What is one thing 80 percent of employers in Illinois have in common?

In the past 10 years, they have hired a community college student.

What do nearly 1 million Illinois residents have in common each year?

They are taking classes at a community college.

What happens to nine out of 10 community college graduates in Illinois?

They stay in Illinois where they live, work, pay taxes and raise their families.

Community colleges equal opportunities:

·         Opportunities for high school students to earn college-credit while still in high school.

·         Opportunities for recent grads as well as adult learners to get an education and quickly enter the workforce.

·         Opportunities for businesses to hire local employees with specialized skills and training.

·         Opportunities for immigrants to learn English and become part of their new community.

"Our college simply does not exist apart from the communities we serve," says Dr. Thomas Baynum, Black Hawk College president.

"We are our community's college. The strength of a community college lies in the word 'community.' "

The month of April is designated as Community College Month. It is a time to celebrate a uniquely American institution, a place where anyone from any walk of life can become a college student.

This semester Black Hawk College is educating 5,570 college-credit students and more than 1,300 Adult Education students.

Across the college district, the college has students from approximately 50 countries. Some are beginning to learn English while others are pursuing associate degrees.

This summer Black Hawk College will host more than 1,000 elementary, middle and high school students through College for Kids, Digital Divas, softball and basketball camps, swim lessons and community education programs.

From the beginning, Black Hawk College has been here to serve the community. The college began in 1946 as Moline Community College to accommodate World War II veterans seeking higher education.

WEST DES MOINES- April 16, 2013 - The Marshalltown 1 Envirothon Team beat out 13 teams from around the state to win the 18^th annual Iowa Envirothon title at Springbrook State Park in Guthrie Center on Monday.  The Marshalltown team receives an expense-paid trip to participate in the Canon National Envirothon competition held at Montana State University in Bozeman, Montana, August 4-9.

Team members of the Marshalltown team include (from left to right): Sean Finn, Adam Willman, Joe Metzger, Emma Runquist, Abby Snyder and Coach Susan Fritzell.

The Envirothon is a program for Iowa high school students who want to learn more about natural resources and current environmental challenges. Teams are tested in wildlife, aquatics, forestry, soils and current issues. This year's current issues oral competition theme was grazing and rangeland management: livestock, grazing and long-term management for absentee land owners in Iowa.

Participating teams included: Des Moines FFA, Decorah Supafly, Nodaway Valley FFA, Alburnett FFA, Decorah Eagles, Waverly Shell Rock Sharptails, Marshalltown 2, Iowa City High Benthos, Columbus Junction FFA, Mediapolis, Glenwood 3, Charles City FFA Blue and Muscatine FFA.  The top FFA team title went to Des Moines FFA.

The Iowa Farm Bureau has sponsored the Iowa Envirothon since the program began in 1996.  Today Iowa Farm Bureau works in cooperation with several farm organizations to offer Iowa high school students the opportunity to compete and increase knowledge and awareness of our natural resources.

For the complete results, visit https://sites.google.com/a/cfu.net/iowa-envirothon/.

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About Iowa Farm Bureau

The Iowa Farm Bureau Federation is a grassroots, statewide organization dedicated to enhancing the People, Progress and Pride of Iowa.  More than 153,000 families in Iowa are Farm Bureau members, working together to achieve farm and rural prosperity.  For more information about Farm Bureau and agriculture, visit the Newsroom page on the IBF website at www.iowafarmbureau.com.

Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa today pressed the head of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to account for recent media reports stating that agency internal documents say agents have the ability to access taxpayer emails without warrants, despite a court opinion to the contrary.  Grassley questioned Steven T. Miller, acting commissioner, at a Finance Committee hearing this morning.   The media reports indicate the IRS has taken the position that it can access taxpayer emails without a warrant under the Electronic Communication Privacy Act.   While the Act does allow federal agencies to obtain electronic communications from a remote computing service without a search warrant, provided they are older than 180 days, this position is contrary to the 6^th Circuit's decision in U.S. v. Warshak. In Warshak, the court held that a search warrant is necessary to obtain any content of an email, regardless of age.  The Department of Justice has extended this policy to all circuits.   Grassley has long worked to expand taxpayer rights, winning approval of the first-ever Taxpayer Bill of Rights in 1988 and a sequel enacted in 1996.  The legislation codified rights and protections for taxpayers in dealing with the IRS after a series of abuses came to light and were the subject of congressional hearings.

Grassley made the following comment on the IRS' email access policy.

