The Missouri Department of Transportation dedicated the bridge on East Stadium Drive crossing over Interstate 435 in Jackson County as the “Len Dawson Bridge” in honor of the Super Bowl winning, Hall of Fame quarterback. This ceremony will officially honor Dawson’s bridge dedication. The dedication will take place at 10 a.m. Friday.
In 1962 Dawson joined the Dallas Texans, who became the Kansas City Chiefs the next year, and led the franchise to its first AFL Championship in a double overtime victory over the Houston Oilers. Under his guidance, the Chiefs were perennial contenders and won the AFL Championship in 1962, 1966 and 1969. Dawson was the MVP of Super Bowl IV when he directed Kansas City to a 23-7 victory over the heavily-favored Minnesota Vikings.
Dawson was selected to play in six AFL All-Star games and the 1972 AFC-NFC Pro Bowl. An All-AFL selection in both 1962 and 1966, he was named the AFL Player of the Year in 1962. During his career, he completed 2,136 of 3,741 passes for 28,711 yards and 239 touchdowns. He also rushed for 1,293 yards before retiring after the 1975 season.
Dawson’s storied playing career was preserved by Kansas City in 1979 when he was inducted into the Chiefs Hall of Fame. In 1987, his legacy was then immortalized with his enshrinement into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
After his playing career, Dawson became a nationally known sportscaster. He was a host of the groundbreaking show “Inside the NFL” on HBO during 1978-2001; a game analyst for NBC for several years; served as sports director at KMBC-TV, starting in his playing days from 1966 to 2011; and has been the analyst for Chiefs radio broadcasts since 1984.
In 2012, Dawson was awarded the Pro Football Hall of Fame’s Pete Rozelle Award for Radio-Television, joining Dan Dierdorf and Frank Gifford as the only individuals in the Hall of Fame as both players and broadcasters.
This memorial designation became effective Aug. 28th.
Jason Hooper, president of KVC Hospitals, a subsidiary of the Olathe-based KVC Health Systems.-Photo by Dave Ranney
By Dave Ranney
KHI News Service
TOPEKA — A coalition of behavioral health programs will receive a $1 million grant for services aimed at reducing the number of people with severe mental illnesses being referred to Osawatomie State Hospital or finding their way into the state’s correctional system, Kansas Department for Aging and Disability Secretary Kari Bruffett said Wednesday.
The grant will help the coalition provide crisis services in south-central Kansas, including the Wichita area, according to KDADS. The coalition includes mental health and substance abuse programs in Butler, Cowley, Sedgwick and Sumner counties.
The grant, a one-time allocation, is part of a $9.5 million mental health initiative announced by Gov. Sam Brownback in May.
Addressing a meeting of the Kansas Mental Health Coalition on Wednesday, Bruffett said the coalition’s services may prove to be similar to those at Rainbow Services Inc. (RSI), a Kansas City-based program that since April, according to KDADS data, has kept more than 250 would-be patients out of Osawatomie State Hospital and more than 60 out of jail.
“On the ground, the coalition’s model may look very different from that of RSI,” she said. “But the goals will be very similar.”
RSI is housed in the former Rainbow Mental Health Facility building near the University of Kansas Medical Center.
KDADS converted the state-owned inpatient facility to a privatized detox and crisis stabilization unit earlier this year, contracting with the community mental health centers in Johnson and Wyandotte counties and the Heartland Regional Alcohol and Drug Assessment Center.
The grant-funded services also are intended to offset the community mental health centers’ costs of caring for the uninsured, Bruffett said.
ComCare, the community mental health center in Sedgwick County, will administer the grant on behalf of the coalition.
Eventually, Bruffett said, the two initiatives – RSI and the south-central Kansas coalition – will give KDADS a “better idea” on where to invest state resources in the future.
In recent weeks, record numbers of patients have been admitted to Osawatomie State Hospital despite the RSI-fueled reductions in referrals from Johnson and Wyandotte counites.
Caring for patients in a state hospital setting is significantly more expensive than caring for them in community-based settings.
Several coalition members expressed support for RSI but raised concerns about unofficial reports that KDADS had disbanded its “Hospital to Home Transformation Work Group,” a long-standing advisory committee charged with helping the department define the mission of the state hospitals in Osawatomie and Larned and respond to issues affecting admissions and discharges.
Bruffett said the committee’s role had been delegated to the Governor’s Behavioral Health Planning Council, which has several subcommittees assigned to topics affecting the state hospitals.
“There is no intention to say that these topics don’t need to be talked about,” she said. “They’re what the planning council is talking about.”
Coalition members also heard an informational presentation by Jason Hooper, president of KVC Hospitals, a subsidiary of the Olathe-based KVC Health Systems.
