Carroll Daily Times Herald, Rebecca McKinsey

The vision for Manning’s “Trestle Park” is a bit more concrete after a design and planning meeting earlier this week.
The city is working with the Iowa’s Living Roadways Community Visioning Program — for the second time — to develop ideas for several projects in Manning, including the adult-geared park the city has been discussing for several years. Landscape architects, a representative from Trees Forever and city officials and residents met Tuesday to hammer out ideas.
Manning is one of the few cities in Iowa that have gone through the Community Visioning program twice, and the only one to finish the first round of projects as quickly as Manning did and come back for a second go, said Brad Riphagen, field coordinator with Trees Forever. He has been involved with the Community Visioning program since it started 20 years ago.
The Iowa Department of Transportation partners with Iowa State University Extension Landscape Architecture and Trees Forever to offer the Iowa’s Living Roadways Community Visioning Program is sponsored by the Iowa Department of Transportation, according to a news release. The program is offered to cities with a population of less than 10,000.
Cities accepted into Community Visioning’s program are required to earmark $2,000 that will remain in the city and be used for one of the proposed projects. Trees Forever, landscape architects and other agencies then work with the city to develop and incorporate beautification, design and transportation improvement ideas.
Manning first went through the program in 2012. Ideas proposed at the time included enhancing the area’s trail system and adding amenities along the trails, developing signage and logos for the cities, enhancing Main Street with street trees, bike racks and flower baskets and incorporating landscaping themes and planting native species along Highway 141.
Once Manning exhausted those ideas, incorporating many of them, the city returned to Community Visioning with a new slate of proposals and was accepted to once again undergo the planning and design program.
During a day-long visit to Manning Tuesday, representatives from RDG Planning & Design’s Omaha office toured various parts of Manning and then spent several hours working with residents to swap ideas and put together initial designs, maps and outlines addressing several future projects in Manning.
Jen Cross, a landscape architect with RDG Planning & Design, presented those proposals Tuesday evening, offering a first-draft look at what some of these projects could look like in Manning. Cross started out with the Community Visioning program about a decade ago as an intern — a process that allowed her to “learn by fire,” she joked — and now is a landscape architect working with some of the participating communities.
The big-ticket item was Trestle Park, a railroad-themed park planned for the north side of Manning that would cater to adults — with volleyball courts, areas to play horseshoes and bags, trail access, outdoor exercise equipment and more.
It could also include a “natural play” area for the kids that would be accompanying many of the adult park visitors. Kiosks would include railroad information and history, and a shelterhouse and restrooms also would be available. A small structure for children’s play could include the “character of a caboose,” Cross said. A children’s challenge course also is a possibility.
“Trestle Park is a piece that has been in the vision of Manning for some time,” she said.
The presentation also included additional ideas for Main Street, including a potential “downtown green space” and “parklet” installations in free spaces on the street that could be removed and stored during the winter to allow for uninterrupted snow removal.
“This is something that’s very hot right now, and something that was feasible for you to participate in,” Cross said.
Cross also discussed incorporating the green spaces and signage to draw more attention to the juncture of Highway 141 and Main Street.
“The big part of doing something at Highway 141 was to draw people’s attention to that corner — to say, ‘You’re at Main Street. You’re downtown. You’re at the heart of Manning,’” she said.
Placing a sign to better identify the entrance of the Great Western Park was a separate proposal.
“It’s a simple piece, but it’s something that would help with that branding and that identity,” Cross said.
Tuesday’s ideas were fresh and worked up that day.
“Today we were drawing 100 miles a minute,” Cross said with a laugh.
In several weeks, she will present refined ideas to the city, and there will be a final presentation at the end of July, after which
Manning will move forward with the projects that can be addressed now.

What cities do with the ideas developed through the Community Visioning program is up to them — it depends on their initiative and funding, Riphagen said.
“Whether the projects get going is a matter of finding dollars,” he said. “Manning has been very successful at finding the dollars.”

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Carroll Daily Times Herald    Matthew Rezab
The Midwest Iowa Old Iron Club will host its 14th annual Manning Tractor Drive this Sunday ... with a new twist.
Not only will this year’s ride help celebrate the 90th anniversary of Horizon Equipment, but the traditional route has been changed in order to make its way to Bev and Russ Bruhn’s farm for John Deere tractor and machinery demonstrations and lunch sponsored by Horizon.
The public is invited to attend at no cost. The Bruhn Farm is located at 1584 Eagle Ave., near Audubon.
“Registration is a half hour earlier (7:30 a.m. at the American Legion Hall in Manning) than other years because we’re going to go down to the Bruhn Farm about 10 miles south of Manning,” organizer Merlyn Irlbeck said. “Everyone can make their own way back on their own because some people will want to stay to see all the equipment.”
The ride will begin at 8:30 a.m.
Irlbeck said the tractors will make their way south and “ride around for awhile” before ending up at the Bruhn Farm.
Dale “Ernie” Reinke of Horizon Equipment in Manning said employees will be serving brats, hamburgers and sides for lunch.

