Sioux Center

Along with so many other projects, Andrew and I have been working hard on preparing this package about the tractor country tradition: Cruise Night. In Sioux Center, Iowa the weekly gathering has become a point of local controversy forcing cops who can remember cruising as kids to barricade and block out today’s youth. The local pressures forcing Chief Adkins’ and his force to crack down on come from businesses who have had to deal with the debris left over after a Sunday night of cruising. Other rumors suggest that the crackdown stems from a fear of the automobile accidents that often occur.

This is a sneak peak of our video package:

Andrew and I just wanted to take a break from packing to make sure we gave shout outs to all those people who’ve helped us during our time in the Sioux County area. You’ve made it incredibly successful and educational for us. I hope I don’t leave anybody out of this list:

Nick, Nate, Jim, Fred, Herm, Stan, Marv, Rondah, the Hulstein brothers, John, Paul, Bill, Natalie, Jerry, the Sandbultes, Hope Haven, the Hay Auction, Tri State Live Stock, the Farmer’s Coop Ethanol Plant, SiouxPreme, the towns of Inwood, Rock Valley, Doon, and Sioux Center, Butler’s Cafe.

But this is not the end… Andrew and I will keep on posting as we get our content edited down and our stories perfected. We also hope to keep in touch with most of you, and invite any of you to contribute your thoughts to our blog. We both believe that our interaction over the past 11 days has been more than that of journalist-subject. We have become friends.

This is a raw clip of an interview with Sioux Center, Iowa Chief of Police Paul Adkins. It is a relatively simple explanation of the tradition and the evolution of local attitudes in the public, local businesses, and police staff.

Chief Adkins goes on to explain the methods of policing used, and their desired effects. We also had him answer, directly, the most interesting complaints and rumors from the youth we met last Sunday night. His answers were interesting. Along with the clips from the youth and a local mother, this story is stacking up to be the most “newsy” story of our summer. It is most certainly a local tradition that has become a controversy, and it wonderfully fits our project: it is multi-generational, it is uniquely local, and it involves texting technology. Perhaps this will be our only home run on a news story that fits all of our criteria. I am excited to really start editing it together.

Nick Lantinga first moved into his home in Sioux Center about 12 years ago when he came from Chicago for a job at Dordt College. An ardently religious man, he came to the Reformed Christian college to work on projects sponsoring Christian Scholarship.

Recently, a count put the population of Sioux Center above 6,500 people. When Lantinga moved in he says there were more like 3,500. Of those, some have been here a very long time. The Sandbulte family was one who first acquired their land from the land-grant act. Like many of the others, and Lantinga himself, they were of Dutch descent and practiced Reformed Christianity - Calvinism.

Lantinga fits in well here. Religion is very important to this community. Another Sioux Center transplant, Nate Van Niejenhuis told us that a smart burglar would do all of his work on Sunday morning since literally everyone would be in Church. He also told us that he recently went to Europe, and left his keys in his truck and his house unlocked. Van Niejenhuis first came to Sioux Center from Canada to attend Dordt. He stayed for a girl. He also fits in well here. (more…)

Andrew and I have been pursuing a story about a pair of authors who’ve lived and grown up in the Sioux Center area. Collectively they have conspired to develop a local myth and legend of teenage love, hardship, and death spanning the last 90 years. The first of the two authors, Fredrick Manfred, passed away in 1994. Jim Schaap, local author and English professor, idolized Manfred as a student and recently wrote a story that used Manfred as a character. Obviously, Mr. Manfred couldn’t speak for himself, so we tracked down his biggest fan: his son, Fred Jr.

Here is a short, raw clip of Fred Jr. speaking about his fathers dedication in writing a novel called “Lord Grizzly.”

Today also included our family conversation, with the Hulstein family. They are 4 brothers in the third generation of a farming family who have grown their business from their father’s farm to a corporation with approximately 50 year round employees. Their own children are now old enough to become involved, and the brothers spoke to us about the changes during their generation and preparing for the next. Keep watching for clips from this conversation as we continue to edit and compile our material.

I smell terrible. Not me in particular, I have standard hygiene habits. Still, a terrible smell has penetrated my clothes. I’ve abandoned my outer polo shirt and the scent still plagues me. I think it is now integrated with my jeans and, sadly, I have no other pants to change into. If I were a cartoon character, I would have green smoke wafting from me. Worse yet, we went on to two more interviews after obtaining this aromatic burden.

This terrible affliction of my nostrils has been following me around since our tour of the SiouxPreme (an awful pun) meat-packing plant. By the way, Andrew, I was right in saying that a meat-packing plant is a slaughterhouse.

Oh, and not only did we smell the place, but we saw the whole process. It was instructional in so many ways. I learned all of the twisted feelings my stomach was capable of producing due to the inputs from my nose and eyes. I learned all about the way man and machine can slaughter and then disembowel a hog. And then, in retrospect, I learned quite a bit of useful information. (more…)

Loud, dirty, Americana. Happy 4th of July.

A look at how people young and old celebrated Independence day.

This afternoon the highest selling cow from the day’s Sioux Center auction escaped. It wandered out of a rear gate shortly after it’s sale.

Ronda, employee of the auction, was the victim of much joking blame. She had mistakenly tried to transfer four cows between pens while, unbeknownst to her, the gate was open. Jerome, the man who had purchased the pregnant cow (bred cow) was frustrated during the search which spanned a few hundred acres of chest-high corn, 3 horses, 3 vehicles, and at least 8 people (including Andrew and myself.) By the end, Jerome’s cow and his good spirits had returned.

Having wandered into the auction house looking for contacts and without proper equipment, the only existing records are my iPhone photos and our memories. We entered the office asking our usual questions about interesting local stories, and before we knew it we had jumped into Ronda’s daughter’s silver Taurus and sped off to the west side of the fields. Ronda’s daughter was on horseback in the fields with two men trying to corner or rope the cow.

We weren’t able to be out in the field when they spotted the cow, but we stood atop hay bails when they walked it back across the tracks and into a barn.

It was a unique experience, and included a greater mix of age-old resourcefulness and modern technology than many contemporary problems. In this case no vehicle could have chased down the cow. Only a horse was perfectly suited to trot between the corn rows. But the riders coordinated with the vehicles patrolling the roads and rail tracks via cell phone. This way less people were able to secure a large acreage efficiently and quickly. (more…)

I wonder if anyone out there ever wonders what inspires me to tweet these seemingly unconnected little tidbits from the road. So, as a way to resolve that question if it exists anywhere, and as a way to tell the world what Andrew and I are looking forward to over the next few days, here are some recent tweets, and the stories behind them.

• Hs grads run summer sno cone biz on 7k loan. #youngandthewire #news21 http://twitpic.com/8zur6

On a tip from the editor of the local weekly paper, Andrew and I visited Tropical Sno, a business founded by two recent High School graduates. They obtained a $7,000 loan from a local bank to purchase the shack, rent the property from the business next door, and buy their outdoor seating. One of the co-founders, Matt, said the business was doing well, and during our visit local children came buy to get a frozen treat and paid in quarters. A great tidbit we learned from the young entrepreneur is that Sunday night local youth call “cruise night” and tend to gather along Main Street in Sioux Center. This will be a great location to shoot our national question and perhaps another installment of Lst Txt Msg.

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