Thomas More Prep-Marian and Nacel Open Door and are looking for loving, caring host families to provide homes for four international students who will be attending Thomas More Prep-Marian for the 2016-17 school year.
This is TMP-M’s second year of placing students in host families. Families receive a monthly stipend as well as ongoing support from a local representative and other professional staff at Nacel Open Door and TMP-M.
Anyone interested in serving as a host family should contact Stacey Lang, Nacel Open Door local representative, at [email protected] or (785) 259-4345.
WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — Former Dallas Cowboys running back Joseph Randle has been charged with threatening a deputy while jailed on other charges in Kansas.
The Wichita Eagle reports that Randle is charged in Sedgwick County with one count of criminal threat. He said he plans to hire a lawyer to represent him during a first appearance Tuesday via a video link from the jail.
Sheriff’s spokesman Lt. Lin Dehning said in an email that Randle is accused of threatening a deputy who was “enforcing the rules” last month at the jail. No other details were immediately provided.
Randle has had a string of run-ins with the law. He’s also been charged in Kansas with a casino disturbance and with backing his car into three people. The Cowboys released Randle last year.
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The 22nd annual Wild West Festival in Hays is scheduled for June 30 to July 4.
Hays Post is partnering with the Wild West Festival committee to offer a sneak peak at the performers taking the stage this year.
ADAM CAPPS BAND
Adam Capps grew up listening to all genres of music and learned at an early age that good music is good music, no matter the genre. In his early teens he picked up an old, red, Danelectro guitar and began to pick away at it. It wasn’t long after that, he had written his first few songs.
During his attendance at Wichita State University, where he was an accomplished track athlete, he earned a degree in Spanish and Education. He used that degree to begin his first job as a high school Spanish teacher. During the last couple years of college he started performing at smaller venues and parties and gained a following in his hometown of Wichita. It wasn’t until the age of 24 that Adam had the aspirations to pursue a music career.
In early 2014 The Adam Capps Band came together and put out their first single “Play It Proud” became a sort of anthem for the band to live by and they strive to take pride in every aspect of their music and performance. “Play It Proud” is a gritty sounding rock/country anthem that has the subtle sounds of an acoustic guitar and then explodes into a southern rock number with a formidable 33 second guitar solo.
The band’s second single release, “I Call It Home” was honored by being placed on the 2015 top 200 list of music on the Iceman’s radio network, the largest radio platform for independent artists. Not much time after coming together the band was featured in the Kansas Proud Concert, opened for acts such as Dustin Lynch, Easton Corbin, Logan Mize, Cam and performance at Kicker Country Stampeded in the Summer of 2015, and Adam was invited to perform at a side stage at the CMA Festival in the summer of 2015.
The band consists of Adam Capps joined by a group of rockers who grew up in the 60’s and 70’s , during the golden age of rock music. Bill Hemmert plays a smooth lead guitar, Danny Burt pounding on the drums and Chuck Simon thumpin the bass. Their blend of classic rock, country, and southern rock has become a heck of a sound that isn’t like anything else on the radio today.
The band takes the Wild West Festival stage on June 30!
Check HaysPost.com for more acts in the coming days.
News of a mistake that dropped several thousand Kansans from state Medicaid backlog reports has advocates and Democratic lawmakers questioning the state’s oversight of the contractor blamed for the error.
Susan Mosier, secretary of the Kansas Department of Health and Environment, sent a letter to federal officials June 10 to let them know that the reports they had been receiving since February — which showed the state’s backlog of Medicaid applications steadily declining — were inaccurate.
The state had reported that the backlog of new applications awaiting processing as of May 8 was 3,480 and about 2,000 of those had been pending more than 45 days. After the reporting error was corrected, the state reported that as of May 22, the total backlog of new applications was 15,393 and nearly 11,000 of them had been waiting more than 45 days — the limit set by the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
Mosier placed responsibility for the error on a state contractor not named in the letter.
Angela de Rocha, a spokeswoman for state agencies, said Monday that the contractor in question is Accenture, the multinational firm that Kansas paid to build a new software platform for determining Medicaid eligibility called the Kansas Eligibility Enforcement System, or KEES. But she said the state is accountable for oversight.