Irlbeck said around 100 tractors joined the ride last year, but he’s optimistic more people will participate this year.
“We had a hundred-plus tractors last year,” he said. “This year there might be more because more towns are participating because of the things going on at the farm.”
Horizon Equipment, originally Puck Implement, was founded in 1926  when a group of farmers in the Manning area called upon fellow farmer Albert Puck to be their agent to purchase flour, apples, coal and the like.
The family-owned company began operating at its current location on Highway 141 in Manning in 1950, before changing its name in the 1970s when it expanded to six locations in Iowa. Horizon Equipment now has locations in Adair, Audubon, Avoca, Manning, Missouri Valley and Woodbine.

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The living room area of the new Char Mac Assisted Living center in Manning was filled to overflowing yesterday (Thursday) as they opened their doors, “officially” to the public for their Chamber ribbon cutting and open house. Chief Executive Officer of Char Mac, Jeanine Chartier, said that this was an exciting day that has been a little longer in the making than they expected.

Heavy rains last year and this year delayed the pouring of footings, but Chartier said it has been worth the wait to see this two-level, 36-unit home come together to serve area residents. The first residents began moving in on June 1, and are continuing to come in.
Program Director, Travis Chartier said that they did not expect to see so much popularity for their six, one-bedroom units and those are nearly all filled. And even though they have just opened their doors, they are already busy clearing another portion of their lot for more construction.
The assisted living facility has nearly every amenity imaginable, with an in-house movie theater—popcorn included—a whirlpool room, beautifully appointed public and private dining rooms, a beauty shop and laundromat area. Each of the studio and one-bedroom apartments includes a kitchenette and private bathroom. And though the cost of each apartment is based on the level of care provided for the residents, according to Travis Chartier, the average difference between the one-bedroom apartment versus a studio would amount to approximately $400. In the crowd at Thursday’s open house was Main Street Manning Board President, Ron Reischl, who said this is a major project for economic development in Manning. “Char-Mac fills two gaps in our community,” he said. “It fills a housing gap for our senior citizens – a gap between owner occupied/rental homes and the Plaza Nursing Home located on Main Street. It provides Manning with a head start in addressing the housing shortage issues identified in the countywide housing study. It also fills a gap in medical care,” Rieschl added, “by providing care for those who need more than in-home nursing care and less than the Plaza provides.”

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Carroll Daily Times Herald  by Rebecca McKinsey, Staff Writer

With a snip and unfurling of blue ribbon, a facility Manning officials say fills an important need in the community, celebrated its grand opening Thursday.
Char-Mac Assisted Living Center has welcomed residents since June 1 at its new Manning location and opened its doors this week for an open house and tours.
About 16 people live at the center right now, with three more moving in soon. A total of 36 apartments are available — 30 studio apartments, and six one-bedroom apartments, which are mostly full. Program Director Tanner Chartier estimated about a $400 cost difference in base rent between the studio and one-bedroom apartments. Several adjoining studio apartments are structured so that a doorway can be opened up between them. Each apartment has individual temperature controls.
The center is structured so that all of the rooms have outside windows. Some offer views of IKM-Manning’s school buildings and football field.
“The views off this side of the building are just amazing,” Chartier said during a tour Thursday.
Cost plans vary widely because of the variety of services available to residents, and staff members discuss those costs in detail with anyone who requests a tour, Office Manager Noah McNaughton said.
The facility includes a movie theater with a large screen, popcorn machine and about 20 seats, a hair salon, a laundry room, an activity center, a large dining room as well as a smaller, private dining area, an open living room-type area, outdoor patio seating and more. Each apartment has a bathroom, and there are also public bathrooms available, but a separate large bathroom includes a whirlpool for residents who want to use it.
The activity room is used for exercise, TV and snacking. Residents also work on crafts there and recently tried Wii bowling for the first time.
The center washes residents’ towels and sheets each week and offers weekly personal laundry services for those who choose to include that in their package.
“We find we typically do the guys’ laundry and about 50 percent of the women’s laundry,” Chartier said.
The facility serves three meals a day to residents — a continental-style breakfast, a hearty lunch and a lighter dinner with soups, salads and sandwiches. Visitors can eat with residents in the private dining room and pay $7 a meal.
Gospel singer Jill Miller, who lives in Sioux City, sang for residents and visitors Thursday, at one point asking a nearby table of women if they like Dolly Parton before launching into a poignant rendition of “Jolene.”
Chartier’s family was involved in creating the centers, spurred in part because of Chartier’s grandmother’s Alzheimer’s disease. Char-Mac also has centers in Holstein and Lawton.
Now, Chartier is entrenched in the company.
“I’m the guy people come to with problems,” he joked.
Staff members work several shifts throughout the day and night, in addition to nurses, administrators and kitchen staff.
The staff members want residents to treat the center as their home — even if that means leaving the center at 6 a.m. and not returning until 11 p.m., as one resident did this week, Chartier said with a laugh.
“This is home,” he said. “Use it like you would your own home. Have guests over. This is your home.”
Although Manning offers nursing-home services with the Manning Plaza, it hasn’t had services for people who aren’t quite ready to move into a nursing home but can no longer live on their own. That previously had meant some residents were leaving the area, Manning City Administrator Dawn Rohe said.
“It’s been a hole — it’s been a need for a really long time,” she said. “It’s nice to have it filled. And it helps us keep people here.”
City officials are happy that Char-Mac is the company providing the services, she added.
“They have an amazing reputation in the communities they’re in,” she said. “We’re really excited the level of care will be so high. This isn’t a fly-by-night company. They really care.”
Ron Reischl, board president of Main Street Manning, agreed the business is a vital one for Manning, noting that in addition to providing needed housing for older Manning residents, the facility’s existence also opens up housing throughout the city as residents sell their homes and move into the Char-Mac center. It also provides needed medical services that the city previously did not have available for people who are between living independently and needing a nursing home.
“Manning is working hard to be a full-service community,” Reischl said.

