Free Republic

For nearly 30 years, customers stepped through the door of Book Carnival and into a world created by owner Ed Thomas, a place where hard-boiled detectives, tea-sipping sleuths and cagey cops pursued killers, cons and creeps. Fictionally, of course. Thomas was almost always behind the counter, open book in hand (he read the way other people breathe) surrounded by stacks of the just-finished and the about-to-begin.

(NEW YORK - June 30, 2009) - This week's July 6, 2009, issue of SPORTS ILLUSTRATED, on newsstands tomorrow, features Ed Thomas, head football coach at Aplington-Parkersburg (Iowa) High School, with the billing A GOOD MAN DOWN - TRAGEDY IN THE HEARTLAND: THE MURDER OF A BELOVED HIGH SCHOOL COACH. It was Thomas who had led the townspeople of Parkersburg out of the rubble of a tornado last year, showed them how to live a Christian life and brought honor to a football field he mowed himself. What they can't understand is why Thomas was gunned down by a former...

PARKERSBURG, Iowa — Police say a 24-year-old man charged with murdering a prominent Iowa high school football coach was supposed to have been taken to a hospital psychiatric ward after leading police on a car chase. Cedar Falls Police Chief Jeff Olson says he was told Butler County Sheriff's deputies would take Mark Becker to the ward after taking a baseball bat to a Cedar Falls home and leading police on a chase Saturday night. The Sheriff's Office declined to comment on whether deputies took Becker to the ward. Olson says Becker was released from custody at some point but...

Police have charged a 24-year-old former player in the fatal shooting of a prominent Iowa high school football coach.