Amana -The Old Creamery Theatre Company and Fireside Winery are once again teaming up to offer an evening of live, professional theatre coupled with a wonderful dinner. The Old Creamery's production of Educating Rita, by Willy Russell, will be performed Thursday evening, Aug. 26 at Fireside Winery, 1755 P. Ave., Marengo.

Featuring Tom Milligan and Deborah Kennedy, Educating Rita tells the story of a working class wife trying to better herself with an education and a professor whose outlook on life is bleak ...until Rita becomes his student that is. Through her, the professor learns that life can still bring surprises and sometimes the student is the better teacher. In addition to the show, Fireside Winery will be serving a delicious dinner at 6:30 p.m., prior to the 8 p.m. show. The menu consists of shrimp seafood pasta, beef medallions in De Burgo Sauce, augratin potatoes, roasted seasonal vegetables, assorted salads and
strawberry shortcake.

Cost for the entire evening of dinner and entertainment is $40 per person or $75 per couple. Reservations for dinner and the show can be made by calling Fireside Winery at 319-662-4222.

The Old Creamery Theatre and Fireside Winery are offering one more dinner theatre with Talley's Folly to be performed on Sept. 23.

Old Creamery Theatre Company is a not-for-profit professional theatre founded in 1971 in Garrison, Iowa. Voted #1 Theatre Group on the 2010 KCRG A-List, the company is celebrating 39 years of bringing live, professional theatre to the people of Iowa and the Midwest.

###

FIVE YEARS AFTER KATRINA, REPORT REVEALS IOWA UNPREPARED TO PROTECT CHILDREN DURING DISASTERS

Save the Children's U.S. Programs reveals Iowa missing four key safeguards for children in disasters

Note: report is available at http://www.savethechildren.org/publications/reports/2010-Disaster-Report.pdf

Washington, D.C., July 22, 2010?Almost five years after Hurricane Katrina, a new report reveals that Iowa meets zero out of four minimum criteria for protecting children in disasters.  Ninety percent of U.S. children live in an area at risk of a natural disaster, and terrorists can strike anywhere.  Iowa lacks basic protections for kids such as requiring all licensed child care centers to have a plan to reunite children with their families or requiring them to have plans for children with special needs.

The report is the second disaster preparedness report released by Save the Children's U.S. Programs.  The 2010 year report found that 38 states and the District of Columbia did not meet all four basic criteria and that Iowa was one of seven states to meet zero criteria.

Hurricane Katrina demonstrated what can happen when children are not accounted for in disaster planning:

· 5,192 children were reported missing after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, and the last child was not found until six months later.

· About 50,000 Louisiana and Mississippi children missed school in the 2005-2006 school year and approximately 15,000 did not attend in the 2006-2007 school year.

· More than a third of Louisiana children experienced clinically-diagnosed depression, anxiety, or another behavior disorder after the storm.

"Five years after Hurricane Katrina, it is unacceptable for states to ignore these low-cost and common-sense safeguards for kids," said Mark Shriver, Save the Children U.S. Programs Senior Vice President. "There are 67 million kids in school or child care on any given day in the U.S., separated from their families and dependent on the government to ensure protections.  The most vulnerable Iowans in the most vulnerable settings are made more vulnerable because of government inaction."

Currently, 12 states meet all four standards, which is five more than in the 2009 report.  All five states that qualified in 2010 for the first time worked with Save the Children's U.S. Programs to meet the standards and, in many cases, adopted the exact same language as outlined in the 2009 report.

Commissioned by Save the Children and conducted by Brown Buckley Tucker, the report reviewed four key standards identified by Save the Children: plans for evacuation, reunification with families and evacuation for special needs kids at child care facilities, as well as evacuation plans at schools.

Save the Children urges the adoption of all four standards by states as well as federal passage of the Child Safety, Care, and Education Continuity Act of 2010 (H.R. 5240/S. 2898), which would require states to adhere to many of the same standards..  Congresswoman Corrine Brown (D-FL) is the sponsor of the House legislation, and Senators Mary Landrieu (D-LA) and Lamar Alexander (R-TN) are the sponsors of the Senate measure.

FALLS CHURCH, Va. - TRICARE's Smoking Quitline is now accepting calls! All non-Medicare eligible TRICARE beneficiaries within the U.S. can get assistance with going "smoke-free" by calling the toll-free quitline 24 hours a day, seven days a week, including weekends and holidays.

