TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A Republican lawmaker in Kansas is criticizing GOP leaders for trying to push a plan quickly through the Legislature to overhaul how the state distributes aid to public schools.
Rep. Don Hill of Emporia said Tuesday that GOP leaders are ramming through a plan they drafted and moving too hastily. Hill serves on the House Appropriations Committee, and it was expected to vote later Tuesday on the plan.
The vote would come only five days after GOP legislative leaders unveiled it.
House committee Chairman Ron Ryckman Jr. of Olathe said quick action will solidify a key part of the next state budget as lawmakers work to close a projected shortfall of nearly $600 million.
The plan replaces the state’s current per-student aid formula with predictable grants to each school district.
Harold Schmeidler, 88, enjoys his pancakes and sausage at the annual Hays Lions Club pancake feed Tuesday morning.
By BECKY KISER Hays Post
Harold Schmeidler wasn’t the first one through the doors this year, but he was in line by 7 a.m. and soon enjoying his pancakes at the annual Hays Lions Club Sausage and Pancake Feed at the National Guard Armory, Second and Main.
“I don’t think Harold has ever missed one of our breakfasts,” said Lions Club member Jim Huenergarde.
“I suppose I’ve seen ‘The Pancake Man’ at least 15 years,” Schmeidler said in between bites of pancakes slathered in syrup, with sausage to the side.
“The Pancake Man” is Jim Kupar, Council Bluffs, Iowa, who has worked with the Hays Lions Club for many years. Kupar brings the fresh ingredients with him, mixes the pancake batter on site, and starts flippin’ flapjacks, literally.
Tuesday morning, Schmeidler got his breakfast for free, as a “thank-you” from the Lions for his many years of financial support.
Harold Schmeidler, (far right at the blue-clad table) is joined by family and friends for breakfast at the Lions Club pancake feed Tuesday morning.
Schmeidler enjoyed it along with orange juice and coffee.
“I’ll be drinking coffee all day,” he said.
Schmeidler had already watered his cattle and once he finished eating, joined by his son Kevin Schmeidler and a couple nephews, the elder Schmeidler would head back to feed his cattle on his farm north of Walker.
“Eighty-eight years old and still actively farming,” Keven said of his father with a smile.
The Hays Lions Club Standlee Dalton Sausage and Pancake Feed and Broom Sale continues until 1 p.m. and will resume for supper from 4:30 to 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $6.50 for adults and $4.75 for children younger than 10.
Proceeds support 4-H, Boy Scouts, sight conservation and glasses for children, Dan Rupp Park and other community projects.
WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — Wichita police say armed robbers stole more than $6,000 from a 21-year-old man after attacking him in a hotel on the west side of town.
The Wichita Eagle newspaper reports that the victim refused treatment after the weekend ambush.
Police Lt. James Espinoza says the robbery occurred after three men came to the door with a woman whom the victim and another occupant of the room recognized.
WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) joined U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and 51 Senators in expressing concern for a new proposal that would severely limit access to M855 rifle ammunition, which is primarily used for sporting purposes. This class of ammunition is protected from prohibition under a 1986 Law Enforcement Officer Protection Act exemption. The framework, proposed by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF), would set arbitrary guidelines for determining whether certain ammunition meets the 1986 law’s “sporting purposes” exemption. As a result, this could result in limited access to rifle ammunition long considered to be primarily used for activities such as target shooting and hunting.
“Most troubling about the ATF’s proposal is how it intends to judge the ‘likely use’ of M855 ammunition,” Sen. Moran said. “The ATF has proposed a blatantly subjective test that will undoubtedly provide them with the results they are looking for to confirm their biases – with no consideration of how this popular sporting ammo is actually used by law-abiding Americans, including many sportsmen and women in Kansas. The ATF’s framework is nothing more than a tool for increased gun restrictions that bypass Congress. I am proud to join Senator Grassley in signing this letter, and I will continue to support Second Amendment freedoms of all Americans.”
In a letter to ATF Director Todd Jones, the senators charge that the new framework defies the intent of Congress when it passed the 1986 law. They also question ATF’s authority to establish such a framework and express concern for its impact on Second Amendment rights guaranteed in the Constitution.
“Second Amendment rights require not only access to firearms but to bullets. If law-abiding gun owners cannot obtain rifle ammunition, or face substantial difficulty in finding ammunition available and at reasonable prices because government entities are banning such ammunition, then the Second Amendment is at risk,” the senators wrote.
Agra resident Willard T. Ragsdale passed away Monday, March 9, 2015 at the Smith County Hospital Long Term Care in Smith Center, KS at the age of 87.
He was born in Phillips County on December 28, 1927, the son of William Robert & Edith Ela (Major) Ragsdale.
His wife, Carol, two daughters, Lori and Linda, and granddaughter, Tina Ragsdale, preceded him in death.
Willard is survived by his sons, Bob, of Agra and Bill, of Elmhurst, IL; his daughter, Donna Jo Tramel, of Frisco, TX; 7 grandchildren and 5 great-grandchildren.
