MANHATTAN — A highly pathogenic avian influenza confirmed in four states can be very deadly for birds, but a Kansas State University poultry expert says humans don’t need to worry about their own health or contaminated poultry products.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service has confirmed the presence of H5N2 avian influenza in Kansas, Missouri, Minnesota and Arkansas. This strain is considered highly pathogenic in birds with a high mortality rate. The Centers for Disease Control considers the risk to people from these HPAI H5 infections in wild birds, backyard flocks and commercial poultry to be low. No human infections with the virus have been detected at this time.
“These H5N2 variants have never been known to cause any transmission between humans and poultry,” said Scott Beyer, associate professor of animal sciences and industry and K-State Research and Extension state poultry specialist. “We are always testing and monitoring to see if any birds have any type of influenza. We don’t allow any infected birds to go to marketplace, which means the chance of them ever making it into the food supply is about zero.”
Beyer says influenza strains recombine, sometimes causing a more deadly, more transmissible flu like this H5N2. It’s a strain that turkeys are highly susceptible to and is spreading through migration.
“We think that birds migrating North and South are mixing together in certain zones, like nesting and feeding zones,” he said. “If those birds stop and feed or nest for awhile, then move back to another area of the country, they can drop off the virus to our local small flocks and even our commercial farms. That’s what we have started seeing.”
To protect your flock, set up a perimeter or safe zone to keep your birds from outside fowl or other animals that could potentially spread the disease. Beyer says other animals can spread this influenza, such as dogs and small birds.
“For example, a visiting waterfowl drops feathers, which can be contaminated,” Beyer said. “A sparrow will grab the feather and make a nest in your facilities. The U.S. doesn’t allow any infected birds to go to marketplace, which means the chance of them ever making it into the food supply is about zero.”
Infected birds show flu-like symptoms like coughing, sneezing, swelling around the eyes, flicking of the head and a raspy rattle sound when they breathe.
For more information, contact Beyer at 785-532-1201 or follow the USDA avian
NASHVILLE (AP) – Wade Hayes has turned his doctor’s advice into a song to help others. Hayes has released a song called “Go Live Your Life.” Hayes had colon cancer and he says the day he found out he was all clear, his doctor told him to go live his life. Proceeds from the song’s sale will go to the non-profit group Colon Cancer Alliance Blue Note Fund.
Roland Lee Turner, age 86, of Quinter, passed away Thursday, March 12, 2015 at his home. He was born May 10, 1928 in rural Quinter to Lee Marlin and Della Kathryn (Long) Turner.
Roland was a 1947 graduate of Quinter High School. He went on to serve our country in the U.S. Army during the Korean Conflict. On November 9, 1963, he was united in marriage to Irene O. Deines in WaKeeney at the Immanuel Lutheran Church. They enjoyed 43 years of marriage together until Irene’s death on June 25, 2007.
Roland was a proud farmer and rancher. He was a devoted husband and father. In his spare time he enjoyed woodworking, gardening and having coffee with his friends.
Survivors include two brothers, Max and wife Gladys of Burlington, and Wesley and wife Loretta of Quinter; and one sister, Louise Hisey of Colorado Springs, Colorado. He was preceded in death by his parents; his wife; a son, Randall Troy Turner; a sister, Twila Yowell; and many nephews and nieces.
Funeral services will be 10:30 a.m., Friday, March 20, 2015 at the Church of the Brethren in Quinter. Burial will be in the Baker Township Cemetery, Quinter.
Visitation will be Thursday, from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m. at the funeral home in Quinter.
Memorial contributions are suggested to the Quinter Church of the Brethren. Checks made to the church may be sent in care of Schmitt Funeral Home, 901 South Main, Quinter, KS 67752.
Condolences may be sent by guest book at www.schmittfuneral.com.
Photo by Dave Ranney Rep. Will Carpenter, a Republican from El Dorado, withdrew an earlier proposal that would have set aside $3 million for an elementary school reading program
by DAVE RANNEY
The chairman of the House Social Services Budget Committee on Monday withdrew an earlier proposal that would have set aside $3 million for an elementary school reading program. “Numerous red flags have come up,” said Rep. Will Carpenter, a Republican from El Dorado.
The recommendation had been contingent upon the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services agreeing to allow the state to spend a portion of its Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) block grant on its Parents as Teachers program.