Beneficiaries residing in the TRICARE South Region can reach the quitline at 877-414-9949.  Beneficiaries living in the North Region can call 866-459-8766 and those living in the West Region can call 866-244-6870.

TRICARE's Smoking Quitline is a telephone support and referral service. Beneficiaries who call will be assessed and receive guidance for a smoking cessation plan that fits their unique smoking habits. Cessation materials can also be provided through U.S. mail upon request.

Although the new TRICARE Smoking Quitline is geared toward smoking cessation only, any TRICARE beneficiaries who want to quit using tobacco, including the smokeless kind, can get support through the Department of Defense's comprehensive and award-winning Quit Tobacco website, www.ucanquit2.org.

Ucanquit2 offers interactive, Web-based tobacco cessation training along with live, real-time encouragement from trained tobacco cessation coaches via the 24/7 "chat" feature. Users also have the opportunity to exchange information through the website's blog and electronic bulletin board and link to the website's Twitter, Facebook, MySpace and YouTube pages. 

Many military treatment facilities offer smoking cessation programs and beneficiaries should check locally for more information on those programs. A military treatment facility locator is at www.tricare.mil/mtf.

Medicare eligible beneficiaries are reminded they may be eligible for smoking cessation benefits through Medicare Part B.  Check for more information at www.medicare.gov.

ROCK ISLAND, IL (06/01/2010)(readMedia)-- Neil Friberg of Rock Island, Ill., will be one of two Augustana students to perform the play, "A Prairie Planting," commemorating the 150th anniversary of the formation of the Scandinavian Evangelical Lutheran Augustana Synod. The free and public event will take place Saturday, June 5, 2010 at 3 p.m. at Jefferson Prairie Lutheran Church in Poplar Grove, Ill.

The short play gives a glimpse into the meeting that led to the signing of the synod's constitution. It includes the perspective of a college student conducting a practice run on a senior research project about ethnicity in 19th-century Protestantism while Lars Esbjorn, Augustana's first president, looks on to help her with the facts. Friberg, a sophomore general studies major, will perform the role of Esbjorn. Dorothy Williams, a sophomore general studies major from Melrose Park, Ill., will play the role of the college student.

The observation of the founding will include the play as well as a signing of the sesquicentennial compact by President Steven Bahls, Augustana College, Rock Island, Illinois; President Rob Oliver, Augustana College, Sioux Falls, South Dakota; and ELCA Director of Colleges and Universities Rev. Mark Wilhelm. The three will sign sesquicentennial compact at the same table used to sign the original constitution creating the Augustana Synod.

"One of our chief aims in planning for the observance of the Augustana sesquicentennial was to celebrate and teach the history of the college," said Steven Bahls, president of Augustana College in Rock Island. "As we've done so, we have gained a rich appreciation for the courage and vision of the founders of the school, and for the firm foundation that they left us. We are humbled by the opportunity to return to Jefferson Prairie 150 years later, to honor our founders and the hundreds of faculty and staff members over the years who advanced Augustana to become one of the nation's top liberal arts colleges."

The Scandinavian Evangelical Lutheran Augustana Synod was established in North America in 1860. A group of Swedish Lutheran pastors-Jonas Swensson, Lars Paul Esbjorn, Tuve Hasselquist, Eric Norelius and Erland Carlsson-developed the Augustana Synod during a meeting from June 5-8 at the Jefferson Prairie Settlement near Clinton, Wisconsin.

The synod consisted of Swedish, Norwegian and Danish members. The Norwegian and Danish left ten years later to form their own church bodies. In 1894 the name was changed to Evangelical Lutheran Augustana Synod in North America and then again in 1948 to the name Augustana Evangelical Lutheran Church. The synod is credited with founding seven liberal arts colleges, including Augustana College in Rock Island, and today is part of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

Jefferson Prairie Lutheran Church is located about seven miles east of Interstate 90's Beloit exit.

About Augustana: Founded in 1860 and situated on a 115-acre campus near the Mississippi River, Augustana College is a private, liberal arts institution affiliated with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA). The college enrolls 2,500 students from diverse geographic, social, ethnic and religious backgrounds and offers more than 70 majors and related areas of study. Augustana employs 287 faculty and has a student-faculty ratio of 11:1. Augustana continues to do what it has always done: challenge and prepare students for lives of leadership and service in our complex, ever-changing world.