Dr. Paul Camarata, TMP ’78, is featured in KC 435 Magazine.
TMP-MARIAN
Paul Camarata, a 1978 graduate of Thomas More Prep High School in Hays, is featured on the latest 435 Magazine. The locally-owned 435 Magazine in Kansas City strives to create an informative monthly magazine that serves as the local authority on all that is so great about the Midwestern metro it serves.
Camarata also maintains the podcast and website, saintcast.org.
From saintcast.org:
“Dr. Paul Camarata is the producer of The SaintCast.
Using his past experience as a broadcaster (including KAYS-TV and Radio in Hays), educated in western Kansas by the Capuchin Franciscans, and with a love for the stories of the Saints, he has answered Blessed Pope John Paul’s call for the new evangelization by putting together a series of podcasts whose aim is to help others learn of the lives of these holy men and women, who have lived lives of heroic virtue.
With profiles of these holy heroes, interviews, and through ‘soundseeing’ tours, Camarata takes the listener from the catacombs of Rome, to the Areopagus Hill in Athens, to San Giovanni Rotondo, and to churches and holy places frequented by the saints all over the world. Taking a light-hearted approach to recounting these stories, he helps bring stories of the saints alive in our daily lives, in a format that is both informative and entertaining. The SaintCast pledges complete fidelity to the Magisterium of the Catholic Church.
Camarata lives in the Kansas City metropolitan area, is married over 25 years to a true saint, with three wonderful children. When he’s not podcasting, he practices neurological surgery.
Suggestions, comments, and emails are always welcome, as is voice feedback at +1.312.235.2278.”
RENO COUNTY– Two Kansas men arrested on December 14, were back before a Reno County judge Wednesday morning for the formal reading of charges.
Jeterri J. Davis and Antione Alexander both of Hutchinson were arrested after they showed up at an apartment building in the unit block of East 2nd Street in Hutchinson where Davis was accused of forcing his way in and threatening the occupant with a handgun.
He’s jailed on a $17,000 bond charged with aggravated burglary, aggravated assault, criminal possession of a firearm and defacing identification marks on the firearm.
He ran from the scene. Police found him about 20-minutes after the altercation at the apartment.
Alexander is charged with felony interference.
Police were looking for him and when they arrived at a residence in the 200 block of East 7th, he reportedly jumped from a second story window of the home and ran from officers. He was captured about three blocks
Antoine Alexander
away.
The cases against the two men will now move to a future waiver-status docket.
USGS image location of Thursday morning earthquake
HARPER COUNTY — An earthquake shook south central Kansas early Thursday.
The quake just before 9 a.m. measured a magnitude 2.8, according to the U.S. Geological Survey and was centered approximately 15 miles southeast of Harper. A 2.8 magnitude earthquake hit the same area on December 17.
There were no reports of damage, according to the Harper County Sheriff’s Office.
According to the USGS, a quake of that strength results in weak to light shaking.
Ellis County attorney Tom Drees has responded to the lawsuit that was filed in Ellis Co. District Court late Tuesday afternoon by Mary Alice Unrein, the developer of the proposed subdivision Blue Sky Acres south of Hays.
The Ellis County Commission and Commissioner Marcy McClelland are facing a lawsuit over a stalled residential subdivision south of Hays.
“The petition has been filed, and the petition will be served at court,” said Drees Thursday morning. “Once the petition has been served we will review the petition, file with the court, and proceed from there.”
MCCOOK, Neb. (AP) — Authorities report that two inmates are missing from the Work Ethic Camp in McCook, approximately 2 hours northwest of Hays.
A Nebraska Correctional Services Department news release says the two were missing when a head count was conducted at 10:50 p.m. Wednesday. Security video shows the two walking away from the camp around 5:30 p.m.
The two were identified as 20-year-old Andrew Russell, who’d been convicted of two drug offenses in Dawes County, and 35-year-old Charles Canaday, who was convicted of crimes in four counties.
Russell-courtesy photo
The department describes the camp as a minimum-security facility for inmates evaluated as being able to work in the community with intermittent supervision.
Wednesday afternoon accident photos Saline County Sheriff’s Office
SALINE COUNTY – Two Kansas men were injured in an accident just after 4:30 p.m. on Wednesday in Saline County.
A car driven by John Armstrong, 45, Hutchinson, was westbound on Magnolia Road according to Saline County Undersheriff Roger Soldan.
The driver failed to stop at the intersection and hit the back end of a car driven by 59-year-old Rex Cearley of Abilene, which was northbound on Kipp Road.
Armstrong and a passenger Rodney Hayes, 48, Hillsboro were transported to Salina Regional Medical Center.
Allie Smith forgoes the bell and sings Christmas carols instead as she volunteers with the Salvation Army Red Kettle Thursday morning in Hays at the west Dillons store.
By BECKY KISER Hays Post
Allie Smith isn’t always ringing that familiar bell when she volunteers at the Salvation Army Red Kettle during the Christmas season.
