Nearly 25,000 more Iowans filed unemployment claims in the past week, Iowa Workforce Development reported Thursday.

Continuing weekly unemployment claims total 181,358, the department reported.

Iowa Workforce Development said 24,693 people filed unemployment claims between April 26 and May 2. That included 22,830 initial claims by people who work in Iowa and 1,863 claims filed by people who work in Iowa but live in another state.

State unemployment insurance benefit payments totaled $50,931,302 for the same week, the department said.

Also this week, a total of $111,378,600 in Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation benefits was paid to 164,088 Iowans. Since April 4, a total of $439,126,200 has been paid.

A total of $10,046,089 was paid to 15,612 Iowans receiving Pandemic Unemployment Assistance benefits.

The industries with the most claims were manufacturing, 6,053; industry not available, self-employed, independent contractors, 4,010; health care and social assistance, 2,988; accommodation and food services, 2,200; and retail trade, 1,768.

Gov. Kim Reynolds is continuing to allow more businesses to reopen, which may mean more Iowans going back to work.

On Wednesday, after meeting with President Donald Trump at the White House, Reynolds issued a proclamation permitting a variety of businesses to reopen, including dental services, drive-in movie theaters, tanning facilities and medical spas.

She also relaxed mitigation strategies in the 22 counties that remain under more strict orders because the virus is more widespread there.

Beginning Friday in those 22 counties — which include Linn, Johnson and Black Hawk — malls and retail stores may reopen provided they operate at no more than 50 percent of capacity, and fitness centers may reopen on an appointment basis only.

For more information on the total data for this week’s unemployment claims, visit https://www.iowalmi.gov/unemployment-insurance-statistics.

Comments: (319) 398-8375; james.lynch@thegazette.com

Thanks to enough people following guidelines on social distancing and avoiding large gatherings, Gov. Kim Reynolds said Thursday the state is able to shift its COVID-19 focus from mitigation strategies to managing the impact on Iowans.

Even as the state Department of Public Health reported 655 new cases and 12 more deaths, Reynolds said Iowa is successfully dealing with the disease, which has claimed 231 lives in less than two months.

As she continues to allow more businesses to partially reopen, Reynolds said credit goes to Iowans for responding to targeted mitigation efforts to slow the spread of COVID-19 and prevent health care systems from being overwhelmed.

“I’m proud to say that Iowans do what they always do and they responded,” she said during her daily news conference Thursday. “So since we’ve kind of really accomplished what we were trying to do ... now we have shifted our focus from mitigation and resources to managing and containing virus activity as we begin to open Iowa back up.”

That means that beginning Friday, dentists may resume providing services and campgrounds, drive-in movie theaters, tanning facilities and medical spas all may reopen statewide, but with restrictions.

Her latest proclamation also relaxes mitigation strategies in the 22 counties that remain under more strict orders because the virus is more widespread there.

In those 22 counties, beginning Friday, malls and retail stores may reopen provided they operate at no more than 50 percent of capacity and take other steps, and fitness centers may reopen for appointments only.

In a statement, Coralville’s Coral Ridge Mall said it would reopen under those conditions starting at 11 a.m. Saturday. Shoppers there should expect to see hand-sanitizing stations, frequent cleanings and social distancing directions among other precautions.

“As Coral Ridge Mall prepares for this ‘new normal,’ we are thankful for the opportunity to reopen our doors and look forward to welcoming guests back into the shopping center,” senior general manager Monica Nadeau said in a statement.

Representatives of another large mall in the Corridor — Lindale Mall in Cedar Rapids — did not return calls Thursday for comment on its plans.

The governor’s new guidelines are in effect until May 15 unless she changes them. Data about COVID-19 will continue to drive her decisions about reopening the state economy “in a responsible manner,” Reynolds said.

“Just as we can’t stop the virus completely, we also can’t keep businesses closed and our life restricted indefinitely,” she said.

According to the state’s newest version of its COVID-19 dashboard, at coronavirus.iowa.gov, 31 people were admitted to hospitals in the previous 24 hours, bringing the total to 417 with 107 on ventilators and 151 in intensive care.

There have been 66,427 people tested, with 16.6 percent of them testing positive for a total of 11,059. Another 4,266 people are recovering.

Although the number of Iowans dying and becoming infected with COVID-19 continues to increase, Reynolds, who met Wednesday with President Donald Trump and his coronavirus advisers, said she is proud of the state’s efforts.

“We are leading, and we’re leading by example. And we’re going to continue to lead,” she said. “We are in a pandemic. We have a rapidly changing environment. We are reacting and being proactive.”

That includes testing at hot spots, such as meatpacking plants, “so of course, our positive cases are going to increase,” she said.

Iowa’s COVID-19 response may not be perfect, Reynolds said, “but I think we’re doing everything we can to really take care of Iowans in a responsible way (and) also to get the economy up and going so Iowans can get back to work and we can do everything we can to get our life somewhat back to normal.”

Just as it will be up to business owners, churches and others to decide whether they are comfortable partly reopening, Reynolds said it will be up to Iowans to decide whether they want to venture out.

“Iowan to need to make those individual choices themselves,” Reynolds said. “They need to apply personal responsibility, take into account where they’re going, what they’re doing.”

Reynolds also said Trump asked Iowa Director of Public Health Caitlin Pedati to be a member of his coronavirus task force after Pedati briefed the president on Iowa’s efforts to mitigate COVID-19. However, later Thursday, White House officials told Bloomberg News Pedati is not “officially” a member of the task force, but may be consulted. The governor’s office declined to comment.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency has announced $78 million for Iowa in reimbursement for costs associated with COVID-19. The funds will cover 75 percent of the eligible cost of personal protective gear and medical supplies and equipment during May and June.

In addition, FEMA has obligated $44 million for similar costs in March and April; $17 million to cover deployment of the National Guard; $4 million to reimburse the state for costs associated with its response; and $4.2 million for the use of up to 20 beds at U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs facilities.

Comments: (319) 398-8375; james.lynch@thegazette.com

MARION — Marion’s 14-member COVID-19 Economic Recovery Task Force is beginning to work on recommendations of how to get people back to work, while keeping everyone safe.

“It’s hard to know right now at the beginning the various outcomes that are going to come out of this,” Marion Mayor Nick AbouAssaly told task force members in a meeting held this week via Zoom.

“Community sectors will work independently and report to the steering committee with ideas, strategies or policy recommendations,” he said.

In turn, the task force will consider recommendations to the Marion City Council, and AbouAssaly said he will update the council on the task force meetings.

“Unfortunately, we have to accept that the virus is here to stay,” AbouAssaly said. “It’s part of our life for the time being. We have to be able to plan for getting back to doing things and leading our lives in a way that allows us to exist with the virus in our community.”

Elizabeth Cwik, a Marion resident who works for the Greater Cedar Rapids Community Foundation, said there’s a “strong interest” among task force members to provide accurate information to the public about the virus.

“I see clear, consistent messaging from a variety of sectors from the schools, government, businesses and nonprofits. Then that message gets through,” Cwik said. “If that message is, ‘We care, and we want you to come out whole, and we want there to be a vibrant economy to be continued with every citizen’s effort,’ I think that’s a valuable contribution to the recovery.”

In joining the task force, Dr. Jaclyn Price said she hopes to dispel inaccurate information about the coronavirus and help businesses find ways to safely bring their employees back to work.

“I anticipate businesses will be operating at reduced capacities,” she said. “Maybe doing appointments rather than walk-in business, and cleaning more routinely.”

If businesses require employees and customers to wear masks, it will protect others from asymptomatic spread of the virus, she said.

“We will still see virus activity until we get a vaccine or herd immunity,” Price said. “This is going to be a problem for months to come. We’re trying to find ways to open slowly, but also understanding if we reopen everything and have to close it again, that could be more detrimental to people’s psychology or finances of businesses.”

The Rev. Mike Morgan of Marion United Methodist Church said “greater conversation” with government, business, education and health care leaders will help.

“Marion has become a town that is proactive,” Morgan said. “We really seek to have good things happen to our citizenry rather than let things happen and we react to them. ... As a person in the faith community, it’s important for us to be tending to people’s emotional, psychological, spiritual and, to some degree, physical needs.”

Comments: (319) 368-8664; grace.king@thegazette.com

Those serving on the Marion COVID-19 Economic Recovery Task Force, all Marion residents and volunteers, are:

• Nick AbouAssaly, Marion mayor

• Jill Ackerman, president, Marion Chamber of Commerce

• Shannon Bisgard, Linn-Mar schools superintendent

• Amber Bisinger, communications officer for the city

• Elizabeth Cwik, Greater Cedar Rapids Community Foundation

• Lee Eilers, executive committee member, Marion Economic Development Corp.

• Nick Glew, president, Marion Economic Development Corp.

• Amber Hoff, marriage and family therapist

• Steve Jensen, Marion City Council member

• Mike Morgan, pastor, Marion United Methodist Church

• Brent Oleson, Linn County supervisor

Lon Pluckhahn, Marion city manager

• Jaclyn Price, M.D., Mercy Clinic-Marion

• Brooke Prouty, program director, Marion Chamber of Commerce

CEDAR RAPIDS — The Linn County Fair has canceled grounds and grandstand entertainment at this year because of the novel coronavirus and is looking at ways youths could exhibit their work.

“After consulting with Linn County Public Health, the Linn County Board of Supervisors, and other stakeholders, it was determined this was the best decision due to the uncertainty of what the public health situation may look like at the end of June,” Albert Martin, Linn County Fair Board president, said Thursday in a statement.

The fair was scheduled June 24-28.

The Linn County Fair Association said it is working with the Iowa State University Extension and Outreach of Linn County and Linn County 4-H to determine how 4-H and FFA members and other youths will exhibit their work. Those details — which could include in-person or virtual exhibiting — are expected to be finalized and announced in mid-May.

Tom Barnes, executive director of the Association of Iowa Fairs, told The Gazette on Thursday that the Benton County Fair also was canceled for 2020.

Organizers for the Wapello County Fair in south-central Iowa previously announced they would not host the fair this year.

Comments: (319) 339-3155; lee.hermiston@thegazette.com

MARION — While the Uptown Marion Market will continue to sell fresh produce, it will look a little different this year.

The market will continue operating on the second Saturday of June, July and August with some adjustments.

But the city of Marion has canceled community events until at least early July because of the coronavirus pandemic.

The Uptown market will run along Sixth Avenue instead of being held in City Square Park. It will be fenced and no more than 50 people will be let in at an time.

Jill Ackerman, president of the Marion Chamber of Commerce, said there are usually between 50 and 60 vendors at each market, but she expects only 15 to 25 at this summer’s markets.

“The main thing here is safety,” Ackerman said. “We want to make sure people have opportunities to buy fresh produce from our local growers, but we’re going to ask patrons to only spend 30 minutes inside the market.”

Vendors will sell produce and some plants, but artisan items will not be available.

While there will be summer events through the Chamber of Commerce, Ackerman said, they will be fewer and look a little different than they usually do.

Free community concerts and movie nights are canceled until July by the city, according to a news release.

The Marion Farmers Market, held at Taube Park, is expected to resume May 16.

Officials hope to have smaller-scale events throughout the summer like performances in the Uptown Artway, Messy Art Days and the Tiny Fair series as restrictions ease.

Sunrise Yoga at the Klopfenstein Amphitheater at Lowe Park is expected to take place every Saturday from June to August.

“Unfortunately, given our current reality, we know that 2020 will be far from normal,” said Marion Mayor Nicolas AbouAssaly. “After careful consideration and consultation with event organizers and sponsors, we have made the collective decision to cancel the free community concerts, events and movie nights originally planned for our outdoor public venues through early-July.”

Comments: (319) 368-8664; grace.king@thegazette.com

IOWA CITY — Once upon a time, there was a house in a city that loved literature.

It was a quaint, two-story home in the heart of the historic district with brick stairs, pale yellow siding, a hipped red roof and a rich history: Its original owner was Emma J. Harvat, who in 1922 became the nation’s first female mayor for a city of more than 10,000.

Nearly a century later, in 2014, Andrea Wilson was working in advertising in Florida and pined for a more “altruistic purpose” for her life. So she planned a return to Iowa, where she grew up in Columbus Junction.

But this time Wilson would live in Iowa City, known for — among other things — pioneering academic creative writing pursuits at the University of Iowa’s famed Writers’ Workshop.

