March 2013

Corn Belt All-Conference teams were announced last week.West Bend-Mallard/GCB senior Kayla Banwart and Corwith-Wesley-LuVerne senior Megen Studer were both named first-team girls. Kenzie Grimm, a senior from WBM/GCB, was a second-team pick. Studer averaged 11.3 points per game. Banwart scored 10 points per game and Grim 7.5 ppg.The WBM/GCB boys had Jason Zinnel and Jordan Buhs named to the first-team unit while Jesse Zinnel was a second-team pick. CWL's Josh Hilbert and Jared Haler were also second-team picks. Jason Zinnel averaged 14.7 points per game and Buhs 12.5. Jesse Zinnel made 13.3 points per game. Hilbert scored 10.8 points per game while Haler averaged 2.3 points and 7.5 rebounds per game.

Humboldt County Sheriff Dean Kruger and Chief Deputy Sheriff Brian Ricklefs warn citizens to be aware of a number of phone and Internet scams that are being perpetrated. Some local residents have been the targets of the schemes and a few citizens have even lost money because of it. “We’ve been getting quite a few complaints from elderly people who are getting phone calls from someone impersonating one of their grandchildren,” said Kruger. Kruger and Ricklefs said the money usually ends up in a foreign country like Canada, Mexico or Jamaica, where it is harder to trace and where apprehension and prosecution is more difficult. “Once the money is sent, it’s gone. I traced some that was sent in a scam to Mexico, but that was as far as I could get,” Ricklefs said. The scams may range in dollar amounts from a few hundred dollars to tens of thousands of dollars.

After some preliminary discussions, the Humboldt City Council is looking at relocating the retaining wall around the Sumner Avenue curve west of the bridge and making the sidewalk wider in that area for pedestrian traffic. The council heard from Derek Johnson, professional engineer with Schlofeldt Engineering of Webster City. Johnson presented the council with a couple of different alternatives. One was to close Lewis Street to vehicular traffic between Hall Street and Sumner Avenue, and place a 1,400 linear foot sidewalk on Lewis Street, thus removing pedestrian traffic from the busy Sumner Avenue. Johnson said the route would be a about a half a block longer on Lewis Street and the walking grade would be about 3 percent higher on Lewis Street than on Sumner. The second option would be to leave the sidewalk on the west side of Sumner Avenue while relocating the retaining wall and making the sidewalk at least five feet wide instead of the current four feet.

On Wednesday, March 6, at 10:27 p.m., the Humboldt Police Department discovered a fire at Pasquale’s Italian Restaurant, 607 13th St. N., Humboldt, a long-time family owned and operated restaurant. The Humboldt Fire Department responded and extinguished the blaze, but not before an extensive amount of smoke and water damage was done to the interior of the building. It was reported that restaurant owner Matt Brown had left the building shortly after 10 p.m. Humboldt Fire Chief Tony Hosford said the fire appeared to have started when a fan shorted out, leading paper and cardboard nearby to catch fire. The interior walls and exterior concrete block of the structure remain intact. A dollar estimate of damage has not been reported. It is not known how long the popular eating spot will be closed for repairs.