Carroll Broadcasting Company

The IKM-Manning School partners every year with the C-3 (Christ, Community and Celebration) organization to prepare nutritious meals for the needy in the Wolf Pack for Hunger event. Last year, they packaged 50,000 high-protein meals with some of the meals distributed throughout the state and others donated to the Manning Food Pantry and other food pantries in Carroll and surrounding counties. The third annual Wolf Pack for Hunger will be held on Wednesday, April 19 at the IKM-Manning School. Volunteers are needed to help package meals and can sign up by following the link included below. Details are also available on how to make a monetary donation to the effort. In the past two years Wolf Pack for Hunger has raised over $27,500 to buy products and seen more than 800 volunteers put in over 4,000 hours to package over 90,000 meals. So far this year, $8,000 has been raised to buy supplies for the packaging event.

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Carroll Broadcasting Company

Lt. Gov. Kim Reynolds visited several stops in western Iowa yesterday highlighting growth in rural areas and the boon agriculture provides. While in Templeton, Reynolds toured the barrel-aging facility at Templeton Rye. The Iowa Economic Development Authority awarded the company $1.6 million dollars in tax credits last October to encourage the construction of a distillery which is projected to create nearly 30 jobs. Reynolds then stopped at the IKM-Manning FFA’s annual banquet. She says the skills learned through membership are invaluable.

Even if the students wind up with careers in other fields, having a background in agriculture creates a solid footing for their future.

She praised the IKM-Manning GALA’s efforts this week to raise more than $90,000 for STEM funding. According to Reynolds, this all points to a vibrant, growing economy.

Iowa’s most recent numbers had the state at 3.3 percent unemployment, one and a half points lower than the national rate of 4.8 percent

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Baseball statistics website Baseball-Reference.com born at UI
Sean Forman started the site while earning his doctorate in mathematics

IOWANOW
Sean Forman may have studied mathematical and computation sciences as a University of Iowa doctoral student, but what he really cared about was baseball, especially in October.
“I grew up in Manning, Iowa, as a Red Sox fan,” he says. “There weren’t many Red Sox fans in Iowa. But I’d read the league batting leaders every week in the newspaper, and it always had lots of Red Sox—Wade Boggs, Dwight Evans, Jim Rice—so I liked the Red Sox.”
It wasn’t until later he realized the abundance of Red Sox among the batting leaders was a statistical quirk of playing their home games in Fenway Park, with its Green Monster and oddly sized outfield that made it an easy place to hit.
It also helped spark Forman’s fascination with statistics, which led him to the University of Iowa and, after that, a career that has made him one of baseball’s most vital online presences.
Forman, (PhD ’01), is the founder, developer, and CEO of Baseball-Reference.com, considered the definitive website for baseball statistics, records, and other diamond minutiae. If anyone wonders—and fans do—how many wins Ken Holtzman had as a Cubs rookie, how many seasons Ted Williams missed while flying fighter planes in World War II and Korea, or how many home runs Babe Ruth hit during his sad final season with the Boston Braves, Baseball-Reference.com is the place to go.
(By the way, it’s 11; three full and parts of two others; and six, the last three of which were hit in the same game.)
The site has its roots at the UI. Forman was a doctoral student in the Department of Mathematics in the mid-1990s when he managed the Iowa Farm Report, his online source of statistics and information about minor league teams.
He soon discovered that there were no other websites doing what his did, even for the majors.
“You couldn’t find any reliable statistics source online,” he says. “You couldn’t even find Ty Cobb’s statistics online.”
So he started putting together what would become Baseball-Reference.com when he wasn’t working on his doctoral thesis, “Torsion Angle Selection and Emergent Non-Local Secondary Structure in Protein Structure Prediction.” His advisor, professor of computer science Alberto Segre, was patient.
“He was a great advisor and I enjoyed working with him, but he wasn’t a fan,” Forman says. “Mostly, he put up with me doing my baseball stuff.”
The site went live in 2000, filled mostly with statistics of retired players from the database of Baseball Archive. At first, it was 20,000 pages long and needed only 300 MB of server space, which he rented for $20 a month.
It wasn’t much, Forman admits, but considering there was nothing else like it, Baseball-Reference.com was a treasure trove for fans. Then one day the site came to the attention of a writer at Sports Illustrated, who published a small story about it.
“The server crashed,” Forman says, which made him realize that if interest was so high that his server would crash after a mention in SI, there might be a viable commercial market for this sort of thing. He kept building the site, even as he finished his doctoral work at the UI and joined the faculty at St. Joseph’s University in Philadelphia.
He added box scores from every major league game played, dating back to before World War I. He added statistics from the Federal League and other failed major leagues of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He added statistics from the Negro Leagues and Japanese major leagues, and minor league statistics dating back to the 19th century.
The site has grown to now include more than 500,000 pages of data from 20 different sources. It’s updated daily during the season with the latest major league standings and statistics, and an In Memoriam section memorializing every former major leaguer who died in recent days
It became so big that Forman eventually left his job at St. Joe’s to run his company—Sports Reference LLC—full time. He merged with several other companies that maintain sites with comprehensive NFL, NHL, and NBA statistics, as well as the Olympics. The combined sites generate hundreds of thousands of page views each day, even during the off-season, and he has a staff of seven employees at his Philadelphia headquarters. He earns enough revenue selling banner advertising and page sponsorships to make a comfortable living.
The site’s customers are more than just baseball fans, egghead statistics mavens, and fantasy and rotisserie league general managers agonizing over which flawed player they should draft as a fourth outfielder. It’s also a great site for the fan who wants to bask in the warm memories of that Twins vs. Brewers game in 1987 when Kirby Puckett went 6 for 6.
Forman says the site also is used regularly in press boxes, front offices, and law firms by sports reporters, team management, and player agents.
Forman says his work in the UI doctoral program prepared him to oversee a project that will never stop growing.
“My thesis was a large programming project that really helped me manage large projects like that,” he says.