VC Hospitals owns and operates two inpatient mental health facilities for children, ages 6 to 18, on behalf of the state: Prairie Ridge Hospital, with 49 beds, in Kansas City, and Wheatland Hospital, with 24 beds, in Hays.
Hooper said that in the fiscal year that ended July 1, the two hospitals admitted 2,393 children. The average patient age was 13.5, and their average length of stay was six to seven days.
At Prairie Ridge, he said, a third of the patients are in foster care, a third are private referrals and a third are from out of state, primarily Missouri.
Three-fourths of the patients at Wheatland are private referrals while a fourth are in foster care.
The hospitals, Hooper said, are seeing ever-rising numbers of children with suicidal intentions, “substance issues that require detox,” or increasingly complex medical and clinical diagnoses.
“A lot of this dates back to the trauma that these children have experienced,” he said. “And when you throw in the clinical complexities and all of the substance abuse, it’s pretty clear we’re looking at the deep end of the population. It’s pretty scary, actually.”
Many of the children, Hooper said, arrive at the hospitals displaying “a lot of hopelessness. Unfortunately, these are children who are literally checking out. Their parents are not wanting to take them back into their homes and not wanting to engage in the healing process … much less in the treatment process.”
TOPEKA — Successful applicants to the July 2014 Kansas Bar Examination will be sworn in as Kansas attorneys at a ceremony at 10 a.m. Friday in Topeka, the Bar announced this week.
Chief Justice Lawton Nuss will preside over the Supreme Court and Magistrate Judge K. Gary Sebelius will represent the U.S. District Court.
Heather Smith, clerk of the Kansas Supreme Court, will administer the state oath and Tim O’Brien, clerk of the U.S. District Court, will administer the federal oath.
The new attorneys include Cassy Anna Zeigler, Hays; Michael Joe Baxter, Stockton; Rachel Alison Lamm, Colby; and Christopher A. Rohr, Colby.
Hays American Legion Post 173 Commander Kevin VanHorn listens as American Legion National Commander Mike Helm of Norcatur talks to local veterans last week in Hays.
By BECKY KISER Hays Post
The new American Legion National Commander, Mike Helm, along with U.S. Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kan., who is a member of the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee, have called for immediate action to remove certain U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs employees.
Helm, a native of Norcatur in northwest Kansas, was in Hays recently as part of his national tour.
Last week, Helm sent a letter to President Barack Obama saying corrupt managers within the agency need to be “fired immediately.”
“The only way those culpable will get their just desserts, and credibility will be restored to the thousands of VA employees who really deserve it, is for you to demand that those who caused this scandal, and those who oversaw it and did nothing, be fired and removed from government,” Helm wrote.
Click here to read the full letter from the American Legion National commander to President Obama.
Moran sent a letter to VA Secretary Bob McDonald calling for immediate action to remove the VA employees who were found to have abused their positions. Click here to read Moran’s entire letter.
With the passage of the Veterans Access, Choice and Accountability Act this summer, Congress empowered the VA secretary with the ability to more readily terminate employees for poor performance and misconduct.
Thomas More Prep-Marian head football coach John Montgomery, Principal Kathy Taylor and several football players are featured in a new coaching training video, produced by Jana’s Campaign, about the national program Coaching Boys Into Men.
TMP-Marian incorporated this violence prevention program for the first time during the 2013 football season. Created by Futures Without Violence from San Francisco in 2001, this program trains athletic coaches to use their influence to help high school male student athletes build healthy relationships and prevent gender violence.
Over the course of an athletic season, trained coaches lead their players through brief weekly activities that address things such as personal responsibility, respectful behaviors, and relationship abuse. Jana’s Campaign Inc. and the California-based Prep2Prep sports media firm produced the video.
DETROIT (AP) — Chrysler is recalling nearly 350,000 cars and SUVs to fix ignition switches that could unexpectedly shut off the engines.
The recall covers 2008 Jeep Commander and Grand Cherokee SUVs, Chrysler 300 and Dodge Charger sedans, and Dodge Magnum wagons. All were built before May 12, 2008.
Chrysler says the ignitions may not fully return to the “on” position after being started. The switches could move to “accessory” or “off.” That could shut off the engine and knock out power-assisted steering and other features.
Chrysler knows of one crash and no injuries from the problem. It’s telling people to use the key alone in the ignition and confirm that switches have returned to “on” after starting their cars.
Chrysler is investigating the cause. Customers will be notified when repairs are ready.
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Bond has been set at $1 million for a man who police say was running around bloodied, naked and screaming outside the Topeka home where his girlfriend’s body was found.
The Topeka Capital-Journal reports the suspect in the death of 22-year-old Lacie Atchison appeared Thursday in Shawnee County Circuit Court. Judge Steve Ebberts told a prosecutor the district attorney’s office would have until Monday afternoon to file charges.