Wilson wanted to write and found the idea of the historic Harvat house so charming she bought it “sight unseen” from down in Miami, aiming to run it as a bed-and-breakfast. But when she arrived, Wilson discovered a need in her new community she aimed to fill. It had a surprising dearth of literary resources for those outside the university.

“There wasn’t any place for the public to take a class or meet other writers or really be part of a writing community where people could just express their humanity through words,” she said. “It became my passion project — to try to create that for this community. I thought if anywhere should have a place like that, it would be America’s only UNESCO City of Literature at the time.”

So in March 2015, Wilson debuted Iowa City’s first community-based literary center for writers — or those aspiring. She had hoped to open a communal writing space closer to downtown but didn’t have the funding. So she gave her home a third identity: the Iowa Writers’ House.

She continued to live there and maintain her bed-and-breakfast business, which funded the writing endeavor and kept its cozy corridors bustling with interesting characters.

Famed visiting writers included Leslie Jamison, American novelist and essayist with works on the New York Times bestseller list; Hope Edelman, whose six non-fiction books have published in 17 countries and translated in 11 languages; Alison Bechdel, an American cartoonist and MacArthur fellow; and Piedad Bonnett Velez, Colombian poet, playwright and novelist of international acclaim.

And over the years, the Iowa Writers’ House connected, served and motivated thousands with its workshops, seminars, readings and summer camps. It offered editing services, founded a Bicultural Iowa Writers’ Fellowship, and — among other things — inspired a growing network of friends and creatives to value their own stories and the stories of others.

“I said yes to everything anyone ever asked of me,” Wilson said. “We gave tours. I received visiting scholars. We hosted dinners for visiting poets and writers for the university. And a lot of that was all volunteer. We never had a steady funding stream like most literary centers do.”

So when the coronavirus in March reached Iowa City, later shuttering storefronts, canceling events, curtailing travel plans and crippling the economy, the Iowa Writers’ House momentum stopped, too.

“Once COVID hit, because all of our programming is live and people come to the house, we had to cancel it,” Wilson said.

She dropped most of the organization’s spring season. She lost all her projected bed-and-breakfast business. And in a message posted to the Iowa Writers’ House website last month, Wilson announced her hard but unavoidable news.

“As the situation pushes on, and with no programming in the foreseeable future, we must make drastic changes,” she wrote. “Organizations must weather the storm or adapt, and in the case of this little organization with a big heart, evolution is the only option.”

And so after five years of intimate conversations, communal meals, singing, laughing, crying and lots and lots of writing and reading — all done in the shadow of Harvat — the organization is leaving the historic space and “taking a break to assess our mission and consider our best options for the future.”

Wilson said she plans to focus on her own writing. And the Bicultural Iowa Writers’ Fellowship program will continue — allowing for the release later this year of a third volume of “We the Interwoven: An Anthology of Bicultural Iowa,” including six new authors with multilingual stories of living in Iowa.

News of the goodbye — at least for now — has been met with an outpouring of support and testimonials of the impact the Iowa Writers’ House has had,

“I grew up without a writing community, and it was a very lonely experience,” Erin Casey wrote to Wilson after learning of its pause.

Casey — on the Iowa Writers’ House team and director of The Writers’ Rooms, an offshoot of the house — said her involvement in the project shaped not only her career but her personal growth.

“You, and the Iowa Writers’ House, helped me become a stronger person who felt deserving of companionship, respect, and love,” she wrote. “Watching the house grow, the workshops fill, and the stories come in about how much the IWH touched people’s lives added to the joy. I finally found a place to call home.”

Casey said that while the future is unknown, its legacy is not.

“The IWH will live on in the hearts of the people you touched,” she wrote. “Writers have found friends, support, guidance …”

Although the project isn’t getting a fairy-tale ending, Wilson said the story isn’t over.

“The organization is leaving the space. I’m leaving the space. We’re going on an organizational break so we can determine what a sustainable future might be,” she said. “But it’s really the end of a chapter. And we don’t know what the next chapter will be.”

Comments: (319) 339-3158; vanessa.miller@thegazette.com

Vice President Mike Pence owes Iowans more than a photo-op when he visits Des Moines today, according to Joe Biden’s campaign.

“Iowans are seeing up close the most consequential failure of government in modern American history,” said Kate Bedingfeld, spokeswoman for the former vice president and presumptive Democratic presidential nominee.

“With nearly 300,000 Iowans filing for unemployment, rural hospitals on life support, Latino communities disproportionately suffering and workers on the job without sufficient protection, Mike Pence owes Iowans more than a photo-op — he owes them answers,” she said.

Pence, head of the White House coronavirus task force, is scheduled to meet with Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds and U.S. Sens. Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst, all Republicans, as well as with faith, farm and food production leaders.

Pence will talk to faith leaders about how they are using federal and state guidelines to open their houses of worship in a safe and responsible manner.

Later, he will go to Hy-Vee’s headquarters in West Des Moines for a roundtable discussion with agriculture and food supply leaders to discuss steps being taken to ensure the food supply remains secure.

Pence has called Iowa a “success story” in its response to the COVID-19, but Bedingfeld said the Trump administration failed to protect Iowa families from the virus that has claimed the lives of 231 Iowans.

“From devastating losses across the state, at meatpacking plants to rural communities, one thing is clear — it’s Iowans and the American people who are paying the price for the Trump administration’s denials and delays in response to this pandemic,” she said.

“Instead of listening to our own intelligence agencies and public health experts, Donald Trump was fed dangerous propaganda from the Chinese Communist Party — and he bought it,” she said. “Iowans deserve better — they deserve Joe Biden.”

For his part, Grassley said he welcomes the discussion with Pence.

“There’s much work to be done, and the pandemic is disrupting all of our communities,” Grassley said. “It’s important to hear directly from those who help feed the nation and the world.”

Ernst also is looking forward to the discussion of how Iowa is working to protect the health and safety of Iowa’s families and communities while reopening the state’s economy.

“We continue to take an all-hands-on-deck approach to tackling this pandemic,” she said. “Together, we will get through this.”

Comments: (319) 398-8375; james.lynch@thegazette.com

CEDAR RAPIDS — Getting your hands on some fried food on a stick is going to be a little more difficult this summer for Iowans.

With the COVID-19 pandemic imposing restrictions on life in the state, county fair organizers across Iowa are trying to decide if they should cancel, go virtual or wait and see if restrictions lift and their events can go on in a relatively normal manner.

One thing seems to be for certain: The fair experience won’t quite be the same this year.

“It’ll be different,” said John Harms, general manager for the Great Jones County Fair, known for attracting popular musical acts. “I can tell you that.”

Iowa is home to 106 county and district fairs, as well as the Iowa State Fair, according to the Association of Iowa Fairs. Those fairs are scheduled to begin June 17 with the Worth County Fair and continue through Sept. 20 with the conclusion of the National Cattle Congress in Black Hawk County.

Those early fairs already are beginning to announce decisions about their events. Organizers of the Wapello County Fair announced they are canceling for this year. On Thursday, the Linn County Fair Association announced it is canceling grounds and grandstand entertainment with plans to take the exhibition aspects of the fair online.

Linn County Fair Marketing Manager Heidi Steffen said the association met with county public health and Board of Supervisors officials in recent weeks. The focus of those discussions was on ensuring the safety of all fair exhibitors, workers, performers and visitors, Steffen said.

“We just couldn’t guarantee that,” she said.

Steffen was quick to point out the fair isn’t canceled — it’s just taking on a different form. The fair is scheduled for June 24-28.

The fair association is working with the Iowa State University Extension and Outreach of Linn County and Linn County 4-H to ensure 4-H and National FFA Organization members get a chance to exhibit their livestock and projects. Details on what that will look like are expected later this month.

Fair association members have been attending webinars and learning from other fairs across the country that have gone virtual. Steffen said they’ve received valuable suggestions and feedback.

“It’s been done,” she said. “We can learn from their mistakes. We can learn what went well with them and hopefully implement it here in Linn County.”

Steffen said they are already kicking around other ideas to engage the community during fair week, just in a virtual manner. Those ideas include livestreaming pie-eating contests, encouraging local businesses to offer fair foods on their menus and seeing if local artists who had been scheduled to perform at the fair would be interested in online performances instead.

“We’re open to ideas,” she said, encouraging anyone with suggestions to reach out via email or Facebook.

Up the road in Jones County, organizers there have a little more time to decide how to move forward. For now, Harms is confident that fair will go on July 22-26.

“We’re still going to have a fair,” he said. “It may look differently than what we have experienced and enjoyed in the past.”

How exactly it may look different still is up in the air. Harms said plans “a, b, c and d are all being studied.” At least one grandstand act, the Zac Brown Band, won’t be performing. But Harms said organizers have other acts they’re ready to announce “if it makes sense to have entertainment at the fair.”

Whatever takes place likely will be determined by proclamations covering social distancing made by Gov. Kim Reynolds, Harms said. He said the fair’s planning process has been dictated by her health orders.

“We’re just trying to keep everything on the table and make sensible decisions and directions based on what’s going on,” he said. “It’s going to be challenging, but I think for the most part we’ll take a deep breath, have a little more faith and we’ll get through it.”

Tim Rogers, vice president for the Johnson County Fair Board, said the decision whether to have a fair will be made in the next 40-plus days.

“That’s kind of a deadline we’ve set to either call it completely, proceed fully or proceed with what we can do and still stay in compliance with all of the laws,” he said.

The Johnson County Fair Board will discuss what a partial fair might look like once that decision has been made, Rogers said.

Tom Barnes, executive director of the Association of Iowa Fairs, said his group is providing resources to fair organizers, but is not making any recommendations on whether to proceed.

“We’re asking them to be fiscally responsible for their fair,” he said. “We don’t ask them to cancel. We don’t ask them to go ahead with their fair. They know better what they can do and not do.”

Barnes said fair organizers should be asking themselves: If your fair is open, will people buy tickets? And, if they come, will they buy food and beverages?

As long as they make good financial decisions, Barnes said, he believes county fairs have the resources to weather the COVID-19 storm and return in 2021.

“We’ll be back next year if the fairs don’t go ahead,” he said.

Comments: (319) 339-3155; lee.hermiston@thegazette.com

Benjamin Stuben Farrar of Iowa City is a storyteller without a story to tell at the moment.

The first story is as dramatic and layered as his bold scenic and lighting designs for area stages: “Benjamin Stuben Farrar” is not his actual name.

He was born Stewart Benjamin Farrar 41 years ago in Kentucky. He didn’t want to go through life as “Stewie,” so he went by “Benjamin,” until he got to college at Vanderbilt University in Nashville. He ran into so many other Bens, that his buddies decided to combine his names into “Stuben.”

That name followed him to grad school at the University of Iowa in 2002, where he earned an MFA in theater design. But when he moved to New York City in 2006 to pursue his career, he didn’t like hearing “Stuben” shouted across the theater.

“It sounded too much like ‘stupid,’ ” he said, “so I reverted back to Benjamin.”

But nicknames have a way of sticking. When he and his wife moved back to Iowa City in 2015 to raise their daughter, he switched to “Stuben” again, since that’s how people knew him there.

Professionally, he uses “S. Benjamin Farrar” and on Facebook, he goes by “Benjamin Stuben Farrar” so friends from his various circles can find him. Even though most people now call him “Stuben,” he still introduces himself as “Benjamin.”

“To this day, I have 12 different names,” he said with a laugh. “Only the bill collectors know me as ‘Stewart.’”

Like his name, his artistry knows no bounds.

He has planted apple trees on Riverside Theatre’s indoor stage in Iowa City; a child’s outdoor playground on the Theatre Cedar Rapids stage; and dramatic spaces for Noche Flamenca’s dancers in New York City venues and on tour.

These days, however, his theatrical world has gone dark.

His recent designs for “The Humans,” “The Skin of Our Teeth” and “Kinky Boots” at Theatre Cedar Rapids and “A Doll’s House, Part 2” at Riverside Theatre have been canceled or postponed in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. He has “The Winter’s Tale” in the works for Riverside Theatre’s free Shakespeare in the Park slated for June, but time will tell if that changes, too.

“Within the course of two weeks, five productions were canceled or moved indefinitely,” he said.

Looking ahead, he’s not sure what shows he’ll have time to design for the upcoming seasons. He’s used to juggling three or four productions at a time, but he said that could become really difficult if the shows fall on top of each other at the various venues.

