Home Care In Alta Vista, IA

Iowa Wesleyan University announced its plan to close on March 28, 2023, due to a serious financial need. Then, on May 31, 2023, Iowa Wesleyan University officially closed its doors for the final time. This affected numerous students and made their college experiences very unique compared to the rest of us. Due to these uncertain circumstances, some students were led to Buena Vista University, their new home for the remainder of their college experience.

Iowa Wesleyan students received an email near the end of March that classes were going to be canceled for the day and that they needed to gather in the chapel. While in the chapel, President Christine Plunkett announced that the university would be shutting down.

“I kind of saw it coming just cause like there were different things around campus, I mean it was a very old campus, … but I was also very scared because it was so late of notice, and I didn’t know what to do,” said sophomore Cydnee Hopkins.

Hopkins originally decided to attend Iowa Wesleyan University to pursue a softball scholarship. After finding out it would be closing, she chose Buena Vista University due to its pre-vet track as well as the fact that it was known for agriculture and that she could continue to play softball during her time here.

“I instantly started looking everywhere online that had a biology or pre-vet program track, but as soon as I got an email from Coach Sarah here and I really looked into it, I just knew I was going to come here,” said Hopkins.

The transition from Iowa Wesleyan University to Buena Vista University was definitely not easy by any means for her and is still an ongoing process.

“I mean obviously being a freshman coming into a new school, a new area, everything, it was very scary but I made a lot of really great connections and a lot of really great friends. My roommate from Iowa Wesleyan was my absolute best friend, really sad situation, we ended up moving back home closer to home so now we are both seven hours away from each other, but I met a lot of really great people,” said Hopkins.

During Cydnee’s transition from Iowa Wesleyan University to Buena Vista University, senior admission counselor and transfer coordinator Annika Powell worked with Cydnee to help her in any way that she could.

“After the closure was announced from Iowa Wesleyan, BVU was one of the schools that attended their transfer fair that they held just a few days after the announcement of the closure, so I went down there [and] met with a lot of students in person that day who were just inquiring about the transfer process and any sort of teach out agreements and things like that and then got into contact with her over email and text kind of throughout that process after the closure was announced,” said senior admissions counselor and transfer coordinator Annika Powell.

Iowa Wesleyan may have had to close their doors, but Buena Vista University was waiting with open arms to take in any students that wanted to finish off their college experience.

Northwest Iowa's Buena Vista County will get a $375 million soybean crush plant, funded in part with state help.

The Iowa Economic Development Authority board on Friday signed off on investment tax credits and a sales tax rebate totaling $10.2 million for Platinum Crush. The new company is at least the third in the last year to receive state incentives for a crushing factory, a signal that business leaders want to capitalize on the country's shift away from traditional fuel and diesel as energy sources.

Crush plants produce soybean meal for the livestock industry and oil that can be used for applications that include the production of biodiesel fuels. The spike in investment in crush plants has come as energy companies anticipate more stringent government demands for fuels with decreased carbon emissions.

According to Fastmarkets, about 45% of soybean oil production went toward renewable diesel in 2021, up from 16% in 2008. Iowa is the nation's No. 2 producer of soybeans after Illinois and the top producer of biodiesel.

On top of the state incentives, Buena Vista County supervisors have signed off on a $4.6 million tax rebate for Platinum Crush. The company has committed to hiring at least 51 workers, paying them at least $22.32 an hour.

Platinum Crush is a partnership between two veteran agribusiness leaders, Mike Kinley and Nick Bowdish

Bowdish, who is also the CEO of Siouxland Ethanol in Jackson, Nebraska, and the Elite Octane ethanol facility in Atlantic, is building another soybean crush factory in Norfolk, Nebraska.

Compared to older crush plants, he said, workers at Platinum Crush will load and unload products faster, mostly because the equipment is larger — capable of handling a full truckload of beans in a minute.

Bowdish said Platinum Crush should process about 38.5 million bushels of soybeans a year, enough to support about 550,000 acres of production.

Kinley, who did not return a call or email seeking comment, is the CEO of the Mid Iowa Cooperative and Ag Development Group. He also is building Shell Rock Soy Processing, a $240 million northeast Iowa soybean crush plant $4.1 million in tax incentives from the IEDA last April. The authority approved another $842,000 in incentives in November for Ag Processing's $71.5 million renovation of its Sergeant Bluff crush plant.

Phillips 66 is a minority investor in Shell Rock and will buy all of its soybean oil when the crush plant begins operations, expected at the end of this year.