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No matter how many economic development and community improvement projects are underway in Manning, leaders are always busy planning for the future. A pivotal part of the process is gathering input from community members and matching the needs to the opportunities that are currently available. On Tuesday, June 28, residents are invited to participate in the second of two design workshops that are part of the Iowa’s Living Roadways Community Visioning Program to help identify transportation needs and enhancements. The public is invited to stop by the Warren Timmerman Shelter House in Manning City Park from 1 to 4 pm. to provide input on transportation and landscape conceptual plans that will be developed during the workshop based on the input. Results from the previous focus-group workshop and the random-sample transportation survey will also be available. At 6:30 p.m., the team and the public will be presented with a design review at the shelter house. To learn more about participating in the workshop, contact Dawn Rohe at 712-655-2176.

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Carroll Daily Times Herald Rebecca McKinsey

A land donation from West Central Cooperative is overhauling plans for a park built around a historic railroad trestle on the northern edge of Manning.A space of a bit more than 2 acres that used to house an old mill, most recently called the Manning Ag Center, will be available for a trestle-themed park that will cater to adults — which could include volleyball courts, horseshoes, bags, barbecue pits or grills, a running or biking trail and Nishnabotna River access for canoes and kayaks.
It also could include a “natural play area” with logs and rocks for the young kids who inevitably accompany some adults, Manning City Administrator Dawn Rohe said.
The idea for the park, introduced several years ago, originated from the realization that while Manning and the surrounding areas have good parks and playgrounds for kids, they don’t have similar spaces for adults.
“We already have a nice children’s park in Manning,” Main Street Manning Board President Ron Reischl previously said. “We have none oriented to young adults, who are certainly the future of the community.”
The concrete at the planned space has been ground, and dirt work is expected to begin soon before footings are placed for the bathroom and depot-themed shelterhouse that will be there.
The IKM-Manning High School shop class already has built an informational kiosk that looks like a train, which will be placed in the completed park.
The park previously was planned for a space of about 10 acres nearby, but some of that area is in a floodplain, a problem the West Central land donation solves.
Campgrounds could still be incorporated into some of those 10 acres later on, Rohe said.
The old ag center was demolished this winter and spring, and final plans are being made for the donation of the land. Because the park now will be created in a new space, the city is reconsidering some of its design plans, using the Community Visioning program to help plan the park’s concept and design.
The program is sponsored by the Iowa Department of Transportation in partnership with Iowa State University Extension Landscape Architecture and Trees Forever, according to a news release.
A come-and-go public meeting will be held from 1-4 p.m. Tuesday, June 28, at the Warren Timmerman Shelter House for residents to offer new ideas for the park and work with a design team. At 6:30 p.m. that day, the design team will offer a summary of the ideas gathered, a meeting also open to the public.
The old mill has a long history, having at one point been the Doud Milling Company, associated with First Lady Mamie Eisenhower’s family, and eventually becoming the Manning Ag Center. Although the building wasn’t salvageable as part of the park, its history will continue in the area, Rohe said.
Grants from Great Places, the Building with Bags Program, Refresh Manning Trust, the Warren H. Timmerman Grant and the BNSF Railway are helping to fund the project, and area contractors and laborers are offering in-kind services.
Down the road, additional fundraising and planning could result in more play areas for kids, outdoor exercise equipment, an incorporated trail and more surrounding the park.
“This could be a million-dollar deal if we want it to,” Rohe said. “We at least can do the basics with what we have right now, but there’s so much potential, so we’ll keep going.”