As with so many artists right now, his world keeps changing.

He and his wife, Jody Caldwell, an editor and graduate of the UI Writers’ Workshop, are both freelancers, leaving them with no income during this pandemic. So Farrar has been wading through red tape and delays to secure unemployment compensation and the government stimulus check, for which he’s still waiting. One bright spot was receiving a $1,000 Iowa Arts & Culture Emergency Relief Fund grant given to 156 Iowa creatives who have lost income from canceled projects.

With his regular revenue streams drying up, he’s been considering other ways to earn money through teaching theater or creating and selling more of his digital and film photography — an outgrowth of his fascination for the way lighting can sculpt a scene on stage.

“I love doing nature (photography). I love doing details,” he said. “I love photographing people, too, especially on stage — I love photographing my own shows. It’s just a lot of fun.

“For me, nature’s so interesting, especially living where we do in North America, there’s vast changes from one time of year to another. I just love looking at that on a very small scale, and how light happens to fall on that particular surface — how that surface changes color,” he said.

“Right now the redbuds are out. The magnolias came out two weeks ago and then they started to fall. It changes the landscape dramatically, especially based on whether it’s a morning light or afternoon light or evening light, whether it’s cloudy, whether the sun’s peeking through clouds and highlighting a few individual leaves. I find that super fascinating.

“That’s how I can look at the same boring tree at different times of year, at different times of day, and find something interesting to photograph.”

While his scenic designs create an immediate visual impact and help tell the story swirling around the actors, Farrar was a lighting designer before he became a scenic designer.

It wasn’t love at first sight. He took a light design course in college, but didn’t “get” it.

“It’s really difficult to wrap your head around it,” he said.

His aha moment came when he was running lights for an operetta in college.

“I just had these little faders in front of me so I could raise certain lights up and down. And the music was happening in front of me and I thought, ‘I control this whole little universe. I can make things completely disappear. I can sculpt things from the side, I can make things feel totally different — just like music can — just based on how it’s lit.’ And then I finally started to understand how the lighting hooked things together,” he said.

From there, his interest in lighting soared.

“I absolutely love lighting,” he said. “I think it’s probably given me more joy than anything else, just because I can go for a walk someplace and just the way the lighting changes as the clouds come in or out, or as the time of year changes and the angle of the sun changes, I really enjoy seeing that — and that’s what got me into photography.”

While his design work is a collaborative process with the director and other production team members, the ideas begin flowing as soon as he starts reading a script. With the flamenco dance company in New York, he might start working on a show two years in advance. With Theatre Cedar Rapids, the lead time is generally six months to look at the season overall, and four months to “get things going” on a particular show, he said. The lead time is about two months for Riverside Theatre shows, which have shorter rehearsal periods.

He begins thinking about the theater spaces, the text that the audience never sees, the show’s technical demands, and the scale in relation to the human body. He still likes to do some of his design work by hand, but computers and the 3D printer he has in his basement workshop have made the process much quicker for creating the drawings and scale models for each show.

He also enjoys the variety and challenge of moving between the small space inside Riverside Theatre and the large space inside Theatre Cedar Rapids, as well as the theaters at Grinnell College and Cornell College in Mount Vernon, as well as the theaters in New York and the touring venues that have housed his designs.

Ultimately, the goal of scenic design “is always about the storytelling,” he said.

“There’s a version of a show that exists in a script, if there is a script. Assuming it has a script, there is a scaffolding for that show in the script, and then there’s a version of the show in the director’s head, and then there’s a version of the show that’s performed in my head as I read the script. So there’s all these different versions.”

If the show is a musical, the choreographer brings in another idea, and the musical score adds another element. Sometimes Farrar knows the music very well, but other times, he doesn’t.

“Hopefully, I can integrate that well if I listen to the music while working on the show — not usually when I’m reading the script, but while I’m drafting the show. I’ll listen to the music to get a sense of how the show wants to move.

“Integrating all these different versions of the show — the text, what’s in my head, what’s in the director’s head, what’s in the choreographer’s head, the role the music plays — and then you synthesize all those elements, and then you find out how the show wants to move in the space it has. And how a show moves is one of the most important things to me. ...

“You get a sense that the show becomes this conscious element that wants a certain thing, and will reveal those things over time.”

And time is something he has right now.

Comments: (319) 368-8508; diana.nollen@thegazette.com

As the coronavirus spread from the nation’s meatpacking plants to the broader communities where they are located, it burned through a modest duplex in Waterloo.

In the downstairs unit lived Jim Orvis, 65, a beloved friend and uncle who worked in the laundry department at the Tyson Foods pork processing facility, the largest employer in Waterloo. Upstairs was Arthur Scott, a 51-year-old father who was getting his life on track after a prison term for drugs. He worked 25 miles away at the Tyson dog treats factory in Independence.

The two men were not well acquainted. But both fell ill and died last month within days of each other from COVID-19 — casualties of an outbreak linked to the Waterloo plant that spread across the city of 68,000 people.

Similar spread has happened in other communities where the economy centers on raising hogs and cattle and processing their meat, including the hot spots of Grand Island, Neb., and Worthington, Minn.

The virus is “devastating everything,” duplex owner Jose Garcia, who received notification two days apart from his deceased tenants’ relatives, said recently. “These two guys were here last week. Now they are gone. It’s crazy.”

He said it’s possible one of the men infected the other because they shared an entryway, or that they each contracted the virus separately at their workplaces.

The virus threatens the communities’ most vulnerable populations, including low-income workers and their extended families.

“They’re afraid of catching the virus. They’re afraid of spreading it to family members. Some of them are afraid of dying,” said the Rev. Jim Callahan, of the Church of St. Mary in Worthington, a city of 13,000 that has attracted immigrants from across the globe to work at the JBS pork plant.

“One guy said to me, ‘I risked my life coming here. I never thought something that I can’t see could take me out.’ ”

In Grand Island, an outbreak linked to a JBS beef plant that is the city’s largest employer spread rapidly across the rural central Nebraska region, killing more than three dozen people. Many of the dead were elderly residents of long-term care facilities who had relatives or friends employed at the plant.

In Waterloo, local officials blamed Tyson for endangering not only its workers and their relatives but everyone else who leaves home to work or get groceries.

They were furious with the state and federal governments for failing to intervene and for pushing hard to reopen the plant days after public pressure helped idle it.

“We were failed by people who put profit margins and greed before people, predominantly brown people, predominantly immigrants, predominantly people who live in lower socioeconomic quarters,” said Jonathan Grieder, a high school social studies teacher who serves on Waterloo’s City Council. “This is going to be with us for so long. There are going to be very deep scars in our community.”

Grieder cried as he recounted how one of his former students, 19, lost her father to the coronavirus and has been left to raise two younger siblings. Their mother died of cancer last September.

Black Hawk County Sheriff Tony Thompson said he first became concerned after touring the Tyson plant April 10 and witnessing inadequate social distancing and a lack of personal protective equipment. As hundreds of workers began getting sick or staying home out of fear, Thompson joined the mayor and local officials in asking Tyson to close the plant temporarily on April 16.

But Tyson, with support from Gov. Kim Reynolds, waited until April 22 to announce that step after the outbreak intensified. The company warned of the significant economic consequences even a temporary shutdown would create.

The plant, which can process 19,500 hogs per day, resumed limited production this past week.

First, Tyson invited local officials and some employees inside for tours to show the new safety precautions, including plastic shields and more space between workers.

This time, Thompson said he was “reserved in my optimism” that worker safety would be a priority at the plant.

Although Tyson has declined to say how many of the plant’s 2,800 workers had been infected, state health officials announced last week that 444 — or 17 percent — had the virus.

In three weeks, Black Hawk County’s cases skyrocketed from 62 to at least 1,450, or more than 1 percent of the county population. Deaths because of the virus rose from zero to at least 15. Ninety percent of the cases are “attributed or related to the plant,” the county’s public health director said.

Thompson said the plant’s outbreak decimated the community’s “first line of defense” and allowed the virus to spread to nursing homes and the jail he oversees.

“These are the places we did not want to fight the COVID-19 virus,” he said.

The losses mounted.

A refugee from Bosnia died days after falling sick while working on the Tyson production line, leaving behind her heartbroken husband.

The virus also took an intellectually disabled man who died at 73, years after escaping forced labor at a turkey plant and retiring to Waterloo.

Scott, who went by the nickname Dontae, was planning to reunite in June with two teenage children he had not seen in person since he was incarcerated on federal drug charges in 2011.

A former small-time heroin distributor who suffered from addiction, he and his wife divorced during his prison term, and she moved to Mississippi with the children.

Since his 2018 release, friends said he was doing well and rebuilding relationships.

Scott told his daughter, Destiny Proctor, 18, that he suspected he became infected at the Tyson pet food factory, which has stayed open under federal guidance classifying the industry as critical infrastructure.

Proctor and her 15-year-old brother were looking forward to living with their dad this summer. Instead, their final talk was a video call from a hospital where he struggled to talk.

“It was so, so sad,” Proctor, who described her father as funny and caring and frequently sending her cards and gifts, said of their final call. “He told me he couldn’t breathe.”

DES MOINES — The Iowa Supreme Court has asked a group of criminal and civil lawyers, judges and court staff from judicial districts across the state to make recommendations on how criminal and civil jury trials will resume with coronavirus health restrictions.

The court is asking the 17-member Jumpstart Jury Trials Task Force to develop temporary policies and procedures for jury trials that will ensure the “fundamental rights of a defendant” to a jury trial, while at the same time “protecting the health and safety” of the jurors, attorneys, judges and the public, said Des Moines lawyer Guy Cook, co-chairman of the task force.

The court, Cook said Thursday, has put together a “good cross-section” of professionals who have experience with civil and criminal trials.

Task force members are:

• Associate Supreme Court Justice Mark McDermott, chairman

• Guy Cook, Des Moines criminal and civil attorney, co-chairman

• 4th Judicial District Judge Michael Hooper

• 5th Judicial District Judge David Porter

• Angela Campbell, Des Moines criminal defense attorney

• Jim Craig, Cedar Rapids civil attorney, president of Iowa Defense Counsel Association

• Janietta Criswell, clerk and jury manager, 8th Judicial District, Ottumwa

• Kathy Gaylord, district court administrator, 7th Judicial District, Davenport

• Patrick Jennings, Woodbury county attorney, Sioux City

• Julie Kneip, clerk of court, 2nd Judicial District, Fort Dodge

• Bill Miller, Des Moines civil attorney, chairman of Iowa State Bar Association litigation

• Todd Nuccio, Iowa state court administrator

• Jerry Schnurr, Fort Dodge civil attorney and president-elect of Iowa State Bar Association

• Jennifer Solberg, Woodbury County chief public defender

• Chad Swanson, Waterloo civil attorney, president of Iowa Association of Justice

• Brian Williams, Black Hawk county attorney

• Mark Headlee, information technology director of Iowa Judicial Branch

The committee will review the current schedule to resume jury trials that the court has established in consultation with public health officials and other health care providers, and recommend whether the schedule should be altered, according to the court’s order.

Jury criminal trials can resume July 13 and civil trials Aug. 3, according to the order.

The task force also will make recommendations for how those trials should proceed, according to the court’s order.

Members should develop policies and procedures aimed at protecting the health and safety of jurors, court staff, attorneys, judges and visitors throughout the trial process, particularly during the identification of potential jurors, summons of potential jurors, jury selection, trials, jury instructions and jury deliberations.

Cook said members will have to consider the challenges for each type of trial. More jurors, for example, are needed in a criminal case, so space and logistics will have to be considered with social distancing requirements.

That will be more difficult in the rural courthouses that have less space.

A pool of 80 to 100 potential jurors are sometimes summoned for felony trials in larger counties, but that, too, may be a challenge with social distancing.

Another possibility would be requiring masks, but how will a mask affect the credibility of a witness if it hides the person’s facial expressions, Cook said.

These are all issues the members may encounter.

Steve Davis, Iowa Judicial Branch spokesman, said the goal is one uniform statewide plan, but it’s possible that each district may have some discretion, as in the previous orders issued during this pandemic, because of the differences in each county.

Davis said the task force members were chosen based on gender, background and geographic area.

The recommendations should be submitted to the court the first week in June.

Davis said he didn’t yet know when the task force would start meeting by phone or video conference or how often.

