Homers -- What's going right

GIVING BACK: Longtime Cedar Rapids residents Bill Hood, former director of the Jane Boyd Community House and the first black teacher at Mount Mercy College, and his wife, Gwendolyn, former Mercy Medical Center employee, have established three $1,000 college scholarships for black students. First winners will be named at the African American Museum of Iowa banquet on April 28.

lll

SPARKING INTEREST: Several University of Iowa football players are taking an hour every Wednesday for five weeks to read with students at Iowa City's Grant Wood and Mark Twain elementary schools as part of the Hawkeye Readers program, a partnership of the UI football program, the City of Literature USA and the schools since 2010.

lll

DEDICATED SWIMMER: Fewer than 900 swimmers worldwide have ever navigated the English Channel without taking a break or wearing a wet suit. Cheyanne Boddicker, 27, a Tipton High School

graduate, recently became the first Iowa woman to do so. State legislators honored her for the endurance feat as well as raising more than $15,000 for the UI's Holden cancer center.