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Carroll Broadcasting Company

The President of the United States designates one week each year as National Small Business Week to recognize the many contributions small businesses provide to our economy and society as a whole. This year’s recognition will take place the week of April 30, and the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) has released names of the winners of the 2017 Iowa Small Business Week Awards. Topping that list is local business owner, Ben Puck, of Puck Custom Enterprises (PCE) in Manning, who has been named the Iowa Small Business Person of the Year. Puck has worked to build the business that designs and manufactures drag hose manure application equipment as well as providing manure application services since 1979. Puck grew up on a family farm and in the late 1970s, with the Farm Crisis looming, he began searching for alternate forms of revenue. He and his brother started out by pumping and hauling manure for area farmers and soon took on added services. Around 1983, Puck became the sole proprietor of the business and in 1998, Puck Custom Enterprises became incorporated and he began working on ways to improve on the equipment used in the industry. Today, PCE has over 50 full-time employees, 10 part-time employees and focuses primarily on the designing, building and selling of manure management equipment. Puck was nominated for this award by Gaylin Ranniger, President of the First National Bank of Manning because of the many contributions PCE has made to the community, not only through the economic benefits of the business, but through the family’s personal involvement in many other aspects of Manning. He and his family are staunch supporters of local education and Puck has taken a leadership role in the IKM-Manning STEM initiatives. They are also very active with local churches, charities, other businesses and community organizations. Puck will go on to represent Iowa at the National Small Business Week ceremonies in Washington, D.C. the week of April 30, and will be competing for the National Small Business Person of the Year Award. Carroll Broadcasting has reached out to Ben Puck, and will bring you more from him on this honor in an upcoming broadcast.

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Main Street Manning - Advanced Marketing Analysis Press ReleaseMain Street Iowa announced Manning as one of six communities in Iowa to be awarded an

Advanced Marketing Analysis. This analysis provides advanced level market study and business recruitment services specifically designed for communities which have previously completed a market study facilitated through Main Street Iowa; have a need to update market information; and are seeking to take the scope of economic vitality and business development efforts to a new level. This advanced level program capitalizes upon past investments of time and effort and elevates local Main Street economic development initiatives. The technical assistance, valued at $20,000, was secured via an application by Main Street Manning. The effort will be led by Main Street Manning but includes representatives from the City of Manning and local business leaders.
Manning completed its first Marketing Analysis in 2014 and action items generated from that analysis directly led to the opening of The Market Place on Manning’s Main Street.
Jay Schlinsog, Downtown Professionals Network (DPN) has been retained by Main Street Iowa to provide technical assistance and training services. DPN is a research and planning firm specializing in the revitalization and enhancement of traditional downtown and neighborhood business districts. Since its founding in 2000, DPN has evolved to serve a clientele that includes local, state and national economic development organizations located throughout the country.
The process will start in April and run thru August. Activities include: review and/or update a preliminary target list of, and profiles for, specific business types and concepts that appear to have the best potential to be accommodated and succeed in the market based on the availability and appropriateness of properties and spaces, market characteristics, product/service lines, complementary businesses and uses, competition, price points, merchandising and marketing techniques, etc.
Thanks to downtown revitalization efforts and private investment, Manning's award-winning downtown looks and feels like a place people want to do business in. Main Street Manning believes the Advanced Marketing Analysis will provide information on the types of businesses to recruit.

