Iowa Life Episode 209

[Charity Nebbe] Coming up on this episode of Iowa Life, we'll revel in the magic and joy of kiting at the Color the Wind Kite Festival in Clear Lake.

Iowa is kind of gray in the winter. And so, to see everybody so happy and to see all these bright kites in the sky, it's really a fun day.

[Nebbe] We'll learn how a new experimental partnership with college students is keeping two small town newspapers in eastern Iowa from closing.

To have students and a student paper who are able to come in and provide that support so that those stories don't fall through the cracks and don't go unnoticed is really vital and it's something that I'm really honored to be able to be a part of.

[Nebbe] And this academic competition in Des Moines is an opportunity for braille users to test their skills.

What I like about it is the challenge part.

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[Nebbe] It's all coming up next on Iowa Life.

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Funding for Iowa Life is provided by --

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The Pella Rolscreen Foundation is a proud supporter of Iowa PBS. Pella Windows and Doors strives to better our communities and build a better tomorrow.

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And by, the Lainie Grimm Fund for inclusive programming at the Iowa PBS Foundation.

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[Nebbe] Hi, I'm Charity Nebbe and this is Iowa Life. Color the Wind is the largest winter kite festival in the Midwest. Dancing over a frozen Clear Lake, we are witnessing this wonderous display of massive and cleverly designed kites. We will take a closer look at this vibrant festival. But first, let's meet the man who started it all.

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[Nebbe] Larry Day loves kites.

[Larry Day] Okay, what we've got here, these are some of the kites that I fly a lot. This is my blue whale. This is my whale shark.

[Nebbe] Larry's passion for kiting was born where many hobbies are discovered, on vacation. In 1999, he and his wife Kay were in Door County, Wisconsin. They wandered into a kite store looking to purchase a kite for their grandchildren.

[Larry Day] The kite shop owner helped me pick one out. And he said, well grandpa needs one too. So, I bought one -- theirs was about like this, it cost $12. Mine was about like this, it cost $35. And so, then I started looking around on the walls and there were some two-line kites. I said, $125? You've got to be crazy!

[Nebbe] Curiosity got the best of Larry. He returned to the store a few days later, bought one, flew it and was hooked.

[Larry Day] I name all my kites. This one is Red.

[Nebbe] By Christmas, he had a handful of two-line kites and the rest is history.

[Larry Day] I have a teddy bear, I have a blue whale that is 60 feet long, the manta ray is 90 feet long. And then I have some midsized kites. I have an octopus. I have a gecko.

[Larry Day] Some people always say, why don't you fly your kites higher? Well, you spend a lot of money for a big kite, you want it to look big.

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[Nebbe] Larry estimates that he has accumulated more than $40,000 worth of kites. And to him, it's worth it.

[Larry Day] It makes me smile. I'm relaxed. It makes me feel good. It has been a great hobby. I've gotten to go to a lot of festivals, meet a lot of good people.

[Nebbe] After years of flying at other festivals, Larry and Kay decided to start their own in Clear Lake.

[Larry Day] I looked at Kay, she looked at me. And I said, you know, we've got a lake. They have a lake. Let's have a kite festival. And so that's when we started, which was back in 2002 out at the state park. And it has just grown continually.

[Larry Day] There's my blue whale.

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[Nebbe] Color the Wind is more than a tourist attraction to the Days. It has also been a chance to express their love for the place they call home.

[Larry Day] An opportunity to give back to Clear Lake. It's been a wonderful community. I was a teacher and I see a lot of my kids come back to Clear Lake and they're very responsible citizens and it makes me feel good.

[Nebbe] Now, in their 80s, Larry and Kay don't fly as often as they used to. In 2022, they retired as organizers of the kite festival and turned over the reins to the Clear Lake Area Chamber of Commerce. But you'll still find him out on the lake marveling at the kaleidoscope of colors and creatures that dot the sky.

[Larry Day] You know, growing old is mandatory. But growing up is optional. So, I'm still a kid.

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[Nebbe] With countless gray days and frigid temperatures, sometimes it feels like winter in the Midwest is never going to end. For more than 20 years, winter weary Iowans have been looking to the sky over Clear Lake for a much-needed splash of color.

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[Nebbe] Soaring more than 100 feet above the treetops are kites of all shapes and sizes at the Color the Wind Kite Festival. And down on the ground, the thousands of attendees are walking, and sliding, on a frozen Clear Lake.

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[Nebbe] Stacy, everything about this festival seems risky to me. It's in the winter. The weather has to cooperate. The ice has to cooperate. Why do a crazy festival like this in February?

[Stacy Doughan] Well, I mean, Clear Lake is such a great summer destination and winter just gets long here in Iowa and it's gray and it's dingy. And this really just adds a spark of color and energy to what is otherwise a pretty dismal time around Iowa.