Bowdish said energy companies also have requested exclusive partnerships with Platinum Crush.

"It’s not anything that we’ve committed to or exercised at this time," he said. "We’ll see how those discussions progress."

Tyler Jett covers jobs and the economy for the Des Moines Register. Reach him at [email protected], 515-284-8215, or on Twitter at @LetsJett.

Buena Vista County was surveyed in 1855, but not organized until 1858, although the first permanent settlers arrived two years earlier. In 1869, Sioux Rapids was designated as the county seat, a position it held until 1878, when it was transferred to Storm Lake, after a public vote: 908 in favor, 206 against. The arrival of the railroad at Storm Lake in 1870, with none in Sioux Rapids until 1882, and the cost of constructing a new courthouse after fire destroyed the old one were major factors in the decision to move.

Sioux Rapids was an easy first choice for the earliest pioneers coming to our county: the availability of water power for milling, a plentiful supply of timber for construction and heating and the abundance of game for both food and furs being major reasons. In fact, two early surveyors, Lane and Ray, found the area so attractive for settlement that in 1855 they illegally laid a claim and built a cabin in section 12 of Barnes Township and over-wintered there. Abner Bell (1824-1895), the first permanent settler in our county, his sister Catherine and her husband William R. Weaver came the next year. Bell owned some land, but was hardly a farmer. He lived by trapping, selling furs and everyday items from a tiny store, and working for the county, hauling lumber, repairing bridges and serving in a variety of county positions in the early years of our local government.

The 1870 census for Lee Township (which includes Sioux Rapids) shows a total of 302 individuals. The largest number of foreign born, 32, came from Norway, and nearly all the rest, 21, from England or Canada. The largest groups of U.S. born people came from New York state (50) and Wisconsin (34). None of the New Yorkers had older people in their group from elsewhere, whereas many in the Wisconsin group had older family members born either abroad or on the east coast. There were 137 children, of average age six. The oldest Iowa native was Mrs. Hester Mead, age 20.

Fifty-eight of the estimated 83 households were land-owning families, with a total of 30 sons designated as farm laborers. Five more households consisted of farm laborers with families, and eight farm laborers were single, and mostly in their twenties. Five more families were headed by single mothers, mostly widows. The few remaining families comprised a physician, Stephen Olney, three lawyers: Burns, Robinson and Thomas, and a manufacturer called Fletcher Blake (more on him later). A carpenter called Richard Ridgeway and a mill worker, Halvor Halverson, were also present.

The BV County Museum has long had a display dedicated to Abner Bell, with an old book from the Sioux Rapids Courthouse: one of the few documents escaping the 1877 fire. Entries in this book date from 1870 to 1880 and relate to road taxes and expenditures for Lee Township. Bell’s name appears many times, being compensated for days of work as a “hand” ($1.50/day) or as a “team and hand” ($3/day), hauling lumber and repairing bridges. At the back of the book are pencil notes in shaky handwriting (and some mysterious math), likely written by Bell, detailing numerous small expenses paid to individuals carrying out work on Lee Township roads.

Page from Lee Township book detailing road taxes and expenditures.

The book also has an 1870 list of 23 residents of Lee Township, their property tax, and how much was collected. Sixteen owed a total of 24 dollars and 62½ cents, with only nine paying more than $1. Each was assessed two days of road work, worth $3. If performed, the amount was added to the amount collected, for a total of $62.23. In 1871 Frank Suckow supervised Lee Road District 1 and he listed 81 people liable for road tax, with $248 collected out of $276 owed. Even with the great decline in the value of the U.S. dollar, an annual tax of $3.40 per taxpayer does not sound onerous!

The 1870 census lists real estate and personal property values for 53 farmers in Lee Township owning land, for a total of $76,555. At that time BV County land was assessed for tax at around $4 per acre. This makes the average land holding around 360 acres, much greater than the typical homestead plot of 160 acres (¼ section). Looking at the rough distribution of holding sizes, and assuming the $4 per acre valuation is correct, this means there are equal holdings of around ¾ section and ¼ section sizes, and twice as many of around ½ section size as either of the other two categories! Much of the land then was still uncultivated and likely in many cases held for speculation or used for pasture.

Following this background information relating to settlement and farming are now given some details about the lives of a few important individuals during this early period.

Sioux Rapids Press, 1881.