If HHS approved the proposal, Carpenter and others were prepared to take $3 million from the Parents as Teachers budget, most of which is funded with tobacco master settlement revenues, and replace it with $3 million from TANF.
The arrangement would have made $3 million in the state’s tobacco fund available for the reading program. But Carpenter said he’d been told not to expect HHS to approve using TANF monies to underwrite Parents as Teachers. “At this point in time, I’m going to pass on the recommendations that involve that $3 million,” he said, addressing a morning meeting of the full House Appropriations Committee.
Carpenter said the Kansas Department for Children and Families had advised him that TANF is intended for anti-poverty programs that meet at-risk families’ immediate needs, promote employment, reduce out-of-wedlock pregnancies and encourage marriage. Kansas Parents as Teachers programs are administered by local boards of education.
Because they are considered educational rather than anti-poverty, they likely would not be eligible for TANF. The finding, Carpenter said, shelved his support for putting $3 million into an initiative aimed at helping elementary schools pay for computer programs that help students learn to read. “Zero,” he said after the hearing.
“There’s no money at this point in time.” But Carpenter said he’s also heard that the state may receive more tobacco monies than initially projected. If that happens, he said, he would be willing to propose spending some of the windfall on the reading initiative. Earlier this year, Gov. Sam Brownback dropped the reading initiative, called Lexia Reading Core 5, from his proposed budgets for fiscal years 2016 and 2017.
The program generated controversy in 2013 after Rep. Marc Rhoades, a Newton Republican and then-chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, added a last-minute proviso to a session-ending budget bill that earmarked $12 million in tobacco master settlement revenues — $6 million a year for two years — for Educational Design Solutions, a small company owned by Don Fast, who lives in Rhoades’ district. Fast’s company sells licensed access to the Lexia software. The proviso did not allow other software companies to bid on the program.
The social services budget committee’s now-tabled proposal would have allowed other software companies to bid on the initiative. “We need to quit calling this ‘Lexia’ because what we’d be recommending — if the money becomes available — would be an RFP (request for proposals) that would be open to anyone who wanted to bid on it,” Carpenter said.
Carpenter also said he was troubled by reports that using TANF for Parents as Teachers would require the programs to validate participating families’ incomes and make sure TANF dollars were only spent on low-income families.
“The last thing I want to do is create some giant bureaucracy,” he said. Still, Carpenter recommended directing the Kansas Department of Education to “consider implementing a sliding-fee scale” for families receiving services through Parents as Teachers programs.
“As it is now, you can make a million dollars a year and you get Parents as Teachers for free,” he said. “I just think it’s wrong not to charge something when people have the ability to pay.” The social service budget committee also proposed moving $200,000 out of the Parents as Teachers budget and into the budget for the Court Appointed Special Advocates.
The full appropriations committee is expected to vote Tuesday on the social services budget committee’s recommendations. Nancy Keel, president of the Kansas Parents as Teachers Association, questioned the administrative hassles that would accompany having to adopt a sliding-fee scale. “We don’t know what administering a sliding scale would cost a school district,” Keel said. “That’s an unknown as this point because school districts don’t ask for income verification.
They don’t ask, because they don’t think it’s any of their business.” Students’ eligibility for free and reduced-priced lunch programs, she said, is based on families that self-report their incomes.
Shannon Cotsoradis, chief executive with the advocacy group Kansas Action for Children, said she would encourage legislators to weigh the perceived benefits of a sliding-fee scale with the potential for causing some families to avoid receiving early diagnosis and intervention services. “This is an issue that’s best left in the hands of KDoE,” she said.
Last year in Kansas, Parents as Teachers screened more than 10,000 children, ages 0 to 3, for hearing, vision, health and development.
Nearly 1,400 of these children were referred to programs that provide more hands-on early childhood development services. There are approximately 70 Parents as Teachers programs in Kansas, employing more than 200 home-visitation workers in more than 150 school districts across the state.
The Parents as Teachers total operating budget now stands at $12.3 million a year, including $7.2 million from the Children’s Initiatives Fund and $5.1 million from school districts, grants, foundations and local charities. The state-funded portion of the program’s overall budget has been flat since 2008.