“It’s ultimately our responsibility to get people’s applications determined, to get their eligibility determined,” de Rocha said. “But this is a setback.”
De Rocha said the state plans to withhold $750,000 from Accenture’s contract, which was extended through 2021 last year and is worth more than $250 million altogether.
Accenture spokeswoman Deirdre Blackwood said via email that the company did not make an error and was giving KDHE the information it requested.
Accenture, the state contractor in charge of developing the Kansas Eligibility Enforcement System, or KEES, has a project office in downtown Topeka. CREDIT ANDY MARSO / HEARTLAND HEALTH MONITOR
“KDHE then refined how it wanted the numbers compiled and we worked with the state to revise the reports,” Blackwood said.
Blackwood said the changes in reporting didn’t affect the state’s ability to pare down the backlog.
Legislators voted in April to audit the Medicaid backlog, which began to develop last year after KEES went live. A previous audit, ordered after more than a year of KEES delays, revealed that Accenture had promised more than it could deliver when it signed the initial contract with the state.
Medicaid, which in Kansas is a privatized program called KanCare, is funded through a combination of state and federal dollars. Most of the funding for KEES came from federal coffers.
Sean Gatewood, a former Democratic lawmaker who represents people on Medicaid through a group called the KanCare Advocates Network, said it’s time for executive branch officials and legislators to ask tough questions about Kansas’ ability to hold contractors accountable.
“The underlying thing is, the state’s not watching the problems,” he said.
Gatewood said he hoped CMS officials would force accountability. A CMS spokeswoman did not respond to a request for comment Monday.
Sen. Laura Kelly, the top Democrat on the Legislature’s KanCare oversight committee, likened the KEES failures to the rocky Division of Motor Vehicles software switch by another contractor, 3M Company.
She said she doubted the state had enough top information technology talent to make sure contractors live up to agreements.
“Whenever you do a massive database software switch, there are going to be issues,” Kelly said. “I think that’s why you have to have very technically skilled people overseeing the process to protect the state’ interests.”
Turnover at the top
Some of the job positions designated to provide KEES oversight recently have been vacant.
Glen Yancey, chief information officer for KDHE, remains in place after three years as executive director of KEES.
But the agency is without a KEES project manager following April Nicholson’s move to the Department of Commerce in May. And the director of Medicaid eligibility position was vacant for more than a month until Kim Burnam was hired to replace Darin Bodenhamer in early June.
State officials have not said whether Bodenhamer quit or was fired.
ServiceAccenture, the state contractor in charge of developing the Kansas Eligibility Enforcement System, or KEES, has a project office in downtown Topeka.
De Rocha said the error in the backlog reports occurred because Kansans who reapplied for Medicaid after being denied were not being counted.
She said eligibility workers noticed that reapplications were not showing up in the uncompleted section of KEES and flagged the problem.
“So the system itself actually helped us catch this reporting mistake,” de Rocha said.
Accenture develops software for government agencies across the country but has a checkered history. Shortly after signing the KEES contract in 2011, the company paid about $64 million to settle a lawsuit alleging kickbacks and other misdeeds in numerous federal IT projects. It has faced scrutiny more recently for cost overruns and delays on projects in Texas and California.
Kelly said it’s probably not feasible to seek another IT company to troubleshoot KEES, given the investment Kansas has made in Accenture and the state’s ongoing budget problems.
“I think it’s difficult to cut the cord, particularly when we don’t have a replacement in mind and we don’t have any money to get something new,” she said.
Blackwood, who works in Accenture’s Arlington, Va., location, said that “Accenture is meeting its contractual commitments to KDHE” and referred further questions to de Rocha.
A receptionist at Accenture’s KEES project office in downtown Topeka said the only person authorized to talk about the project was managing director Raymond Han, who was on a conference call at the time.
A message left for Han was not returned Monday.
Photo by Andy Marso/KHI News ServiceA visitor sign-in list at Accenture’s Topeka office showed that Phyllis Gilmore, secretary of the Kansas Department for Children and Families, attended a meeting there Friday.