William S. Lee (1827-1908) after whom the township is named, was a wealthy New Yorker who came to Sioux Rapids in 1858, staked a very early claim, and soon controversially acquired around 60,000 acres of “swamp land” at 16¢ per acre. For this he was contracted to build a courthouse and construct a bridge over the Little Sioux River, but never did. He sold large amounts of this land, but after years of legal action, Lee and his purchasers lost all their claims in 1882 in a final case against them. Lee returned to New York in 1863 to educate his children, returning in 1868 to find his early claim had been “jumped” by a William Fuller. In 1870, after reversal of an earlier decision, Fuller was allowed to keep his land, in a protracted case finally decided by the US Secretary of the Interior. This case attracted much local attention: action by Fuller’s friends outweighing Mr. Lee’s greater wealth. Lee was an important economic and political figure early in county history, though lawyer Robinson writes of him in the Pilot newspaper in 1870 as a carpet-bagger who narrowly escaped lynching two years earlier.

Fletcher Americus Blake (1834-1907) was born in Fairfield PA and served with bravery in the Civil War from 1861 to 1863, rising in rank from second sergeant to Colonel. He homesteaded at Okoboji and married Julia Prescott there in 1864. In 1868 he built the first frame house in Sioux Rapids, and with T.W. Twiford the first flour mill in the county, using the Little Sioux River for water power. His mill also operated as a saw mill. In the 1870 census he is listed as a manufacturer with real estate worth $4,500. Blake was the first postmaster in Sioux Rapids and the first person from the county to be elected to the Iowa House, serving in the 1872 session. That year he sold his mill and moved to Denver for health reasons.

David Evans (1837-1906) and his brother Thomas were two of the earliest Welsh-born pioneers in Buena Vista County. David married Sarah Lewis, and Thomas her older sister, Martha. The girls were born on a farm in S. Wales and came to the US with their parents in an old sailing boat that took 36 days to cross the Atlantic. In 1869 David and lawyer D. C. Thomas bought out the Ridgeway homestead and the present town of Sioux Rapids was platted out. On the Lee 1870 census, David is a substantial landowner and also blacksmith (the first in our county). He was in this business with his son-in-law H. W. Mayne until 1881. In 1889 he sold his remaining town lots to buy a farm in Clay County near Linn Grove. During the 50th anniversary for Sioux Rapids, on July 4th 1905, Evans rode together in the “Historic Parade” with his 89 year old, long time buddy, Johnny Burr (1816-1913), another ex-soldier pioneer hunter-trapper and faithful attendant at Abner Bell’s deathbed in 1895. The Evans and their wives are buried at Linn Grove, with many other Welsh pioneers.

Johnny Burr (1816-1913), ex-soldier, pioneer, trapper and friend of Abner Bell.

The strong Norwegian heritage of Sioux Rapids and its surrounding area is well known. In 1866, Lars and Fred Suckow and Henry Steen and their families arrived there with others in “Prairie Schooners”. When William Lee returned in 1869, Knudt Stennerson, O.A. Reng, Christian Johnson and Henry and Ole Gullickson families came with him, brought, it is said, to add to his political support. Many of these names remain in 1885 and later censuses, indicating these people came to stay, mostly to farm, unlike some others who came as land speculators.

Lars J. Suckow (1825-1896) became a shoemaker in Sioux Rapids. His son Nelson Suckow (1854-1943) was born in Decorah, and came to BV County at age 11. He worked on a Missouri riverboat, the “Black Hills”, married a Norwegian lady, and became J. P. and mayor of Sioux Rapids. He was personally acquainted with Abner Bell, finding him not illiterate, as others claimed, but poor in writing and spelling (as evidenced in the museum’s book). Nelson’s “Brief History of Lee Township” (Storm Lake Register, Sept. 1923) has further interesting details of early BV County history.

For Joe Clarke, becoming one of the best Iowa grown filmmakers is just as rewarding as conquering Hollywood.

"You look at last year's films and there were a ton of blockbusters which were made by Iowans," said Clarke. "Joe Russo on the 'Avengers', (Scott Beck and Bryan Woods on) 'A Quiet Place', (and Jeff Tomsic) on 'Tag'— are there other Midwest states that have such an impact on the film industry right now as Iowa does?”

Prestige television, too, has help from the Hawkeye state. Daniel Weiss, one of the show runners for HBO's blockbuster "Game of Thrones," graduated with an M.F.A. from the Iowa Writers' Workshop.

