On a very hot summer day, Russell residents have to look for another way to stay cool.
The Russell Municipal Pool is closed today, June 26, for repairs.
Officials expect it will re-open tomorrow, June 27, with normal operating hours. However, there will be no private swimming lessons prior to the 12noon opening time.
The Kansas wheat harvest is about 50 percent complete.
Ellis County is in full swing, according to KSU Extension Agriculture Agent Stacy Campbell:
Trace Adkins has been in Birmingham, AL this past month shooting the new movie, Mom’s Night Out. He plays the tough guy Bones in the movie, but Trace insists he’s not that much of an actor.
He tells The Birmingham News, “The best acting job I do is when I get to the set and the first couple days I’m on the set, convincing the director I know what I’m doing. That’s the best acting job that I do. Once I pull that one off, the rest of it’s easy.”
Trace helps a woman find her missing baby in Mom’s Night Out. Sean Astin, Patricia Heaton and Sarah Drew of Grey’s Anatomy fame also appear in the film.
Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio
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(AP) – Another class action lawsuit has been filed against seed giant Monsanto over last month’s discovery of an isolated field of genetically engineered wheat in Oregon.
Dan Brown, a wheat farmer in Seward County, sued Monsanto Tuesday on behalf of himself and potentially thousands of other growers.
It is at least the third lawsuit filed against St. Louis-based Monsanto over the release of the experimental wheat. Kansas farmer Ernest Brown individually sued the company earlier this month. A class action lawsuit was also filed in Washington this month on behalf of growers of soft white wheat.
Monsanto reiterated that none of the genetically modified wheat entered the commercial market. The company said that given the care undertaken no legal liability exists and it vowed to present a vigorous defense.
The Kansas Corporation Commission (KCC) named Kim Christiansento the post of Executive Director today.
Chairman Mark Sievers says Christiansen will work with KCC’s three-member commission to oversee the agency’s operations, including the headquarters in Topeka, Conservation Division in Wichita, and four Conservation district offices across the state. The KCC employs 206 professionals.
Christiansen leaves her position of Assistant Secretary and Chief Counsel for the Kansas Department of Agriculture to join the KCC.
Prior to the Kansas Department of Agriculture, Christiansen served as General Counsel for the Kansas Water Office.
Christiansen has served as the Director of Human Resources for the Dodge City Public Schools; General Counsel and Executive Assistant to the President of Fort Hays State University; Instructor at the College of Business and Leadership at Fort Hays University where she taught courses in employment law; and, an attorney in private practice. She also holds an FHSU Bachelors degree.
The KCC regulates five cornerstone industries in the Kansas economy and has the responsibility of ensuring that natural gas, electricity, telephone, and transportation vendors provide safe, adequate, and reliable service at reasonable rates. The KCC also has the mandate of assuring oil and gas producers protect correlative rights and environmental resources.
Carrie Underwood has joined Garth Brooks and Ronnie Dunn in the lineup for Toby Keith‘s Oklahoma Twister Relief Concert on July 6 in Norman, OK. Due to her previously scheduled Grand Ole Opry performance that night, Carrie, who is an Oklahoma native, will perform via satellite from the Opry House in Nashville.
Trisha Yearwood and Willie Nelson are among the previously announced performers lined up for the benefit concert. Tickets are sold out, but anyone can donate $10 to the relief effort by texting REBUILD to 52000. Proceeds will go to the United Way of Central Oklahoma May Tornadoes Relief Fund.
Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio
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Hays Post News
Kansas motorists greeted by falling gas prices in advance of holiday travel
Topeka, KS (June 26) – AAA projects 15.3 percent of the population from Kansas and six other West North Central states* will travel at least 50 miles from home for Independence Day, compared to 12.9 percent of the U.S. population. A .9 per cent decline, to 3.19 million travelers in the region, is forecast by AAA. Most, nearly 87 percent, will travel by automobile. The anticipated decline in holiday travel is mainly thanks to a shorter holiday period. With the Fourth of July landing on a Thursday this year, the holiday period has returned to the standard five days, compared to six days in 2012 when the holiday fell on a Wednesday.
Gas prices have fallen precipitously over the past month in Kansas, as gasoline supplies have improved with help from refineries in the Gulf of Mexico and some of 
the refinery issues in the Midwest have been resolved. The average price of unleaded gasoline in Kansas is $3.48, nine cents lower than a week ago and 38 cents lower than a month ago. Still, the Kansas average today is four cents higher than a year ago at this time.
“Independence Day has historically been the busiest holiday of the summer travel season and we expect that trend to continue this year,” said AAA Kansas spokesman Jim Hanni. “We expect to see the highest traffic volumes on Wednesday as folks get away and next Sunday as they head home.”
Highlights from AAA’s 2013 Independence Day Travel Forecast:
The owner of T-Bone’s Sports Bar and Grill in Hays pleads no contest to aggravated arson for a fire that heavily damaged the popular bar and heavily damaged six other businesses last October.
Benjamin Michael Butler entered the plea Tuesday in Ellis County District Court.
Investigators say the blaze apparently started after Butler left a candle burning when he left the business.
Based on the state’s sentencing guidelines, “Mike” Butler likely will be sentenced to two year’s probation under the supervision of community corrections and to make restitution of nearly $350,000 to six other businesses damaged by the October 9th fire in the Centennial Shopping Center.
Surveillance video showed a person enter and leave T-Bones prior to the fire being reported. That person was wearing clothing similar to what Butler had on when he arrived at the fire scene.
Jeff Chesnut allowed one run over seven innings as he picks up his second win of the season, leading the Hays Larks to a 7-1 victory over Dodge City Tuesday night at Larks Park. The Nebraska product struck out three and walked one moving to 2-1 on the year. Dalton Viner and David Owen each pitched a perfect inning of relief as the Larks move to 17-3 overall and 13-3 in the Jayhawk League.