For now, the suspect is being held on suspicion of premeditated first-degree murder, child endangerment, misdemeanor battery and criminal restraint.
After neighbors called Wednesday to report the nude man, police used a stun gun to subdue the suspect and then found Atchison’s body. Officers also took an uninjured child from the home and placed her in protective custody.
LIBERAL- A Kansas man was injured in an accident just before 9 a.m. on Thursday in Seward County.
The Kansas Highway Patrol reported a 2007 Freightliner sanitation truck driven by Wayne E. Gerrard, 44, Liberal, was eastbound on Kansas 51 twelve miles north of Liberal.
The truck was turning south onto U.S. 83 when driver’s side tires went off the roadway into soft mud. The driver over corrected and vehicle rolled.
Gerrard was transported to Southwestern Medical Center.
The KHP reported he was properly restrained at the time of the accident.
FORT RILEY – The Department of Defense today identified the 1st Infantry Division as the headquarters unit to deploy as part of the upcoming transition of authority in Iraq. The deployment involves a division headquarters element to support the combatant commander’s mission
requirements.
About 500 soldiers from the 1st Inf. Div.’s Headquarters and Headquarters Battalion will deploy to the Central Command area of responsibility in late October. Of those 500, about 200 will deploy to Baghdad and Irbil, Iraq, as part of the 475 troops President Barack Obama authorized Sept. 10 to deploy to Iraq part of the nation’s strategy to degrade and destroy ISIL. The troops will advise and assist the Iraqi Security Forces to help them go on the offense against ISIL and conduct intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance flights. This will also increase the United States’ capacity to target ISIL and coordinate the activities of the U.S. military across Iraq.
“As brave, responsible and on-point Soldiers in the ‘Big Red One,’ we stand ready to deploy anywhere in the world to protect the United States of America, her citizens and her allies,” said Maj. Gen. Paul E. Funk II, 1st Inf. Div. and Fort Riley commanding general. “We are ready for anything because we know we have the nation behind us.”
The Big Red One Soldiers will replace service members who have been in Iraq since June. These forces provide a similarly sized headquarters staff to oversee the expanded range of activities that these U.S. personnel in Iraq were assigned and expand the headquarters of the Joint Forces Land Component Command, which has operational control over activities in Iraq reporting to U.S. Central Command.
The 1st Inf. Div. Soldiers will begin to deploy in October and are preparing for a one-year mission.
By KHI NEWS SERVICE
TOPEKA — A new report from the nonpartisan Rockefeller Institute of Government says that changes in federal tax policy are not the main cause of a steep drop in Kansas revenue collections.
The report says while the federal changes, which caused people to shift when they took capital gains, are the main cause of revenue declines in many states, Kansas and Alaska are exceptions.
“Twenty-nine states reported declines in overall tax collections, with Kansas and Alaska reporting the largest declines at 21.9 and 15.7 percent, respectively,” the report says. “The large declines in Alaska are mostly due to declines in oil and gas severance taxes, while the declines in Kansas are mostly attributable to legislative tax changes.”
At Gov. Sam Brownback’s urging, Kansas legislators cut income tax rates in 2012 and again 2013. When fully implemented in 2019, the cuts will have reduced the state’s top income tax rate by 40 percent and eliminated income taxes for the owners of more than 190,000 businesses.
The Rockefeller Institute report says that income tax collections in the second quarter of this year were down by 43 percent compared to the same period last year. That is the largest drop of any state.
The drop in revenue will lead to a budget shortfall of nearly $240 million by July of 2016 unless lawmakers cut spending in the current budget year, according to projections compiled by the nonpartisan Kansas Legislative Research Department.
SALINA — Police are looking for a known suspect who took a SUV at gunpoint early Wednesday morning.
Salina Police Capt. Mike Sweeney said the male suspect, along with two men and a woman, walked into a home in the 500 block of Upper Mill Heights between 1 and 6 a.m. Wednesday, and the suspect pointed a handgun at a 34-year-old man and 24-year-old woman who were playing pool with the homeowner.
The suspect took the Chevy Suburban, owned by the male victim, and also made the woman leave with the suspect, and the other three who were with the suspect.
The woman later was dropped off in the 300 block of North Penn. She called a cab and went home.
The man reported the theft of his Suburban to police Wednesday afternoon just before 4 p.m. The SUV was found approximately 6:30 p.m. Wednesday near the intersection of Moon and Hageman.
The male victim also reported his wallet, a gold necklace, watch, and cellphone were also taken.
OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — An American aid worker who’s been cleared of the Ebola virus says he feels great but is still very weak.
Massachusetts doctor Rick Sacra hugged his wife for the first time in nearly two months Thursday morning after he was released from an isolation unit at the Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha.