Comments: (319) 398-8318; trish.mehaffey@thegazette.com

In August 1919, the Cedar Rapids Evening Gazette opined in favor of the passage of a $5 million congressional appropriation to “investigate influenza, its cause, prevention and cure.”

“We all remember without effort the darkness and terror which engulfed the land last fall and winter as death stalked swiftly from seaboard to seaboard, into crowded city and unto lonely plain, sparing not the cottage of the poor nor the mansion of the rich,” the editorial said. “In four short months, influenza claimed a half million lives and pressed millions of others onto beds of sickness, suffering and helplessness. The nation’s mortality rate leapt high and with astounding speed. The nation was unprepared to cope with a disease calamity such as it has never known.”

The Gazette lamented that billions of dollars in loss were wrought by the pandemic of so-called Spanish influenza, compared with only $5 million being spent to investigate the virus.

“More has been spent in studying diseases of hogs,” the editorial argued.

Just less than a year earlier, The Evening Gazette did not see “darkness and terror” coming. A front page, above-the-fold story Sept. 25, 1918, asked: “Spanish Influenza just the old-fashioned grippe?” “Grippe” is an old-time term for the flu, by the way.

“As a matter of fact, in the opinion of City Physician Beardsley, and a good many other Cedar Rapids men in the same profession, Spanish influenza is just another name for the regular old fashioned influenza and is no different from the influenza we have always had. A bad cold is a bad cold, and a worse cold is grippe, which covers a multitude of things ...,” The Gazette reported, optimistically.

An earlier strain of influenza in the spring of 1918 had been less virulent and deadly. But the second wave was no ordinary grippe.

By mid-October, according to reports in The Evening Gazette, influenza caseloads exploded. On Oct. 12, 1918, the local health board shut down pool rooms, billiard halls and bowling alleys. It pleaded with store owners to avoid allowing crowds to linger. On Oct. 16, stores were ordered to discontinue any special sales that might draw more shoppers.

Restrictions tightened as the pandemic worsened.

Death notices were stacking up on Gazette pages, in rows reminiscent of small tombstones. Many victims were cut down in the prime of life by a virus that struck young, healthy people hardest. Mothers and fathers died, leaving young children. Soldiers serving in World War I died far away from home. Visitors to town never returned home.

Young brothers died and were mourned at a double funeral. A sister who came to care for a sick brother died, and so did her brother.

Ray Franklin Minburn, 24, died of influenza, leaving behind six sisters and two brothers. “Mr. Minburn was a faithful son, a devoted companion, a good neighbor,” concluded his death announcement on Oct. 21, 1918.

On the same page that day came news, tucked among the tombstones, reporting that Iowa Gov. William Harding had recovered from influenza, in the midst of his reelection campaign, and was back in the office. You might remember Harding as the governor who banned German and other languages during World War I and who was nearly impeached for bribery in 1919.

Not far from Harding’s update came news from the prison in Anamosa that “whisky and quinine” were being deployed to attack the grippe.

The pages of The Evening Gazette also were dotted with advertisements for supposed cures and treatments.

“Danger of infection from influenza or any contagious disease can be eliminated by using preventive measures,” prescribed by Ruby S. Thompson, chiropractor and naturopathic physician. Those included “Sulphur-vapor baths, Carlsbad mineral bath.”

You could build up your blood using “Gude’s Pepto-Mangan,” the “Red Blood Builder.” Keep your strength up with Horlick’s Malted Milk.

One ad looked exactly like a news story, carrying the bold headline “Druggists still asked to conserve stocks of VapoRub needed in ‘flu’ districts.” In a tiny notation at the end of the “story” were the words “The Vicks Chemical Co.”

That August 1919 Gazette editorial I mentioned makes me wonder what we’ll be writing in a year or so after our current pandemic.

Death stalking us swiftly from seaboard to seaboard in an unprepared nation, preceded by the casual insistence it’s no worse than the seasonal flu, sounds eerily familiar in 2020. More attention is being paid to hogs than the health of humans working in meatpacking plants.

Will we be writing in 2021 how reopening states and counties too soon led to our own second wave? Here in Iowa, reopening began before we had a fully working predictive model to chart the pandemic’s course and before new testing efforts had a chance to ramp up. Will decisions made without crucial information look smart in 2021? Or will we wish we’d waited just a couple more weeks?

What of the protesters demanding liberation? What about the president, running for reelection in a nation harmed by his crisis mismanagement? What will a new normal look like?

Will there be newspapers around to editorialize in the aftermath? After all, most of the pitches for fake cures are online now, some even extolled at White House briefings.

And will we be better prepared next time? I bet editorial writers in 1919 figured we’d have this pandemic response thing down to a science by now.

Little did they know that in 2020 we’d have so little respect for science. And after a century-plus, the darkness and terror apparently slipped our minds.

(319) 398-8262; todd.dorman@thegazette.com

DES MOINES — Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds will not be holding a news briefing Friday on the coronavirus outbreak in Iowa due to scheduling conflicts created by Vice President Mike Pence’s visit to Iowa, according to the governor’s office.

The vice president was slated to travel to Des Moines Friday morning with plans to participate in a discussion with faith leaders about how they are using federal and state guidelines to open their houses of worship in a safe and responsible manner.

Also, Friday afternoon the vice president was scheduled to visit Hy-Vee headquarters in West Des Moines for a roundtable discussion with agriculture and food supply leaders to discuss steps being taken to ensure the food supply remains secure. Pence will return to Washington, D.C., later Friday evening.

Along with the governor, Iowa’s Republican U.S. Sens. Joni Ernst and Chuck Grassley are slated to join Pence at Friday’s events in Iowa.

According to the governor’s staff, Reynolds plans to resume her regular schedule of 11 a.m. press conferences next week.

CEDAR RAPIDS — A Dubuque woman who helped her boyfriend and another person buy heroin that later led to a fatal overdose was convicted Thursday in federal court.

Jacqueline M. Birch, 23, pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court to one count of aiding and abetting the distribution of a controlled substance.

During the plea hearing, Birch admitted she knew that another person was going to illegally distribute a drug last May, and she aided in that distribution.

Evidence at a previous hearing showed that Birch drove her boyfriend, Mateusz Syryjczyk, 29, of Rockford, Ill., and another person, not identified in court documents, to a residence in Dubuque on May 27. Birch and the other person went into the residence and bought heroin from a dealer. The three drove to a hotel in Dubuque and all used the heroin.

The other person began to overdose in the room, but Birch and Syryjczyk didn’t immediately call 911, according to evidence. Over many hours, Birch occasionally would perform CPR on the person to restore some breathing function, though the person never regained consciousness.

Eventually, Birch and Syryjczyk decided to call 911, and Syryjczyk took the remaining drug paraphernalia from the room to prevent law enforcement from finding it, according to court documents. Birch and Syryjczyk also made false statements to police about the cause of the person’s condition.

Court documents showed the overdose victim died at the scene. An autopsy later determined the cause of death was use of heroin, fentanyl and valeryl fentanyl.

Syryjczyk previously pleaded to misprision of a felony and remains free on bond pending sentencing.

Birch faces up to 20 years in federal prison, a $1 million fine and supervised release for life following her prison term.

Sentencing will be set after a presentencing report is prepared.

The case was investigated by the Dubuque Drug Task Force and is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Dan Chatham.

Comments: (319) 398-8318; trish.mehaffey@thegazette.com

On Wednesday, Gov. Kim Reynolds removed some restrictions on businesses in the 22 counties that have been seeing higher numbers of Iowans affected by COVID-19, including Linn and Johnson counties.

Now those organizations have to make decisions — on bringing back employees, services to provide and how much access to allow for customers.

And as those businesses reopen — some after more than two months — crucial steps likely will include ongoing communication with employees and customers and a well-thought-out restart plan.

The Gazette spoke with business leaders about the challenges faced by business owners as they consider how and when to open their doors.

• David Drewelow of ActionCoach Heartland in Cedar Rapids is a consultant with 19 years of business coaching experience.

• David Hensley, director of the University of Iowa’s John Pappajohn Entrepreneurial Center, has expertise in small business management during a crisis.

• Josh Seamans is vice president of Cushman and Wakefield, a global commercial real estate adviser that operates offices in more than 60 countries including China.

• Steve Shriver is a Cedar Rapids entrepreneur who operates and/or helped found four diverse enterprises, including Eco Lips and Brewhemia.

Their responses here have been condensed from lengthy individual interviews.

How important is communication and having a well-prepared plan for resumption of business?

Shriver: The one thing that has been imperative throughout this whole process is communication with employees, customers and the public. I also would recommend writing as detailed a business resumption plan as possible.

One of the main reasons is to fully understand what you are doing as this is a brand-new challenge that none of us has faced.

Drewelow: You really need to be communicating now, more than ever, with your employees, customers, vendors and suppliers. What does your plan for the next 20 to 30 days look like? What are things that you can be doing right now to get ready?

Hensley: I think it is critically important to have a reopening plan because most businesses are not going to be at full strength right away. What might their revenue forecasts look like? How can they keep their costs down as their business starts to rebound before it gets back to full capacity?

Seamans: Your plan should include a checklist of reopening steps appropriate to your type of business. Retail will have different items than distribution or industrial businesses.

You need to communicate your plan to employees, customers, landlords and lenders.

How much will fear play a role in the resumption of business?

Shriver: Everyone has a different idea of the risks involved, such as using a handle to open a door or interacting with a person — the little things that we are used to doing.

When you look at the risk versus reward of doing that, some people will be willing to go into a store and others will stay home. Some employees don’t want to come back to work yet and some people are itching to get back. You have everything in between.

Drewelow: The fear factor is huge. For the small business owner, we try to channel that fear into a focus on being highly aware of all the possibilities to mitigate concerns.

If you own a restaurant, can you post the menu online or use disposable menus? That way, a customer doesn’t have to touch something that might have been handled by someone else.

Appropriate spacing of customers within a restaurant also will help alleviate some of the fear.

Hensley: You need to communicate what steps you are taking to protect the health and safety of your employees and your customers. If you will be requiring the use of personal protective equipment like face masks, are you going to make them available?

Will limiting the number of people entering a business be difficult?

Shriver: There are not a lot of people who want to gather in masses right now. It seems like as businesses start to reopen, it will be more like a trickle.

It will be just like turning on a water spigot, with the flow of customers gradually increasing.

Hensley: I think we will see a lot more customers buying, rather than just shopping. They are going to buy the items they came for and then leave.

If businesses have more vulnerable customers, I would recommend establishing separate early morning times like many of the grocery stores have done to provide a safer environment.

Many companies have adopted using digital conferencing platforms for meetings. Will we see that trend continue?

Seamans: I think Zoom will be used for more internal meetings, so there is no need for someone to fly from, say, San Francisco to New York. But in terms of sales, it does not replicate that face-to-face interaction.

We have done work with clients that live several hours away and we have to come in for a city council meeting for a project that we are working on. That’s a three-hour drive in for a one- or two-hour council meeting and another three-hour drive back — basically an eight-hour day. If we can Zoom in and answer any questions, that’s a lot more efficient at less cost.

What should a small-business owner consider when determining how many employees to recall?

Shriver: We will be able to bring some people back to work and generate some revenue, but not in a huge way. Anybody who can work from home should continue working from home for as long as they possibly can.

We should not be rushing to get those people back. There is no incentive.

Hensley: Owners are going to be making hard decisions. Do I bring back half of my team at full time or do I bring everyone back at reduced hours? What are those implications going to be?

In some cases, other industries have been hiring and some may be making more money. Businesses may have to pay more to attract that talent back.

Restaurants have been forced to change their business model from on-premise dining to carryout and delivery. Should all owners take this opportunity to examine and update their business model?

Shriver: We took two businesses — SOKO Outfitters, a retail store, and Brewhemia, a restaurant — and put them rapidly online within a month. When we come out of this, I think we will be stronger because we will have that infrastructure in place in addition to the old school face to face traffic that we used to have.

Hensley: I think this is definitely the time to look at your business model to determine what is appropriate given the economic situation that we have. That is not just going to be critical for reopening, but over the next six months to a year as long as we are dealing with the virus.

Some business owners will see that their customers have lost their jobs or seen their income drop dramatically. They are going to be changing their patterns of consumption based on necessities.

