1. FOCUS ON SCIENCE LEARNING
PAGE A4
STUDENTS SUPPORT RAIDER GIRLS
PAGE B3
WELCOME TO
THE JUNGLE
$1.25 | 159TH YEAR, NUMBER 8 | JONES COUNTY, IOWA | THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 20, 2014 Jones County’s Newspaper
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Gas tax support
The Board of Supervisors
threw its support behind
proposals to increase the
state gas tax to provide
funding for roads.
Page A3
Shaw Road zoning
A 9-acre property on Shaw
Road is up for rezoning from
residential to commercial.
The proposal is set for a
public hearing March 4.
Page A3
Fully funded
For the first time in years,
the Anamosa Library and
Learning Center received
its full budget request from
the City Council.
Page A3
Council schism
The Springville mayoral race
went undecided for months,
and divisions on the coun-
cil were apparent at last
week’s council meeting.
Page A2
JONES COUNTY
ANAMOSA
ANAMOSA
SPRINGVILLE
BUSINESS DIRECTORY...................A7
CLASSIFIEDS............................. B6-7
HELP WANTED............................ B6-7
LIFESTYLES.................................A5-6
NEWS............................... A1-3,A7-8
OBITUARIES...................................A6
OPINION........................................A4
PUBLIC NOTICES............................B5
REAL ESTATE.............................. B6-7
SPORTS..................................... B1-4
THE BACK PAGE.............................B8
INDEX
Hometown newspaper
of Burnell and Sandra
Fuelling of Anamosa
Big day for florist
Stacy Osterkamp worked long
days last week to be ready for
Valentine’s Day and the crush
of orders that have to be deliv-
ered. Fortunately, the weather
was good.
Page A8
By Robert Crozier
Staff Writer
ANAMOSA
It might seem silly in the midst
of a polar vortex, but Strawberry
Hill Elementary will soon have air
conditioning.
The school’s new heating, ven-
tilation and air conditioning sys-
tem took a step forward at the Feb.
17 school board meeting when
the board awarded contracts for
the project.
Construction will start in late
April and will conclude in Octo-
ber, Superintendent Lisa Beames
said.
Workers will attempt to mini-
mize the disruption to students
when school is in session during
April, May, September and Octo-
ber, she said.
The project is part of the dis-
trictwide renovations funded by
a $16.9 million bond issue ap-
proved by voters in April 2013.
Other projects include construc-
tion of a new auditorium and sci-
ence rooms at the high school.
The board was presented with
two options for the Strawberry
Hill project and chose the more
expensive one.
“There is a safety consider-
ation,” board member Kristine
Kilburg said, adding that the bare
bones option featured exposed
pipes.
Even with the alternative cho-
sen, Beames said the lowest bids
were about $730,000 less than the
board had anticipated.
“So that was a good day for us,”
Beames said. “A good, good day.”
Loecke Building Service
won the contract for demolition
and construction with a bid of
$209,750. Dubuque Plumbing and
Heating won the mechanical con-
tract with a bid of $99,100. Hoody
Gates won the electrical contract
with a bid of $165,961.
Strawberry Hill contracts approved
By Robert Crozier
Staff Writer
ANAMOSA
The current school year in An-
amosa will extend to Friday, June
6, after the school board decided
to hold classes on Good Friday.
Good Friday falls on April 18
this year, and the board decided at
its Feb. 17 meeting to use it as a
makeup day after eight cancella-
tions pushed the last day of school
to June 6.
There aren’t any more poten-
tial makeup days between now
and summer, Superintendent Lisa
Beames said.
Some board members want to
avoid further cancellations, which
would push class further into
June.
School board member Shaun
Lambertson asked Beames to
changing the temperature at
which school is delayed or can-
celed.
Beames said she would inves-
tigate the idea.
“I’m going to talk to some
schools north of us,” she said.
“Probably in Minnesota.”
Beames said she currently de-
lays school if the wind chill factor
is projected to be negative 20-25
degrees at 8 a.m.
She cancels school if the wind
chill factor is still negative 20-25
degrees by 10 a.m., she said.
Anamosa school year now extended to June 6
By Robert Crozier
Staff Writer
CENTER JUNCTION
Todd Dirks woke Friday morn-
ing smelling smoke. He quickly
roused his cousin, Kiel, who had
crashed on his couch the night
before, and they both fled the
home.