"The IRS has a very high burden to treat taxpayers within legal bounds and without abusive intrusion of privacy.  The agency's written materials suggest agents have the ability to access taxpayer emails without warrants.   Acting Commissioner Miller said today this isn't the agency position.  If it's not agency policy or practice, the IRS needs to clarify the true policy in writing, agency-wide.  That's critical.  But it's not enough.  The IRS also needs to explain its aggressive stance in internal documents about accessing electronic communications and whether it in fact accessed electronic communications without search warrants and if so, when and why.  The IRS has to take this issue seriously, and a casual explanation is inadequate.  I'll ask Acting Commissioner Miller follow-up questions on this issue to be answered in writing for the hearing record, as a start."

Not too long ago - just after World War II - few people in the United States brushed their teeth with any regularity. Now, the mere thought of going an entire day or night without brushing one's teeth is simply out of the question for most.

Hopefully, someday in the near future, a similar attitude will prevail regarding mental well-being, says Dr. Matt Mumber, an oncologist and author of "Sustainable Wellness: An Integrative Approach to Transform Your Mind, Body, and Spirit," (www.sustainablewellnessonline.com), coauthored by Yoga therapist Heather Reed.

"Human happiness and well-being are rudderless without awareness, which I define as the quality of paying attention to what's going on in the present moment from an inquisitive, nonjudgmental and focused perspective," he says.

An easy way to think of optimal wellbeing might be to envision a three-legged stool, says Reed.

"The three legs include physical activity, nutrition and that underappreciated component missing from too many Americans' lives - stress management, or a healthy mental state," she says.

After checking off a healthy diet and exercise from the list, how does one go about ensuring a healthy mind? Mumber and Reed say the key is mindfulness, which they define as paying attention on purpose, non-judgmentally and as though your life depended on it. Framed another way, mindfulness means focusing on something without trying to change it, like the sky holding passing clouds without clinging to them.

They describe the states necessary for attaining mindfulness:

• Beginner's mind is the ability to see things with new eyes. The Bible warns against putting new wine in old wine skins - doing so risks tainting the new stock. A beginner's mind opens people to the world of possibilities that exist in the present moment. That does not mean throwing away good ideas from the past; rather, it means to entertain new ideas with a truly open sensibility.

• Trust: Believe in your authority to know your own body, thoughts and feelings. We need to have the confidence necessary to trust that our thoughts and feelings at any given moment have value.

• Non-judging is the ability to see things for what they are, to hold an open and neutral place for whatever comes up within and around you, without thinking of anything as categorically better or worse than anything else.

• Patience is a willingness to continue with the process of paying attention on purpose even when it appears that no progress is being made. Learning and growing through mindful practice happens with time, and we can't force the outcome.

• Acceptance refers to allowing whatever comes up in the moment to be held in our field of awareness. This is not the same as giving up or being passive; acceptance is merely acknowledgement.

• Letting go is refusing to attach to specific thoughts, feelings or behaviors. This can feel like losing something, but every time we let go, we open ourselves to something new and, potentially, deeper.

• Non-striving: In our goal-oriented society, this may seem counterintuitive. However, non-striving refers only to practicing mindfulness without expectation of some future goal or dream, which helps us better live in the now.

"By having our three-legged stool firmly planted in awareness, we can drop into what we typically call a sense of spiritual wellbeing,' says Mumber.

About Matt Mumber, MD & Heather Reed

Matt Mumber, MD, is a practicing board-certified radiation oncologist with the Harbin Clinic in Rome, Ga. He completed his radiation oncology residency at Wake Forest University Bowman Gray School of Medicine and graduated from the Associate Fellowship Program in Integrative Medicine at the University of Arizona. Dr. Mumber is past president of the Georgia Society of Clinical Oncology. He founded Cancer Navigators Inc, a non-profit organization offering cancer patients access to nurse navigation, social services and educational programs to support and augment the clinical care they receive. Dr. Mumber received the Hamilton Jordan Founders Award for involvement in statewide oncology activities and in 2008 he was named a Health Care Hero by Georgia Trend magazine.

Heather Reed has been teaching Yoga since 1996. She expresses an integrative, adaptive approach and specializes in using Yoga and meditation techniques for people living with cancer, post-polio syndrome and other chronic illnesses. Heather received an Experienced Teacher Certification from Esther Myers Yoga Teacher Training Program and has had extensive training with senior staff of the Commonweal Cancer Help program and Dr. Dean Ornish's Program for Reversing Heart Disease. She developed Yoga classes for cancer patients at The Wellness Community, Atlanta. Since 2008, she has been Yoga teacher and co-facilitator for the Residential Retreat Program for Cancer Navigators of Rome, Ga.