Stories from Thursday, July 25, 2013

Milford Fire Chief Jim Carpenter says a light ballast is responsible for a smoky scene and evacuation at Good Samaritan Society-Heritage Landings, a senior apartment complex along Jepperson Road near Highway 86 in Milford. Residents looked on from the Heritage Landings parking lot as fire crews continued to arrive at 9:15 a.m. Thursday morning...

Spirit Lake's Rachel Gerking, Colfax-Mingo's Libby Hysell, Pella Christian's Emily Grimes and Southeast Webster-Grand standout Jennifer Jorgensen are the 2013 inductees into the Iowa Girls High School Athletic Union's Softball Hall of Fame. The induction ceremony will take place at the State Softball Championships Friday, June 26 before the start of the Class 2A championship game...

Mediacom announced today that it will provide statewide television coverage for the upcoming Iowa Girls High School Softball Championship games. Iowans will be able to tune-in on cable television and watch Mediacom's live coverage of all five championship games to be played Friday, July 26...

Endurance athletes came out in full force with over 900 participants taking part in the 36th annual University of Okoboji Homecoming events this past weekend in the Iowa Great Lakes. Three of the five race winners were local runners with Iowa State sophomore and Spirit Lake native Alec Baldwin winning the half-marathon in 1-hour, 17.32-minutes, Taylor Chapman of Spencer capturing the 10K title in 33:15 and Taylor Huseman of Manson turning in a winning time of 1:21.54 in the triathlon...

Spirit Lake ace right-hander Brandon Stoll mowed down North Union with his arm and provided a huge spark with his bat to help his team make a run to within one game of the state tournament with a 13-3, five-inning victory in the Class 2A District 2 championship game Saturday, July 20 in Spirit Lake...

Graettinger-Terril/Ruthven-Ayrshire will have a tough time getting over a season-ending 3-2 loss to Storm Lake St. Mary's after leaving two runners stranded on base trailing by just a run in a Class 1A District 2 semifinal Thursday, July 18 in Alta...

The 36th annual University of Okoboji Race Night finally beat the rain with 113 cars running Saturday night, July 20 at Jackson Speedway. Winning heats races was Dylan Peterson, Scott Winters and Matt Juhl in the 360 Sprints, Trent Schroede Derrick Barglof in the IMCA Stock cars and Bill Boles in the 305 Sprints. ...