The annual free Children’s Holiday Party at the Hays Public Library, 1205 Main St., is scheduled for Monday, Dec. 15 from 4 to 5 p.m.
Children’s Department librarian Cathleen Kroeger said the event provides refreshments and an afternoon of “lots of smiles” and fun games for the kids.
“One of my favorite (games) that are sure to get a lot of laughs is ‘Run Santa Run.’ The kids have to jump into a Santa suit and run down and back while we time them to see who can do it the fastest,” she said. “It’s a lot of fun because the kids have to put on the boots, the hat and the whole nine yards.”
Kroeger encourages parents to attend the party with their children and make the event a family one.
“(It’s) just a great way to have some holiday fun together,” she said.
For more information, contact the Hays Public Library’s Children’s Department at (785) 625-5916 or click HERE.
The Downtown Hays Development Corporation has announced its board of directors for the term beginning January. The roster includes three new members, two appointed members to fill unfinished terms and eight returning members.
Justin McClung, Dustin Roths and Jason Williby are the newly elected board members. Holly Haynes and Shaun Musil will fill two unfinished terms and will join Sarah Cearley, Alaina Cunningham, Karen Dreiling, Kim Hodny, Sandy Jacobs, Elodie Jones, Eddie Perrett and Andrew Rupp, all returning for the upcoming year.
The DHDC will also have a new executive slate taking their role at next month’s annual meeting. The new slate includes Sandy Jacobs, president; Karen Dreiling, vice president; Alaina Cunningham, secretary; Eddie Perrett, treasurer; and Andrew Rupp, past president.
“I am excited to see what is in store for DHDC in 2015,”said President Stacey Smith “The new slate of directors is full of great community citizens that are energized to continue the progress in downtown Hays.”
LEAVENWORTH- A Kansas man was injured in an accident just before 1:30 p.m. on Thursday in Leavenworth County.
The Kansas Highway Patrol reported a 2002 Ford Ranger driven by Ernest Bjorgaard Jr., 61, Leavenworth, was westbound on Kansas 32 just east of 222 Street.
The vehicle left roadway to the south, struck a field entrance, became airborne for approximately 35 feet coming to rest in the south ditch.
Bjorgaard Jr., was transported to Lawrence Memorial Hospital.
The KHP reported he was not wearing a seat belt.
CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. (AP) – American troops will be eating MoonPies, courtesy of Craig Morgan. He teamed up with MoonPie to provide 35,000 of the treats for the USO. Morgan himself is an Army veteran. In June, he sent 50,000 MoonPies to U.S. military overseas.
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas has started issuing gender-neutral marriage forms amid ongoing litigation over its same-sex marriage ban.
Copies of the new forms were included in a motion that seeks to have former Kansas Department of Health and Environment Secretary Robert Moser dismissed from the litigation.
The motion, which was filed Wednesday, notes that Moser has resigned and that new marriage forms delete all references to husbands and wives. Applicants seeking to wed now fill in information under the headings “Party A” or “Party B.” They can select whether they want to be referred to as a bride, groom or simply a spouse.
The forms were changed last month after the U.S. Supreme Court denied Kansas’ request to prevent gay and lesbian couples from marrying while the state fights the issue in court.
The city of Hays is currently seeking proposals for two new welcome signs which will be placed along Interstate 70 as people approach the city. City staff has budgeted $90,000 out of the Convention and Visitors Bureau for the new signs.
The east sign will be placed near the Commerce Parkway exit on the East Side and at Arnold Park on the west side of town. Both signs are expected to be constructed out of limestone and will look similar to the Flint Hills signs near Topeka. A similar sign can also be seen near the Hays Regional Airport.
The city released the request for proposal on Dec. 1 and the deadline to submit proposals is on Jan. 21. They expect to submit a recommendation to city commissioners on March 5, and the successful bidder will be notified and will receive a notice to proceed in mid-March.
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — An attorney for a Kansas doctor has told the state’s medical board that it should allow her to regain her license despite finding that she kept inadequate records for young patients she referred for late-term abortions.
Attorney Bob Eye said Thursday that the State Board of Healing Arts has no evidence that any of the patients Dr. Ann Kristin Neuhaus of Nortonville saw for mental health exams in 2003 were injured.
Her exams for 11 patients aged 10 to 18 allowed them to obtain abortions from the late Dr. George Tiller of Wichita.
Board attorney Reese Hays argued Neuhaus has shown she can’t be rehabilitated. The board sanctioned her in 1999 and 2001 over record-keeping issues.
The board plans to issue a written ruling by Jan. 9.
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TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A Kansas board is considering whether to continue banning a doctor from practicing medicine after scrutinizing her referrals of young patients for late-term abortions and finding that she kept inadequate records.
The State Board of Healing Arts is conducting a hearing Thursday morning in the case of Dr. Ann Kristin Neuhaus of Nortonville.
She successfully challenged a 2012 board ruling that she conducted substandard mental health exams in 2003 for 11 patients aged 10 to 18. Her opinions about patients’ mental problems allowed the late Dr. George Tiller’s clinic in Wichita to terminate their pregnancies.
A Shawnee County District Court judge earlier this year overturned the board’s revocation of Neuhaus’ license but agreed that she kept inadequate records. The judge sent her case back to the board.
SAN DIEGO (AP) – A person familiar with the negotiations says slugger Kendrys Morales and the Kansas City Royals have agreed to a $17 million, two-year contract.
The person spoke on condition of anonymity Thursday because the agreement with the AL champions was subject to him passing a physical.