Sacra says he never felt like he wouldn’t survive the virus, believed to have killed more than 2,900 people in West Africa. The 51-year-old says the odds are “pretty high” that he’ll return to Africa at some point but he expects a long recovery.
Doctors have said the combination of treatments Sacra received makes it difficult to know what helped him fight off Ebola.
Two other American aid workers who contracted the virus were treated at a hospital in Atlanta.
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OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — The third American aid worker who contracted Ebola in Africa has been released from a Nebraska hospital.
Dr. Rick Sacra said he has been released from the Nebraska Medical Center at Thursday’s news conference.
The 51-year-old from Worcester, Massachusetts, began improving shortly after he arrived in Omaha on Sept. 5. He contracted Ebola while working at a hospital in Liberia.
Two other American missionaries who contracted Ebola were treated at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta, and released after recovering. A fourth American with Ebola is still being treated in Atlanta.
When I was a youngster my dad used to read two newspapers daily. His newspapers of choice were the Kansas City Star and Denver Post.
Both arrived on the same day and both contained the latest news from that date in history. The doodlebug or jitney brought the two papers from K.C. 358 miles to the east and Denver, 255 miles to our west. We farmed outside the small Sheridan County community of Seguin.
For you younger readers a doodlebug was the common name for a self-propelled railroad car. Doodlebugs sometimes pulled an unpowered trailer car, but were sometimes used singly.
They were popular with some railroads during the first to middle part of the 20th century. Jitneys provided passenger and mail service on lightly used branch lines, often in rural areas with sparse populations.
By operating these two-car trains in northwestern Kansas, the Union Pacific didn’t need to use conventional trains consisting of a locomotive and coaches. Several railroads, mostly small regional and local networks, provided their main passenger services through doodlebugs in a cost cutting effort. This also freed up the UP to use its locomotives for the transportation of wheat, milo, barley and livestock.
Our home was located a little more than a block north of the tracks and from the time I saw my first train I was fascinated by the sound, smoke and the sight of these hulking metal monsters. I couldn’t wait to see them, hear them, count the cars and eventually ride on one of them.
Doodlebugs were considerably quieter than the steam locomotives that carried millions and millions of bushels of grain from the breadbasket of the world where I grew up to hungry mouths across the globe. These two-car trains were typically equipped with a gasoline-powered engine that turned a generator which provided electricity to traction motors, which turned the axles and wheels on the trucks.
The doodlebug that stopped in our little village, population 50 with dogs and cats, usually came mid-morning, about 10:15. Back in those days you could almost set your watch by its arrival.
And that’s how my dad received his two daily papers on the same day. A half century later after the rail lines were torn up and steam engines were a distant memory, my dad subscribed to the Salina Journal. One of his neighbors, Elmer Reitcheck, subscribed to the Hays Daily News. After they’d read their copies they’d swap.
The funny thing about this is that Dad and Elmer were now reading yesterday’s papers. To be more exact, it often took two days to receive their daily papers. That’s right. With all our technology, and lightning quick U.S postal service required two days to deliver a paper 94 and 188 miles.
Talk about old news. You know the old saying, “That’s a heck’uva way to run a railroad.” Well, I can’t remember how many times I heard my dad say, “bring back the railroads.”
I guess, you could blame part of the demise of today’s papers on transportation and the government, but then both take a beating daily anyway, so back to the story of doodlebugs and those days of yesteryear.
I took one of my first train rides on a doodlebug. I also accompanied my dad to see our relatives in Denver by way of the Rock Island Rocket.
That was nearly 60 years ago and the 250-mile trip on this streamliner took less than three hours. We literally flew across the plains traveling at speeds of 90 miles-per-hour in this red and silver rocket. It takes four hours to cover this same distance traveling on Interstate 70 today.
For my sixth birthday, I asked my parents for a train trip from Seguin to Oakley – about 50 miles. They obliged by buying me a ticket on the doodlebug. This slowpoke traveled half the speed of the Rocket – maybe less, but I enjoyed every minute.
During part of the trip the engineer allowed me to put my hand on the huge silver, metal throttle and as I told my friends later, “I drove the doodlebug part of the way to Oakley.”
Bet I couldn’t get anywhere near a train throttle or computer-operated engine room today. SOPs (standard operating procedure), rules and regulations being what they are.
Maybe I really didn’t go on this train ride across the High Plains back in the mid ‘50s. Maybe this story is all a dream. Something I thought up to fill this column.
Don’t count on it. It was real. It was a birthday I’ll always remember.
Who knows, maybe one day trains will once again play a vital role in transportation on both coasts. One thing is certain, they won’t carry newspapers anymore.
John Schlageck is a leading commentator on agriculture and rural Kansas.
