Dear Dave,
I loaned some money to a good friend recently. He’s going to help me with a job I’m working on, so do you think I should pay him for the work or just forgive the debt instead? Charlie
Dave Ramsey
Dear Charlie,
The big question is whether or not you’ve already agreed to pay him for the work. Another is how he views the situation. In his mind, he may just be helping a friend and looking at it as he still owes you the money.
If you don’t already have an agreement, my advice would be to ask him what his expectations are. Just talk to him, find out what he’s thinking and figure out what seems fair to you both. The big thing at this point is that you’re on the same page. If you have already agreed on a certain amount, and the value of the work is pretty close to the amount you loaned him, you might talk to him about the possibility of knocking out the debt that way. He could work off the debt while helping you on this project.
There’s really no right or wrong answer to this question, Charlie. However, I would recommend not loaning money to friends or family in the future. Sometimes things work out and everyone’s happy. But in most cases it changes the dynamics of the relationship. The Bible says that the borrower is a slave to the lender, and there’s a lot of truth to that statement financially and emotionally.
I’ve seen situations like this go bad and even ruin friendships. It sounds like you two are good buddies and have a great bond, but if someone close to you really needs help, and you’re not enabling bad financial behavior in the process, just make the money a gift. Sooner or later this kind of thing will mess up a relationship. —Dave
Dave Ramsey is America’s trusted voice on money and business. He has authored five New York Times best-selling books: Financial Peace, More Than Enough, The Total Money Makeover, EntreLeadership and Smart Money Smart Kids. The Dave Ramsey Show is heard by more than 8 million listeners each week on more than 500 radio stations. Follow Dave on Twitter at @DaveRamsey and on the web at daveramsey.com.
Karen Countryman-Roswurm’s black T-shirt carried a powerful message: “One is too many.”
The slogan refers to the number of victims exploited by human traffickers. And during Countryman-Roswurm’s presentation at Hays Medical Center on Tuesday, she portrayed a harsh reality – sex trafficking hits closer to home than many might think.
A crowd gathers to look at self-portraits drawn by recovering sex trafficking victims during Tueseday’s summit at Hays Medical Center.
“I think that locally we don’t realize that this is happening on our own doorstep,” said Jessica Albers, a sexual assault nurse examiner at HaysMed. “We sometimes think that it happens in big cities or in another country. But it’s happening right here in the United States – in Kansas, and in rural Kansas.”
Human trafficking was the subject discussed at length during this year’s multi-disciplinary summit, hosted by a variety of local agencies, such as HaysMed, Options, Jana’s Campaign, Hays Police, Hays Area Children’s Center, LINK, SKIL and the Area Agency on Aging.
Organizers hoped the two-day event would shed some light on an often misunderstood and misidentified crime.
When the class began Tuesday morning, Countryman-Roswurm asked the 75 attendees how many of them had worked a sex trafficking case or helped a victim. No one raised their hand, said Countryman-Roswurm, executive director of Wichita State University’s Center for Combating Human Trafficking.
As she began explaining how human trafficking really falls under a wide spectrum of abuse and exploitation, several local professionals began to reconsider.
“I’ve had people come to me and say, ‘Actually, now that I think about this, this was a trafficking case,’ ” she said. “Sometimes it’s broadening our minds a bit and being able to receive information that we didn’t know before.”
Trafficking crimes can include a range of abuse, such as making or distributing child pornography, or even parents selling their children for sex in order to fund drug habits. Those kinds of crimes are more common than people might think, said Christie Brungardt, co-founder of Jana’s Campaign.
Pictured is Karen Countryman Roswurm, on left, and Christie Brungardt, co-founder of Jana’s Campaign.
“I think a lot of people have this idea that human trafficking is over the ocean and in Third World countries,” Brungardt said. “Certainly, if you think about it in the United States, they don’t think it’s in Kansas. It is in Kansas.”
And while many might picture human trafficking as terrified children being snatched up by strangers in windowless vans, the crime often is perpetrated domestically by people victims know and trust. Many victims don’t self-identify or readily accept outside intervention because the perpetrators often are expert manipulators, Countryman-Roswurm said.
In fact, a recent study suggests only 1 to 2 percent of human trafficking survivors ever are identified.
“It’s a very unidentified form of abuse and exploitation,” she said.
“It implies to us as practitioners that we need to be selling our services. We need to be connecting to people relationally and we need to be helping to create an environment that promotes that person to be all that they can be.”
The summit will continue today at Hays Medical Center with brainstorming for a community prevention and action plan to help human trafficking victims, and a forensics summit pertaining to victim identification and advocacy.