Dirks called 9-1-1, then he
watched his house burn to the
ground.
The first firefighter arrived
quickly, albeit without gear or
backup.
“Derek Denniston was here in,
like, two minutes,” Kiel said.
Denniston, an Anamosa police
officer and volunteer Wyoming
firefighter, works for the post of-
fice part time. He was delivering
mail near the residence when the
call went out at 8:12 a.m.
Denniston closed the exterior
doors and waited for fire crews to
arrive, he said.
An Onslow crew showed up in
5-10 minutes, followed by Wyo-
ming and then Center Junction,
Denniston said.
The Center Junction crew ar-
rived at about 8:45 a.m., said Cen-
ter Junction volunteer firefighter
Jake Gravel.
Because the fire was near Cen-
ter Junction, and the Center Junc-
tion fire chief wasn’t at the scene,
Gravel found himself in charge.
Firefighters tried to make en-
try on multiple occasions without
success.
Some Wyoming firefighters
went in the back door early on,
Gravel said. They made it to the
east wall of the basement but, not
seeing any fire, backed out.
A pair of Monticello firefight-
ers advanced through the smoke
onto the front porch, blasting wa-
ter the whole way.
They breached the front door.
“Pull them out of there,” shout-
ed a Center Junction firefighter.
A Wyoming firefighter ran to
the porch.
“Get out of there,” he yelled.
“The roof is starting to sag.”
The Monticello firefighters
backed out.
“Once the flames took over the
roof it got extremely hot,” Dennis-
ton said.
At this point, firefighters told
Todd Dirks that they probably
weren’t going to be able to save
his house.
Fire crews backed away from
the building, surrendering it to
burn.
The walls started giving in be-
tween noon and 1 p.m., Dennis-
ton said, and the house collapsed.
“I wasn’t about to risk a life,
being as there wasn’t a life at risk,”
Gravel said.
The house used balloon-frame
construction techniques, which
means a void inside the walls ex-
tends from the foundation to the
attic, Gravel said.
The fire had gotten inside the
walls.
“That was just a losing battle,”
Gravel said.
Officials probably won’t ever
know how the fire started because
the entire house was destroyed,
Gravel and Denniston said.
Dirks’ .22 shells exploded
between 1 and 2 p.m., an event
Dirks described as sounding like
popcorn.
“We were expecting it,” Gravel
said, adding that Dirks had told
firefighters where he kept his am-
Valentine’s Day fire destroys house
ROBERT CROZIER/JOURNAL-EUREKA
Volunteer firefighters from Center Junction,Wyoming, Onslow and Monticello battle a fire Friday, Feb. 14, near Center Junc-
tion, Iowa.The inferno ultimately took the house.
SEE FIRE | PAGE A8

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FIRE/CONTINUED FROM FRONT PAGE
munition.
“They say that a shot-
gun shell is the only one
you have to worry about,”
Denniston said. “They
aren’t actually shooting
off like they would out of a
gun.”
The last fire crew left
the scene at about 2:30
p.m., Gravel said.
Dirks had bought the
house with money he
saved up during his sec-
ond tour of duty in Iraq
with the U.S. Army.
He has insurance, he
said, but some of the items
lost are irreplaceable.
He lost his daughter’s
toys, his clothes and a nice
nine-point buck head in
the fire.
The blaze took two
boxes of pictures, his com-
puter with all its data, and
two chests of military gear,
uniforms and mementos
from his time in the war.
“All my military [stuff],
all my guns, everything. I
got nothing now,” Dirks
said.
But he did save one
thing.
As they were running
from the house, Dirks
grabbed the AR-15 assault
rifle he had bought the day
before.
“I feel bad for him and
Kyle for, one, having to go
through it, and two, for
losing everything,” Den-
niston said.
Jones County plow
truck driver Andy John-
son was hauling a load of
sand from Anamosa to
Wyoming when he heard
the call on his radio and
headed toward the fire.
Johnson cleared snow-
drifts from the driveway to
make room for additional
fire trucks as they arrived,
using the county’s shiny
new plow truck.
“I’m glad to help,” he
said. “That’s what you do
around here.”
