October 2, 2013

Page 1

The

Graphic - Advocate Wednesday

| OCTOBER 2, 2013|Volume 124| Issue 40

Rockwell City Office 712-297-7544 • advocate@iowatelecom.net - Lake City Office 712-464-3188 • lcgraphic@iowatelecom.net Fall Festival Photos on page 5

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Officer Jamie Buenting Honor flight is a once in a lifetime experience leaves a void thisbehind from Fort Dodge in May quickly By Ken Ross well. We’re there for each other By Ken Ross Graphic-Advocate Editor A few days after the funeral, the pain was still evident in the voices and demeanor of two Rockwell City public servants who agreed to talk about slain Police Officer Jamie Buenting. The 12-year veteran of law enforcement (eight-year veteran of the RCPD) was shot and killed in the line of duty on Sept. 13. He is survived by a wife and two small children. Chief Larry Schoop knew him long before Buenting joined the police department, back when Buenting’s father served on the Pomeroy Police Department. “Jamie was a great officer. He definitely had a passion for what he did. He touched a lot of lives. not only through his personal life but through his work on the department here. Jamie was a very loving husband and father. His wife and kids were his life,” Schoop said. He added that Buenting was always willing to do whatever was asked. He was a skilled instructor in various aspects of firearms and defensive tactics. “He told me several times that he had no thought of ever leaving the Rockwell City Police Department. This was the job he wanted to do,” Schoop said. When off the job, Buenting was an avid outdoorsman. “He loved to hunt and fish and trap. He included his family as much as he could,” Schoop said. Mayor Phil Heinlen hadn’t known Buenting as long as Chief Schoop but Heinlen felt he got to know him well. “He was the kind of guy that once you talked with him a few times, you felt like you knew him. When I came into the city offices here and he was in, I’d stop and talk to him. Interesting conversations - he was fun to talk to, pretty damned smart. Sometimes we had to agree to disagree.” Heinlen added, “He did his job as a police officer. Sometimes when people were messing around they would feel the wrath of Jamie, but even then he did that in a neat way and people wouldn’t be mad at him for doing his job.” Besides the tragic loss on a personal level, the community, particularly the police department, lost an important asset. Buenting was the RCPD firearms training officer. He also conducted self-defense and firearms safety courses for the public. One of four officers, Buenting worked rotating shifts, seeing the community in all its aspects. “My officers have all gotten along. It’s unusual for a group to get along

Graphic-Advocate Editor Nearly six decades after serving his country during the Korean War, Warren Clark of Lake City received what he described as the ‘royal treatment’ in Washington, D.C. The Sept. 7 Bushy Creek Honor Flight from Fort Dodge to the nation’s capital included 99 veterans and a number of helpers to assist those with limited mobility, for a total of about 150 people. The veterans included 15 WW II veterans, with the rest being from the Korean War. The Honor Flights program is a national non-profit program that began in 2005 to provide as many of the aging population of WW II vets as possible a chance to visit the WW II memorial. Now the program has progressed to include Korean War Veterans as well as veterans of any conflict who are terminally ill. Clark was in the Signal Corps of the Army, promoting the morale of fellow soldiers by setting up USO shows. A fellow Lake City veteran he knew on the flight was Don Lauver, also a Korean era veteran. A Bushy Creek Honor Flight

and nobody complains. Jamie was a big part of that and it will be tough to find the right person to do that job,” Schoop said. Heinlen noted that the Buenting family has earned both the sympathy and admiration of the community. Fund raising for the Buenting family has been enthusiastically supported with future projects to be announced. “Mandy and the kids are real troopers,” Heinlen said. He said that when the little girl, the oldest of the two children, began talking about her father at the funeral, there was an audible intake of breath, as people witnessed courage in the face of overwhelming pain. Heinlen asks the community to honor Buenting’s compassion for everybody in the community. “Given the whole scope of things, it’s pretty important that we remember that there are two families involved. Both of them need our prayers and comfort and we intend to do that,” Heinlen said. “We’re going to miss him a bunch,” Heinlen added. “Jamie was a true hero,” Schoop said.

filled up and a second one was scheduled for September. The flight that Clark was on left just before 7 a.m. Saturday, Sept. 7, and after a little over 2 hours arrived at about 10 a.m., the extra hour resulting from the hour time difference in the Eastern Time Zone. The participants wore jackets and hats identifying their eras of service. “Many people came up to me, shook my hand and thanked me for my service. It was a very nice experience,” Clark said. Busses transported the veterans to various memorials and monuments including the Korean War Memorial, Vietnam War Memorial, World War II Memorial and the Lincoln Memorial. They saw the Washington Monument but it was undergoing repairs and had scaffold around it. Clark is 84 years old and has lived all of his life within five miles of Lake City, except for the two years he spent in the Army. Until his retirement, Clark lived on the farm where he moved to with his family as a child. The farm is currently operated by his son, David.

