The Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks, in cooperation with Smoky Hill Pheasants Forever No. 424, will host the annual youth upland hunt in memory of a former volunteers Darrell Brown, La Vern Steiben, LeRoy Culbreath and Sid Carlile on Oct. 10.
The event will be held at Hays City Sportsman Club, just off Interstate 70 at Exit 157.
The hunt is for youth between the ages of 12 and 18 years of age. Each youth hunter will have the opportunity to harvest at least 4 birds while hunting over some fantastic pointing dogs.
The participants do not only hunt, but are mentored on a variety of other subjects. They receive instructions on how to hunt with pointing dogs, field safety, how hunting dogs are trained, gun handling, how to clean and prepare the birds they harvested, and what type of habitat to look for when hunting upland birds. The D.A.R.E. (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) program is also incorporated into the event.
Special hunts like this one are part of the Kansas Hunter Recruitment and Retention Program called “PASS IT ON.” This program addresses the need to recruit new hunters and retain existing hunters in order to ensure the future of hunting.
For more information or to register, contact Shayne Wilson at (785) 628-1415 8am-5pm. Monday thru Friday. There is no charge for the hunt.
Listen as ‘Voice of the Chiefs’ Mitch Holthus reviews the Chiefs Monday Night Football loss to the Green Bay Packers at Lambeau Field and previews Sunday’s game at Cincinnati.
The Holthus Hotline airs at 6:30am every Saturday morning during the Chiefs season.
The Center for Health Improvement is offering a FREE Park Crawl Workout for exercise enthusiasts on Saturday, Oct. 17, from 8:15 am – 11:00 am. Participants will travel to four parks in the Hays area with different exercises featured at each location.
The day starts at the Center for Health Improvement, 2500 Canterbury with a warm up at 8:15 am. The first stop is the Pratt Optimist Park for a Body Weight Strength and Conditioning workout at 8:30 am. Next on the route is Tabata Training which will begin at the entrance to Lark’s Park at 9:00 am. From there it’s on to Games for Days at Frontier Park at 9:30 am. PiYo will be held at Massey Park at 10:00 am. At 10:30 the group will be back at The Center for Health Improvement for Breakfast/Yoga Cool Down.
Transportation from park to park will be provided by Access Public Transportation. If you can’t make the whole event you are encouraged to join the group at any one of the park locations. Bring your family and friends for a morning of fun at the FREE Park Crawl Workout.
For more information go to www.haysmed.com/the-center/ or call (785) 623-5900. The Park Crawl is partially underwritten by a grant from the Kansas Health Foundation Fund for Heartland Community Foundation.
Rep. Dennis Hedke, chairman of the Clean Power Plan Implementation Study Committee, says the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency ‘overstepped’ its bounds with a federally mandated plan to cut carbon commissions. CREDIT ANDY MARSO / HEARTLAND HEALTH MONITOR
A Kansas committee formed to vet a federally mandated plan to cut carbon emissions met for the first time Thursday in a hearing dominated by criticism of the plan.
Rep. Dennis Hedke, chairman of the Clean Power Plan Implementation Study Committee, blasted the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for putting forth the rule, which is intended to prevent climate change.
“They have overstepped so many bounds it’s just almost unconscionable,” Hedke said.
The United Nations and other international groups have urged countries to try to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from power plants that burn fossil fuels. Most climate scientists agree the carbon emissions are contributing to global climate change and sea level rise.
The World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention expect serious public health effects as Earth’s climate changes, including expansion of vector-borne disease and disruption of the water and food supply.
The Clean Power Plan is a set of regulations from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency that require states to meet certain carbon reduction goals within their electrical grids by 2030.
According to the EPA, Kansas was given “one of the least stringent state goals” in the country.
President Obama and EPA officials say the carbon reduction plan is key to reducing the U.S. role in climate change.
Gov. Sam Brownback and Republican legislative leaders have decried the regulations, saying they violate states’ rights and will lead to big utility cost increases for businesses and individuals.
They passed a bill instructing the Kansas Department of Health and Environment to move forward in drafting a plan to meet the 2030 mandate, because if the state does not form its own plan, the EPA will impose one on it.
But the legislation passed last session stipulates that any KDHE plan must be vetted by the Kansas attorney general to ensure it doesn’t undermine a lawsuit Kansas and 14 other states have filed against the EPA.
Legal fight pending
The bill also formed the 11-member committee to provide legislative oversight of any plan KDHE puts forth.
The agenda for Thursday’s committee meeting included presentations from utility company representatives, state regulators and an attorney from Baker Botts, which bills itself as “one of the leading oil and gas firms in the world.”
