USDA announces $8.9 million in broadband grants
INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. — USDA Rural Development Indiana State Director Robert White announced the availability of $8.9 million in grants for communities without broadband service, to provide residential service and connect facilities such as police and fire stations, health care, libraries and schools.
Grants are available to communities in the most rural, economically-challenged areas where loans will not be sustainable.
Applications for grants are due by close of business Aug. 13. There is a minimum grant level of $50,000 and a maximum of $1,000,000 for projects. The application guide for this grant program can be found at www.usda.gov/rus/telecom
Further information on rural programs is available at a local USDA Rural Development office or by visiting www.rurdev.usda.gov
Trader charged with violating horse quarantine
LAPEER, Mich. (AP) — A Lapeer County horse trader was charged with illegally importing a horse into Michigan and violating a quarantine order.
Chisholm Alexander, 31, of Imlay Township already was in jail for theft when he was arraigned July 3 on the new charges. Authorities said Alexander and a second man, Chad Mills, 34, of Ashley, illegally transported a horse across state lines without a health certificate. Alexander also was charged with taking a horse away from his farm while a quarantine order was in effect.
Alexander was sentenced in May to 90 days in jail and ordered to repay $27,000 to clients from whom he had accepted money to buy or sell horses. His attorney, Thomas J. Tomko of Sterling Heights, told The Flint Journal that the new charges are unrelated to the previous case.
Asked about the charge involving transporting a horse without a health certificate, Tomko said he understood it was not unusual for health paperwork to follow and not travel with a horse. As for the second charge, Tomko said he believed the horse’s owner had insisted on picking up the horse from Alexander’s farm and that all the horses had tested negative for Equine Infectious Anemia before it left.
Transporting a horse across state lines without a health certificate is a felony punishable by up to five years in prison and a fine of up to $50,000.
Mills could not be reached for comment, The Journal said in a story published July 4.
Lightning kills 60 hogs in Iowa
FARMERSBURG, Iowa (AP) — A lightning strike knocked out a generator and power to a confinement building, killing 60 hogs, officials with the Iowa Department of Natural Resources said.
Kevin Baskins, an agency spokesman, said a storm late on July 3 or early July 4 knocked out power to the building, cutting off air circulation and causing the hogs to suffocate. The confinement is owned by Clark Wikner of Farmersburg, in northeast Iowa’s Clayton County.
“Power failure at confinement facilities can be catastrophic in a relatively short period of time,” Baskins said in a news release.
Former president of American Pop Corn dead at 85
SIOUX CITY, Iowa (AP) — Wrede H. Smith, who helped oversee the growth of American Pop Corn Co. in Sioux City, has died. He was 85.
Smith died at his home Thursday, his family said. The retired chairman and longtime president of the company, Smith is credited with introducing the company’s Jolly Time brand microwave popcorn and expanding its products into Europe.
His grandfather, Cloid H. Smith, founded American Pop Corn in 1914. Wrede Smith was named president in 1966 and semi-retired in 2002, still making weekly visits to the office to help guide advertising and sales efforts.
Wrede Smith enlisted in the U.S. Army during World War II and afterward joined the family company in 1945. At the time, American Pop Corn employed 25 people. In 2002, the company employed almost 200 and was marketing its Jolly Time popcorn internationally.
Methane gas kills 5 on Va. farm BRIDGEWATER, Va. (AP) — Exposure to methane gas led to the deaths of four family members and a farmhand, but whether they suffocated from the fumes or drowned in 18 inches of liquefied cow manure may never be known, authorities said.
No autopsies were planned, in part because investigators believed the deaths on a Rockingham County dairy farm were accidental, said Capt. J.B. Wittig of the county sheriff’s department. Authorities said they could not rule out the possibility that the five drowned or died of another cause.
“It was very, very quick,” Wittig said of the deaths.
The victims were identified as Scott Showalter, 34; his wife, Phyillis, 33; their daughters Shayla, 11, and Christina, 9; and Amous Stoltzfus, 24.
Authorities said Showalter entered a manure pit to unclog a pipe July 2 and was quickly overcome by the methane. Stoltzfus, apparently believing Showalter had a heart attack, went in after him and also passed out.
Another farm worker alerted Showalter’s wife, who rushed to the pit, followed by Shayla and Christina.
“They all climbed into the pit to help,” Sheriff Donald Farley said.
The victims had no warning of the deadly gas that had built up in the pit.
“You cannot smell it, you cannot see it, but it’s an instant kill,” said Dan Brubaker, a family friend who oversaw the construction of the pit decades earlier.
The Showalters milked 103 cows on their farm west of Harrisonburg in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley. Their two younger daughters, Brooklyn and Alyssa, are in the care of family.
This farm news was published in the July 11, 2007 issue of Farm World, serving Indiana, Ohio, Illinois, Kentucky, Michigan and Tennessee. |