Drewelow: Some of my clients believe that are looking their competitors and realize that some may not reopen. They are looking at whether they can merge with them or somehow salvage parts of that business.

Some business owners have realized that the way they deliver products or services will have to change. Many of my older clients have been dragged into using modern technology.

This Mother’s Day, April Kelley just wants to give her daughter Jessica Kelley a hug. But she can’t. Jessica, 21, works on the COVID-19 floor at Mercy Medical Center in Cedar Rapids.

To protect her family and still do her job, Jessica is living full time at the hospital, which has made housing available to staff who need to isolate from their families during the pandemic.

“Just based on the floor I’m on, I don’t want to put my family at risk. It’s not worth it,” she said.

Her mother has an autoimmune disorder, adding another layer to Jessica’s worries. Though she does not interact with patients with the coronavirus directly, she still knows exposure is a risk.

“It wasn’t too hard of a decision, but it’s hard on me sometimes,” she said. “I really miss her.”

Jessica is a telemetry monitor technician. For her eight- to 12-hour shifts, her job is to watch heart monitors of patients in the hospital’s intensive care unit. If any patient starts to have cardiac distress or irregular heart rhythms, she and her fellow technicians are the first ones to notice and can notify the doctors and nurses in the main ward.

“It was her choice to either work at the hospital or come home, which was really difficult for her,” April Kelley said. “She’s only 21, so I was pretty proud of her for choosing to help. I don’t think people realize the sacrifice people are making to be there, working in the hospitals right now.”

Jessica is finishing her junior year as a nursing student at Mount Mercy University in Cedar Rapids. When classes moved online and the dorms closed, she had to figure out what to do. While many of her classmates moved back home with their families, doing so would have meant quitting her job. Right now, she said, that job feels more important than ever. In addition to being a full-time student, she works 32 to 36 hours a week at the hospital.

She spent about a week at home with her mother and brother in Humboldt after the dorms closed, but even then, she stayed in her mother’s finished basement and didn’t interact directly with her.

Her older brother, 26, is staying at home with their mom, and she misses him, too. Jessica said to stay connected, she does FaceTime with her mom, a social worker, almost every day.

“She’s definitely one of my best friends, one of my biggest supporters. She is a single mom, and she’s worked two jobs for the last 12 years,” Jessica said. “She always provides for us, and she’s just wonderful in every single way. She’s very caring, she takes care of everybody, no matter where you are.”

This Mother’s Day, those roles have reversed. Now, Jessica is protecting her mother instead of the other way around.

“She said, ‘Mom, I just can’t come home again, I couldn’t put you in that kind of danger,’” April said. “I’m extremely proud of the young lady she is and how responsible she is, and what she is doing during this time, to make sure other people are safe.”

Jessica’s interest in nursing came from her family. Her grandmother, aunt and cousin are all nurses. She also had an experience as a child that stuck with her and inspired her current career goal of becoming a pediatric intensive care nurse after graduation.

In the second grade, she had encephalitis. At first, she said, doctors didn’t believe she was actually sick. Her mother had to take her to a different hospital to get help.

“They said I was making it up, that my screaming and vomiting was just trying to get attention. They said I was faking it,” she said. “At one point, I really did not know who my mom was, and that’s the scariest part, to have someone tell you that’s not real. That’s just not right, and I don’t want other people, especially children to have to deal with that.”

She became interested in the telemetry job after touring the hospital as a student. She said watching the monitors can be surreal, knowing each line she watches represents a patient she may never meet but whose life she is responsible for.

“You see their heart, but you don’t see them,” she said. “Sometimes you watch them die, but never see them. Other times, you see someone going into a fatal rhythm, and you call the nurses ... and when they finally get that person stabilized, you know they might not have made it if we weren’t there. It’s very rewarding.”

April stressed the need for people to follow public health guidelines on social distancing to stay healthy.

“I know they’re starting to open back up and people are eager to get on with their lives,” she said. “But there are a lot of people putting their lives on the line right now ... and I would hate for Jessica to have to go back and self-isolate again if there was a second wave.”

April’s sad she can’t spend this Mother’s Day with her daughter, but right now, that’s not what is important.

“Remember, there’s going to be another Mother’s Day, she said. “We all just have to take care of our people.”

Comments: (319) 398-8339; alison.gowans@thegazette.com

At the same time Vice President Mike Pence was in Iowa on Friday to discuss the nation’s food supply security, U.S. Rep. Dave Loebsack called on the administration to take more measures to protect workers in food processing plants.

Loebsack also questioned the decisions to reopen the economy being made by the Trump administration and Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds.

“I don’t think we’re ready for that yet, quite honestly,” the Iowa City Democrat said.

“Ready” will be when adequate protections are in place for the people processing America’s food, Loebsack said.

Workers are showing up on the job, but “they fear for their families, they fear for themselves, they fear for everybody,” Loebsack said. “They don’t know if they’re going to catch this thing or not. But they’re there.”

Of particular concern are workers in food processing, such as those in meatpacking plants in Iowa where more than 1,600 cases of COVID-19 have been reported.

“I really believe that we should not open the plants if we do not ensure worker safety,” Loebsack said.

He called for President Donald Trump to use the Defense Production Act, which the president invoked to keep meatpacking plants open, to ensure an adequate supply of personal protective equipment for packing plant workers.

If Pence and the president are concerned about the nation’s food supply, then they need to “keep those workers safe and, therefore, keep those processing plants running” to avoid meat shortages at the grocery store, Loebsack said.

“We can’t have those plants running if workers are not protected. It’s that simple,” he said. “It’s not just the workers, it’s the families, it’s the community at large.”

With unemployment at 14.7 percent — probably higher, Loebsack said, Congress should extend federal coronavirus-related unemployment benefits of $600 a week beyond their current July end date.

He’s also pleased that the last relief package fixed a Small Business Administration Economic Injury Disaster Loan program to allow farmers to apply for assistance.

Comments: (319) 398-8375; james.lynch@thegazette.com

Goodwill of the Heartland will reopen 11 retail locations in Eastern Iowa next week, including all its Cedar Rapids stores, according to an announcement on the Goodwill Facebook page. Stores in Marion, Coralville, Iowa City, Washington, Bettendorf, Davenport and Muscatine also will resume business Monday, starting with accepting donations only.

Locations will be open to shoppers, beginning Friday, May 15, and run from 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Monday through Saturday and from noon-5 p.m. Sunday.

All customers are required to wear face masks to enter the store. For more information, including safety guidelines, visit the Goodwill website.

The Iowa Department of Natural Resources encourage visitors to recently reopened campgrounds to check the DNR website for temporary closures before traveling to any of the areas. Campgrounds started to open Friday for walk-in, first come, first served campers with self-contained restrooms, according to a news release.

Some parks and campgrounds have closures due construction or other maintenance projects. Staff will monitor the areas closely, reminding visitors to practice physical distancing guidelines and other policies issued by the DNR earlier this week.

Some pit latrines in high-use areas will be open, but all other restrooms, drinking fountains and shower facilities will be closed. Park visitors are asked to use designated parking areas and follow all park signs.

The DNR’s reservation system for reservable campgrounds is available online, taking reservations for Monday and later.

Iowa has 68 state parks and four state forests, including hiking trails, lake recreation and camping. For more information, visit the DNR website.

The next Cedar Rapids City Council meeting will be hosted virtually. The meeting will be held May 12, beginning at noon. The livestream is available at the city’s Facebook page. Indexed videos can be accessed on the City of Cedar Rapids website.

The public is invited to provide comments, submitting written comments via email to cityclerk@cedar-rapids.org before the meeting or joining the Zoom conference call and registering here before 2 p.m. Tuesday. Registrants will receive an email with instructions to participate. Written comments received before 2 p.m. the day of the meeting will be given to City Council members before the event.

The public will only be invited to speak during designated public comment sections of the meeting. Please visit the City’s website for speaking guidelines. City Hall remains closed to the public. No in-person participation is available.

Tuesday’s meeting agenda will be posted to the website by 4 p.m. Friday.

Michael Buble’s “An Evening with Michael Buble” Tour has rescheduled dates to 2021. The 26-date series of concerts will begin February 6 in Salt Lake City and conclude March 25 in Jacksonville, Fla., according to a news release Friday.

Bubble’s shows at TaxSlayer Center in Moline, Ill., has been switched to Feb. 20, 2021. He will perform at Wells Fargo Arena in Des Moines the following day.

Tickets for previously scheduled dates will be honored.

“I am so looking forward to getting back on stage,” Buble said in the release. “I’ve missed my fans and my touring family. Meantime, I hope everyone stays safe. We can all look forward to a great night out.”

Buble also just completed a series of Facebook Live shows while in quarantine with his family in Vancouver.

Comments: (319) 368-8679; kj.pilcher@thegazette.com

IOWA CITY — An Iowa City man has been arrested in Texas in connection with the April 20 shooting death of Kejuan Winters.

Reginald Little, 44, was taken into custody Friday by the Lubbock County Sheriff’s Office, according to Iowa City police.

Little faces a charge of first-degree murder and is awaiting extradition back to Iowa City.

The shooting happened in an apartment at 1960 Broadway St. around 9:55 a.m. April 20. Police said gunfire could be heard during the call to police.

Officers found Winters, 21, of Iowa City, with multiple gunshot wounds. He died in the apartment.

Police said Durojaiya A. Rosa, 22, of Iowa City, and a woman were at the apartment and gave police a description of the shooter and said they heard him fighting with Winters before hearing gunshots.

Surveillance camera footage and cellphone records indicated Little was in the area before the shots were fired, police said.

Investigators also discovered Little and Rosa had been in communication about entering the apartment, and Rosa told police he and Little had planned to rob Winters.

Rosa also faces one count of first-degree murder.

The shooting death spurred three additional arrests.

Winters’ father, Tyris D. Winters, 41, of Peoria, Ill., and Tony M. Watkins, 39, of Iowa City, were arrested on attempted murder charges after confronting another person later that day in Coralville about the homicide, and, police say, shooting that person in the head and foot.

Police also arrested Jordan R. Hogan, 21, of Iowa City, for obstructing prosecution, saying he helped the suspect, Little, avoid arrest.

First-degree murder is a Class A felony punishable by an automatic life sentence.

Comments: (319) 339-3155; lee.hermiston@thegazette.com

CEDAR RAPIDS — A 32-year-old Cedar Rapids man, who received probation for a high-speed chase that he bragged about as “fun” and attempted to elude again in March, is heading to prison.

Sixth Judicial District Judge Lars Anderson on Friday revoked probation for Travis McDermott on the eluding charge from June 9, 2019, and sentenced him to five years in prison.

McDermott was convicted Tuesday for attempting to elude in March and was sentenced to 90 days in jail, which was run concurrently to the five-year prison sentence.

First Assistant Linn County Attorney Nick Maybanks told the judge that McDermott has a “significant violent history,” including assaults, assault on a peace officer, domestic assault, interference with official acts and child endangerment with bodily injury.

He continues to assault others and “show blatant disregard for authority figures,” the prosecutor noted.

In the eluding incident from last June, McDermott “risked lives” in a southwest neighborhood leading police on chase that began on when police saw his vehicle speeding on Rockford Road SW and run a stop sign at Eighth Avenue SW, Maybanks said Friday. McDermott drove 107 mph in a 30 mph zone and drove the wrong way on a one-way street at Third Street and Wilson Avenue SW.

McDermott ran into a pile of dirt at a dead end, jumped out of his car and led officers on a foot chase, Maybanks said. He wouldn’t stop, and officers used a Taser to subdue him.

McDermott was laughing when police arrested him, saying “how much fun” he had and appearing to be under the influence of drugs or alcohol, Maybanks said.

McDermott demanded a speedy trial, but the officer who conducted the sobriety test wasn’t available for trial. A plea was offered, and the drunken driving charge was dropped.

Maybanks also pointed out McDermott wouldn’t cooperate with the probation office on a presentencing report, which was ordered by a judge. He picked up an assault charge last November and was convicted before his eluding sentencing in January.

Maybanks said after McDermott received probation, he didn’t show up at the probation office for his appointment, didn’t get a substance abuse test as ordered and reported an invalid address to community corrections.

McDermott also has a pending charge in Dubuque County for driving while barred March 3, according to court documents.

Comments: (319) 398-8318; trish.mehaffey@thegazette.com

CEDAR RAPIDS — Adam Todd, adjusting like many Iowans to a social-distanced lifestyle since the novel coronavirus hit, celebrated a milestone 21st birthday with a drive-by parade Friday evening.