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There's a lot of fish out here today. I think that one is either a muskie or a pike right there. And the other one is probably a largemouth bass.

[Nebbe] For the most part, what you see here aren't the typical kites that you can buy from your local variety store. These kites can cost thousands of dollars apiece.

[Nebbe] How did you get into it?

[Mike Gee] I got into kites through an ad in the back of a magazine. And then I got this ad and it's like, I'm not paying $65 for a kite, there's no way. And then I finally said, I'm going to buy this kite, and it's been downhill ever since.

[Nebbe] I was going to say, $65 sounds pretty cheap I'm guessing for a lot of these kites.

[Mike Gee] 35 years ago.

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[Nebbe] What are the benefits of flying a kite in the winter?

[Mike Gee] So, good question. We have cleaner air in the wintertime because in the summertime the Earth is always heating and we always have thermals coming off the Earth. So, we always have warm air we have to contend with in the summertime. So, we get the best cleanest wind in the wintertime. Plus, bragging rights.

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[Mike Gee] These kites we're using a 4,000-pound line on them and the kites are like 20 feet wide, 100 feet long. They generate a lot of pull.

[Nebbe] With kites that big, pilots have to get creative with how they anchor them. And that's where a frozen lake comes in handy.

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[Mike Gee] We're about 20 inches deep here today, which is good. And then what I'm going to do is I'm just going to grab this two by four and we're going to just drop it in the hole and I'm going to grab this pusher. And what we've got to do is we've got to toggle that two by four up against the bottom of the ice. So, I'm just going to shove it down the hole here. Maybe the first try I can get it down.

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[Mike Gee] And there we're tied off.

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[Nebbe] Other kites at the festival are much smaller and are flown by stunt teams as part of choreographed routines.

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[Nebbe] You both fly different kinds of kites. Can you describe your kite for us?

[Mike Stephenson] Yeah, mine is a four-line kite and we use a banana-shaped handle with a line attached to each one of the handles. So, we have a controllability kind of like a skid steer almost, it's a forward reverse, we can turn on any direction.

[Nebbe] And describe your kite.

[Paul Koepke] The kites we fly are delta wing kites. They're similar to a hang glider. It's the same construction technique, only take that and shrink it down to about an eight foot wing span.

[Nebbe] Why do you do it?

[Paul Koepke] Well, it keeps us out of trouble for one. It's a lot of fun. It's like dancing with Mother Nature.

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[Nebbe] Why do you do it?

[Mike Stephenson] I think because the pure absolute enjoyment of it. I love being able to have some control of something that is uncontrollable. You can't decide what the wind is going to do or not do. You have to live with what it does. But gaining that control over it when there is no wind, when there is wind, we love to share our sport and the reactions of the crowds just make my day.

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[Nebbe] Larry, there are thousands of people out here. The forecast was pretty iffy but we have really a perfect day. What does it feel like for you looking at this celebration?

[Larry Day] I was smiling big time this morning when I got here about nine o'clock. It's just been a wonderful day so far. I'm not going to complain. The winds could be better. But I'm not complaining.

Come on, wind! Get up there!

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[Nebbe] For the festival organizers and pilots, Color the Wind isn't necessarily about the kites themselves, but about the joy those beautiful kites can bring.

Look over there! What's that one?

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[Nebbe] What do you think makes it so magical?

[Stacy Doughan] I think it's really the people. I love watching the joy on people's faces and all of the smiles. It's just, like I said, Iowa is kind of gray in the winter and so to see everybody so happy and to see all these bright kites in the sky, it's really a fun day.

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[Mike Gee] When I see all the kites up in the air, I am inspired because I'm just in awe. And I've been doing this for 35 years and I'm like, look at these kites! This is cool!

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[Larry Day] I don't care how old you are, 3 to 93, it's all about having fun, bringing smiles to people's faces. I just like families getting out here and having fun.

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[Nebbe] Local newspapers are a touchstone for many small communities. They're an important source for local information. And they also connect us to the people and ideas that are closest to us. Many of us can also confirm that it still feels like a pretty big deal to see our names or our kids' names in print. Since 2005, the United States has lost nearly a third of its local newspapers. Many communities are mourning that loss. But the papers in the communities of Mount Vernon, Lisbon and Solon have gotten a new lease on life.

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[Nebbe] Over the past two decades, the United States has lost over 3,000 newspapers, leaving nearly 55 million people without consistent local news coverage.

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[Nathan Countryman] As an editor of a small-town newspaper I'm wearing multiple hats. I am person writing a majority of the stories that come in the newspaper.