Clayton Garland, Brett Lang and Desmond Roberts all had two hits with Garland and Lang both driving in two.
Jake Placzek gave them a 1-0 lead with an RBI single in the fourth. Hays would score three in the fifth on a Mackenzie Handel groundout and a Brett Lang two-run double. Clayton Garland knocked in two runs with a single in the sixth then Zair Koeiman closed out the scoring with a sac fly in the seventh.
The Larks continue their season-long seven-game homestand on Wednesday in a non-league games with the Boulder Collegians. First pitch at 7pm with free admission courtesy of Western Beverage and Emprise Bank.
Jayhawk League scores from Tuesday…
Derby 14, Wellington 3
Liberal 10, Boulder 3
The Hays Eagles Senior American Legion split their doubleheader with Dodge City Tuesday night at Hays High School, dropping the opener 11-3 then coming back to take the second game 5-3. The Eagles are now 12-11 on the season. They play the Hays Monarchs Friday at Larks Park.
Game 1: Dodge City 11, Hays 3 (6 innings)
Dodge led 7-2 after four innings then put the game away with a run in the fifth and three in the sixth. Brady Bieker allowed seven runs, four earned, on nine hits over the first four innings and takes the loss. The Eagles scored on a Dan Bittel RBI single in the first. Jake Sedbrook drove in a run with a single in the fourth then Kyler Niernberger homered in the sixth.
Game 2: Hays 5, Dodge City 3
The Eagles scored three in the first, one in the second and one in the fourth. Layne Downing hit a two-run triple to get the Eagles on the board. Clayton Basgall tripled and scored in the second then scored again in the fourth on an error. Basgall also recorded the final out with runners and first and second for the save. Cameron Klaus didn’t allow a run on two hits over four innings of relief to get the win.
The typical Miller Moths that many Western Kansas families have seen in the past two summers, are not evident this year.
During the summer the army cutworms hide out under rocks in high, cool mountain slopes. In the fall, the moths return to the plains and lay their eggs in the soil near germinating cool season grasses, like wheat. Yet this summer, the moths are nowhere near the numbers they were the last few years.
“It’s hard to pin down one cause,” says J.P. Michaud the Associate Professor of Entomology at Kansas State University. The moths experience many different mortality factors at every stage of their life cycle from egg to winged adult. Up in the cool mountains, the adults are a major food source for grizzly bears. Disease in the soil can also be a factor for larvae and weather patterns can affect where moths arrive to lay their eggs. Because of their complex life cycle and migratory habits, the low numbers could be due to many factors.
“If there’s a big population, odds are next year won’t be as big.” Your home may still see the moths hovering around porch lights, but in no way is this year looking to bug you.
Tuesday’s harvest activity in the region was similar to Monday according to the staff at Midland Marketing’s downtown Hays location.
They took in about 5-6,000 bushels with an average moisture of 10 and test weights primarily in the 60s. Their Yocemento location reported receiving about 80 loads of wheat with test weights on average in the 60s.
The Golden Belt elevator in Ellis told Hays Post they had received 100 truckloads of wheat on Tuesday with an average of 57-62 test weight and moisture near 10.
Caleb at Cargill in Trego County told Hays Post they expected to have harvest in “full swing” by the end of the week. They took in approximately 60,000 bushels on Tuesday and had heard of several 40-50 bushel an acre wheat in their area.
Monday evening thunderstorms swept across areas of northern and central Kansas, slowing progress of the 2013 wheat harvest. Still, many farmers are harvesting away in areas of western and southern Kansas.
It is an abysmal harvest in Clark County, with yields ranging from 5 to 10 bushels per acre and a large number of wheat acres abandoned. Dave Strecker, manager at the Minneola Co-op in Minneola says test weight averages about 57 pounds per bushel, but no protein samples have been received yet. He expects to harvest less than 10% of a normal crop; this following a short crop last year, too.
Kansas Wheat Commission chairman Ron Suppes says harvest is in full swing in Lane County. He has harvested two fields of Foundation white wheat, with Clara yielding 43 bushels per acre and averaging 59.5 pounds per bushel; Danby averaged about 43 bushels per acre with 62 pound per bushel test weight. Suppes also harvested a field of Danby that yielded 25 bushels per acre but had a 63 pound per bushel test weight. Suppes says it appears that Danby is handling drought better than some of the other hard white wheat varieties.
Donnie Pound with the Kanza Coop in Stafford says farmers are reporting better than anticipated yields, with ranges from 40 to 60 bushels per acre and test weights ranging from 60 to 64 pound per bushel. The co-op doesn’t do protein samples. Pounds expects an average crop in the area, but with harvest just starting, there is room for improvement.
Steve Morris with the Andale Farmers Co-op in Andale, says harvest is about 40% complete in the cooperative’s trade territory. Farmers report yields ranging from 50 to 80 bushels per acre, 62 pound test weight and less than 1/2 of one percent dockage. Protein is 11 to 11.5. As of Tuesday afternoon, the cooperative has taken in 1.3 million bushels; Morris anticipates this year’s crop will exceed the 2.8 million taken in last year. In a week, harvest will be wrapping up.
Wheat harvest got started in Morris County yesterday and the crop is dryer and better than Wilsey-area farmer Lawrence Strouts expected. He reports yields as high as 60 bushels per acre; test weights are 60 pounds per bushel, and no protein values are available yet. He says the best is yet to come, and if it wasn’t for rain Monday night they would be cutting today.
The 2013 Harvest Report is brought to you by the Kansas Wheat Commission, Kansas Association of Wheat Growers and sponsors Kansas City Board of Trade, and the Kansas Grain & Feed Association.