John Drees, Jacob Roth, Jacob Werth and Joseph Heimann. Photo courtesy TMP-Marian
TMP-Marian
The 12th point of scout law is: “A scout is reverent.”
The Boy Scouts of America has established Religious Emblem Awards for various faiths throughout America. Only 4 percent of Boy Scouts earn their Religion Emblem Award during their scouting career.
The Catholic BSA Religious Emblem Award is the Ad Altare Dei Award. Four TMP-Marian students who are also scouts in Boy Scout Troop 101, Hays were awarded the Ad Altare Dei Award in August by Father Bryan Lager, Salina Diocese BSA Chaplin, and were recognized at a Mass in Victoria last weekend.
These scouts worked on the award from August 2012 through October 2013. To earn the award, the boys participated in three weekend camping seminars in which they studied the seven sacraments and completed the religious emblem workbook.
They performed two full-day service projects in the community. They performed a multi-day service project for Immaculate Heart of Mary Parish – the renovation of the outside of the visiting sister’s house at 509 E. 19th. IHM parishioners Ed Neuburger and Olivia Becker (dba Western Aluminum and Glass) donated more than $3,200 worth of materials; Curt Pfannenstiel (dba Heartland Building Center) donated mroe than $300 worth of materials to the project. In all, seven scouts, along with six adults, including IHM parishioner Glenn Neuburger donated 300 hours of labor to the service project at IHM. Troop 101 adults who volunteered include Tom Drees, Tony Gabel, Dave Haberman, Bill Heimann and Michelle Springer.
WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — Officials with Textron and the Machinists Union are resuming contract negotiations.
The talks ended Sunday when Textron officials refused to put in writing that it would keep jobs in Wichita. But officials with both sides put out a news release Tuesday saying they will return to negotiations Wednesday.
The Wichita Eagle reports if negotiators agree on a proposal, union members could vote on it Friday.
Negotiators are trying to combine two separate local unions of Beechcraft Corp. and Cessna Aircraft under a single labor agreement. Textron, Cessna’s parent company, bought Beechcraft in March and formed Textron Aviation.
Beechcraft’s current contract ends in 2016, while Cessna’s agreement expires in 2017.
Two Fort Hays State University professors, Dr. Wally Guyot, professor of management and marketing, and Dr. Bob Meier, professor of informatics, wrote “Online Time and Gender Perceptions of Internet Addiction Disorder,” an article to be presented Tuesday, Oct. 21, at the 22nd annual Southwest Business Administration Teaching Conference at Texas Southern University in Houston.
“The study was conducted with our colleague Dr. Loretta Beavers at Southwest Community College in Richlands, Virginia,” said Meier. “We analyzed the results from 176 students at Southwest who completed an internet addiction questionnaire.”
Dr. Reginald Bell of Prairie View A & M University, Prairie View, Texas, and Dr. Dibendyu Choudhury, National Institute for Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises, India, also contributed to the article. Bell will present the results at the conference.
FLORENCE, Ky. (AP) — Officials in both political parties are making multimillion-dollar advertising decisions that offer clues about where the real Senate battlefields lie.
Republicans are flooding Kansas with campaign help for Sen. Pat Roberts, who’s in a tough re-election fight against independent candidate Greg Orman. Republicans must gain six seats to control the Senate.
The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee went off the air Tuesday in Kentucky, where it has already spent more than $2 million to attack Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell.
At the same time, Democrats chose to put nearly $1 million behind Michelle Nunn in her bid for a Georgia seat now in Republican hands. Last week, Democrats put South Dakota on the board by investing in Rick Wieland’s campaign against former GOP Gov. Mike Rounds.
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Mike Moustakas had his eye on the ball from the moment it left Adam Jones’s bat, tracking it against the bright lights of Kauffman Stadium. When it settled into his glove and he tumbled into a dugout suite, a dozen fans were waiting to pick him right back up.
Just like Moustakas has picked up his team during its perfect postseason.
The third baseman with the four playoff homers dazzled with his glove Tuesday night. And when Billy Butler drove in the go-ahead run with a sacrifice fly in the sixth inning, the long-downtrodden Kansas City Royals were on their way to a 2-1 victory over the Baltimore Orioles and a commanding 3-0 lead in their AL Championship Series.
“It really did fire up the whole stadium,” Royals first baseman Eric Hosmer said of his teammate’s circus catch. “Hats off to the fans in the dugout suite, pick him up and put him back on the field. That was great. Moose finding ways to get it done.”
Royals 1B Eric Hosmer dives to the bag to record an out in Game 3 of the ALCS Tuesday night. (Photo: Jason Hannah)
The entire team has found ways to get it done. The wild-card Royals have won 10 straight postseason games, including all seven this year, in their first playoff appearance in 29 years.
