GARDEN CITY, Kan. (AP) — One of Garden City’s biggest attractions is open for the summer.
KSNW-TV reports the city’s Big Pool is filled with more than 2 million gallons of water and ready to accommodate swimmers — hundreds of them, more than the populations of some Kansas towns.
Monica Colborn, aquatics director for the Garden City Recreation Commission, says the pool draws anywhere from 500 to 1,500 swimmers a day.
Dating to the 1920s, the pool is so big that as a promotional stunt, a small motorboat once pulled a couple of water skiers around the surface.
Western Kansas remains in a deep drought, but Garden City water superintendent Tony Hurtado says the pool isn’t really a water hog. Once it’s filled, the water is recycled and filtered.
Dr. Lorie Cook-Benjamin, assistant professor of teacher education at Fort Hays State University, and Casey Piene, special education teaching specialist for Wichita public schools, will present “Approaches to Classroom Management: Find What Works for You” on Monday, June 23, in Rarick Hall, room 201.
The workshop is sponsored by The Kansas Center for Innovative Education, an entity of the College of Education and Technology at FHSU. KCIE provides tools for creative and critical thinking in the fields of manufacturing, technology and education.
As a teaching specialist, Piene provides special education services for 19 elementary schools, facilitates the Multi-Tiered System of Supports and helps with behavioral supports. Her passion, she says, is the success of students through special education services and inclusive practices.
The workshop will share a variety of classroom management approaches from three educational theorists, Dr. Fred Jones, Dr. Spencer Kagan and Dr. Harry Wong.
While serving at the UCLA Medical Center, Jones developed methods of helping children with severe emotional disorders and began pioneering research into classroom management in both regular and special education classrooms. In the process, he has developed methods of classroom management that are both powerful and affordable for all teachers.
Kagan, a world-renowned author and keynote speaker in the field of education and psychology, developed the popular brain-based, cooperative learning and multiple intelligence structures like “Numbered Heads Together” and “Timed Pair Share,” which are used in classrooms worldwide. His main belief about behavior is that it should be established by using structures in order to prevent and redirect misbehavior.
Wong has written more than 30 publications, including a leading book in classroom management, “The First Days of School.” The majority of his work focuses on proactive approaches to preventing classroom management issues including defining the roles and responsibilities of everyone in the classroom, the students and the teacher.
Lunch and refreshments are included in the $90 workshop fee, due Monday, June 16. Registration for college credit should completed no later than Monday, June 2.
WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — Police in Wichita are looking for a burglar who made off with nearly $10,000 worth of stringed instruments from a music store.
KAKE-TV reports the break-in at Jim Starkey Music Center happened just before 6 a.m. Saturday. The suspect broke a front window, setting off an alarm.
Owner Dee Starkey says the burglar stole three student violins, four intermediate violins and a student cello. Some of the violins were valued at $1,700.
Starkey says he saw a suspicious man snooping around the store on Friday. Despite the loss, he says he’s grateful that no one was hurt and no guns were involved in the theft.
Photo courtesy Crabtree’s Once upon a soldier memorial facebook page
CLEARWATER, Kan. (AP) — A south-central Kansas man has found an unusual way to help veterans and honor fallen soldiers.
Philip Crabtree, of Clearwater, carved an intricately detailed fallen soldier sculpture out of red cedar. He takes the 4-foot sculpture enclosed in a glass case to funerals for military veterans, where he collects donations help retired veterans trying to make ends meet.
Crabtree, a Kansas National Guardsman, says he used to lead the Guard’s honor team, attending more than 450 funerals in three years. He told The Wichita Eagle that duty led him to find a way to help veterans. Many veterans are reluctant to admit they need help, and Crabtree says his efforts are aimed at those who need just a little help to pay a utility bill or buy some groceries.
KANSAS CITY, Kan. (AP) — Kansas City fire departments on both sides of the state line say they aren’t having much success in their efforts to diversify their ranks.
The Kansas City Star reports the most recent graduation of new Kansas City, Kansas, firefighters had only one woman and no African-Americans in a class of 26. That bothered Mayor Mark Holland, who says he’s looking for better ways to recruit candidates who more closely reflect the community they will serve.
Across the river in Kansas City, Missouri, Fire Department spokesman James Garrett says inner-city children have the impression that being a firefighter isn’t a viable option because of the lack of diversity they see at their neighborhood fire stations.