Todd, best known for being ABC World News Tonight Person of the Week in 2016, stood outside the Cedar Rapids house where he lives with his parents, Dale Todd, a Cedar Rapids City Council member, and Sara Todd, watching the cars drive by wishing him a happy birthday.

“My son has a bigger following than I would ever hope to have,” Dale Todd said. “Everybody knows he loves a parade. He loves the trucks and cars and people that are a part of that.

“There’s no better example that ‘it takes a village.’ He has had a team for 21 years.”

Todd, who will be graduating from Washington High School in Cedar Rapids, has Lennox-Gastaut Syndrome, a severe form of epilepsy.

The parade was arranged by his mother, Sara, who invited friends and teachers to drive by between 5 and 6 p.m. to wave, shout happy birthday, hold up a sign, sing a song or do a dance, all from a safe distance — “whatever they’re able to,” she said.

Sara said Adam would have finished his last semester of education had the coronavirus not cut the school year short.

“That makes it extra special,” Sara said. “He hasn’t really gotten to say goodbye to his friends and teachers.

“We have appreciated his teachers so much. They have been a part of his team and really a part of our family.”

Adam, a member of the Washington High School junior varsity track team, captured national attention in 2016 when, during a cross-country race at Noelridge Park, he became distracted and veered from the course. Evan Hansen, a runner from Iowa City High, loped after him and guided him back to the track.

They ran the last mile together, the last two to cross the finish line.

That show of compassion and sportsmanship is what led to ABC News picking both of them as Persons of the Week.

In addition to Friday’s parade, Adam celebrated his birthday by taking his service dog, Turbo, on a run and trying to spot trains. He and his mom saw two.

“It was a good day,” Sara said.

Adam’s birthday cake, made by a family friend, was decorated with a train and a golden retriever that looks like Turbo.

“We were trying to think of a creative way we can help Adam have fun and celebrate him,” Sara said. “He deserves it.”

Comments: (319) 368-8664; grace.king@thegazette.com

Some Eastern Iowans are ready to go camping.

With Gov. Kim Reynolds allowing campgrounds across the state to open Friday, some people wasted little time in heading outdoors.

“They’re already starting to fill up,” said Ryan Schlader of Linn County Conservation. “By about 7 this morning, we had a dozen at Squaw Creek Park. People were coming in bright and early to camp. We’re not surprised.”

Schlader said Linn County Conservation tried to have the campgrounds open at the county’s Squaw Creek, Morgan Creek and Pinicon Ridge parks at 5 a.m. Friday. He expected all of them would be busy.

“I think people were ready to go,” he said.

Lake Macbride State Park in Johnson County didn’t see quite as much of a rush for campsites, park manager Ron Puettmann reported Friday morning, saying he’d had six walk-ins for the park’s 42 campsites.

Camping this weekend will be done on a first-come, first-served basis. Sites won’t be available for reservations until next week, though online reservations can be made now, Puettmann said.

“I’m quite sure people were waiting anxiously to get on,” he said.

While Reynolds’ campground announcement came Wednesday, Schlader and Puettmann said they had no issues having the campgrounds ready for Friday.

Schlader said county staff have been in touch with the Iowa Department of Natural Resources and other county conservation boards to discuss protocols for reopening to ensure a safe experience for campers and employers.

“We anticipated at some point the order would be lifted,” Schlader said. “We were anticipating maybe May 15. The campgrounds were in good shape and ready to go.”

For now, camping comes with some limitations:

• Campers can camp only in a self-contained unit with a functioning restroom, such as a recreational vehicle.

• Shower houses with restrooms will remain closed for the time being.

• Campsites are limited to six people unless they are from the same household.

• No visitors are allowed at the campsites.

Puettmann said staffers and a DNR officer will be on hand to make sure guidelines are followed, but he didn’t anticipate enforcement would be an issue.

“For the most part, we’re going to allow people to police themselves,” he said.

It’s hard to gauge demand, Schlader said.

The weather isn’t yet deal for camping, and some people might not be ready to camp, given the continuing coronavirus.

“There is a lot of uncertainty,” he said. “Do people feel like they need to get out and enjoy a camping experience within their own campsite, or do people still feel under the weather and think it’s not a good idea for my family to go right now? ... We just want this to be an option for people.”

Comments: (319) 339-3155; lee.hermiston@thegazette.com

DES MOINES — More than 20 days after Iowa signed a $26 million contract with a Utah company to expand testing in the state, the machines the firm supplied to run the samples still have not passed muster.

A time frame for completing the validation process for the Test Iowa lab machines is unknown, as the process can vary by machine, University of Iowa officials said Friday.

The validation process is undertaken to determine if the machines are processing tests accurately. To this point, the lab has processed the Test Iowa results using machines the State Hygienic Lab already had, officials told The Gazette.

Running side-by-side testing is part of the validation process. The lab then compares whether the machines yield the same results when the sample is run, officials said Friday. The side-by-side testing means the Test Iowa samples are being run at least twice to compare results.

The state does not break out how many of the 331,186 Iowans who by Friday have completed the coronavirus assessment at TestIowa.com have actually been tested. Test Iowa was initiated last month to ramp up testing of essential workers and Iowans showing COVID-19 symptoms. The state’s fourth drive-though location where people with appointments can be tested opened Thursday at the Kirkwood Continuing Education Training Center in Cedar Rapids.

On Friday, Iowa posted a fourth straight day of double-digit deaths from coronavirus, with the latest 12 deaths reported by the state Department of Public Health bringing the statewide toll to 243 since COVID-19 was first confirmed March 8 in Iowa.

State health officials reported another 398 Iowans tested positive for the respiratory ailment, bringing that count to 11,457 of the 70,261 residents who have been tested — a positive rate of more than 16 percent.

One in 44 Iowans has been tested for COVID-19, with 58,804 posting negative results, according to state data. A total of 4,685 people have recovered from the disease.

During a Thursday media briefing, Gov. Kim Reynolds told reporters a backlog of test results that occurred due to validation of Test Iowa equipment had been “caught up,” but some Iowans who participated in drive-through sites set up around the state indicated they still were awaiting results.

Reynolds spokesman Pat Garrett confirmed Thursday that “a very small percentage” of coronavirus test samples collected under the Test Iowa program could not be processed because they were “potentially damaged,” resulting in incomplete results.

There were 407 Iowans who were hospitalized (with 34 admitted in the past 24 hours) for coronavirus-related illnesses and symptoms with 164 being treated in intensive care units and 109 requiring ventilators to assist their breathing.

Health officials said the 12 deaths reported Friday were: three in Woodbury County, two in Linn County and one each in Black Hawk, Dallas, Dubuque, Jasper, Louisa, Muscatine and Scott counties. No other information about the COVID-19 victims was available from state data.

According to officials, 51 percent of the Iowans who have died from coronavirus have been male — the same percentage that tested positive.

Iowans over the age of 80 represent 46 percent of the COVID-19 victims, followed by 41 percent between 61 and 80.

Of those who have tested positive, state data indicates about 42 percent are age 18 to 40; 37 percent are 41 to 60; 14 percent are 61 to 80 and 5 percent are 81 or older.

Counties with the highest number of positive test results are Polk (2,150), Woodbury (1,532), Black Hawk (1,463) and Linn (813).

Earlier this week, state officials revamped the data available to the public at coronavirus.iowa.gov, with the new format no longer listing the age range of Iowans who died from coronavirus and providing information using a different timeline than before.

The governor did not hold a daily media briefing Friday due to scheduling conflicts created by Vice President Mike Pence’s trip to Iowa. Garrett said Reynolds would resume her COVID-19 briefings next week.

John McGlothlen and Zack Kucharski of The Gazette contributed to this report.

A man suspected of a workplace shooting last month at a vinyl window manufacturer in southwest Cedar Rapids turned himself into authorities Friday.

Jamal Devonte Edwards, 26, has been wanted since two men were shot at Associated Materials, 3801 Beverly Rd. SW, the morning of April 9.

Cedar Rapids police had indicated Edwards was wanted in particular for the shooting of Mark Robertson, 36.

Edwards faces charges of attempted murder, intimidation with a dangerous weapon, going armed with intent and willful injury.

The U.S. Marshals Service helped locate Edwards, distributing a photo of Edwards along the Gulf Coast. He was located in Mobile, Ala. when his father brought him to the Mobile police department so he could turn himself in, according to a Cedar Rapids police news release.

The April 9 shooting was reported at 5:03 a.m. after two employees were shot at Associated Materials. Both suffered non-life-threatening injuries, police said.

Police said at the time it appeared the shooter knew the two men.

Shawn Hardy, senior vice president of integrated products for Associated Materials, confirmed Edwards worked at the Cedar Rapids business, which gave him access to the building, but said he had been employed through a temp agency.

DES MOINES — In traveling to Iowa to call attention to the burdens COVID-19 brought to religious services and the food supply, Vice President Mike Pence unwittingly called attention to another issue: whether the White House itself is safe from the disease.

So far this week, two White House aides — President Donald Trump’s valet on Thursday, and Pence’s press secretary on Friday — have tested positive for the virus.

On Friday morning, Pence’s departure to Des Moines was delayed an hour as Air Force Two idled on a tarmac near Washington. Though Pence’s press secretary was not on the plane, White House physicians through contact tracing identified six other aides who had been near her who were aboard, and pulled them from the flight. The White House later said the six had tested negative.

Trump, who identified the Pence aide as press secretary Katie Miller, said he was “not worried” about the virus in the White House.

Nonetheless, officials said they were stepping up safety protocols and were considering a mandatory mask policy for those in close contact with Trump and Pence.

The vice president and 10 members of his staff are given rapid coronavirus tests daily, and the president is also tested regularly.

Miller, who is married to Trump adviser Stephen Miller, had been in recent contact with Pence but not with the president. Pence is leader of the White House coronavirus task force and Katie Miller has handled the group’s communications.

After landing in Des Moines, Pence spoke to a group of faith leaders about the importance of resuming religious services, saying cancellations in the name of slowing the spread of the virus have “been a burden” for congregants.

His visit coincided with the state announcing 12 more deaths from the virus, a total of 243 in less than two months.

Pence spoke with the religious leaders and Republican officials during a brief visit. He also spoke later with agricultural and food company executives.

“It’s been a source of heartache for people across the country,” Pence told about a dozen people at the Church of the Way Presbyterian church in Urbandale.

Pence told the group that continued efforts to hold services online and in other ways “made incalculable difference in our nation seeing our way through these troubled times.”

Iowa is among many states where restrictions on in-person services are starting to ease. GOP Gov. Kim Reynolds, who joined both of the state’s Republican senators at the event, has instituted new rules that allow services to resume with restrictions.

At Friday’s event, some religious leaders expressed hesitation at resuming large gatherings, while others said they would begin holding services soon,

“We are pretty much in a position of uniformly believing that it’s too early to return to personal worship. It’s inadvisable at the moment particularly with rising case counts in communities where we are across the state,” said David Kaufman, rabbi of Temple B’nai Jeshurun in Des Moines.

The Rev. Terry Amann, of Church of the Way, said his church will resume services May 17 with chairs arranged so families can sit together but avoid the temptation to shake hands or offer hugs. He said hand sanitizer will be available.

A new poll by The University of Chicago Divinity School and the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research shows just 9 percent of Americans think in-person services should be allowed without restrictions, while 42 percent think they should be allowed with restrictions and 48 percent think they shouldn’t be allowed at all.

Pence later met with agriculture and food industry leaders. Iowa tops the nation in egg production and pork processing and is a top grower of corn and soybeans.

Meatpacking is among the state’s biggest employers, and companies have been working to restart operations after closing them because hundreds of their workers became infected.

As Pence touted the Trump administration’s announcement of the reopening of 14 meatpacking plants including two of the worst hit by coronavirus infections in Perry and Waterloo, the union representing workers called for safer work conditions.

“Iowa’s meatpacking workers are not sacrificial lambs. They have been working tirelessly during the coronavirus pandemic to ensure families here and across the country have access to the food they need,” said the United Food and Commercial Workers Union in a statement.

The Associated Press and the McClatchy Washington Bureau contributed to this report.

Iowa State University graduates who celebrated commencement Friday saw lots of caps and gowns, red-and-gold confetti and arenas packed with friends and family.