Morales figures to take over at designated hitter from Billy Butler, who left as a free agent and agreed to a $30 million, three-year deal with Oakland.
Morales will get $6.5 million next year and $9 million in 2016. The deal includes an $11 million mutual option for 2017 with a $1.5 million buyout. Morales can make an additional $750,000 in performance bonuses in each of the first two seasons based on plate appearances: $50,000 for 375 and $100,000 apiece for 400 and each additional 25 until 550.
WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — Wichita police say a 78-year-old woman suffered a broken shoulder after she was knocked down and beaten with her walker by a man who was then found sleeping in her apartment.
Lt. James Espinoza says the woman was leaving her apartment early Thursday when a stranger knocked her down and hit her with her walker as she was on the ground. The man then ransacked the woman’s apartment.
Espinoza says the woman, who is Vietnamese and doesn’t speak English, got a neighbor to call 911.
Responding officers found a 28-year-old man asleep inside her apartment and arrested him. Espinoza says alcohol appeared to be a factor in the case.
The woman told police she didn’t know the suspect. Nothing appeared to be missing from the woman’s home.
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — The Kansas Corporation Commission and natural gas companies are working together to find a way to replace aging gas pipes in a less expensive way.
Kansas natural gas companies currently add a fee, called the gas service reliability surcharge, to customers’ bills to cover projects required by safety regulations or related public works projects.
But the Legislature-approved charge doesn’t cover preventative work like replacing old cast iron and steel pipes before they break. Officials say that kind of work is cheaper and causes less disruption than an emergency pipe repair.
Commissioner Pat Apple tells The Topeka Capital-Journal that amending the GSRS to pay for pipe-replacement work requires legislative approval. But commissioners say they think they can set up a separate process without sending it to the Legislature.
WASHINGTON (AP) — A sweeping defense policy bill that would give the president authority to expand the campaign against Islamic militants has cleared a major hurdle.
The Senate voted 85-14 to move ahead on the bill. That’s despite Republicans objections to a provision to designate 250,000 acres of new wilderness.
The bill would authorize training and equipping of moderate Syrian rebels for two years. The bill provides $5 billion for the fight against Islamic extremists.
A final vote is expected Friday.
The $585 billion bill authorizes money for core defense programs, money for overseas operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and funds for national security programs in the Energy Department, among other things.
Democrats were swept for the most part in midterm elections, both nationally and across Kansas, but Kansas Democrats have a few openings on which to build a competitive opposition party.
Election results were not unexpected as the party of the president consistently loses ground in midterm elections, and these losses are heightened in a president’s sixth year in office, as voters weigh in on his performance.
H. Edward Flentje is professor emeritus at Wichita State University.
Nationally, Democrats lost nine seats and majority control in the U.S. Senate; they lost 14 seats in the U.S. House, a number that may grow as three seats are still undecided.
Across the 50 states, Democrats lost four gubernatorial seats and gained one. One Republican seat (Alaska) went to an independent candidate.
Republicans gained outright majority control in eleven additional state legislative chambers, now holding 68 of 98 partisan chambers, an all-time high for the party. (Nebraska’s nonpartisan unicameral chamber is not included in this count.)
Republicans now hold the governorship and both legislative chambers in 23 states, compared to seven for the Democrats. Those seven are on the east or west coasts, except for Vermont.
In Kansas, Republicans swept all statewide offices and congressional seats and picked up four additional seats in the Kansas House, and will hold a commanding 97 to 28 majority in the lower house. The Kansas Senate remains 32-8 in Republican favor, as senate seats were not up for election.
Even in the face of this red wave election Governor Sam Brownback continues to offer Democrats an opening by taking the Kansas Republican Party out of the political mainstream. Democrats Paul Davis and Jill Docking, supported by their party chair Joan Wagnon, ran a competitive centrist campaign, built alliances with moderate Republicans and political independents, and came within a couple percentage points of making Brownback a one-term governor in one of the reddest states in the nation.
Democrats may have to think about when and how to disconnect from their national party. The ties of leading Kansas Democrats to an unpopular president presented a dilemma in the 2014 campaign and may have been too much to overcome. In this regard Democrats may want to revisit how the late Governor Bob Docking detached from his party’s presidential nominee George McGovern in 1972. In running for reelection Docking avoided meetings of the national party, distanced himself from the national ticket, and tacitly approved of Nixon-Docking bumper stickers.
Democrats may also have to become a more agile and opportunistic opposition party, guided more by pointing out Republican missteps, of which there are many, than by issues. The ideological path of Brownback and his legislative allies often leaves them unhooked from reality. In state finance, for example, Brownback gave Kansans spending figures that were $2 billion off the mark, repeatedly and erroneously claimed state balances of a few hundred dollars when he entered office, and incredulously asserted that he knew nothing about a $700 million hole in the state budget until after the election.
Finally, Democrats have to figure out how to compete in territory outside of central Wichita and the I-70 corridor (Kansas City to Manhattan), where 33 of their party’s 36 legislative seats are located. Nine of their eleven legislative leaders reside in the I-70 corridor. Party officials may want to look west, as governors Docking and Finney did, in selecting party leadership and reengage, for example, someone like former Minority Leader Dennis McKinney of Greensburg. He won nine straight contests in a western Kansas district in which Republicans outnumbered Democrats by nearly three to one.
So, after another midterm election with disappointing results, Kansas Democrats would be wise to reset and consider how to become more nimble and competitive in opposing Brownback Republicans in a deep red state.
H. Edward Flentje is professor emeritus at Wichita State University.
By KARI BLURTON