The only thing that’s slowed Kansas City so far was a rainout Monday.
“We’ve got a snowball effect going right now,” Butler said. “The confidence couldn’t be any higher. That’s when you come to the park each day, focus on the next pitch, focus on your job and just not be the guy to end the streak.”
Fresh off a combined three-hitter, Kansas City will send Jason Vargas to the mound for Game 4 on Wednesday, trying to advance to its first World Series since 1985. Miguel Gonzalez will go to the mound for the Orioles.
“It’s hard to take advantage of mistakes when they’re not making any,” Orioles first baseman Steve Pearce said. “This is tough, man. We’ve got one loss left. We’ve got to find a way to start pulling this out. We got to find somebody to get it done.”
The Orioles are the 34th team to trail 3-0 in a best-of-seven major league postseason series — the only team to come back and win was the Boston Red Sox in the 2004 ALCS against the Yankees, STATS said.
“It’s been done before, so that gives you a chance,” Jones said. “We’ve won four games before. Obviously, not in this situation. But we’ve won four games, four games, four games. So start tomorrow, start in the first inning and get some runs on the board.”
Royals starter Jeremy Guthrie allowed one run on three hits in his first start in 12 days in Game 3 of the ALCS Tuesday night. (Photo: Jason Hannah)
The Royals’ Jeremy Guthrie and Orioles’ Wei-Yin Chen hooked up in a tense pitching duel for five innings Tuesday night, and the game was still 1-all when Chen gave up a leadoff single to Nori Aoki in the sixth. Eric Hosmer followed with a one-out single to put runners on the corners, and Orioles manager Buck Showalter brought in hard-throwing reliever Kevin Gausman.
Butler greeted him with a fly ball to left field for the tiebreaking run — just the latest example of Kansas City doing all the little things right.
One of the best bullpens in baseball took care of the rest.
Winning pitcher Jason Frasor breezed through the sixth, and Kelvin Herrera and Wade Davis nailed down the next two innings. Greg Holland worked a perfect ninth for his third save of the series, setting off a wild celebration in the stands.
In all, Kansas City pitchers retired the final 16 batters.
It was the 13th game to be decided by one run this postseason, matching the record set in 2011 and tied last year. Six games have gone to extra innings, including the Giants’ 5-4, 10-inning victory over the Cardinals hours earlier in the NLCS.
“I wish I didn’t have so much stake in it,” Showalter said dryly. “I’d probably enjoy watching both teams play more than I do.”
After failing to take the lead in the first two games of the series, Baltimore managed to strike first this night, temporarily silencing a frigid, flag-waving capacity crowd.
It happened in the second inning, when Pearce and J.J. Hardy hit back-to-back doubles for a 1-0 lead. Guthrie wiggled out of the jam, though, and grinded through five innings against his former team in his first start since Sept. 26.
Chen matched him pitch-for-pitch until the fourth, when the Royals put together one of their quintessential innings: a pair of bloop singles, a walk and a tying RBI groundout.
The Royals played catch up with their gloves, too.
Moustakas made a diving grab to rob Pearce of a single in the fourth. Then in the sixth, he tracked that popup by Jones into foul territory, steadied himself at a railing near the dugout, then extended himself to catch the ball and tumbled into the stands.
“They were both tremendous plays,” Royals manager Ned Yost said.
The blue-clad crowd rose to its feet to give Moustakas a rousing cheer, and many fans were still standing when Butler drove in the go-ahead run in the bottom half of the inning.
By the time the Royals’ “Big Three” of Herrera, Davis and Holland had closed it out, the Royals were on the verge of another postseason sweep.
“We’ve got to zone in on the task at hand,” Holland said. “They’re not going to lay down. We understand that.”
STATS AND STREAKS
Orioles DH Nelson Cruz had his streak of six straight multihit playoff games end. He was 0 for 4. … Pearce had been 0 for 9 in the series before his double in the second inning.
UP NEXT
Orioles: Gonzalez has not started since his final regular-season outing on Sept. 28. “I’m going to try as best as possible to give our team a chance,” he said.
Royals: Vargas has also had a long stretch without a start, last taking the hill against the Angels in Game 1 of AL Division Series on Oct. 2. “I’ll be ready to go,” he said.
Kansas Department for Aging and Disability Services
TOPEKA – Kansas Department for Aging and Disability Services Secretary Kari Bruffett is reminding older Kansas adults that the Medicare open enrollment period for 2015 begins Wednesday, October 15 and runs through December 7. About a half million Kansans are currently enrolled in Medicare.
