KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — A memorial has been dedicated in Kansas City to the 114 people killed 34 years ago in one of the nation’s worst structural disasters.

Two-hundred people from around the country turned out Friday to view the 24-foot sculpture entitled “Sending Loves” The names of those killed in the 1981 skywalks collapse at Kansas City’s former Hyatt Regency Hotel are etched in the memorial.

The collapse occurred during a dance that drew about 1,500 people to the hotel. Shortly after 7 p.m., the fourth-floor skywalk gave way, falling on a second-floor skywalk. Then both dropped about 45 feet into the crowded lobby.

Besides the 114 people killed, more than 200 were injured. The memorial also honors the rescuers who rushed to the scene to cut people out of the twisted metal.

HUTCHINSON – The former St. Elizabeth Hospital building in Hutchinson is scheduled for auction next week.

The facility, referred to as the North Hospital, at 500 west 20^th Street and Monroe was built in 1920 by the Catholic church.

It originally had 50 hospital beds and a nursing school.

The four story brick building located on the 1.8-acre corner lot now had office units on the first floor and apartment units on the second floor.

The third and fourth floors are in the process of being renovated, according to Auction Management Corporation.

The auction on November 19 begins at 1 p.m. There will also be webcast bidding that day.

Details on the sale are available here.

LAWRENCE, Kan. (AP) — University of Kansas students and faculty have met at a forum to discuss the effects of racism, expressing frustration with school administration in Lawrence.

The Topeka Capital-Journal reports the Wednesday forum drew more than 1,000 people to the auditorium at the main student union on campus, with more watching from an overflow room.

The forum was announced Monday in the wake of recent student protests over racism at the University of Missouri in Columbia.

Chancellor Bernadette Gray-Little moderated the event, and listened as people voiced their experiences and concerns.

Several members of a group known as Rock Chalk Invisible Hawk took to the stage with signs and demanded actions from the

school, including that the university hire a director for the Office of Multicultural Affairs by Dec. 15 and that concealed weapons be banned from campus.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — A Kansas woman has pleaded guilty to charges accusing her of embezzling about $471,000 from her employer.

The office of the U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Missouri said in a release that Kimberly Joyce Padgett of Osawatomie, Kansas, pleaded guilty Thursday to five counts of wire fraud.

The prosecutor’s office says Padgett admitted embezzling about $471,000 from Reliant Financial Services in Kansas City, Missouri. Among her duties at the company were paying bills and preparing paychecks. She’s accused of writing $350,000 in checks to herself and using a company credit card to pay for such things as clothing, jewelry and hotels.

She faces up to 20 years in federal prison without parole, as well as fines.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — A professional skier who walked away after falling 1,600 feet down an Alaska mountain says the experience was “gnarly.”

The video, courtesy Teton Gravity Research, of Canadian skier Ian McIntosh cartwheeling down a near vertical mountain has gone viral this week.

The fall happened last April in the Neacola Mountains, about 125 miles southwest of Anchorage. McIntosh was being filmed for the Teton Gravity Research movie “Paradise Waits,” which opens this week.

He says in a video posted on the company’s website that he saw a ridge in the snow and thought he could ski on either side of it.

But as he chose one side, he says his feet just dropped out from under him as he tumbled down the vertical wall. A body camera and footage from a helicopter followed him caroming down the mountain, capturing every bone-jarring grunt as he tumbled after yelling an emphatic, “No!”

Teton Gravity Research owner Todd Jones said in a release that the fall “was the most terrifying crash I’ve ever seen.”

 

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas lawmakers automatically are getting an 8.5 percent raise in their per diem allowance.

The Wichita Eagle reports the raise is because of a state law that increased lawmakers’ daily “subsistence payments” by more than 28 percent through the past seven years. The Legislature set it up in 2008 so members’ per diem rises with a federal allowance.

The per diem payments are the set amount lawmakers get to pay their living expenses each day they work in Topeka.

As of Oct. 1, the per diem amount is $140 a day, up from $129. The allowance payments are in addition to the state lawmakers’ base salary of $88.66 a day when they attend session and committee meetings.

SALINE COUNY -The body of a missing Lindsborg man was found Tuesday afternoon in Saline County.

Saline County Sheriff’s Captain Roger Soldan said the body of 25-year-old Christopher Howell was found just after 5p.m. in a hedgerow by some people out hitting golf balls in the 4600 block of South Old-81 Highway.

Howell was last seen on May 6th by a relative who dropped him off in Salina so he could catch a bus to go to Oregon to see another relative.

His family filed a missing person report in August.

Soldan said an autopsy would be conducted.