Page 12 - 072817

Groton Daily Independent
Friday, July 28, 2017 ~ Vol. 25 - No. 028 ~ 12 of 54
Iowa, Oklahoma and Texas also have areas of drought with stressed crops and livestock beginning to surface.
Corn and soybean conditions in Iowa deteriorated slightly over the previous week although 68 percent of the state’s corn and 62 percent of soybeans remained in good or excellent condition, a USDA crop update released Monday said.
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This version of the story corrects that North Dakota is the second largest producer of wheat generally, not winter wheat.
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Blake Nicholson contributed to this report from Bismarck, North Dakota.
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Construction to begin on $150M ethanol plant in South Dakota
ONIDA, S.D. (AP) — Construction is scheduled to begin next month on a $150 million ethanol plant in central South Dakota after three years of development and fundraising.
Construction on the Ringneck Energy plant ran into numerous delays due to legal, nancial and regula- tory hurdles. The company had fought hard to attract investors, holding dozens of meetings across the region and outside the state.
President and CEO Walt Wendland also hired attorneys to battle a handful of Onida residents who didn’t want the plant across the road from their homes.
Wendland said those battles are in the past and that the project’s equity drive ends Friday. He said the drive has raised $85 million, enough capital to attract nancing to get the plant built and operating.
Wendland said that Onida originally was chosen as the facility’s location due to the availability of natural gas, water, electricity and the railroad as well as the potential for abundant corn.
City and Sully County of cials said the plant will bring great economic bene ts, as well as more people, to the community.
The plant will use 25 million bushels of corn per year to produce ethanol as well as the by-product of distillers’ grain that can be used as valuable livestock feed.
Construction is scheduled to begin Aug. 14, with the work expecting to up late next year.
3rd person dies after car hits pedestrians outside center
ALCESTER, S.D. (AP) — A third person has died of injuries suffered when an 81-year-old woman drove a car into a group of residents and an employee outside a care center in southeast South Dakota, the state Department of Public Safety said Thursday.
Pearl “Tex” Sowell, 95, was a resident at the Alcester Care and Rehab Center and died Thursday of his injuries, of cials said. He was among seven people hit outside the center Monday when Patricia Berg, of Alcester, unintentionally hit the gas pedal instead of the brakes when she pulled into the driveway, inves- tigators said.
Another resident, Marcene Gabel, 79, and a center employee, Jenna Benzel, 31 were also killed. Berg and another center resident, Lois Sundstrom, 86, remained hospitalized. No charges have been led against Berg. Three others who were injured have been released from hospitals, public safety of cials said.
Cindy Gabel tells the Argus Leader (http://argusne.ws/2u1jQ0I ) her mother was someone who always took care of others before herself. She worked in patient care and rehab at the center for about 25 years before becoming a resident in 2015, Cindy Gabel said.
“My mom was a reserved woman and was a hard worker. She never took much time for herself,” said Gabel. “She was always taking care of everything and everyone.”
A funeral service for Benzel, a wife and mother of three, was held Thursday at Trinity Lutheran Church