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[Nathan Countryman] Circulation of our newspaper is roughly 3,000 I want to say. People in these communities want to read about what is happening at their school boards, what is happening at their city councils, what is happening in their local schools. It's important to highlight what is going well in your community. It's important to highlight what needs improvement.

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[Nathan Countryman] Most of the comments I get in this community are, you seem to be everywhere in this community. You seem to be at all these different events. When do you ever sleep?

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[Nathan Countryman] Sure. I would definitely entertain it. It would be something I would be interested in reading.

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[Nebbe] Despite the challenges facing the journalism industry, the Daily Iowan, an independently run student newspaper at the University of Iowa saw an opportunity and purchased the Solon Economist and the Mount Vernon Lisbon Sun. The deal is a win-win. Students gain practical hands-on journalistic experience while the papers get help filling gaps in local news coverage.

Did we get photos for 80 hours?

[Jami Martin-Trainor] You can only do so much reporting and so much coverage when you're not allocated the proper resources. The Daily Iowan is a learning lab, so you don't really go in having this deep repertoire of knowledge. And so, when there is this support network and we're looking for people to get involved with these papers, it becomes a lot easier to broaden experiences and skills in a low stakes environment, but still getting published and actually reaching community members.

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Writing a profile story. So, the first thing you want to do is do your research on a subject --

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[Nebbe] Students in the School of Journalism take classes where they learn how to cover community news and high school sporting events.

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[Nebbe] With a little bit of editing, students earn bylines in the newspapers and some even have the opportunity to become interns.

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[Joel Kellar] I just spent the summer working with the Mount Vernon Lisbon Sun and the Solon Economist and I basically covered anything and everything that happened in those towns.

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[Joel Kellar] The best thing was they just kind of let me loose. The first couple of weeks they were like, all right, let's just see what he comes back with. So, that kind of forced me to be creative and tell stories in my own way and helped me find my voice.

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[Nathan Countryman] The first story I got back from Joel Kellar as an intern where he was covering the school board meeting is he had the nuts and bolts of the story, he had the things that were there. He was just missing quotes from people that were talking at that meeting of hey, this is what actually gives this a little bit more flavor, a little bit more life.

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[Joel Kellar] You can't really learn it other than going out into the field and learning how to adapt.

 

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[Emily Nyberg] Communities like Solon and smaller really tight knit communities, a lot of pride is placed in the people that come from those communities who are making an impact.

 

[Jami Martin-Trainor] People like to see themselves in the people that they're reading, which is why representation in journalism is so important and why community journalism is key to really show what is happening in these faces.

 

[Nathan Countryman] I think it goes back to helping build the community that you live in. These are the faces you know. These are the people that you encounter all the time. It's important to show just the variety of reporting we can do in newspapers.

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[Nebbe] In the Daily Iowan documentary workshop, students take a deeper approach to storytelling. Last year, they produced a story about a young Solon basketball player who became a Hawkeye. That story ran in both the Daily Iowan and the Solon Economist.

[Emily Nyberg] Callie Levin is a women's basketball player from Solon, Iowa. She currently plays for the Iowa women's basketball team. I met Callie during the project that the Daily Iowan documentary workshop did on the Iowa women's basketball team.

[Jami Martin-Trainor] It's right in our back yard and with the acquisition of the Solon paper we sort of had conversations about how we wanted to give that some real estate in print for the Daily Iowan and the Solon Economist.

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[Emily Nyberg] Seeing the parts of community and life that we know happens but we don't often get to see is really crucial to understanding the people around us.

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[Jami Martin-Trainor] We're getting into people's lives with their consent and permission, making them feel comfortable enough to spend time with us and give us that access so that we can tell this full, well-rounded story.

[Nathan Countryman] It's something I'm excited about seeing as well. What can we do with more students on the ground to help with our coverage?

[Joel Kellar] They want to put out good quality content. They want to put out content that educates their communities. People need this. And I enjoy it, so I want to provide it to the people. I want to educate the public as much as I can.

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[Jami Martin-Trainor] So, it has been great to have that support both from peers in the newsroom and our professional team to make sure that we're never settling for what could be a really good and well told story.

[Nathan Countryman] It helps me to have a reporter that I trust is reporting on those items.

[Emily Nyberg] When there's not the financial or personnel resources to do that, to have students and a student paper who are able to come in and provide that support so that those stories don't fall through the cracks and don't go unnoticed is really vital and it's something that I'm really honored to be able to be a part of.

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[Nebbe] Kids love to compete in all kinds of ways, in sports, in video games, to see how can go first or who can sit in the best seat. The Iowa Regional Braille Challenge harnesses that energy to celebrate the skills and determination of students who are blind or visually impaired.

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Braille is how I see the world.

I have the whole alphabet.