Denniston said he
called for the plow shortly
after arriving.
“There was a decent
drift in the driveway,” he
said.
Dirks, a laid off con-
struction worker, said he
would stay with his dad for
the time being.
His dad lives a mile
away.
“I’m glad we got out of
there when we did,” Kiel
said.
ROBERT CROZIER/JOURNAL-EUREKA
ROBERT CROZIER/JOURNAL-EUREKAROBERT CROZIER/JOURNAL-EUREKA
Smoke billows from the house fire near the intersection of 95th Avenue and County Home Road, Friday, Feb. 14, near Center Junc-
tion.
Only rubble remains after a blaze took Todd Dirks’ home, Friday,
Feb. 14, near Center Junction.
Todd Dirks and Kiel Dirks look on as firefighters scramble to save
Todd’s house, Friday, Feb. 14, near Center Junction.
By Jim Johnson
Staff Writer
ANAMOSA
Love was in the air on
Valentine’s Day in Ana-
mosa.
And so were roses …
lots of roses.
Anamosa Floral owner
Stacy Osterkamp said she
and her florists assembled
nearly 1,000 roses into
bouquets and arrange-
ments for Valentine’s Day
gifts.
Osterkamp herself re-
ceived the best gift a florist
can get on Valentine’s Day
– good weather.
“Thank goodness the
snow held off,” she said. “It
went well.”
She had a crew of six
drivers making deliver-
ies all day. Altogether, 132
orders were delivered dur-
ing the day. The deliveries
went all over Jones County
and surrounding commu-
nities – Anamosa, Mon-
ticello, Oxford Junction,
Wyoming and Central
City to name a few.
On a normal day, Os-
terkamp does all of the de-
liveries herself.
The delivery crew be-
gan just after 9 a.m. Os-
terkamp made the final
delivery on Saturday for
someone who was not
home on Friday.
There were some long
days leading up to Valen-
tine’s Day. Florists worked
12-hour days Monday,
Tuesday and Wednesday
and 16 hours on Thurs-
day to get all of the orders
ready.
The latest call for a de-
livery came in at 4:30 p.m.
on Friday, and Osterkamp
kept the store open an ex-
tra half hour for a custom-
er who had called an order
in for pickup and then got
stuck at the airport with
flight delays.
The extra time was
worth it with happy recipi-
ents.
“I want every order to
be special,” Osterkamp
said.
Everything comes up roses
for Anamosa Floral owner
on Valentine’s Day
JIM JOHNSON/JOURNAL-EUREKA
Anamosa Floral owner Stacy Osterkamp readies orders for deliv-
ery on Valentine’s Day.
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Subscribe and Save $27 a year.
Now more than ever,
make sure you carefully
clear snow from your nat-
ural gas meter and furnace
vent.
With the substantial
amounts of snow in recent
storms, and high winds,
Alliant Energy crews are
reporting several meters
covered in snow and ice
across the region.
This buildup can cause
the meter or gas appliance,
like a furnace or hot water
heater, to malfunction. If
a vent is blocked, carbon
monoxide could build up
in your home. A blocked
vent could cause a furnace
or hot water heater to stop
working.
Customers should use
a broom or their hands to
remove snow from a me-
ter. Do not use a shovel
because the hard tip could
break the meter.
Newer furnaces and
water heaters vent out the
side of a home, instead of
the top. Customers need to
make sure sidewall vents
and the roof top vents are
clear of snow and ice.
Customers should also
be aware of the dangers
and risks of carbon mon-
oxide. The risk of illness or
deathfromcarbonmonox-
ide increases in the winter.
Every home or business
should have at least one
working carbon monoxide
monitor inside.
Important safety tips:
• Don’t pile snow on
or near the meter when
shoveling or using a snow
blower.
• Use your hands or
a brush, not a shovel, to
clear snow and ice from
the meter.
• Never bang on the
meter or pipes.
• Don’t let dripping wa-
ter or freezing rain build
up on the meter. The vent
can become plugged when
ice and snow melt during
the day and refreeze at
night.
• Carefully remove ic-
icles hanging above the
meter.
• Check furnace and
water heater exhaust
pipes. If an exhaust pipe
is blocked, the furnace or
water heater could mal-
function or stop working.
Snow and ice can
affect utility meters
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