“Older adults should receive a letter from Medicare with notice of the open enrollment period. Coming changes in premiums, cost sharing, benefits and the availability of plans might require some beneficiaries to find alternative coverage and lead others to pay more if they continue with their existing coverage,” Secretary Bruffett said. “I urge all Kansans on Medicare to contact KDADS’ SHICK program or their local Area Agency on Aging to get the information they need to make an informed decision on their continued coverage.”
KDADS’ Senior Health Insurance Counseling for Kansas (SHICK) is a free program offering older Kansans an opportunity to talk with trained, community volunteers and get answers to questions about Medicare and other insurance issues. SHICK provides you with many resources that will help you with your struggle through the Medicare maze.
“Last year our SHICK volunteers had 41,000 contacts with older Kansans. They really know their stuff,” Secretary Bruffett said. “They have received training on Medicare, Medicare Supplement Insurance and other health insurance subjects that concern older Kansans.”
SHICK volunteer counselors do not work for any insurance company. Their goal is to educate and assist the public to make informed decisions on what’s best for them. Information on how to contact your local SHICK volunteers is available at this link, https://www.kdads.ks.gov/SHICK/psa_map.html or individuals may call KDADS’ Janet Boskill for help in finding to a SHICK volunteer at (785) 296-4986.
Older Kansans may also contact their Area Agencies on Aging for more free information about the open enrollment process. Contact information for those agencies is available at the link above. Help and advice are also available through Sedgwick County and Douglas County senior services listed at the same link.
Medicare Advantage subscribers who are happy with their premiums would be wise to check for hidden cost increases and other plan changes during the upcoming open enrollment period.
Part C, also known as Medicare Advantage, offers plans from private insurers that cover Part A and Part B costs and some prescription drug coverage plus vision and dental coverage. Medicare Part D is the 8-year-old benefit that covers prescription drugs, an optional plan that has its own monthly premium.
In 2014, 30 percent of the nearly 54 million Medicare subscribers are enrolled in a Medicare Advantage. Most of the older adults who have chosen the traditional A and B plans won’t have to pay a Part A premium; for Part B most will pay a monthly premium.
Part C, also known as Medicare Advantage, offers plans from private insurers that cover Part A and Part B costs and some prescription drug coverage plus vision and dental coverage. Medicare Part D is the 8-year-old benefit that covers prescription drugs, an optional plan that has its own monthly premium.
The biggest hidden cost increase this year comes in the form of the plans’ out-of-pocket maximums, which is the cap subscribers pay toward non-copay, non-pharmacy expenses. Another change this year is that the cost of non-generic prescriptions may be going up under some plans. For Medicare beneficiaries using several prescribed medications, it’s a good idea to review a plan’s 2015 drug formulary to make sure medications are still covered and affordable, particularly if a physician prescribes brand-name or “non-preferred” medications.
Prices and cost-sharing also are rising on items such as outpatient surgery, chemotherapy, complex procedures or durable medical equipment.
“Relatively few Medicare beneficiaries re-examine their plan options each year even though doing so, in some cases, can help individuals save money on premiums or gain access to additional benefits,” Secretary Bruffett said. “I urge Kansans who are on Medicare to review their plans to make sure they are getting the best coverage they can for their individual situation.”
Today Sunny, with a high near 75. Light and variable wind becoming south 6 to 11 mph in the morning. Tonight Mostly clear, with a low around 45. South southeast wind around 10 mph becoming southwest after midnight. Thursday Sunny, with a high near 76. West southwest wind 8 to 16 mph becoming north in the afternoon. Thursday Night Mostly clear, with a low around 45. North wind 6 to 11 mph. Friday Sunny, with a high near 69. North wind 5 to 8 mph. Friday Night Mostly clear, with a low around 42. Saturday Mostly sunny, with a high near 67. Saturday Night Partly cloudy, with a low around 47. Sunday A 20 percent chance of showers. Partly sunny, with a high near 70.
WAVERLY — Two people were killed and two injured in an accident just after 5:30 p.m. on Tuesday in Osage County.
The Kansas Highway Patrol reported a 1995 Jeep Grand Cherokee driven by Krystal R. Smith, 26, New Strawn, was southbound on Interstate 35 four miles north of Waverly. For an unknown reason, the vehicle left the roadway and entered the median.
The driver attempted to bring the vehicle back onto the roadway and overcorrected, causing it to roll.
Smith and one passenger Cory M. Sheppard, 4, New Strawn, were pronounced dead at the scene and transported to Frontier Forensics.
Two additional passengers Christian M. Smith, 9, and Doavan J. Krutchfield, 6, both of New Strawn were transported to Overland Park Regional Medical Center.
The KHP reported all were properly restrained at the time of the accident.