Dave Ranney is a reporter for Heartland Health Monitor, a news collaboration focusing on health issues and their impact in Missouri and Kansas.
A Munjor resident is asking for help cleaning up his town.
Larry Roada approached the Ellis County Commission at Monday night’s meeting asking the county for help cleaning up a number of properties that are in disrepair.
“We’ve got extra vehicles in yards, yards need to be mowed and kept up, we’re having a lot of problems with rodents,” Roada said, adding he believes many of the properties are “health hazards.”
According to County Counselor Bill Jeter, a state Supreme Court decision does not allow the county the same authority as cities to clean up or abate nuisances.
“Counties do not have the authority to abate a nuisance,” Jeter said. “We can only enforce county resolutions by fine or by some sort of restraining order. … But we don’t have the ability to go in and clean up the property and assess those costs back against the owner.”
Roada said there is an even a person living in a home that has been condemned and is boarded up.
Commissioner Barb Wasinger said they would get Roada in contact with someone with the Kansas health department to examine that situation.
County Commissioner Dean Haselhorst said he was in Munjor over the weekend and said he saw a number of properties that need cleaned up.
Haselhorst also brought up the idea of Munjor becoming an incorporated community.
He said Gorham recently passed ordinances allowing it to clean up rundown properties.
Haselhorst said since they began the process of cleaning up, “it’s a different town than it was a year ago.”
“If you don’t clean it up, they clean it up for you and you get a bill,” he said of the cleanup process in Gorham.
The commission asked Jeter to provide information on what it would take for Munjor to become incorporated.
Jeter is expected to provide the commission with the information at its first meeting in April.
In other business at Monday’s meeting:
• County Administrator Greg Sund informed the commission he received and will accept a proposal for a new sound system for the basement meeting room of the Administrative Center. Sund said the system will cost $19,078.
• After meeting for 30 minutes in an executive session, the commission also voted to give Sund a 2-percent raise. The pay increase is the same as what both elected and non-elected county employees received for 2015.
• Darin Myers, the incoming Rural Fire Chief was also introduced at Monday’s meeting. His first day will be March 30.
MANHATTAN -Several members of the Manhattan Fire Department participated in the Inaugural New York City Firefighter Stair Climb on Monday.
The event brought 100 firefighters from all around the globe to honor the New York City Fire Department (FDNY) firefighters who lost their lives at the site.
The firefighters met at 4 World Trade Center and competitively ascended 72 floors in full firefighting gear.
The event was to raise money for Friends of Firefighters and Hope for the Warriors.
Manhattan Fire Department driver Kyle Highberger, firefighter Jacob Kirkland and firefighter Kody Songs participated in the climb.
The climb’s founders are John Mills and Chris Barber of Manhattan, New York’s Upper West Side, and explained their reason for starting the climb on their website.
“We were recently invited to New Zealand for a September 11th memorial ceremony and stair climb.
It was overwhelming to see the amount of support from firefighters on the other side of the globe for our fallen brothers in NYC. We realized the popularity of these memorial climbs and the significance they hold.
Several of the participants travel the globe attending these memorials and raising money for various charities.
We kept hearing the same question, “Why is there not a memorial climb in NYC?” So we decided to make it happen.”
RUSSELL — A Tractor and Farm Safety Course will be offered for youth over spring break Wednesday in Russell at the Russell 4-H Building.
The program will be from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
Youth who are 14 to 15 years of age planning to work on a farm this summer for someone other than a parent or guardian are required by federal child labor laws to take this Tractor and Farm Safety Course.
To register for the course, call the Russell County Extension Office ASAP at (785) 483-3157.
When George Washington left office, he issued a “Farewell Address” in which he warned our young nation to avoid foreign entanglements. Now I’m leaving office, and I have a farewell warning for the Hays City Commission.
As you read my opening words, you may have immediately said to yourself, “I knew George Washington, and you, Kent, are no George Washington.”
Of course that’s true. Nevertheless, on a more modest note, I offer this advice: City and county governments should say no to almost every request for handouts to private business, whether in the form of CIDs, IRBs, tax increment financing or whatever the latest scheme might be to extort money from the common people and give it to rich people.
Such schemes have always existed, but until recent decades, they were far more common at the federal level. They began to trickle into state government in the pre-World War II South, and now they have become a flood throughout the nation. Welfare for business people has become status quo — and has even taken on the aura of respectability.