Shirley and Warren Clark are now retired from their farm and live in Lake City. Warren recently participated with other veterans in an Honor Flight to Washington, D.C. (Graphic-Advocate photo by Ken Ross) In 1956, Warren married Shirley Bock, who was from the Glidden area. They have four children Vivian, Linda, Beth and David, all married and all living within 50 miles of Lake City. They have nine grandchildren. Clark was active in the Lake City American Legion Post until he started having problems with mobility, a problem that also ended

his golfing. He still sometimes goes to the country club to play cards. Mostly, he plays cards in a neighbor’s garage that has an area set up for that purpose and where a number of friends regularly gather. Clark is very appreciative of the opportunity to visit the capital and recommends that any veteran with the opportunity to participate in such a trip should do so.

Compassionate supporters converge on Rockwell City

By Ken Ross Graphic-Advocate Editor In a small community, the loss of a police officer is overwhelming to the others on the department, both emotionally and as a practical matter. “I don’t know how we could have survived this without all the support we got,” Rockwell City Police Chief Larry Schoop said regarding the aftermath of the fatal shooting of Officer Jamie Buenting, age 37, on Friday, Sept. 13. Buenting is survived by a wife and two small children. Law enforcement officers from across the state volunteered to fill in on the department, not only for the slain officer but also for his grieving three colleagues during the first hellish week after the tragedy. Dozens of volunteers from Iowa Concerns of Police Survivors, C.O.P.S., arrived in Rockwell City to offer experienced competency in overseeing the countless details of a formal service for a law enforcement officer killed in the line of duty. The school district cancelled classes for the day of the funeral, Tuesday, Sept. 17. The South Central Calhoun Middle School in Rockwell City was provided for the funeral service and was filled to overflowing. Area law enforcement

officers and emergency responders arrived in uniform. Student organizations assisted with directing vehicle parking. Boom trucks from the Carroll and Fort Dodge Fire Departments displayed huge flags at the beginning and end of the 22 mile funeral procession route which passed some of the favorite Rockwell City

area locations of Buenting, an avid outdoorsman, on its way to Rosehill Cemetery. Miles of police, sheriff department and state trooper vehicles from across Iowa were in the funeral procession. A count of 360 law enforcement vehicles was made and there were numerous other law enforcement officers involved in traffic control

and other duties that kept them from the procession. The loss of Jamie Buenting will be deeply felt for a long time but

coping with the tragedy would have been even more difficult without the assistance of caring citizens.

SCC rejects Lohrville building bid By Ken Ross Graphic-Advocate Editor Meeting in special session on Sept. 24 to make a decision regarding the disposition of the former school building in Lohrville, the South Central Calhoun School Board rejected the one remaining active bid for the building and will now proceed with obtaining a formal bid for demolition. Two bids had been submitted to the Southern Cal School Board at the May board meeting but the city of Lohrville requested that the board reject both bids, fearing that the city of Lohrville would eventually inherit the expense of demolishing the building, perhaps after anything of salvage value was stripped from the building and it was abandoned. George Duncan, a contractor

from Missouri, had been the one remaining bidder. He had appeared at a Sept. 18 Southern Cal Board meeting. He explained that he would buy the building for resale and could not guarantee that the building would not be abandoned. The Southern Cal board decided to refer the matter to the SCC board because SCC will inherit all assets and liabilities of the Southern Cal and Rockwell City/Lytton districts when they consolidate as the SCC district on July 1, 2014. The school district and the city of Lohrville have agreed to split the cost of getting a formal bid for demolitions. An initial estimate presented at an earlier meeting of the demolition cost was $345,800 but this could vary widely depending on how busy contractors are.

Face painting

SCC cheerleaders created face art during the Fall Fest in Lake City on Sept. 22. (Graphic-Advocate photo by Ken Ross)

Top chili South Central Calhoun 2013 Homecoming Court

The South Central Calhoun Homecoming Court for 2014 includes (front, l to r) Jake Petzenhauser, Tyler Kutz, Kyler Case, Aron King and Anthony Handlos; (back, l to r) Hannah DeMoss, Shelby McKinney, Ashley Henkenius, Stephanie Hood and Abby Collison. (Graphic-Advocate photo by Toni Venteicher)

Nicole Vogel and her young helper, Tori Ellis, stand next to the trophy earned for their top chili at the Del Blair Memorial Chili Cook-off in Lake City on Sept. 22. The chili was not only the selection of the expert judges but also won people’s choice award. (Graphic-Advocate photo by Ken Ross)


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