Meet the new chief Page 3
Bike Ride rehearsal Page 2
UNITED WE STAND
Friday
June 5, 2015 OFFICIAL NEWSPAPER OF HARDIN COUNTY
E L D O R A, I O W A
641-939-5051
V O L U M E 84
www.eldoranewspapers.com
Eldora hires its new police chief
• N O. 32 •
$1.00
A thirty year law enforcement veteran takes Eldora post
By Rick Patrie News Editor ELDORA – The Eldora city council has approved the appointment of the new city police chief. The selection of Mike Ludwigs of Manning came Monday night during the regular city council session. Mayor Jim Brown actually makes the appointment of
the chief under Eldora code, but the selection for practical purposes needs the approval of the city council as well, because they set the salary and benefits package. Ludwigs is the chief of police in Manning now, a southwest Iowa community of about 1,400. He has been the chief there for about two years, and is well into a long career in police and public safety work. He comes on
board for Eldora with a $55,000 annual salary and the standard package of fringe benefits. He was chosen from a host of applicants collected in two rounds of recruitments. Ludwigs, the council noted, is a nearly lifelong law enforcement officer. He comes on as the Eldora force is rebuilding its numbers over the last couple of years. The appointment took longer than had
originally been anticipated, what with one appointment made last year but failing to garner the approval of the council. Eventually the city council reopened the search for applicants early this year. Ludwigs replaces long time officer and chief of police in Eldora Ted Paxton who took the chief of police position in Vinton last fall.
Ludwigs and the Eldora department have one big assignment coming up this summer as he arrives in time for what are expected to be as many as 15,000 overnight visitors in town as part of the annual Des Moines Register RAGBRAI bicycling outing. (Story and photo on Mike Ludwigs found on Page 3)
Celebrating your health care workers
By Rick Patrie News Editor ELDORA – Imagine yourself needing help with absolutely everything. The smallest details of life. For an increasing number of us that may someday be looming. And when the situation arrives, who do you call? The people you call on got a pep talk last week at both Valley View and Eldora Nursing and Rehab. A team of cheerleaders, celebrating the certified nursing aid profession, came to town. Lori Porter and Lisa Cantrell lead the National Association of Health Care Assistants, and as such, they travel regularly, visiting nursing homes and giving a pat on the back to the aids who can number half the staff in places like Valley View and Eldora Nursing.
Newsbriefs Dorothy’s Senior Ctr Fundraiser June 14
Celebrate Flag Day Fundraiser at Dorothy’s Senior Center, 1306 17th Ave., Eldora on Sunday, June 14 from 10:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Free will donation. Porkburgers and brats prepared and sponsored by Fareway. Meal includes porkburger or brat sandwich, potato salad, baked beans, cookies, bars and drink. Carryouts available. Homemade baked items available for sale. Help keep Dorothy’s doors open.
RAGBRAI upcoming business and community meetings June 8 & 15
On Monday, June 8, there will be an informational RAGBRAI Eldora meeting for all businesses in Eldora to discuss the details and guidelines of hosting RAGBRAI overnight. The meeting will take place at 6:30 p.m. at the South Hardin High School. A community meeting is scheduled for Monday, June 15, 6:30 p.m. at the South Hardin High School for the general public.
Pancake Breakfast at Hardin County Farm Museum June 6
The Hardin County Farm Museum in Eldora will be holding a pancake breakfast on Saturday, June 6 from 7 to 9:30 a.m. They will be serving pancakes, sausage, fruit and drinks. Cost is by donation. Everyone is welcome!