[Lincoln Sibley] I'm Lincoln. I'm in the fifth grade. I use Braille every day to figure out routes around my town.

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[Denise Bean] Braille is a way of reading. So, we read with our eyes, but low vision blind students read with their fingers. It's basically a code. And why it's important, because braille equals literacy. I am Denise Bean and I am the youth services librarian at the Iowa Library for the Blind and Print Disabled.

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[Denise Bean] So, this year marks the 25th anniversary of the Braille Challenge. We kicked off the Braille Challenge with a pep rally to recognize the participants and build the excitement. It was so joyful watching the smiles on all of their faces. There was a little bit of nerves involved. But they were so excited to be here.

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[Denise Bean] The theme this year for the Braille Challenge was Blast Off with Braille. And this year's theme was chosen by one of the contestants of the Braille Challenge.

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[Denise Bean] So, the Braille Challenge is actually organized by the Braille Institute. The testing rooms are kept very quiet. This is a time of testing, but PBS is allowed to come in and film during only the practice portion of the test. So, participants that are part of the Braille Challenge are from first to twelfth grade. And they have to be able to read and write braille. The contestants are tested in five braille fundamental areas, reading comprehension, spelling, speed and accuracy, proofreading and charts and graphs.

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Hi, my name is Jordyn. I got first place in the junior varsity group. I use braille every single day in my academic learning. I am super proud that I've gotten this far and that I've worked my hardest to achieve this prize. And I'm really happy that I did.

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[Denise Bean] So, while the participants are taking their test for the braille challenge, we offer parent sessions of the family members, one on setting those high expectations at school and one for setting high expectations at home.

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[Denise Bean] The apprentice and freshman group finished up early. So, we decided to add an extra activity just for fun. So, we asked them the question, what was their favorite part of the Braille Challenge? And then they responded in braille.

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[Lincoln Sibley] My favorite part of the Braille Challenge is to do the spelling test and talk to other blind students.

My favorite is to go to the award ceremony.

[Denise Bean] The top three students in each category are given an award. It is so thrilling as I pass out the trophies, I can feel their excitement just vibrate off of them.

[Aria] My name is Aria and I'm in second grade and I won the first-place trophy from the apprentice group. This is my second time doing the Braille Challenge and what I like about it is the challenge part.

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[Khanh] Hi, my name is Khanh. I am in fifth grade. I have been doing the Braille Challenge for five years now. This is a brand new 2025 first place sophomore trophy. Very happy to have it.

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[Jalyn] Well, I'm Jalyn. I actually one first place with the Braille Challenge in the varsity group, which is basically the top, they call it the grade level. So, it means it's the most difficult. The importance of braille in a blind person's life is basically like the importance of print in a sighted person's life. It's their written life basically.

[Denise Bean] The top 50 students in the nation, ten in each category with the highest scores are invited for the final round in Los Angeles.

[Nathan Deeds] I'm Nathan Deeds and I have competed in the Iowa Braille Challenge for six years and the Braille Challenge overall for twelve years. Actually, the first year I made it to finals was a big accomplishment for me. But then definitely the top moment has got to be the first time I won the varsity category at the finals contest out in California. It was really cool because that contest is open to students from across the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and Australia. I graduated high school. I am now currently a freshman at Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska where I am double majoring in accounting and business analytics with a minor in computer science. Braille has been absolutely critical to my life. I started learning braille when I was three and I really advanced through it pretty quickly.

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[Sarah Willeford] I am Sarah Willeford. I am the Library Director for the Iowa Library for the Blind and Print Disabled. On April 2nd, 2025, the Iowa Department for the Blind will be celebrating its centennial. And we thought the perfect way to kick off that whole year of celebration would be at the Braille Challenge. We had ice cream and cake and sang happy birthday to the Iowa Department for the Blind.

Happy birthday to you.

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[Sarah Willeford] So, we thought karaoke and making it accessible would be a fun addition to our ice cream social. We also provided the lyrics in braille for those who needed it. So, it was a great time.

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[Jasmine] My name is Jasmine. I am in third grade. Some advice I'd like to give to other people in the Braille Challenge is participate to actually do it. Hope. Hope for the best like I did.

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[Jasmine] Blast off with braille!

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[Nebbe] That's it for this week. Thank you for joining us as we reach for new heights, flex our mental muscles and chronicle our community's most valued achievements. I'm Charity Nebbe. See you next time for more Iowa Life.

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Funding for Iowa Life is provided by --

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The Pella Rolscreen Foundation is a proud supporter of Iowa PBS. Pella Windows and Doors strives to better our communities and build a better tomorrow.

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And by, the Lainie Grimm Fund for inclusive programming at the Iowa PBS Foundation.