Though not yet as heavy a hitter as the Russo brothers, Clarke has made his fair share of films. Since 2018's "Spiral"— in which a bachelor party takes a turn for the bizarre— he's produced a documentary on former WWE wrestler Rob Van Dam called "Headstrong," and is currently working on his next film, "Alta Vista."

"Headstrong" wasn't supposed to be a documentary, but then nobody gets a concussion on purpose.

“Originally it was going to document a seven-day road trip where I was doing stand-up comedy," said pro-wrestler Rob Van Dam, who recently made a surprise appearance on the July 22 Monday Night RAW Reunion.

The seven-day trip started soon after Clarke finished work on "Spiral." Since the tour was starting in Iowa and he was in town, he and his camera were pulled for shooting.

But before the tour could hit the road, Van Dam suffered a concussion. Originally, he planned to tough it out, hoping the symptoms would fade with time as they had with previous head injuries .

Viewers of the match in which he was concussed probably wouldn't be able to pinpoint when it happened, Van Dam said.

"It's the softest hit you can imagine," he said. He's taken worse hits than that for decades.

But this time, the symptoms — double vision, concentration issues making it hard to track time — persisted. Finally, he went to a doctor.

"The big 'F' word in wrestling, is ‘fake,'" Clarke said. "But when you see this, you start to question that."

For Van Dam, the realities of wrestling include the sheer physical toll the sport takes on the body. Matches might be scripted, but the bumps, bruises and injuries are no less real than they are for any other type of athlete.

“I thought it was part of the job," Van Dam recalled. "In the mid 90s when I was in ECW, every night when I’d wrestle (people) like Balls Mahoney, he used to take great pride in how hard he’d hit me with a chair and I’d take pride in how hard it hit me in the head. I just wanted everyone in the crowd to be impressed by it… and we didn’t fake it."

Those blows to the head play in montage during the film; injuries of years past interspersed with a diagnosis.

"The viewers are learning at the same time I’m learning," the wrestler said. "I invite everyone into my very personal life and it ends up being a much bigger and better project than I originally planned.”

The story of Van Dam coming to the conclusion that the sport he loves may have done lasting damage to his body and mind is a focal point of the film now, but almost wasn't included.

“When I made this movie I wasn’t sure I wasn’t going to edit out everything about the concussions because I hate that," said Van Dam. "I didn’t want people to feel sorry for me.”

Through watching and re-watching the film, Van Dam has come to appreciate that it sheds light on a problem in his profession. He knows the new generation jumping into the ring needs to be more cognizant of the dangers. He's working on ways to stem the brunt of the brain damage delivered to those wrestlers as well as himself, because he still sometimes gets back in the ring on occasion.

“I’m defiantly a lot less careless," he said. "There are ways I can take a chair that are safer, I can put my hand up (so the chair doesn't hit my head)."

"Headstrong" was released this past March. The film can be currently be found on Amazon and iTunes. Clarke is planning a Blu-Ray/DVD release later this year.

"Headstrong" was still on Clarke's mind when he moved to L.A. in April of 2018.

Though he wouldn't finish the final cult of the documentary until November of that year, and didn't release the film until this past March, he started working on his next project the day after he arrived on the west coast.

"Maybe the day of," Clarke admitted.

"Alta Vista" is a return to fiction for the director, but has hints of biography built in. The protagonist, played by Clarke, moves from Iowa to L.A., in this case because of his father's death. After heading west, the character finds himself ensnared, sinking into Hollywood's underworld.

Knowing he'd be filming in both Iowa City and L.A., Clarke cast himself in the main role to ease production. For Clarke's former roommate and longtime collaborator, Tyler Thirnbeck, this created the unique experience of acting across from his friend.

Thirnbeck currently lives in Chicago where he pursues stand-up comedy. But he was happy to head to Iowa to help Clarke out with "Alta Vista."

“I think he’s just brilliant," said Thirnbeck. "He’s got a strong passion for film making and I haven’t been on too many types of sets before, but he makes it a point to have fun, to get the work done and he’s very interested in getting other people’s creative input into the story.”

Also returning to help on the project is cinematographer Benjamin Handler, who also worked on Clarke's past films like "Spiral" and "Up on the Woof Top." Handler has seen a little bit more responsibility behind the camera with this project.

“We have such a small team that it’s easy to do the work," said Handler, referring to the close knit group of Iowa filmmakers in the team behind the film. "The core group is small enough that if we can all make it work we can make this cool stuff and we don’t have this huge bureaucracy that a major film would have.”

A new team member this time around is Elwie Apor Harris whose character appears in the Iowa City scenes, which are set in places like Colonial Lanes and Oakland Cemetery.