A visitor sign-in list at Accenture’s Topeka office showed that Phyllis Gilmore, secretary of the Kansas Department for Children and Families, attended a meeting there Friday. CREDIT ANDY MARSO / HEARTLAND HEALTH MONITOR
A visitor sign-in list at Accenture’s Topeka office showed that Phyllis Gilmore, secretary of the Kansas Department for Children and Families, attended a meeting there Friday.
DCF spokeswoman Theresa Freed said it was a routine weekly meeting to talk about KEES.
Consequences
DCF workers processed some Medicaid applications until January, when KDHE took over operations at a centralized KanCare Clearinghouse.
Some DCF workers returned to help about a month later after the backlog ballooned following the Affordable Care Act’s open enrollment period. Mosier, in her June 10 letter to federal officials, said they will remain on that job in light of the corrected backlog numbers.
Mosier also said temporary KDHE staff hired through the end of June would be kept on past that date, overtime would be authorized for state and Accenture workers on the project, and resources would continue to be shifted to help trim the list.
De Rocha said the corrected backlog numbers were disappointingly high and frustrating for state officials as well as Medicaid applicants.
“All of that said, we should have this backlog problem solved by the end of the summer,” de Rocha said.
Meanwhile, the glut of unprocessed applications continues to affect thousands of low-income Kansans waiting on their Medicaid cards, most of whom are elderly, disabled, pregnant or children.
Cindy Luxem, president and CEO of a senior services organization called the Kansas Health Care Association, said her group recently surveyed its members about their outstanding bills for residents whose Medicaid applications are pending.
More than 100 nursing homes and providers of home and community-based services responded. Five nursing homes reported having at least one resident whose application had been pending a year or more.
One nursing home company reported 84 residents with pending applications and more than $750,000 in outstanding Medicaid claims.
Luxem said news of the higher backlog numbers made sense to her, in light of the survey responses.
“It did not surprise me when the story came out,” she said. “Because I believe we probably had several hundred in that list.”
Andy Marso is a reporter for KHI News Service in Topeka, a partner in the Heartland Health Monitor team. You can reach him on Twitter @andymarso
The Silver Alert for Mr. Roth was cancelled late Wednesday. He was found safe, according to the Kansas Bureau of Investigation.
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The Kansas Bureau of Investigation has issued a Silver Alert for a Harper County man who is believed to have been in Russell County recently.
The KBI is seeking the public’s assistance in locating Rex. E Roth, 56, who was last seen early Tuesday morning in Chadron, Neb. Roth — who is white, 5 foot, 8 inches, weighs 205 pounds, and has blue eyes and gray hair — is believed to have used his debit card in Russell at 4:45 p.m. Tuesday. His vehicle, a silver 2002 Chevy flatbed pickup with Nebraska tags 692546, was found unoccupied in Attica at 11 p.m. Tuesday.
Roth was last seen wearing blue jeans and a yellow T-shirt with “Dawes County” written on it. He has a past medical history of a traumatic brain injury, and has had episodes in the past where he is able to function but is unaware of his actions. He has family ties in Attica.
Anyone with information about Roth’s whereabouts should call the Harper County 911 center at (620) 842-3086 or a local law enforcement agency.
William (Willie) A. Heier, 83, of Grinnell Passed away June 21, 2016 at Gove County Medical Center with his wife and daughters by his side.
He was born June 25, 1932 to Michael and Marianna (Kuntz) Heier in Park, KS. He was raised in park and Grinnell. He graduated from Grinnell High School with the class of 1951. He served in the United States Army from 1954 to 1956 and honorably discharged.
He married Wilma Jean Hemmert on June 16, 1959 in Oakley. They made their home in Grinnell where Willie was a lifetime farmer and cattleman. He was a member of the Immaculate Conception Catholic Church in Grinnell and the American Legion Post 0301 of Grainfield.
Preceding him in death are his parents; son, Danny; sisters, Julia, Agnes and Lorena; brothers, Pius and Linus.