But none of those images were from this year — which now is defined by the novel coronavirus that has forced education online and put an end to large gatherings like graduation ceremonies.

Appearing in front of a red ISU screen Friday, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Dean Daniel J. Robison addressed graduates like he usually would at commencement — but this time in a recorded message acknowledging the unprecedented circumstances keeping them apart.

“This year, because of the COVID crisis, we are unfortunately not all together for this happy occasion,” he said, pushing forward in a motivational tone by quoting famed ISU alumnus George Washington Carver.

“When you can do the common things in life in an uncommon way, you will command the attention of the world,” Robison said, citing Carver.

About 12,000 graduates across Iowa’s public universities this month are doing exactly that — capping their collegiate careers with never-before-attempted online-only commencement ceremonies, with each campus and their respective colleges attempting a variety of virtual celebration methods.

ISU and the University of Iowa are attempting some form of socially-distanced livestreamed convocation with countdown clocks and virtual confetti. All three campuses including the University of Northern Iowa have posted online recorded messages, videos and slides acknowledging individual graduates.

Some slides include photos, thank-yous, quotes and student plans for after graduation.

UNI, which didn’t try any form of a live virtual ceremony, instead created a graduation website that went live Thursday. That site hosts an array of recorded video messages — including one from UNI President Mark Nook who, standing alone behind a podium on campus clad in traditional academic regalia, recognized his campus’ 1,500-some spring graduates and their unusual challenges.

“We know the loss you feel in not being able to be on campus to celebrate this time with your friends, faculty and staff,” Nook said. “To walk around campus in your robe and to take those pictures with friends and family members … The loss is felt by many of us as well.”

He reminded those listening that this spring’s UNI graduates — like those at the UI and ISU — can participate in an upcoming in-person commencement ceremony.

And although students were allowed to return caps and gowns they ordered for their canceled walks across the stage, some kept them as keepsakes. The campuses offered other tokens of remembrance as well, including “CYlebration” gift packages ISU sent to graduates in April stuffed with a souvenir tassel, diploma cover, and streamer tube — to make up for the confetti that won’t be falling on graduation caps from the Hilton Coliseum rafters.

In addition to the recorded messages from 17 UI leaders — including President Bruce Harreld — the campus solicited parent messages, which will be included in the live virtual ceremonies.

To date, about 3,100 of the more than 5,400 UI graduates have RSVP’d to participate in the ceremony, which spokeswoman Anne Bassett said is a required affirmation from the students to have their names read.

“Students do not have to sign up to watch,” she said. “So there’s no way at this time to predict how many will do so.”

Despite the historic nature of the first online-only commencement ceremonies — forever bonding distanced graduates through the shared experience — UI graduate Omar Khodor, 22, said it’s a club he would have liked to avoid.

“I’d definitely prefer not to be part of that group,” the environmental science major said, sharing disappointment over the education, experiences and celebrations he lost to the pandemic.

“A lot of students like myself, we’re upset, but we’re not really allowed to be upset given the circumstances,” Khodor said. “You have this sense that something is unfair, that something has been taken from you. But you can’t be mad about it at all.”

Life is too short to dwell on what could have been or what should have been — which sort of captures graduate Dawn Hales’ motivation to get an ISU degree.

The 63-year-old Ames grandmother calls herself the “oldest BSN Iowa State grad ever.”

“It’s the truth, because we’re only the second cohort to graduate,” Hales said. “I’ll probably be the oldest for a while.”

ISU began offering a Bachelor of Science in nursing degree in fall 2018 for registered nurses hoping to advance their careers — like Hales, who spent years in nursing before becoming director of nursing at Accura Healthcare, a skilled nursing and rehabilitation center in Ames.

In addition to wanting more education, Hales said, she felt like the “odd man out” in her red-and-gold family — with her husband, three sons and their wives all earning ISU degrees. She earned an associate degree and became a registered nurse with community college training.

“I was director of nursing at different facilities, but I did not have a four-year degree,” she said. “I always wanted to get my BSN.”

So in January 2019, she started full-time toward her three-semester pursuit of a BSN — even as she continued working. And her education took a relevant and important turn when COVID-19 arrived.

“My capstone project was infection control,” she said, noting her focus later sharpened to “infection control and crisis management” — perfect timing to fight the coronavirus, which has hit long-term care facilities particularly hard.

“We were hyper vigilant,” Hales said of her facility, which has yet to report a case of COVID-19. “I think we were probably one of the first facilities that pretty much shut down and started assessing our staff when they would come in.”

Hales said she was eager to walk in her first university graduation and was planning antics for it with her 10-year-old granddaughter.

“We were trying to think, should I dance across the stage?” Hales said. “Or would I grab a walker and act like an old lady going across the stage?

“She was trying to teach me to do this ‘dab’ move,” Hales said. “I said, ‘Honey, I cannot figure that out.’”

In the end, Hales watched the celebration online instead. She did, however, get a personalized license plate that reads, “RN2BSN.”

Coming from a family-run dairy farm in Jerome, Idaho, EllieMae Millenkamp, 22, is the first in her family to graduate college.

Although music is her passion, Millenkamp long expected to study at an agriculture school — but Colorado State was her original choice.

Then, while visiting family in Iowa during a cousin’s visit to ISU, she fell in love with the Ames campus and recalibrated her academic path.

While at ISU, the musical Millenkamp began writing more songs and performing more online, which led to in-person shows and a local band.

And then, during her junior year, a talent scout reached out to invite her to participate in an audition for NBC’s “The Voice.” That went well and Millenkamp, in the summer before her senior year, moved to Los Angeles and made it onto the show.

She achieved second-round status before being bumped, but the experience offered her lifelong friendships and connections and invigorated her musical pursuits — which have been slowed by COVID-19. Shows have been canceled in now idled bars.

Millenkamp went back to Idaho to be with her family, like thousands of her peers also did with their families, when the ISU campus shut down.

After graduation she plans on returning and working the family farm again until her musical career has the chance to regain momentum.

But she recently returned to Ames for finals. And she and some friends, also in town, plan to celebrate graduation, even if not with an official cap and gown.

“We’ll probably have a bonfire and all hang out,” she said. “We’ll celebrate in our own way.”

Most college seniors nearing graduation get to spend their academic hours focusing on their major and interests, wrapping their four or sometimes five years with passion projects and capstone experiences.

That was Omar Khodor’s plan — with lab-based DNA sequencing on tap, along with a geology trip and policy proposal he planned to present to the Iowa Legislature. But all that got canceled — and even some requirements were waived since COVID-19 made them impossible.

“There were still a lot of a lot of things to wrap up,” he said. “A lot of things I was looking forward to.”

He’s ending the year with just three classes to finish and “absolutely” would have preferred to have a fuller plate.

But Khodor’s academic career isn’t over. He’s planning to attend law school in the fall at the University of Pennsylvania, where he’ll pursue environmental law. But this spring has diminished his enthusiasm, with the question lingering of whether in-person courses will return to campus soon.

If they don’t, he’s still leaning toward enrolling — in part — because of all the work that goes into applying and getting accepted, which he’s already done.

“But online classes are definitely less fulfilling, less motivating. You feel like you learn less,” he said. “So it will kind of be a tossup. There’ll be some trade-offs involved in what I would gain versus what I would be paying for such an expensive endeavor like law school.”

As for missing a traditional college commencement, Khodor said he will, even though he plans to participate in the virtual alternative.

“Before it got canceled, I didn’t think that I was looking forward to it as much as I actually was,” he said.

Not so much for the pomp and circumstance, but for the closure, which none of the seniors got this year. When the universities announced no one would return to campus this semester, students were away on spring break.

They had already experienced their last in-person class, their last after-class drink, their last cram session, their last study group, their last lecture, their last Iowa Memorial Union lunch — and they didn’t even know it.

“So many of us, we won’t have closure, and that can kind of be a difficult thing,” he said.

Comments: (319) 339-3158; vanessa.miller@thegazette.com

For a list of commencement times and virtual celebrations, visit:

The University of Iowa’s commencement site at https://commencement.uiowa.edu/

Iowa State University’s commencement site at https://virtual.graduation.iastate.edu/

University of Northern Iowa’s commencement site at https://vgrad.z19.web.core.windows.net/uni/index.html

A 10th wedding anniversary traditionally is celebrated with a gift of aluminum or tin.

For Sondy Daggett, her 10th year of marriage to Liz Hoskins was marked with a gift of Champagne and chocolate-covered strawberries shared through a window.

Employees at Bickford of Marion, the assisted living and memory care center where Hoskins is a resident, surprised the couple with the anniversary gift on May 1. Despite the current coronavirus-related mitigation practices, the staff had created a special moment for the couple, who have been partners for 24 years.

Daggett burst into tears as employees played their wedding song — Billy Joel’s “The Longest Time.”

“It just touched my soul,” Daggett said.

Across the state, moments like this are relegated through windows or over a phone call. As the novel coronavirus pandemic sweeps through the country, long-term care facilities have locked down in an effort to keep residents healthy, which means their families are no longer able to hug their loved ones, or sit with them in their rooms.

For many families, the feelings at such times this time are conflicted. Typical Mother’s Day celebrations have been placed on hold, and recent milestones have been missed by those living in long-term care facilities. Simple visits through windows feel distant.

“Those are the moments you remember and you miss,” said Daggett, recalling memories of visits to Bickford of Marion from Hoskins’s grandchildren and family gatherings during the holidays.

Hoskins, who has dementia, has been a resident at Bickford since August 2019.

“The pandemic has taken this away,” Daggett said.

But beyond this new dynamic with which family members are left to grapple, they also have the constant worry that their loved one could fall ill.

So far, Bickford of Marion has not seen any cases.

“Every time you read about another outbreak — whether it’s close to home or anywhere in the country — it brings home how fortunate we are so far,” said Matt Hoskins, Liz Hoskin’s son. “I can’t imagine the anxiety the residents and staff are having once it breaks through the wall.”

As of Friday, 29 long-term care facilities across the state, which includes skilled nursing facilities and senior living centers, among others — have reported outbreaks of COVID-19 among hundreds of their staff and residents.

As a result, for some Iowans, that fear has become a reality.

Ruth Brackett’s son Jamie Degner, a 38-year-old resident at Harmony House Health Care Center in Waterloo, tested positive for COVID-19 this past week.

Degner, who has severe autism and intellectual disabilities, has been a resident there since he was 15 years old.

More than 60 residents and staff have tested positive for COVID-19 at Harmony House, an intermediate care facility. It’s one of two long-term care facilities in Black Hawk County reporting an outbreak, defined as three or more positive tests among residents.

Degner received his test results on Tuesday. He’s had lower-than-normal oxygen levels, but otherwise has recorded his usual vital signs and has not experienced symptoms.

Brackett said it is “unbelievably difficult to not be able to go be with him through this.”

As with many facilities across the state, Harmony House closed its doors to visitors in early March, when the first cases of COVID-19 began being reported across Iowa and the nation. Brackett said her son’s cognitive abilities make it impossible for him to understand that she is unable to visit because she might make him sick, so the staff instead tell Degner his mom is “at work.”

While she’s optimistic he’ll improve, Brackett worries whether Degner’s virus would take a turn for the worse.

“It’s tough because I have to trust” the staff, Brackett said. “There’s nothing I can do, so I can’t spend a lot of time dwelling on what I might do differently.”

The families that spoke to The Gazette believe the leadership at long-term care facilities are doing what they can to keep its residents safe and healthy.

At Bickford of Marion, officials have taken the unique step of promising public transparency of possible COVID-19 cases in its facility. On the website of every Bickford location is a feature recording the number of residents who have tested positive for COVID-19.

“Whether it’s COVID-19 or not, we want to be transparent with families about their loved ones’ care,” Bickford of Marion Executive Director Jacobi Feckers said. “I don’t know why other nursing homes haven’t taken that step because I haven’t spoken to other facilities, but I’m thankful that’s the route we’ve taken.”

It’s not just families who are placing their trust in management. Ron Moore is an independent living resident at Cottage Grove Place, one of the largest senior living centers in Cedar Rapids that has reported an outbreak of COVID-19 this past week.

According to the latest data from public health officials, five residents and staff there have tested positive.

The outbreak originated in the skilled nursing unit, and officials said they are working to ensure the virus doesn’t spread to the assisted-living and independent-living portions of the facility. They restricted movement between the facilities and conduct frequent temperature checks of staff.