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Carroll Daily Times Herald, Rebecca McKinsey,

A pair of self-proclaimed “musical mutts” and “chameleons” performed for an outdoor crowd in Manning this weekend.
Steve Reischl and Joey Banua, who have performed as a duo for several years, sang at a free Christian concert organized by Manning-area organization C3 — combining Christ, Community and Celebration. The concert was held Sunday at the Manning Hausbarn-Heritage Park and also featured Nashville-based singer Jennie Williamson.
The fifth annual concert, one of the three initiatives C3 organizes, is valuable in bringing together area churches, which can become “islands” if they’re not careful, said Bob Riggert, pastor of Zion Lutheran Church in Manning.
“It also brings people to Heritage Park to see a part of Manning that not everyone sees all the time,” he said.
Reischl and Banua both sing lead, play guitar and piano and more — including drums for Banua and trombone for Reischl.
They’ve been singing together for several years and have been friends for much longer, but each has a separate musical history.
Reischl, who grew up in the area and now lives in St. Louis, used to be a lead singer for Christian band NewSong, ending his five-year stint with the band about a decade ago. He was around when the band wrote its hugely popular Christmas song, “The Christmas Shoes.” He previously sang with the Acapella Vocal Band.
Banua, who competed on “American Idol’s” Season 11, also performed for a time with the band One5Oh!, which penned the song “Superhero” — originally written in the back of a van as a joke, but it has become a popular song at vacation Bible schools.
Banua now has a studio, DB Studios, in Indianapolis. He is looking to move the year-old company to Nashville. He has worked with a variety of artists, including Robbie B, who has written tracks for Justin Bieber and Drake. He’s working with producer David Zaffiro and soon is releasing a five-song country EP.
“I like to surround myself with talented people — it makes me sound better,” Banua joked.
The duo met years ago while working as worship pastors at Harvester Christian Church in Missouri.
“I thought, ‘This guy’s talented,’” Reischl recalled.
Banua chimed in, “I hung out with him because he’s pretty.”
His version of the story includes a sit-down at an Applebee’s and the question, “Want to be best friends?”
It’s a friendship that has spanned years as each man supported the other through difficult experiences, they said.
They sing covers of various bands, including Bethel Music, Hillsong Music and David Crowder, as well as writing and performing original music. Their voices and writing styles both complement each other, the pair agreed. Reischl described their sound as soulful rock, with some country thrown in for Banua.
Their performance of contemporary Christian music blended their tones and provided audience members with a beautiful end to the evening Sunday.
Jennie Williamson’s opening performance was friendly for all ages but particularly geared toward children.
“I’m really just 5 years old trapped in this body,” she said. “I won’t attempt a cartwheel, though, because then it’ll remind me of how old I really am.”
The mother of two children — Emma Lou, 11, and Eva Jane, 6 — is used to catering to her audience, and it showed when she pulled kids up in front of the stage to dance with her, had them singing lines back to her and even marched with them around the crowd, mimicking Joshua’s march around the walls of Jericho.
Williamson grew up on a goat farm — “I was actually the youngest goat milker in the state of Kansas,” she said.
She lived in an earth home dug in the side of a rock cliff, mowed her roof and gave concerts for audiences of rocks outdoors.

It taught her how to live simply, she said — and it’s a good lesson to remember today.

Williamson has a home studio in Nashville; her husband, Brian, serves as her producer.
Their shows are kid-friendly, but they seek to reach adults as well.
“Adults pour everything into kids, so we try to pour back into them,” she said. “You can’t give if you’re empty.”
She arrived in Manning early Sunday and directed the worship music at Zion Lutheran Church that morning.
“People in Manning are so present; it’s so alive,” she said. “The word is refreshing — when you’ve been in a city, everyone’s so alive here.”

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In April of last year, Char Mac Assisted Living announced they would be opening a 36-apartment assisted living complex in Manning. Just a little over one year later, and following a couple of construction set-backs on their timeline, CEO Jeanine Chartier and her family opened the doors to the first residents yesterday, Wednesday, June 1. The well-thought-out facility, which overlooks the football field at the IKM-Manning school building,  offers residents the choice between one-bedroom or studio apartments and features access to a movie theater, an activity room, a lounge, formal and private dining rooms and outdoor patios. A formal grand opening, ribbon cutting and tours will be held Thursday, June 16 from 1 to 3:30 p.m. at the new facility located at 204 11th Street in Manning. Jill Miller will be performing during the open house beginning at 2 p.m. A video produced and published on Youtube by a family member of one of Char Mac’s new Manning residents can be found below.

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