Funeral services will be held Friday, March 13, at 10:00 a.m. in the Olliff-Boeve Memorial Chapel, Phillipsburg, with Pastor Jonathan Gibson officiating. Burial will follow in the Agra Cemetery, Agra, KS.
Mr. Ragsdale will lie in-state on Wed. from noon – 9 p.m. and Thursday from 9 a.m. – 9 p.m. at the funeral home.
Memorial contributions may be given to the Phillips County 4-H or the New People’s Store in Agra. Online condolences to: www.olliffboeve.com.
Olliff-Boeve Memorial Chapel, Phillipsburg, is in charge of arrangements.
Elwood P. Dowd (senior Conrad Hoffman) insists that his invisible pal, a six-foot-one-and-a-half inch rabbit, precede him offstage during a recent rehearsal of “Harvey.”
Audience members will be treated to a delightful perspective on life when Hays High School presents the Pulitzer Prize winning play, “Harvey” at 7 p.m. on March 12-14 at 12th Street Auditorium.
Written by Mary Chase, the play revolves around Elwood P. Dowd and his favorite pal, Harvey, a six-foot-one-and-a-half inch invisible rabbit. When Dowd starts to introduce his imaginary friend to guests at a society party, his sister, Veta, has seen as much of his eccentric behavior as she can tolerate. She decides to have him committed to a sanitarium to spare her daughter, Myrtle Mae, and their family from future embarrassment.
Problems arise, however, when Veta herself is mistakenly assumed to be on the verge of lunacy when she explains to doctors that years of living with Elwood’s hallucination have caused her to see Harvey also. The doctors commit Veta instead of Elwood, but when the truth comes out, the search is on for Elwood and his invisible companion. When he shows up at the sanitarium looking for his lost friend, it seems that the mild-mannered Elwood’s delusion has had a strange influence on more than one of the doctors. Only at the end does Veta realize that maybe Harvey isn’t so bad after all.
“In Elwood, Chase has the stripped away all judgment, societal expectations, and personal demands with which we normally approach each other,” director Bill Gasper said. “What’s left is a wondrous, childlike anticipation in which every moment is new, full of promise, and seen exactly as it is presented – not as we hope or dread it will be. He carries no malice or grudges because every moment is full of promise and redemption.”
After returning home after being mistakenly placed in the sanitarium, Veta Louise Simmons (senior Shelbie Berens) talk about her experience as her daughter, Myrtle Mae (sophomore Anniston Weber) reacts excitedly. The scene is from a recent rehearsal of Hays High School’s production of “Harvey,” which is set for 7 p.m. on March 12-14 at 12th Street Auditorium.
Harvey first appeared on Broadway in 1944 and ran for 1,775 performances. It was later transformed into a movie starring Jimmy Stewart and Josephine Hull, who won an Academy Award for her portrayal of Veta.
Taking on the role of Elwood is senior Conrad Hoffman, who is appearing in his fourth Spring Play. Senior Shelbie Berens is Veta, while sophomore Anniston Weber plays her high-strung daughter, Myrtle Mae. The sanitarium staff is played by senior Max Befort as Dr. Chumley, junior Jared Thom as Dr. Sanderson, sophomore Madison Crees as Nurse Kelly, and senior Jacob Balzer as Wilson. Other members of the cast are senior Rachael Arthur, Mrs. Ethel Chauvenet; Amiyah Gonzales, Maria; Sarah Rooney, Judge Gaffney; Sylina Zhang, Mrs. Chumley; and Trent Potter, E.J. Lofgren.
Several other students are involved as members of the production crew.
“We have a great cast and crew who have really brought this play to life,” Gasper said. “Although the play was written in 1944, it is still very funny and very relevant. The play has a lot to say about imagination, faith and the value of being able to step back from the chaos of life and not take things too seriously for a minute. In our overly plugged-in time, I think it’s a message we need to hear, and one that this play gets across in a simple charming, and funny way.”
Adult tickets are $5 advance and $6 at the door. Students are $3 advance and $4 at the door. Tickets are available at the Hays High office.
OGDEN- Law enforcement authorities in Riley County are investigating an early morning shooting.
According to a media release, at just after 2:10 a.m. on Tuesday, the Riley County Police Department Dispatch Center received an emergency call for service regarding an apparent gunshot victim in the 500 block of Riley Avenue in Ogden, Kansas.
A medical transport team flew the victim to a hospital for further treatment.
No arrests have been made, however, RCPD believes event is isolated and the general public is not in danger.
NASHVILLE (AP) – A friend once asked John Berry his advice about marriage and the result was Berry’s first hit, “Standing on the Edge of Goodbye.” Berry tells the stories behind his songs in a new book, “Songs and Stories.” It also includes songs that aren’t technically his. Berry tells what the song “O Holy Night” means to his family and how “Annie’s Song” by John Denver reminds him of the time he left the backstage area at Denver’s concert too early and lived to regret it. The book is for sale at www.JohnBerry.com .