Tom Gross, the leader of KDHE’s air quality monitoring program, and Jeff Chanay, the deputy attorney general working on the lawsuit, both said the EPA’s emission reduction targets would be impossible to reach.
“There is just no way possible to comply with these implementation dates,” Chanay said.
Hedke said Chanay’s assessment of the federal government’s “overreach and misapplication of the law” was spot on and urged him to litigate vigorously.
“Keep it up,” Hedke said. “Keep the pressure on.”
The Clean Power Plan committee is made up of nine Republicans and two Democrats, all of them members of the House Energy and Environment Committee or Senate Utilities Committee. The two Republican chairmen of those committees, Hedke and Sen. Rob Olson, both are on record saying they do not believe humans are causing climate change. Hedke is a geophysicist who contracts with oil and natural gas companies.
Religious leaders press for action
The committee’s inaugural gathering came days after Pope Francis urged Americans to make fighting climate change a priority during his visit to the East Coast. The Pope called on Congress and other Americans to preserve creation and protect poor nations that will be least able to cope with a changing climate.
Rep. Annie Kuether, one of the two Democrats on the committee, said she did not believe the Pope’s comments during his U.S. visit would change the discussion in Kansas, where fighting climate change is a low priority.
Kuether said she thought she and the committee’s other Democrat, Sen. Marci Francisco of Lawrence, were probably the only members who believe humans are causing climate change.
“I want to ask everybody if they’re Catholics,” Kuether said. “Your Pope is espousing that we need to pay attention to climate change. I think he has a great message.”
Sen. Mike Petersen, a Republican from Wichita who sits on the committee, expressed skepticism of human-caused climate change, saying “climate change has been in cycles, that’s kind of still up in the air whether how much we can contribute.”
Petersen said some initial estimates from the Kansas regional electricity pool showed a 40 percent increase in electricity costs if the state were to comply with the federal emissions reduction plan.
“I think most members of this committee are wanting us to be good stewards of our atmosphere,” he said. “We all live here. But we’re looking at the data and trying to get the cost and how this is going to affect our consumers, particularly the poor.”
Kansas Interfaith Power and Light, a group of religious leaders who lobby for policies to fight climate change, has planned a vigil Sunday afternoon in Overland Park to raise awareness about the issue.
The vigil coincides with the Catholic Feast of St. Francis and the Jewish holiday Sukkot and will feature clergy representing Christianity, Judaism and Islam.
“Our many faiths call us to be responsible stewards of creation and to stand in protection of the poorest and most vulnerable humans, ecosystems and species that will be most harmed by climate change,” said Moti Rieber, a rabbi who serves as the group’s director.
Andy Marso is a reporter for Heartland Health Monitor, a news collaboration focusing on health issues and their impact in Missouri and Kansas.
PRATT–The 2015 Kansas duck season is about to kick off – are you ready for the marsh madness? Before you throw on your waders and start unraveling decoys, there are a few things you need to know. iSportsman, the free and convenient electronic check-in system, is now offered at 23 locations throughout the state. If you have yet to create an account, consider signing up at kdwpt.isportsman.net. Federal Waterfowl Stamps, required of all waterfowl hunters age 16 and older, have increased in price and can be purchased for $26.50.
All hunters who are required to have a hunting license must also have a State Waterfowl Permit, $7, and a Kansas Harvest Information Program (HIP) Permit, $2.50, before hunting ducks, geese, or mergansers. Licenses, stamps and permits, except for Federal Waterfowl Stamps, may be obtained wherever licenses are sold and online at ksoutdoors.com. Apart from post offices, Federal Waterfowl Stamps may also be obtained online from www.duckstamp.com and www.usps.com.
Federal and state waterfowl permits are not required to hunt coots, doves, rails, snipe, woodcock, or sandhill cranes; however a HIP Permit is required.
2015 DUCK SEASONS
YOUTH WATERFOWL SEASONS
High Plains Unit: Oct. 3-4, 2015
Low Plains Early Zone: Oct. 3-4, 2015
Low Plains Late Zone: Oct. 24-25, 2015
Southeast Zone: Nov. 7-8, 2015
(Bag limits for the youth seasons are the same as during the regular seasons and include ducks, geese, coots and mergansers.)
HIGH PLAINS UNIT
Oct. 10, 2015-Jan. 4, 2016 and Jan. 23-31, 2016
LOW PLAINS EARLY ZONE
Oct. 10-Dec. 6, 2015 and Dec. 19, 2015-Jan. 3, 2016
LOW PLAINS LATE ZONE
Season: Oct. 31, 2015-Jan. 3, 2016 and Jan. 23-31, 2016
LOW PLAINS SOUTHEAST ZONE
Nov. 14, 2015-Jan. 3, 2016 and Jan. 9-31, 2016
Hunters may take six ducks daily, including no more than, 5 mallards, of which only 2 may be hens; 3 wood ducks; 3 scaup; 2 pintails; 2 redheads; and 2 canvasbacks. Possession limit is three times the daily bag limit.