Eldora Boys Scouts Troop 334 Cookout June 5
Eldora Boy Scouts Troop 334 will have a cookout at Fareway on Friday, June 5, starting at 11 a.m. Proceeds will go for camp. (continued on page 3)
Their organization is dedicated to bettering career opportunities for aides and improving the public’s perception of the profession. Valley View Nursing & Rehab Center and Eldora Nursing and Rehab hosted what they called a staff appreciation rally May 26. It was one of the last stops on a six week long state-wide tour entitled: “CNAs: Caring for an Aging America, Proudly Taking It On!” CNAs provide over 90 percent of the bedside care. The demand for CNAs is great; the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics predict the need for CNAs to grow by 21 percent through 2022 due to aging baby boomers, growing rates of chronic conditions and dementia. NAHCA was created in 1995 to provide much needed recognition and ongoing education to the CNA profession, as well as a platform to
recruit individuals to the CNA role. NAHCA Co-founders, Lori Porter and Lisa Cantrell did the presenting. Porter comes complete with a travelling van and backdrops, but mostly what she brings is an enthusiasm about work. Even though it can be hard and grueling and sometimes thankless work. She has been travelling primarily in Iowa of late. The Association is based in Joplin, Missouri. Yet, she is likely to be found giving the same presentation around the rest of the country,too. Susan Eichmeier runs both of the Eldora nursing homes and she says that if you think you have a tough job…well maybe you do. But the jobs of aids in nursing homes are as demanding they get. She says that she would estimate there are close to fifty aids in each of the two settings locally. The total staff will be about
Lodge is closing Eldora can redemption center By Rick Patrie News Editor ELDORA – The Montague Lodge’s now-several-years-old experiment providing the community of Eldora with a can redemption center is coming to an end. They simply ran out of lodge members who were in their retirement years and had the time to volunteer the necessary hours required by the operation. It was down to just one retired lodge member, and one employee of the Eldora Hy-Vee store who has, for all practical purposes, been assigned to help at the center. The grocer offered the services of a staff member precisely because the job of recycling cans and bottles is one most retailers would rather farm
out. Now, as it stands, retailers who sell the containers in Eldora are – within some limits – mandated to take cans in redemption. The Iowa DNR enforces the state rules. Retailers are not required to take near as many – per customer, per day – as a licensed redemption center does. The lodge has, since the start, operated the center as a strictly charitable venture for the community, and the revenue that’s accrued to it in donated can redemptions has been donated back to a host of children’s causes in Eldora. With just the two staff members available to keep the lodge center open the number of hours the state (continued on page 4)
double that. That’s a big pool of employed people in a town like Eldora. Aids come through a state certification process now; often the training is done at places like Iowa Valley Community College. Generally the training will take a couple of months, Eichmeier said. Aids do everything you do for someone who has lost the ability to live independently. That includes assisting with meals, getting in and out of bed, bathing, incontinence problems and oral hygiene, just to name a few. And they have to do the work when one patient’s demands are multiplied several times over by group moments like meal time. Then, there are the physical demands of the work. And everything the aids do is (continued on page 3)
A traveling pep talk for those in the certified nurse aid profession. It came to the two Eldora nursing homes last week, with Lisa Cantrell and Lori Porter delivering the message in the name of the National Association of Health Care Assistants. A tough, sometimes unrecognized job, but a huge employer within the health care system.
Eldora to get community garden
By Michaela Kendall Staff writer ELDORA – Community gardens have seen a huge rise in popularity over the last few years, springing up in cities across the state and country to provide fresh produce to city-dwellers. Now, one of these community gardens is in the works for Eldora.
Kellie Engelman, the ISU Extension Office’s Central Iowa Local Foods Coordinator for Boone, Hardin and Story Counties, is coordinating the project. Engelman is planning for three types of gardens in each community she is serving: A community garden for residents, a workplace garden for any local businesses that are
interested and a school garden for any schools in the area that are interested. The workplace garden will be handled by the business and it’s employees, and faculty and students will handle the school garden. The community garden requires volunteers for the garden committee, (continued on page 6)
RAGBRAI Corner
Test launch
Eldora due visit by presidential candidate by Rick Patrie News Editor ELDORA – Eldora greets its first presidential candidate in what looks like a crowded field in the making. Republican Dr. Ben Carson will speak in Eldora at the Pine Lake Wildlife Club on Wednesday June 10 at 7 p.m. There’s ice cream and cookies, and a chance to meet the just announced candidate who has become a regular voice in national conservative media. Dr. Carson is somewhat unique in that he brings a long resume, most of it outside the political realm.
Benjamin S. Carson, Sr., M.D., says he had a childhood dream of becoming a physician and he has more than fulfilled it – now emeritus professor of neurosurgery, oncology, plastic surgery and pediatrics at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, where he directed pediatric neurosurgery at the Johns Hopkins Children’s Center for 39 years. He is not one of the more veteran political figures in the GOP either running or considering running for president, but he is hardly an unknown on the national (continued on page 6)
Read all about the test run being made this week on the RAGBRAI route. A crew from the Des Moines Register is riding the whole route, and teams of volunteers from communities on each leg of the journey join them for their specific lap of the run. They were in Eldora Tuesday night. Read about the warm up run and what they are looking for to make the journey safer for those who undertake the real thing this July. (See story on page 2)