Carroll Daily Times Herald
Rebecca McKinsey

This year’s most-celebrated small-business owner in the country might hail from Carroll County.
The Small Business Administration named Ben Puck, founder and president of Puck Custom Enterprises in Manning, as the “Iowa Small Business Person of the Year.” Puck will go on to Washington, D.C., during the week of April 30 — National Small Business Week — and is in the running for the National Small Business Person of the Year award.
“We’re keeping our fingers crossed,” Manning Mayor Harvey Dales said during a Carroll County city roundtable Tuesday evening. “Just going to D.C., I think, is pretty good recognition in itself.”
Puck started his business in 1979 with his brother, pumping and hauling liquid manure and eventually designing new equipment to improve manure application. He’s received five equipment patents through the years.
Puck Custom Enterprises has grown to employ about 60 people.
“Puck and his company’s contributions to the community of Manning are significant,” a news release from the Small Business Administration says. “The growth of his business has fueled the type of employee growth that’s vital to rural communities like Manning.”
Puck has described his business as a combination of innovation and efficiency — the need for more-efficient manure application has driven the business forward.
“I like to say that we love technology, but technology is driven through efficiency,” he said during the opening of PCE’s new facility in 2010. “We are not a technology leader, we are an efficiency leader.”
Also during the opening, he described the manure-application business as “a baby yet to walk,” noting it has expanded most just in the past few decades.
Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad visited PCE in 2014 and noted the manure-application industry’s relationship to livestock operations.
“This is really the future of livestock production,” Branstad said. “It has to be done in conjunction with what you are doing.”
In 2015, PCE opened a retail storefront in Osik, Croatia, a product of a chance meeting between PCE’s general manager, Jeremy Puck, and Croatian entrepreneur Robert Spajic at Iowa State University several years before. Spajic and fellow entrepreneur Darko Bilic saw an opportunity to use Eastern Europe’s growing market for swine technology — and they identified PCE as a good vehicle.
“People are the only reason anything ever really happens,” Jeremy Puck said. “The right people wanted to do something out of the ordinary.”
There are more than 26 million small businesses in the United States, according to the news release. And Small Business Week is all about them.
“Since its establishment in 1963, the highlight of this annual tradition is the presentation of awards which focus on the outstanding contributions of small-business persons and champions at the district, state and national level,” the release states.
Gaylin Ranniger, president of First National Bank of Manning, nominated Puck for the award.
“Aside from the economic impact he’s made, Puck supports local churches, schools, businesses, charities and other community organizations,” the release states. “Whether it’s through monetary contributions or contributions of time — such as taking a leadership role in the IKM-Manning School’s STEM program — Puck, his family and PCE have been invaluable to Manning’s efforts to remain a thriving rural community.”

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Community Matters - ISU
Sandra Oberbroeckling

AMES, Iowa -- A new art gallery will be opening soon in Manning, Iowa. However, unlike traditional art galleries, Manning’s public art will be a type of “drive-through” exhibit along the Highway 141 corridor through town, as well as interactive art in the form of play equipment and park amenities.

The potential “street art” is the result of a collaboration between the city of Manning and students in Iowa State University College of Design’s Fall 2016 Design Studies 232 studio course focused on digital design communication.

This project was facilitated through the PLACE program in the College of Design. The PLACE program (Partnering Learning And Community Engagement) aims to enhance and promote the quality and character of Iowa’s communities. The ISU College of Design engages with communities in collaborative efforts to understand, envision and promote a fundamental enhancement of their physical environment.