Hunters taking mergansers may possess up to five a day, only two of which may be hooded mergansers. Possession limit is three times the daily bag limit.
For more information on Kansas duck hunting, visit ksoutdoors.com and click “Hunting,” “Seasons and Limits,” then “Migratory Bird Seasons,” or pick up a copy of the 2015 Kansas Hunting and Furharvesting Regulations Summary wherever licenses are sold.
CHICAGO (AP) — New research says computer-assisted detection used in most U.S. mammograms adds no benefit to women.
The technique uses special software to highlight suspicious areas on mammogram images that radiologists reading the scans may have missed. Doctors take another look before making a determination.
Screening mammograms are preventive care and most women don’t pay more for the technique, but the researchers say it adds millions to U.S. health care costs,
Previous studies suggesting benefits mostly involved older film mammograms. Most scans now are digital. The study involved nearly 324,000 U.S. women who had screening mammograms, most with computer assistance and some without. The overall cancer detection rate was about 4 in 1,000 women and was identical in both groups.
The study appears in Monday’s JAMA Internal Medicine.
Friday night the Hays High Indians took to the road looking for the same result their only other road trip of the year had provided, a win. The Indians were in Wichita to take on the 4-0 Wichita South Titans. The Titans had already scored more points in four games than they had total in two of the previous three full seasons. With four wins in four games, South had already tied their win total of the previous three seasons combined.
The teams played to a scoreless tie at the end of the first quarter. Hays struck first on a seven yard touchdown pass from Maddux Winter to Shane Berens. The drive was set up by a Kohlton Meyers interception. The touchdown gave Hays a 7-0 lead with 8:09 left in the 2nd quarter. Hays would score on their next possession. Keith Dryden ripped off a 73 yard run to set up a one yard score by Kohlton Meyers to take a 13-0 lead after the extra point was blocked. Wichita South drove inside of the five at the end of the first half, but a intentional grounding penalty ran off the final three seconds of the half. Hays led at half 13-0.
Highlights:
Neither team would score in the third quarter. The big play of the quarter came when Maddux Winter intercepted a pass in the end zone stop another South drive from inside 5.
Hays would force a fifth Titan turnover of the game and turn it into a 22 yard field goal from Logan Clark to take a 16-0 lead with 7:40 remaining in the game.
South would have one more chance to score at the end of the game, but was turned away from inside the five again.
Coach Randall Rath:
Hays improves to 2-3 on the year. Wichita South drops to 4-1.
TMP turned the ball over five times in the first half with four fumbles and one interception and lost 40-20 Friday night at Lewis Field. Despite all of the turnovers the Monarchs were able keep the game within striking distance. They used a Gavin Schumacher 80 yard kickoff return for a touchdown and Chase Romme connected with Tucker Rhoades on an 11 yard touchdown pass late in the first half. That brought TMP within 20-13 at the half.
Romme struck again at the 6:35 mark of the third quarter when he intercepted a Nick Aust pass and returned it 24 yards for the touchdown. Following the extra point the game was tied at 20. That’s when the Bluejays ran away and hid with the game.
Aust went off in the third and fourth quarters for Cimarron. He had three second half touchdowns and finished the game with 161 yards and five touchdowns. Cimarron is now 3-2 on the season and will play their third straight road game in Elkhart on Friday. TMP drops their third straight game and are 1-4 on the season. The Monarchs will host Oakley on Friday night.
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas congressman Tim Huelskamp says the next U.S. House speaker faces rebuilding the trust of his fellow conservatives.
Huelskamp said Friday in an interview that he hasn’t yet endorsed a candidate to replace outgoing Speaker John Boenher next month.
Huelskamp is a tea party favorite who represents the 1st District of western and central Kansas and has clashed with House GOP leaders.
Boehner late in 2012 stripped Huelskamp of seats on the House Budget and Agriculture committees. Until then, Kansas had a nearly automatic seat on the Agriculture Committee for decades.
Huelskamp remained critical of leading speaker candidate and Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy.
Huelskamp said he needs to see proof that a potential speaker will work with conservatives.
The congressman said, “They’ve got to rebuild some trust.”
The Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks, in cooperation with Smoky Hill Pheasants Forever No. 424, will host the annual youth upland hunt in memory of a former volunteers Darrell Brown, La Vern Steiben, LeRoy Culbreath and Sid Carlile on Oct. 10. 