Survived by his wife, Jeannie of 57 years; daughters, Debbie (Joe) Lubbers, of McCook, NE, Dorena (Kevin) Goyen, of Kingman, Donna (Johnnie) Williams, of Page City and Darlene (Justen) Selley, of Holton; grandchildren, Beth, Patrick, Sarah, Skyler, Jerri, Jessi, Daniel, Porscha, Martin, Billy and Grace; 8 great grandchildren; sisters, Daisy Fellhoelter and Delores Katt.
Visitation will be 5-7:00pm Thursday, June 23, 2016 at Immaculate Conception Parish Center, Grinnell with Vigil at 7:00pm. Funeral Mass will be 10:00am, Friday, June 24, 2016 at Immaculate Conception Catholic Church, Grinnell. Burial will follow in the Church cemetery.
Memorials are suggested to the William Heier Memorial Fund to be designated by the family at a later date in care of Baalmann Mortuary, PO Box 204, Oakley KS 67748. Online condolences to www.baalmannmortuary.com.
Pictured from left is Nathan Shepherd, Bilal Salat, J.J. Lewis, Isaiah Maxi and Jeron Caraway. Dr. Valerie Zelenka is in front.
By SOPHIA ROSE YOUNG FHSU University Relations
South on Main Street in the 97-degree heat Tuesday, Fort Hays State University football players stood across the street from the Hays Aquatic Park in Early Childhood Connection’s lawn with brand new books spread across the tops of four long tables.
“We are hoping to get books in the hands of students to lessen the reading loss over the summer,” said Dr. Valerie Zelenka, assistant professor of teacher education. “We want to instill a love of reading in the children.”
After multiple brainstorming sessions, Zelenka, along with FHSU wide receiver Isaiah Maxi and Allen Park, instructor of teacher education, started the South Main Street Book Distribution Project. The project, which is supported by Midwest Energy’s Community Fund and the Kansas Health Foundation, has allowed for FHSU football players to start handing out $5,000 worth of books to elementary school age children.
Maxi said that there is concern about low-income children not having books to read over the summer. “I was that kid; I didn’t have much growing up,” he said.
Maxi’s love for football is as strong as his love for children and the City of Hays. He works for FHSU’s Tiger Tots and the Hays Recreation Center and has applied for daycare positions. He said he wants to do more to help kids and do what he can to make the community better before he graduates.
“The community has done a lot for me,” he said. “I feel it’s my obligation to give back.”
As children passed by to eat lunch at ECC and to visit the Hays Aquatic Center, five members of the FHSU football team were handing out high-fives, football tosses and the books.
Football players present were: wide receiver Bilal Salat, agricultural business major; tight end J. J. Lewis, sports management major; defensive tackle Nathan Shepherd, political science major; linebacker- defensive back Jeron Caraway, marketing major; and Maxi, organizational leadership major.
The South Main Street Distribution Project will continue to pass out books during the summer and hopefully into the fall, Zelenka said.
WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — The father of a Kansas boy who was self-conscious about scarring following brain cancer surgery has got a tattoo that resembles his son’s scar on the side of his head.
Josh Marshall tells ABC News that 8-year-old Gabriel was left with a large horseshoe scar above his right ear after undergoing surgery to remove a brain tumor. Marshall says Gabriel said he “felt like a monster.”
Last August, Marshall got a tattoo to match, telling his son, “if people want to stare at you, then they can stare at both of us.”
A photo of the pair took first place in the St. Baldrick’s Foundation’s #BestBaldDad competition on Father’s Day.
Marshall says Gabriel is doing well. He says a small tumor remains but that it hasn’t grown.
Joe Erdman, a Fort Hays State University graduate who works for Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company, will speak at a Science Café at 7 p.m. Thursday at Cody Commons in the Memorial Union on the FHSU campus. Erdman, who is scheduled to speak at the inaugural Hispanic College Institute on the FHSU campus earlier that day, is a systems engineer with NASA’s Orion project — an initiative for deep-space exploration.
“He’s the guy who makes sure it’s working,” said Dr. Paul Adams, dean of the College of Education.
Erdman’s presentation will cover the Orion spacecraft, America’s next generation spacecraft that will take astronauts to exciting destinations never explored by humans. It will serve as the exploration vehicle that will carry the crew to distant planetary bodies, provide emergency abort capability, sustain the crew during space travel and provide safe reentry from deep space.
