RECORD BREAKING
Wine and Craft Beer enthusiasts descend on local festival, 1B.
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 22, 2016
VOLUME 130, ISSUE 41
ALTOONA, IOWA 50009
75 CENTS
WWW.ALTOONAHERALD.COM
Altoona starts preparations for its 150th anniversary JONATHAN KRUEGER JNKRUEGER@REGISTERMEDIA.COM
In the year 2018, the city of Altoona will be celebrating its 150th-year birthday. With the big milestone draw-
ing near, a group of Altoona residents have already started preparations for the celebration. To make the celebration even bigger, many groups in the city are combining their events to
fall on the same weekend, July 26 through July 29, 2018. “Our goal is to make this the biggest celebration that the city has ever had,” said Alex Payne with the Altoona Area Historical Society. “We are starting two
years out but if you get input from people and make sure we do everything we want to do, two years sounds like a very long time but two years from now we will wish we had a little extra time.”
The group is considering events such as a movie in the park, a kids parade, a street dance, the Chamber’s Wine and Craft Beer Fest, a pancake See 150, Page 5A
Lawmaker’s deployment complicates his bid for re-election
Habitat for Humanity
BRIANNE PFANNENSTIEL BPFANNENST@DMREG.COM
MARK DAVITT/PHOTOS SPECIAL TO THE HERALD-INDEX
Sharon McCammant shows off the new paint applied at her Sharon’s Treasures and Auctions. She said she was appreciative of the Mitchellville volunteers who helped with Mitchellville’s Habitat for Humanity Rock the Block last week. Volunteers helped repair and paint a few buildings and the Lions Club made lunch for everyone who helped.
Habitat plants seeds, Mitchellville makes them grow JONATHAN KRUEGER
Jared Dory helped with the painting project at Sharon’s Treasures and Auctions.
JNKRUEGER@REGISTERMEDIA.COM
V
olunteers came together last week to help residents in the city of Mitchellville. Habitat for Humanity’s Rock the Block event came to the city for the fourth year in a row, this time tackling five projects, up from the three they have tackled in previous years.
According to the Habitat for Humanity website, Rock the Block provides a path for homeowners, organizations, volunteers and Greater Des Moines Habitat to assist lowincome residents with needed repairs, maintenance, weatherization, safety, accessibility and beautification. Volunteers tackled projects from June 16 to June 18 See HABITAT, Page 4A
First-term incumbent state Rep. Zach Nunn, R-Bondurant, will serve a 90-day military deployment beginning in June, disrupting his re-election efforts to a competitive House district in November. Nunn is an Air Force veteran who previously served as a national counterintelligence officer and a director of cybersecurity on the National Security Council. He currently is a major with the Iowa Air National Guard. Nunn said he’ll work with a group of specialists supporting both cyber operations and military strikes, which will be operated out of commands in Fort Meade in Maryland and Osan Air Base in South Korea. He’ll return in September. “In some ways I think it’s a really good opportunity to showcase that, just like our citizen Legislature, we have a citizen National Guard here,” he said. “And at times you have to go serve the greater good.” But it also makes his bid for re-election more competitive. House District 30, which covers eastern Polk County, has been a swing district in recent elections and has regularly changed hands between Democrats and Republicans. Nunn was elected in 2014, ousting incumbent Democrat Joe Riding, who had served just one term. Riding is challenging Nunn this year, seeking to retake the seat. Registered Republicans outnumber Democrats in the district, about 7,700 to 6,700. Voter turnout traditionally favors Democrats in presidential election years, but political analysts have been reticent to predict what this year’s turnout may look like with polarizing candidates atop the ticket for both Democrats and Republicans.
Altoona, Bondurant looking to help veterans JONATHAN KRUEGER JNKRUEGER@REGISTERMEDIA.COM
Two local communities have been looking to implement Home Base Iowa in their communities. Home Base Iowa is a program created by Governor Terry Branstad and director
of the Iowa Economic Development Authority Debbie Durham as a way to attract veterans, who are also skilled laborers, to Iowa. The Iowa Legislature approved the Home Base Iowa program, which includes income tax exemptions for veterans, permissive hiring
preference for veterans that allows veterans preferential treatment in hiring decisions in both public and private organizations, a military home ownership assistance program, which applies a $5,000 down payment to veterans on closing costs on homes through the Iowa Finance Au-
thority Board and provides education incentives including automatic in-state tuition for veterans, their spouses and their children. “The veterans provide a great service to our country and anything that we can do See VETERANS, Page 2A
SPORTS
INDEX
Southeast Polk ranks fifth after six-game sweep.
Local ..............................1A-5A Viewpoint...........................6A East Polk Life ................1B-4B Calendar..............................2B
Page 1C
Looking Back......................2B Classifieds......................2C-4C Sports .............................1C-3C
Find more at www.altoonaherald.com
SPECIAL TO THE REGISTER
State Rep. Zach Nunn, R-Bondurant, is shown above with his wife Kelly and daughter Olympia. He will serve a 90-day military deployment beginning in June.