Though this is her first time working with Clarke, it's far from her first time on a film set.

Apor Harris moved to L.A. when a friend moving encouraged her to move at the same timewith her. Apor Harris did and, though she didn't go there planning to be a film actress, found herself falling into roles with background casting.

What made her love acting though was staring as an extra in the 2010's "Starstruck," where, through a series of happy accidents, she ended up being center stage for a few seconds in the film.

But with her mother and stepfather still in Iowa, she eventually came back to Coralville. Cue two more happy accidents (by way of working at J.C. Penny and singing karaoke respectively) and Apor Harris found herself performing in Coralville City Circle shows and acting in Clarke's most recent film.

Though it was only a few days of shooting for a minor role, the small cast and crew created a close knit environment she felt immediately comfortable in.

“Those guys are amazing, they’re incredibly respectful professional," said Apor Harris. "They have such a vision. It took me beyond — not even (just) back — to when I was heavily into acting in movies. This is why I fell in love with this whole process.”

This week, Clarke is shooting in L.A., having filmed Iowa City scenes earlier in the year. While it's unlikely you'll see "Alta Vista" on a billboard next to "A Quiet Place 2" or the next Marvel movie, Clarke and his crew are following their passion. While their films might not be blockbusters yet, Clarke has his course set.

“It’s interesting to me that you wouldn't traditionally think of tying it close to Hollywood," said Clarke. "But Iowa is dominating Hollywood in a lot of respects. Forget Hollywood, forget L.A.; I’m trying to keep up with the Iowa directors.”

Isaac Hamlet covers arts, entertainment and culture at the Press-Citizen. Reach him at [email protected] or (319)-688-4247, follow him on Twitter @IsaacHamlet

In an AgriTalk interview on Tuesday with host Chip Flory, Mike Kinley, managing member of Agricultural Development Group LLC, discussed his vision for value-added projects in the ag sector. Particularly, Kinley shared plans for Platinum Crush LLC to develop a Buena Vista County soybean-crushing plant.

“If you take a look at what’s happening across the food, feed, and fuel part of the industry, we’re seeing a lot of growth on the fuel side, and a real strong push towards products like renewable diesel. Some of these breakthroughs in technology in that sector have created opportunity for additional soy oil demand,” says Kinley. “Having been familiar with what those dynamics are, we’ve identified more crushed capacity in the U.S. as a constraint to growth.”

Incentives and government regulations, according to Kinley, are both driving factors in the renewable diesel push. States like that of California have peak interest in the Midwest, as do fuel industry stakeholders, thanks to our soybean-crushing facilities.

“If you look at the first modern project in Shell Rock, Iowa, Phillips 66 certainly took a great interest in that project and step forward to be not only an investor, but to be a buyer of all the oils that are coming from that facility. So, in a sense, we broke new ground with that Phillips 66 agreement sort of being the first of its kind,” Kinley says. “Now we’re seeing some follow-on effects with other players stepping up and doing a similar thing.”

Diverse technology also plays a pivotal role in fuel stakeholders’ interest in the soybean-crushing game.

“These players in the petroleum industry are recognizing the opportunity and, through technology, have found a way to convert fats, oils, and greases—in particular, soybean oil—into a diesel product that is molecularly identical to petroleum-based diesel,” Kinley says. “In doing so, they’ve removed a lot of blending requirements and, because they produce it themselves, they get the opportunity to capture those profits longer term.”

With offers coming in from Phillips 66, Kinley and his team at the Ag Development Group are eager to put each operation in motion. A rough construction timeline puts into perspective the opening date of the Shell Rock location, as well as the highly anticipated Buena Vista facility.

“The Shell Rock facility is currently under construction. We started doing dirt work last fall and were able to get a lot of dirt work done. We worked all the way through the middle of December. Then spring, being on the drier side, we found ourselves able to continue that work and get to pouring concrete and going vertical,” Kinley says. “Now, we’re in pretty good shape where I hate to say we’re ahead of schedule, but we’re doing very well in construction. Our target date is to be able to receive soybeans into the elevator on-site in July of 2022, and then be able to crush soybeans in December of 2022.”

According to Kinley, the Platinum Crush, Buena Vista soybean-crushing facility budget is on-par with the Shell Rock location of $350 million. Local producers can also expect to use the Buena Vista facility by winter 2024.

Catch Chip Flory’s full interview with Mike Kinley, managing member of Agricultural Development Group LLC, here.

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