Holland says he doesn’t understand why kids aren’t clamoring for jobs with better-than-average pay.
WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — The Wichita aircraft parts maker created when Boeing Co. spun off its commercial airplane business is looking to expand its work for the military.
Spirit Aerosystems is a major supplier of fuselages and other components for planes built by Boeing and Airbus.
The Wichita Eagle reports the company is now working to market its expertise with metals and composites to contractors that build aircraft for the military. Phil Anderson, senior vice president of defense and contracts, said Spirit is exploring the potential of the unmanned aerial vehicle market and work on the F-35 fighter jet.
Aerospace analyst Richard Aboulafia says it’s a good strategy in the event of falling demand for commercial aircraft. He says the volume of Spirit’s commercial work gives it an advantage in pursuing defense work.
Fort Hays State’s Madison Wolf concluded a great freshman campaign on Saturday at the NCAA Division II Outdoor Track and Field Championships in Allendale, Mich. with a sixth-place finish in the women’s javelin. With that finish, she earned All-America honors for the 2014 season.
Wolf’s best effort came on her second throw of the competition, a throw of 153′ 7″. At that point in time, she was in second place behind Mary Riley of Central Missouri. She held that position through three attempts for all athletes, but the fourth attempt for three competitors pushed her back to fifth in the standings and then to sixth following the final attempts.
Sophomore teammates from Western Washington, Bethany Drake and Katie Reichert, finished first and second separated by just one inch. Drake threw 165′ 3″ and Reichert threw 165′ 2″. Riley of Central Missouri was third at 163′. The top four competitors all threw at least 160′.
Wolf adds the All-America honor after winning the MIAA Championship, topping Riley a few weeks back for the conference crown.
Wolf was one of two FHSU women to compete at the NCAA Championships. Samantha Woodburn had a pair of 14th-place finishes in the 100 and 200-meter prelims, Thursday and Friday. She was unable to qualify for the finals on Sunday.
Tien 10th in pole vault
Courtesy FHSU Athletics
Fort Hays State junior Brady Tien was the only member of the men’s track and field team to compete at the NCAA Division II Outdoor Track and Field Championships in Allendale, Mich. on Saturday. Tien finished 10th in the pole vault, tying the fifth-best height cleared but was 10th due to the amount of attempts needed to clear the height.
Tien stayed alive among the top 10 performers in the event by clearing his personal best height of 16′ 8.75″ on his third and final attempt at the height. He attempted to clear 17′ 0.75″, but was unsuccessful on three tries. Due to the ninth-place finisher clearing the first height in just one attempt and Tien taking two attempts, Tien slipped to 10th. The eighth-place finisher cleared 16′ 8.75″ on his second attempt and a pair that tied for sixth cleared it on their first attempt before all missing at the next height.
Jeff Pipenbrink of Pittsburg State won the national title in the event with a height of 17′ 4.5″.
Ellis County received a welcome spring shower Saturday afternoon, with reports of nearly a quarter-inch of rain in Hays.
Rainfall was heaviest in the western portion of the city with a report just northeast of Hays at only .03 inches.
The heaviest rainfall in the area was in southeast Russell County and central Thomas County, where weather spotters reported just more than a half-inch of precipitation.
The National Weather Service is calling for a chance of more rain Sunday and Monday.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration’s decision to allow more veterans to get care at private hospitals could take some pressure off backlogged Veterans Affairs facilities.
Many of them are struggling to cope with new patients from the wars on terrorism as well as soldiers from prior conflicts.
Agreeing to recommendations from lawmakers, the administration says it will allow more veterans to obtain treatment at private hospitals and clinics in an effort to improve care.
In a statement Saturday, Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki also said that VA facilities are enhancing capacity of their clinics so veterans can get care sooner.
Lawmakers from both parties have pressed for this policy change as the VA confronts allegations about treatment delays and falsified records at VA centers nationwide.
WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senator Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) – Ranking Member of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies – and U.S. Senator Mike Johanns (R-Neb.) – Ranking Member of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Financial Services and General Government –have asked U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to clarify how HHS will make certain taxpayer dollars are protected from waste and abuse when allocating subsidy payments through the Affordable Care Act (ACA) Exchanges. A May 16, 2014, Washington Post article indicates “the government may be paying incorrect subsidies to more than one million Americans for their health plans” through the Exchanges established under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.