So far, the general feeling among residents at Cottage Grove Place’s independent-living housing is that management has “done a good job” of controlling exposure.

“The feelings of the residents here are positive,” Moore said. “They appreciate what management has done to protect us.”

Still, life looks much differently at Cottage Grove Place. Moore said his schedule typically is packed with weekly book clubs and coffees with friends. Now he and his wife take walks, or try to connect with friends over email.

“I’ve found (residents) are not depressed at this time,” he said. “But in the future, if this goes on for many months? My prediction is yes, depression will be a serious thing.”

Local senior living centers have come up with unique ways to allow visitors to see their loved ones. Gina Hausknecht, a 55-year-old Iowa City resident, was able to see her mother in person for the first time in weeks after her assisted-living home, Oaknoll Retirement Community in Iowa City, created a “drive up” visit option this past weekend.

While Hausknecht sat in the car, she was able to speak with her mother, 93-year-old Ellen Hausknecht, for an hour outside the facility. Before this, it had been emotionally difficult for Hausknecht not to see her mom weekly as she usually does

“It sunk in that I don’t know when I’m going to see my mom again, and that felt really terrible,” Hausknecht previously told The Gazette.

Hausknecht said she hopes to take this year’s Mother’s Day as an opportunity to do something special, particularly given the difficult past few weeks.

“Our family isn’t super-big on these kinds of holidays but we do like to acknowledge them, and this year it feels important to take hold of any opportunity to celebrate,” she said.

Other facilities, including Bickford of Marion, also have eased restrictions on sending food and gifts to residents in time for Mother’s Day. Matt Hoskins, Liz’s Hoskins’ son, said the family’s usual Mother’s Day plans are impossible this year, so they hope to send Liz’s Hoskins artwork from her grandchildren along with other gifts.

Brackett, who will be apart from her son Degner this year, said she hadn’t planned anything for the holiday. She looks forward to her first in-person visit with him after the pandemic, when she will bring his favorite meal from McDonald’s and a new deck of Phase 10 cards.

Despite the feelings of being separated, their wedding anniversary on May 1 likely is something Daggett will cherish, she said. With Daggett acting as Hoskins caregiver since her dementia diagnosis in 2016, their wedding anniversary has been something the couple hasn’t celebrated in a significant way in some time, she said.

But that worry still creeps in the back of her mind. Daggett said she’s trying to remain “as confident as anyone can at this point.”

“I learned a long time ago you can’t worry about what you can’t control,” Daggett said. “But does that mean I still wake up at 2 in the morning worried about it? Of course I do.”

Comments: (319) 398-8469; michaela.ramm@thegazette.com

11 a.m. Iowa sees 214 more positive tests for coronavirus

The Iowa Department of Public Health on Saturday reported nine more deaths from COVID-19, for a total of 252 since March 8.

An additional 214 people tested positive for the virus, bringing the state’s total to 11,671.

A total of 71,476 Iowans have been tested for COVID-19, the department reported.

With Saturday’s new figures from the Department of Public Health, these are the top 10 counties in terms of total cases:

• Polk — 2194

• Woodbury — 1554

• Black Hawk — 1477

• Linn — 819

• Marshall — 702

• Dallas — 660

• Johnson — 549

• Muscatine — 471

• Tama — 327

• Louisa — 282.

CEDAR RAPIDS — An injured pelican rescued at Cedar Lake on Wednesday will have a permanent home at one of the top zoos in the Midwest.

“We downloaded all of the paperwork (on Friday), and we want to get it transported (to Henry Doorly Zoo and Aquarium in Omaha) within a week,” said Tracy Belle, founder and director of Wildthunder Wildlife and Animal Rehabilitation and Sanctuary in Independence.

“It’s doing well — we’re going to get it outside today to decompress a little.”

Belle, who also serves as primary animal rehabilitator at Wildthunder, believes the pelican is young — the average life span is 20 to 25 years — and she is not sure of its gender.

It suffered broken carpal bones and, according to Belle, surgical repair is unlikely.

“The veterinarian told me that the injury appears to be five to six weeks old,” she said. “I can only speculate, but I think when it flew into the lake, it may have clipped a power line.”

Belle said the pelican will need one more veterinary exam before transport to Omaha. In the meantime, “its appetite is good,” she said. “It’s eating five to 10 pounds of fish per day.”

Henry Doorly is closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In a typical year, the complex attracts about 2 million visitors.

Comments: (319) 368-8857; jeff.linder@thegazette.com

CEDAR RAPIDS — Like other members of the United States House, the “new normal” for Rep. Dave Loebsack involves a lot of time on the phone and in video conferences.

Although the Senate returned to Washington this past week, the House may not return to the Capitol until mid-May. As representatives work from their districts, many face the same challenges as their constituents who are working from home via various phone and video meeting platforms.

“They’re clunky, difficult, frustrating at times,” the 2nd District Democrat said after a 90-minute Energy and Commerce Committee teleconference meeting, “but we can get a lot of things done that way without necessarily going into Washington. It’s not the same by any means ... but I think we can get a lot of our work done that we have to get done even though were not there.”

If there’s an upside to the telecommuting downside, it’s that the poor connections, dropped calls and sometimes spotty internet signals highlight an issue Loebsack has been working on — Congress and the country need better broadband connectivity. A member of the Communications and Technology subcommittee of the Energy and Commerce Committee, which has jurisdiction over telecommunications issues, Loebsack also serves as a co-chair of the Rural Broadband Caucus.

In one meeting, Loebsack said, a fellow committee member was unable to ask questions because the Wi-Fi signal at his home outside of a southwestern city was so poor.

“So I think we’re going to make some progress” convincing congressional colleagues of the need to connect all Americans to reliable and affordable broadband internet, Loebsack said.

“In times like these, when families are at home, millions of K-12 students do not have access to the high-speed internet needed to take classes and complete their assignments online,” he said in an announcement with House Majority Whip James Clyburn and others of a House Democratic plan to connect all Americans to high-speed internet.

When the transmission of COVID-19 slows, the need for high-speed internet connectivity will remain as well as the need for Congress to provide incentives for internet service providers to close the “broadband gap” by extending service to the las mile in rural areas and eliminate what he called “internet deserts” that exist in cities.

The plan calls for an investment of $80 billion over five years for internet infrastructure and another $5 billion over five years for low-interest financing of projects.

With more reliable connectivity, Congress could consider remote voting at times like this when members don’t want to gather in Washington. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has been cool to the idea, but Loebsack thinks members are “more open” to voting remotely.

“But we have to make sure that it’s completely secure, that the system can’t get hacked, and that votes are recorded properly,” he said.

Remote voting may be a may be a generational issue, “but I think this is doable.”

“I’m not making that prediction, but I would not be shocked if we move in that direction, especially the longer this (isolation) goes on,” Loebsack said.

Comments: (319) 398-8375; james.lynch@thegazette.com

For the second consecutive day the number of Iowa patients hospitalized with COVID-19 has dropped.

The Iowa Department of Public Health reported Saturday that 402 people were hospitalized with the coronavirus, down five from the previous day, and down 15 from its current peak of 417 on Thursday.

Saturday’s totals mark the first time back-to-back COVID-19 hospitalization decreases since figures had begun being tracked.

Nine deaths in Iowa were recorded Saturday, according to the Department of Public Health, bringing the total to 252. But it snapped a streak of four consecutive days in which 10 or more deaths were recorded in Iowa.

Four of the deaths were in Polk County, bringing Polk’s total to 58 — matching Linn County’s as most in the state.

Saturday was the first time since Monday that no deaths in Linn County were reported.

Two deaths were in Jasper County, one each in Johnson, Muscatine and Tama counties.

Four of those who died were 81 years of age and older, three were 61 to 80 and two were aged 41 to 60.

Saturday’s report also showed there now have been a total of 29 outbreaks recorded in long-term care facilities statewide.

Including Saturday’s latest figures from the Department of Public Health — with 214 positive cases, for a total of 11,671 — these are the top 10 Iowa counties in terms of total cases:

• Polk — 2,194

• Woodbury — 1,554

• Black Hawk — 1,477

• Linn — 819

• Marshall — 702

• Dallas — 660

• Johnson — 549

• Muscatine — 471

• Tama — 327

• Louisa — 282.

More than 71,000 Iowans — one of 43 — have been tested, and 16.3 percent of those tested have been positive cases, according to the state.

Forty-six percent of Iowa deaths have been those age 81 and older, while 87 percent are 61 and older. Fifty-one percent have been male.

Beginning this past Friday, Gov. Kim Reynolds permitted more businesses to partially reopen.

“I’m proud to say that Iowans do what they always do and they responded,” she said at her Thursday news conference, her most recent. “So since we’ve kind of really accomplished what we were trying to do, ... now we have shifted our focus from mitigation and resources to managing and containing virus activity as we begin to open Iowa back up.”

Reynolds met with President Donald Trump on Wednesday at the White House to discuss the pandemic and mitigation strategies in the state.

Vice President Mike Pence visited Iowa Friday, when he met with faith leaders and agricultural and food company executives.

Comments: (319) 368-8857; jeff.linder@thegazette.com

Announcement of the Members - Give Integration add-on that creates a nicer UI when the GiveWP and Members plugins are active.

Announcement of the Members - ACF Integration plugin, which creates custom capabilities for the Advanced Custom Fields plugin.

Introducing an add-on plugin for Members that integrates the Easy Digital Downloads plugin roles and capabilities.

An add-on plugin that integrates WooCommerce's roles and capabilities into the Members user role editor.

Announcement of Members - Block Permissions, a WordPress plugin for showing/hiding content using the block editor (Gutenberg).

Release announcement of version 2.2.0 of the Exhale WordPress theme.

This is probably the toughest blog post I’ve ever written. After 11 years of pouring my heart and soul into … Continue reading A Sort of Farewell →

It has almost been two months. First, allow me to apologize for not providing any updates during this time. As … Continue reading Returning to Our Community Roots →

I first released the Members plugin in September 2009. I had not long moved back home to Alabama from Atlanta, … Continue reading The Members plugin has a new home →

I’ve shot at this location a few times but for some reason I’ve never seen it from the other side. Literal proof that shooting with other creatives gives you new perspective. ???? (at Toronto, Ontario)

BIG NEWS: My custom Lightroom presets are now available and 50% off for a limited time with discount code HOLIDAY50. Link in profile!

This collection includes two styles (Everyday and Clean) that I use to edit every shot on this feed. I can’t wait to see what you all do with them! Stay tuned to my upcoming tutorials on how to put the presets to good use. ???? (at Toronto, Ontario)

Thanks for all the positive support and reception to my Lightroom presets so far, especially to those who pulled the trigger and became my first customers! I’d love to hear your feedback once you try them out!
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Still time to enter the giveaway or to take advantage of the 50% sale! See my last post for full details and the link in my profile. ❤️ (at Toronto, Ontario)

I like the philosophy behind shooting with primes; that a photographer shouldn’t stand still but instead, continuously move closer, further, lower, or higher relative to his/her subject as a means of establishing a deeper connection. ????????
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Save 50% on my custom Lightroom presets with HOLIDAY50. Link in profile. (at Toronto, Ontario)

Bricks are better black. ◾️ (at Toronto, Ontario)

Lights, camera, action. ????
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A few more days left to get 50% off my custom Lightroom presets! Link in profile. (at Toronto, Ontario)

Missing Berlin’s gorgeous buildings again. ???? (at Berlin, Germany)

And while we’re in the process of missing European architecture… ????
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4 more days left to catch my Lightroom presets for 50% off! ⌛️ (at Copenhagen, Denmark)

This is from my favourite shoot/photoset of all time. It was spontaneous, serendipitous, and simply beautiful. ☂️
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The edit: After applying my preset (I used Clean for this one), I bumped up the exposure and desaturated the yellows/oranges a bit. As a finishing touch, I used a graduated filter to brighten the top a bit and a radial filter on @sllychn to brighten and sharpen the focal point. That’s it! ✨ (at Toronto, Ontario)

Preset (Everyday) + transform + exposure + graduated filter + radial filter. If shots like this take more than 2 minutes to edit, it’s probably not worth editing. ⏱
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Boxing Day will be the last day to get my Lightroom presets discounted, which leaves you only 3 more days! Get on it! ???? (at Toronto, Ontario)