. Bottom: An order is taken at Chinese Home Style Cooking on Wednesday. Tina Song, owner of the restaurant, is ready for a break after having four surgeries.
CLOSING A HOMELY ATMOSPHERE Chinese Home Style Cooking expected to shut down Ames location within next few months By Emily.Hammer @iowastatedaily.com For the past 20 years, students and staff at Iowa State have found a family in Tina and Chung Song, owners of Chinese Home Style Cooking. The restaurant, located at the corner of Lincoln Way and Sheldon Avenue, offers homemade Chinese food for low prices that attract Iowa State students. The location is scheduled to close within the next few months as the lease will not be renewed. For a few friends, it was an easy decision to fly out for a reunion when they found out the local business was closing. “They brought their families out and threw a party here,” Chung said. “We got to meet all their children.” Such events are not uncommon for the couple, who often receive visits from past Iowa State graduates. They have even had alumni who graduated 10 years ago stop by the homey restaurant to catch up. “There is a couple who comes in sometimes with
their child, who’s maybe 5 years old,” Tina said. “But I remember them coming in many years ago together as friends. I got to watch them grow up and now they are married.” With regular customers who have become close with the owners, it’s no surprise that the business closing is not only bittersweet for customers but also the Songs. “I am sad because I watched kids, and there are a lot of good memories,” Tina said. “I’m sadder than all of our customers; I’ll never get to see them again.” Although sadness is surrounding the event, the Songs are conflicted about reopening. Chung is happy for a break but doesn’t quite think he’s ready for the monotonous lifestyle of a retiree. “I’m only 58 right now,” he said. “I want to work until I’m 65. I have seven more years.” His wish is to reopen in a year around Ames, but he’s not quite sure about the exact location yet. Tina, however, doesn’t feel the same. After four surgeries, it can be hard for her to even come to work now.
“My body is saying no to reopening,” she said with a motion toward her left shoulder, which was her most recent operation. “And Chung was hospitalized three times last year. It’s time to slow down.” After being open for 20 years, the couple has made a lot of friends and are sad they will no longer be able to see students with whom they had grown close. Even though this is somewhat of a mourning period for the Song family, they happily reflect on the good times they’ve had at the restaurant. “People have come to feel like family here, and everyone knows each other very well,” Tina said before going on to mention a customer who visits every day and orders the same thing. When he came in later, she waved to him and confirmed “Same order?” before heading into the kitchen and preparing it. She also mentioned Dan Winters of Channel 13, who loves coming in for hot sour soup. The worst part of leaving, according to Tina, is that their children grew up in the restaurant.
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Behind-scenes look of Reiman By Emily.Schroer @iowastatedaily.com Imagine walking into a garden and seeing various little butterflies flying around a 4-foottall Monarch butterfly built from Legos. On Wednesday, Reiman Gardens offered a behind-the-scenes tour with a focus on pollinators. The group was led by Nathan Brockman, the curator of the Christina Reiman Butterfly Wing. Brockman led the group through different parts of the garden that tend to attract pollinating bugs. “It’s really been a good year for insects because the weather has been so nice for them. We have had rain, it stayed warm and it hasn’t been so cold that things are dying yet,” Brockman said. He started off the tour by showing off the more common butterflies. “It’s very common for us to have Sachem, Peck’s, and Fierys (skipper butterflies) here,” Brockman said. He mentioned that a weekly survey is done to keep track of the amount of butterflies still at the gardens. Last week, there were 50 Monarchs. Yesterday, the number was down to 41 Monarchs. The number is becoming smaller because all the Monarchs are flying down to Mexico for the winter. As the tour continued, Brockman mentioned that the temperature was a little warmer than usual which is causing more butterflies to still be around instead of heading south for the winter. “It’s so warm that these butterflies are still mating and laying their eggs and a lot of their offspring aren’t going to have a chance to make it,” Brockman said. Throughout the tour, Brockman said that Asters (flowers) are quite a common place for pollinators. There was an average of 15-20 different bugs on a single flowering head. “They don’t fight each other, they kind of just take their turns. They bump into each other which causes them to move to other plants. That is one thing that is good with having a diversity on one flower, because if they weren’t bumped into by other insects, they would stay on one flower longer and wouldn’t spread as
Tyler Coffey/Iowa State Daily
Student Government passed a resolution during its meeting Wednesday night that removed Public Relations Chair Peter Meyers from his position.
StuGov ousts PR chair By Alex.Connor @iowastatedaily.com
Emily Blobaum/Iowa State Daily
Reiman Gardens hosted a behind-the-scenes tour Wednesday.
much pollen,” Brockman said. The tour then moved on to more bee-centered plants. Brockman mentioned that Bumblebees are the most docile of the pollinators. “You can actually pet a Bumblebee and they just won’t care,” Brockman said. He also talked about how Bumblebees aren’t just there to pet and look at. “Bumblebees are good tomato pollinators, and when you have Bumblebees around your tomato plants it actually ups their tomato production,” Brockman said. He also mentioned a fact about bees that most people wouldn’t think to know. “Bees and several other insects cannot see the color red,” Brockman said. Brockman continued to talk about how Syrphidae are actually bees mimicking flies. He said that there has been a major population explosion with Syrphidae. “Flies are wonderful pollinators,” Brockman said. “They are better pollinators than butterflies and more specific pollinators than beetles.” Brockman talked about how pollinators tend to be more of a morning bug.
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Student Government senators passed a resolution removing Public Relations Chair Peter Meyers from his position during their meeting Wednesday evening. Sen. Abhijit Patwa proposed the resolution to the floor, where it was debated for nearly a half hour. Meyers “has failed to carry out his basic duties, maintain a healthy communication within the organization, project a positive image of the organization in his capacity as the chair, and provide leadership to the P.R. Committee,” according to the resolution that was debated. While many senators who debated the bill said they still have an upmost respect for Meyers, they felt that the position would be better served by someone else. Sen. Cody Smith, a member of the Public Relations Committee, voiced his concerns about Meyers, saying they need a change in leadership, and outlined several incidents where he felt Meyers did not properly lead or conduct professionally in his position. “At the beginning of the week, I was very unsure in supporting this motion
from what I knew of it, and I based my support, or I guess my withdrawal of support, on reactions of me voicing my concerns of the committee to Chair Meyers,” Smith said. Smith said he sent an email Friday outlining that communication needed to be cut down to necessary times, citing that 1:30 a.m. on a Saturday morning is not an appropriate time to be “blowing up somebody’s cell phone about PR.” Smith said he also voiced that he felt they needed to add members to the PR committee and not be an exclusive group, referring to the fact that the committee consists of Meyers and only three other committee members, including himself. Smith said he told Meyers on Friday through the email that the motion brought up during the Senate meeting could possibly be introduced and asked if he would like to step down. “The final line of the email asked if he would give time to consider these questions and these points until 5 p.m. when I was off of work,” Smith said, adding that he sent the email at about 1:35 p.m. and within 20 minutes had already received several missed phone calls and text messages from Meyers.
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