Manning has partnered with Iowa State a number of times, most recently participating in the Iowa’s Living Roadways 2016 Community Visioning program. The concepts proposed during the Community Visioning process are the basis for most of the public art designs created by the students.

The design studio, taught by architecture instructor Reinaldo Correa, is intended to improve students’ ability in multidimensional problem solving, digital communication skills and perceptual sensitivity. Correa drew on his experience in public art design to facilitate the partnership with Manning.

The students used digital media to analyze, research and design public works of art for the city. One highlight of the class for the students was a field trip to Manning in September 2016 to learn about the city, meet local leaders and see the town.

“One of the most meaningful parts of working on this project had to be actually interacting with the people of Manning,” said Brandon Lewis, senior in architecture. “Both the mayor and other members of the community were very passionate about making Manning great.”

Ron Reischl, Main Street Manning board president, has been instrumental in creating partnerships with Iowa State classes in the past. He has a good understanding of the benefits of working with students.

“The students appreciate and love the opportunity to work on a real-life problem, and they look forward to the chance of their designs being integrated into a real-life project,” Reischl said. “It’s hugely beneficial for both parties.”

In addition to the Highway 141 corridor, students also proposed public art in Trestle Park, a project that emerged through the Community Visioning process and is already under construction. A separate proposal from Manning requested ideas for a sign at Manning’s east entrance announcing the Carroll County Freedom Rock and the German Hausbarn.

Much of the artwork or projects students proposed was interactive, including a metal sculpture that incorporates monkey bars, a sculpture mimicking blowing grasses through which kids can walk, and a tree-like sculpture that catches the wind in its “leaves” as children spin it, merry-go-round style, to create natural music.

Students reported they worked harder on this project because it was a real-world situation, and for some students this was the first time they had worked on a project for an actual client.“I was more motivated to work on this project since I knew it had further implications than just the classroom,” said H.D. Wille, a senior in interdisciplinary design who graduated in December 2016.

“This was my first real-life project and knowing that my design would potentially be built was very motivating for me,” design junior Lauren Kenny said. “I have never worked so hard on a project than I did for this one. I really wanted to design something for the community that would be beautiful for their new park as well as useful.”
Program coordinator Susan Erickson stressed that one of the greatest benefits of partnering with Iowa State and the PLACE program is experiencing the creativity and energy of the students.

“They can come to your town and see with fresh eyes, bringing new ideas to the places you look at every day,” said Erickson. “Nearly every community that partners with our studio classes has been delightfully surprised at the quality of work and the unique and creative ideas that our students produce.”

“Why should a community partner with College of Design classes?” Erickson asked. “Our students say it best.”

“For potential community partners, working with a class is an amazing opportunity for you. Here is a class of individual designers [who] are itching to create something new or fill a need,” said Wille. “Each one has a distinct personality and style that is expressed in their work. Take this chance and find more solutions to your objectives than you could ever dream.”

Communities or organizations interested in partnering with a class in the College of Design can contact Susan Erickson, the PLACE program coordinator, at susaneri@iastate.edu.

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WHO TV Channel 13 News
Roger Riley

MANNING, Iowa  --  The City of Manning has spent $200,000 to buy 20 lots in a new development, and plans to sell the lots at a discounted price as a way to expand the local housing supply.
The Manning area has a number of jobs to fill at the Manning Regional Healthcare Center, Puck Custom Enterprises, and other businesses. While this may seem promising for job-seekers, prospective employees are having trouble finding a place to live close by.
"When you drive around town you can tell there's a housing shortage," said Dawn Rohe, Manning City Administrator. "The housing study that the Carroll area Development Corporation did last fall shows that we really have a shortage of homes over $100,000."
Realtors in Manning have to work hard to get buyers a home whenever a property comes on the market.
"We do try to find out what they're looking for--bedroom count, bathrooms, what's important to them," said Manning Realtor Katie Wall. "Will they need a two car garage, a one car garage, if listings do you come up in Manning they do tend to go very quickly."
Anyone wanting information on the Manning incentive should contact Rohe at 712-655-2176.

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WHO TV Channel 13 news
Roger Riley

Manning, Iowa, has plenty of job opportunities available, but not enough places for residents to live. Tune in to Roger Riley's report during the 4 o'clock news to find out what the town is doing to encourage more people to build houses in the area.

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