This makes no sense. There are multiple arguments against it, which can be found throughout research literature. Example: Tax abatements to lure businesses to a community tend to prop up marginal-to-worse businesses that inevitably fail. Example: Profitable businesses simply move on to the next community when the abatements end. Example: The cost of providing incentives for businesses are paid mostly by those least able to afford the higher taxes (note: government has no money except what it takes from citizens in fees and taxes).
Here’s the most important reason. CIDs, IRBs, tax increment financing and so forth short-circuit the free market system. They reward inefficient business and punish efficient business. If you give $3 million to The Mall, you surely do help The Mall, but you also hurt The Mall’s competitors. A tenant that would have opted for a better location — helping an efficient builder or an efficient landlord — now may stay at the improved Mall. So, the Mall is helped, but better-run businesses suffer and the overall economy of Hays is harmed. Government is not qualified to meddle in the private economy. Businesses should be left to succeed or fail on their own. When inefficient businesses fail, efficient businesses replace them, and the economy grows stronger.
According to a survey of research literature conducted at the University of Kansas in 2001, “Many economists have been prompted to question why municipalities continue to offer abatements indiscriminately when they have been shown to be largely ineffective and resource wasting.”
More simply, you might ask why state lawmakers and local elected officials continue to give away your money for no good reason.
Another research paper, Wolman (1988), offers three likely answers: 1. “decision-makers may be unaware of the literature regarding the ineffectiveness of abatements;” 2. “even if the decision-maker knows abatements are ineffective development tools, he or she may feel the need to offer them anyway because everyone else is doing it;” and 3. “abatement policy may be implemented to serve as a signal to potential businesses that local government is committed to economic growth.”
For whatever reason, the various giveaways are increasing, not decreasing. At first they were used almost exclusively to lure new businesses to town, but now everyone feels entitled to a government handout. The theory goes that by building a new business or expanding an existing business, I will create jobs and increase tax revenue, so you owe it to me. Of course that ignores the fundamental reality of the relationship between businesses and the community they call home. The community provides the workforce and the infrastructure and the customers for a business, which is why the business wants to build or expand in that community. In turn, the business creates jobs and pays its taxes and earns a profit for its owner. It is a symbiotic relationship, and there is no rationale for why the community should pay tribute to the business for doing what it exists to do.
Furthermore, business owners often insist they need the handout to make the business plan viable. “If you don’t give us the money, we cannot build or expand,” they say. This is no doubt true in some instances, but there is no way to confirm it. Short of hiring an auditor to thoroughly examine their books, which is not possible for proprietary reasons, city officials have only the word of the business owner. And even then there is no proof the owner could not have found additional investors or bank loans to boost his financial portfolio. There are documented cases, including one in Hays, in which a business stated it could not build without the handout even though construction had already begun. It is a poor city policy that gives away the taxpayers’ money with no possible way to prove the recipient needs the money.
None of this applies to public parks or streets or fire stations or public convention centers, by the way. There may be other reasons why a specific public project is not needed, but it is perfectly appropriate to fund needed public projects with tax money. That is a proper role of government.
I predict a prosperous future for Hays, but state and federal funds are drying up. With dwindling resources, now more than ever we need local officials who take the trouble to educate themselves on the folly of tax giveaways and then have the fortitude to vote no.
We need leaders who give more than lip service to the free-market system, who actually believe in capitalism and act accordingly.
Mass of Christian Burial for former Goodland, Kansas, resident Wade Cummings, 90, will be held Wednesday, March 18, from 10:00 AM MT at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Catholic Church in Goodland, Kansas.
Burial will be at Goodland Cemetery.
Vigil & Rosary will be Tuesday, March 17, at 6:00 PM MT at OLPH Catholic Church in Goodland.
Memorials to OLPH Catholic Church may be left at the services or mailed to Koons Funeral Home, 211 North Main, Goodland, KS 67735-1555.
Beverly Arlene Davis, age 80, a resident of Hiattville, Kansas, passed away Saturday morning, March 14, 2015, at the Medicalodge of Fort Scott surrounded by family.