This Science Café is sponsored by the FHSU Science and Mathematics Education Institute. Admission is free, and the public is invited.
Along with the usual–KPRA rodeo, car races, truck and tractor pulls, the Pride of Texas Carnival and a demolition derby–this year will include several new activities and events at the Ellis County Fairgrounds July 16-23.
Little Texas
With the theme “Heroes in the Heartland,” the featured musical attraction will be a concert Fri., July 22, by country group Little Texas.
As the band neared Hays on Aug, 9, 2011, American flags greeted them at every turn — they were just ahead of the funeral procession for the fallen soldier. Nichols, a ’98 graduate of Thomas More Prep Marian High School, was killed Aug. 6, 2011, while serving with the 158th Aviation Regiment in Afghanistan.
Nichols’ family will attend the Little Texas concert in his honor, Pfannenstiel said, and will meet with the band members.
Of course, the fair focuses on 4-H, whose members are busy working on their projects. One major change this year for them and open-class participants is a new system for fair entries.
“I’ve been working on it since January and we’ll be rolling it out,” Pfannenstiel said.
“Everyone pre-enters to the fair online on the computer and we’ll print entry tags. This year will be a trial year to work out all the bugs but it will be good. It’ll help us on entering the results and getting them published to the media quicker.”
Also new is the July 19 Old Timers Showmanship Contest–for those age 19 or older–which will be a fundraiser for the Ellis County 4-H Council.
“So if you know someone with some animals out there already and you want to try showing a pig, goat or beef, you can come out and show. It’s $15 to enter,” she explained, “and you can win some of the money back and the rest will go to the 4-H Council.”
One change fair attendees will surely notice is new bathrooms.
“We’re in the final phase of getting those finished–finishing plumbing and putting up the partitions,” Pfannenstiel reported. “They’re looking great. We had a business donate an air conditioning and furnace system to us as a fair sponsorship for the next few years, so that was really nice. We’ve had lots of good help, lots of good volunteers out there working on that so it will be a nice addition to the fairgrounds.”
Commissioners assured Pfannenstiel the county would again help with building the demo derby pit and the tractor pull track as it has in past years.
More information and ticket locations for the 2016 Ellis County Fair is available on the website and Facebook.
WELLINGTON, Kan. – The Hays Larks scored 10 runs in the first three innings and cruise to their 10th straight win, 17-8 over the Wellington Heat Tuesday night at Hibbs-Hooten Stadium. Austin O’Brien hit a three-homer in the first inning and Nate Olinger launched a grand slam in the third as the Larks built a 10-1 lead. Mike Mioduszewski added a three-run blast in the fifth.
Jax Bigger had five hits while Olinger drove in six runs. O’Brien had five RBIs and scored five runs.
Starter Stephen Yancey (2-0) allowed five runs on four hits over five innings and picked up the win.
The Larks improve to 16-1 and 12-1 in the Jayhawk League where they lead Dodge City by three games.
Tuesday night’s Jayhawk League results…
Dodge City 6, Liberal 4
El Dorado 7, Bethany 5
Haysville 9, Derby 4
NEW YORK (AP) – Bartolo Colon’s early injury put the New York Mets in a major bind, but they won a battle of bullpens against the best relief corps in baseball and defeated the Kansas City Royals 2-1 on Tuesday night in a World Series rematch.
Yoenis Cespedes hit his 18th home run and Asdrubal Cabrera also connected for New York, which had lost three straight and six of eight.
Held to one hit and no other baserunners Sunday as lowly Atlanta capped a sweep at Citi Field, the Mets again had trouble generating offense. This time, however, a gritty Hansel Robles (1-3) and four other relievers bailed them out by combining for 8 2/3 stellar innings in the opener of a two-game set.
Robles relieved after Colon bruised his thumb after being hit by a line drive on his fourth pitch.
Ian Kennedy (5-6) allowed two runs over four innings.
Also new is the July 19 Old Timers Showmanship Contest–for those age 19 or older–which will be a fundraiser for the Ellis County 4-H Council.