A massive new-generation ethanol plant in the southwest corner of Kansas is undergoing final adjustments as it prepares to begin full-scale production. Credit Bryan Thompson / Heartland Health Monitor
By BRYAN THOMPSON
Five months after its grand opening, a massive new-generation ethanol plant in the southwest corner of Kansas is undergoing final adjustments as it prepares to begin full-scale production. The plant, built by a Spanish company with financing from the U.S. Department of Energy, is designed to produce clean-burning fuel — not from corn, but from the bits and pieces of crops left in farmers’ fields after harvest.
U.S. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz was on hand in October to launch the ceremonial start-up of the new plant near Hugoton. Following a countdown, he pushed a button and an alarm bell rang as a conveyor belt began to load bales of crop residue into the automated processing facility.
The occasion was seven years in the making. That’s how long it’s been since Abengoa, the Spanish renewable energy giant, broke ground on the gleaming complex of stainless-steel tanks, towers and pipes.
Despite all the fanfare, getting production up to speed has taken a lot longer than many people expected. Abengoa Executive Vice President Christopher Standlee said it will still be a few more weeks before the plant is producing ethanol on a commercial scale.
With the boiler up and running, the plant has produced electricity, yeast and sugar from cellulose — the material that forms the cell wall in green plants. But the company keeps starting and stopping the process to make adjustments so Abengoa can be sure it’s at maximum efficiency when it goes into full-scale production.
During a tour of the facility, chemical engineer Kevin Gross explained that the ethanol produced here essentially will be the same as that produced using corn.
“But what makes it different than any other ethanol facility is that we’re not using corn as the feedstock,” he said. “We’re using waste material, or byproducts of corn. We’re using corn stover, wheat straw, switchgrass. Any herbaceous material, we can process and we can turn it into ethanol.”
And Moniz said there’s an abundance of biomass available in the United States for ethanol production.
“The Oak Ridge National Laboratory, one of the DOE laboratories, has estimated that, nationally, we will probably have on the order of a billion tons of biomass usable for conversion,” he said.
Most of the crop residue available for use in the Hugoton facility comes from corn grown nearby to feed livestock. And growing corn requires lots of water — water that comes from the dwindling Ogallala aquifer that underlies much of western Kansas.
But that’s not the only sustainability issue. Another that’s often overlooked is the importance of crop residue to the land itself.
DeAnn Presley, an environmental soil scientist at Kansas State University, said crop residue helps prevent soil erosion and minimizes water loss.
“Anytime we have less than 80 percent of the soil surface covered, we lose water from the sun and wind, working to evaporate water,” Presley said.
So how much residue is too much to take from the soil? According to a leading expert, Ohio State University professor Rattan Lal, 70 to 80 percent of crop residue needs to be retained as a general rule.
“I did an experiment taking away the crop residue in Africa,” Lal said. “Over a 17-year period, the soil from which I was taking away all of the crop residue – it had become very hard, very cemented, very compacted. The roots could not grow through it.”
Lal said crop residue feeds the earthworms and microbes that the soil needs to grow healthy plants.
Farmers like Steve Rome understand that. He farms about 12,000 acres — mostly irrigated — around Hugoton. While Abengoa was celebrating the plant’s grand opening, Rome was on his tractor, tilling the remains of last fall’s corn crop back into a field to prepare it for planting wheat.
Rome sells some of his crop residue to Abengoa. But not from this field, where the soil is too sandy and prone to erosion. Rome considers proper land management to be more important than the money he could get by selling the corn stubble from this field.
“We look at this as a factory, and if it’s going to decrease our production levels, we won’t do it long-term,” he said. “That was an understanding when we talked to Abengoa from the very beginning. And there’s plenty of flexibility within the contract that allows us to change fields — which ones we take residue off of, and how much we need.”
Abengoa’s Christopher Standlee doesn’t think excessive removal of crop residue will become an issue. More than 15 million tons of the stuff is available within 50 miles of the plant every year.
“Of that 15.3 million tons, we only need the 0.3, roughly 320,000 tons, to operate this facility — to produce all of the electricity that we need, all of the steam that we need and the ethanol, and have some electricity left over to sell back to the grid,” he said.
And for now, there is strong demand for the 25 million gallons of ethanol the Hugoton plant can produce every year. That’s largely because of federal guidelines that require ethanol to be blended into the nation’s fuel supply. A bill to repeal those guidelines is pending in the U.S. Senate.
Bryan Thompson is a reporter for Heartland Health Monitor, a news collaboration focusing on health issues and their impact in Missouri and Kansas.
Superintendent Dean Katt is encouraging donations to the USD 489 Foundation Fund for Educational Excellence on Tuesday because donations will be matched from the Heartland Community Foundation.
Tuesday is the foundation’s Match Madness, during which the group will match donations made to any of the 16 nonprofits the foundation serves.
At Monday’s Board of Education meeting, Superintendent Dean Katt said the USD 489 Foundation helps students by contributing to the Hays Middle School’s food bank, funding after-school programs and a variety of other needs.
“A few things they have just recently done are paying for the Wilson second graders to attend the Sternberg Museum,” Katt said. “They are also paying some of the fees for woodworking at the high school for students … after-school care scholarships and some of those things.”
For a full list of participating Match Madness nonprofits and donation drop-off sites, click HERE.