“Americans are frustrated with the Department’s apparent lack of concern in implementing Obamacare in a timely and cost effective manner,” Sen. Moran said. “Since the roll out began, there has been one delay after another, huge cost overruns, and a general lack of transparency about where American taxpayer dollars are being spent. We have now learned that millions are being spent on incorrect subsidies — this is unacceptable. I will continue to demand accountability and transparency from the Administration so taxpayers aren’t on the hook for yet another Obamacare disaster.”
There’s been a lot of media discussion lately about the cost of food. Yes, the cost of food has gone up noticeably in the past couple of years. No, it probably isn’t going to get better anytime soon. I doubt that most folks understand everything that goes into the cost of the food that you buy at the grocery store.
Stacy Campbell is Ellis County agricultural agent with Kansas State Research and Extension.
One thing that we need to get straight, though, before we go any further is that roughly for every dollar you spend at the grocery store, about 12 cents ends up getting back to the farmer. It varies from product to product, but when you average it out over the whole grocery cart, it’s about 12 cents. That’s for what you buy in the grocery store. You don’t even want to know about the cost of your restaurant meals!
When you are dealing with growing plants and animals you are in for some challenges. Every homeowner and gardener knows that. The same thing goes for farmers and ranchers. But sometimes the impact on the price is a ways beyond the situation that created it. Drought, floods, temperature extremes all create challenges. Some farmers can irrigate their crops, but much of the land is non-irrigated or dryland farming.
In Kansas, we have around 21 or 22 million acres of cropland and about 3 million of that is irrigated. While irrigation can remove the risk of not enough moisture, it can’t do anything about high or low temperatures or too much rainfall during the growing season.
Just like you and I driving our cars, rising petroleum prices hit ag production and hit it hard. Tractors and other farm equipment use a lot of fuel. Most of the insecticides and herbicides are petroleum based. Much of the nitrogen that is used in fertilizer comes from natural gas. The trucks that haul the raw commodity to be processed, the equipment that processes the food and the trucks that get the food to the grocery store all use the same energy. So when oil and energy prices go up, expect an impact on food costs!
Farmers and ranchers, for the most part, don’t set the prices for what they sell. They are at the whims of the free market. The markets still respond to supply and demand. If there is a shortage in supply and demand remains constant, prices will go up. If there is a surplus of a commodity, price will go down. If you like bacon, you have noticed how it is costing more. There is a new pig disease making the rounds that is going to create a shortage in hogs going to slaughter. Pork prices are expected to increase more!
Parts or all of Kansas and many other regions of the country have been in a drought for the past three years or more. When there’s a drought, pastures don’t produce as much grass (or any in some cases) and alternate feeds for livestock also become short in supply. When this happens, ranchers sell off more cattle than normal and the breeding herd, those cows that have calves, shrinks meaning the supply of cattle to slaughter becomes smaller because of that lack of feed. Even when droughts are over and there’s more feed available, it takes two years to get a calf raised up to be a cow and have its first calf. That shortage will be around for a while!
Ultimately, we are spoiled in the US. As a population, we spend less of our paycheck on food, even with the recent increases, than any other country. Sure, the rising prices are going to hit some folks harder than others. Most of us will be looking for cheaper cuts of meat and probably not eating as much of some foods as we may like. But please remember that even still, we have the largest, safest and cheapest food supply of anywhere in the world!
Furthermore according to the Human Development Index is a comparative measure of life expectancy, literacy, education, standards of living, and quality of life for countries worldwide the USA is ranked third behind Australia and Norway. We indeed have much to be thankful for in this country.
Stacy Campbell is Ellis County agricultural agent with Kansas State Research and Extension.
WASHINGTON (AP) — A price-fixing investigation into the auto parts industry has mushroomed into the Justice Department’s largest criminal antitrust probe ever, and it’s not over.
The investigation was made public four years ago with FBI raids.
It’s led to criminal charges against dozens of people and companies, stretched across continents and reverberated through an industry responsible for supplying critical car components.
Thirty-four individuals have been charged and 27 companies have pleaded guilty or agreed to do so. Collectively, they’ve agreed to pay about $2.3 billion in fines.
A Justice Department official says it’s safe to say that U.S. car buyers paid more as a result of the conspiracy.
Officials say the investigation stands out for its scope and for the cooperation received from Japan, Australia and other countries.
GARDEN CITY, Kan. (AP) — One of Garden City’s biggest attractions is open for the summer.