She was born January 9, 1935, at Mercy Hospital in Ft. Scott, Kansas, the daughter of Kenneth Thomas and Edna Farmer Thomas. She married Conrad L. Davis on June 1, 1952, at the Pawnee Methodist Church. He preceded her in death on March 20, 1999. Beverly graduated from Fort Scott High School and lived her entire life in the Fort Scott and Hiattville areas. She was a farm wife and homemaker who maintained the farm records. In her earlier years, she worked in the billing department of Key Industries for one year, JC Penney’s for thirteen years and part-time for the Hepler Bank for four years. She was the matriarch of the Davis/Foster Dairy Farm and hosted annually a huge family reunion during the Fourth of July. She thoroughly enjoyed planting flowers and was a Master Gardener. She enjoyed traveling with the Fun Seekers and shopping. Attending meetings and being active in the Eastern Star was her passion. She belonged for over sixty years and was a member of the Olive Chapter #13 OES of Ft. Scott. Her highlight was getting to serve the Grand Chapter of Kansas OES as Grand Ruth during the 2006-2007 session with the theme of “The Spirit of Christmas.” She was a longtime member of the Hiattville United Methodist Church and was the current financial secretary. She also belonged to the United Methodist Women and was a Walnut Township Officer.
Beverly is survived by one brother, Keith Thomas and wife, Georgia, of Lawrence, Kansas; a daughter, Lynda Foster and husband, Gary, of Ft. Scott, and three sons, Denny Davis and Norma Davis, of Ft. Scott, Kevin Davis and wife, Brenda and Mark Davis and wife, Stacy, all of Scott City, Kansas. Grandsons, David Foster and wife, Addi, of Ft. Scott, Adam Foster, of Weston, Missouri, Jason Davis and fiancée, Kelly Donnelly, Overland Park, Kansas, Kelly Davis and wife, Niki, of Ft. Scott, Austin Davis, of Manhattan, Kansas and Chris Davis and wife, Gayle of Lawrence, Kansas; granddaughters, Aubrey Davis, of Manhattan, Jenee’ Davis, of Eldorado, Kansas, and Macy and Trella Davis, of Scott City, Kansas; a step-grandson, Jason Bentley and wife, Kelsey of Farmington, Arkansas and step-granddaughter, Randi Schnur and husband, Jake, of Wichita, Kansas; thirteen great-grandchildren and numerous nieces and nephews. Also surviving are two very close friends, Clara Brewer and Judy Tripp, of Ft. Scott. In addition to her husband, she was preceded in death by her parents.
Rev. Don Flanner and Rev. Joni Raymond will conduct funeral services at 11:00 A.M. Thursday, March 19th at the Hiattville United Methodist Church. Burial will follow in the Memory Gardens Cemetery. The family will receive friends from 6 to 8 P.M. Wednesday at the Cheney Witt Chapel with Eastern Star Services conducted at 7:30 P.M. Memorials are suggested to the Hiattville United Methodist Church Building Fund and may be left in care of the Cheney Witt Chapel, 201 S. Main, P.O. Box 347, Ft. Scott, KS 66701. Words of remembrance may be submitted to the online celebration wall at cheneywitt.com.
DODGE CITY, Kan. (AP) — Two of the top administrators in western Kansas’ Ford County are planning to retire.
Retirements of Ford County Sheriff Dean Bush and Fire Chief Jay Taylor were both disclosed Monday.
The Dodge City Daily Globe reports Bush’s retirement will be effective June 30. He’s been sheriff for 14 years and in law enforcement for 34 years. He said he wants to move back to his family’s farm in Clark County and he could not be Ford County sheriff if he lives in another county.
Bush sent his retirement letter to Gov. Sam Brownback last week.
Ford County commissioners said during a meeting Monday that Taylor asked for early retirement but did not disclose a reason. His retirement also will be effective in June.
SALINA, Kan. (AP) — A 73-year-old Salina man was sentenced to three life sentences with no chance of parole for 25 years for sexually molesting two preschool-aged children and a child in grade school.
Gerald A. Jones was sentenced Monday. He pleaded no contest in December to three counts of aggravated indecent liberties with a child. The crimes involving two girls and a boy occurred between July and September 2014.
The Salina Journal reports Jones apologized in court and said he didn’t know why he committed the crimes.
However Assistant Saline County Attorney Christina Trocheck said Jones had not really accepted responsibility.