Thursday morning, she was outside the entrance of the west Dillons store, 517 W. 27th, wearing her sled dog hat, which was drawing some of the attention and comments.
It was her strong alto voice singing Christmas carols acapella, however, that drew in many of the early morning grocery shoppers who stopped to make a donation and ask “where’s your bell?”
“I don’t have my bell. I’m just singing,” Smith replied with a big smile and nod of appreciation to the donors. “One time a young lady brought me a hot chocolate.”
The interim pastor of St. John’s church north of Ellis has been singing most of her life.
No lyrics, just the titles of Christmas songs Smith has memorized.
“I grew up with my mom and me singing Christmas carols together,” she said, showing a long list of holiday songs she has memorized.
Smith has been volunteering Thursdays from 10 a.m. until noon during the holidays. The Salvation Army Red Kettle collections in Hays began Thanksgiving day, Nov. 24 and will continue through Christmas eve, Dec. 24.
“It’s just my way of giving back,” she said, and then launched into another Christmas tune.
Long-term U.S. mortgage rates shot up this week to the highest levels in more than two years.
Investors are bidding up rates because they believe the incoming Trump administration will drive inflation and economic growth higher with tax cuts and increased government spending. Long-term mortgage rates have risen eight straight weeks.
Christmas is a tough season for a political columnist. We are a grumpy bunch who find a lot to grouse about. This season, however, should bring good cheer and well-wishes for our fellow humans. Herewith an effort to put a little cheer into a meager Kansas political Christmas.
With the 2016 election over and the jockeying well underway for position and power we are being treated to various Kansas politicians from the governor on down seemingly determined to dampen our holiday spirits by focusing on the annual convocation of the legislature and the various revenue and policy messes with which it must deal. In an effort to maintain some happiness and good humor in this season it seems appropriate to send Santa a last minute wish list for the good people of Kansas.
Dr. Mark Peterson
First, for the statehouse press corps, a year’s supply of Gorilla Glue in the handy insta-spray applicator. This will help capture the cartoon balloons of rhetoric from the governor and his spinners concerning the great importance he attaches to not providing any substantive proposals for reducing expenditures now, and possibly forever more, to fit the state’s purposely diminished revenues. With these new applicators, journalists will be able to retain and analyze the ‘substance’ of these statements in their recently acquired “truth-o-meters.”
Second, for Senator Anthony Hensley, the Kansas senate minority leader, a fashionable new Kevlar and Teflon suit. This is no “ugly sweater” gift offered as a practical joke. This new garment will protect Kansas’s longest serving, and perhaps longest suffering, legislator from blunt force injuries and mud slung his way by the Republican administration. An educator by trade, the good senator keeps annoying people by suggesting that the governor should be applying better critical thinking and problem-solving skills.
Third, for Kansas Senate President Susan Wagle, a Wassail Cup of wisdom with a side order of tempered ambition. This will be a most trying legislative session. After years of experience at speaking tough conservative rhetoric to her allies in Wichita’s famed Pachyderm Club, while managing efforts at the doable and expedient during legislative sessions, she will have a new set of circumstances to confront this year. She has signaled her displeasure with some hard-right attitudes. Once an eager and active participant in the Koch sponsored, politically conservative American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), Senator Wagle has become more centrist. In the last legislative session she executed a tart and tough dismissal of one social conservative senator from a committee chair’s position and had some pointed criticism for the governor as well. This term there are enough moderate Republicans in the senate that policy majorities, built jointly with the nine Democrats Senator Hensley leads, could stop the governor’s “glidepath to zero” tax reduction program, reverse the 2012 tax cuts, and constructively deal with school finance and Medicaid expansion.
Finally, for the Kansas House of Representatives, peace and goodwill. The voters made a clear statement favoring significant changes in public policies as to the state’s services and how to pay for them. The house is full of new, inexperienced members. The moderate Republicans and forty Democrats could come together and accomplish a good bit to fix the revenue shortage and address the policy issues, but it will take hard work and intelligence, coupled with a sharp reduction in aggressive partisanship. That will be a tall order in a body where many are strangers to each other and alpha personalities abound. Peace and goodwill may sound Pollyannish, but broad observation provides plenty of illustrations of what goes wrong when these qualities are absent.
Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukah and Festivus for the rest of us!
Dr. Mark Peterson teaches political science at the college level in Topeka.
According to official statistics from the K-State Agricultural Research Center, Wednesday’s high in Hays was 53°. The record high for Dec. 22 in Hays was 74°set back in 1933.
The overnight low was 21°, considerably warmer than the record low for Dec. 22. That was a bone-chilling -25°, set not so long ago, in 1989.
The official weather guy at the ag research center, Joe Becker, probably speaks for all of us. “Hope we don’t ever break that record!”
According to the National Weather Service in Goodland, the cold temps were record-setting throughout the Tri-State area–northwest Kansas, eastcentral Colorado and southwest Nebraska.
“In 1989, (Dec. 22) was one of the coldest days on record in the Tri-State area. Yuma, Colorado reached 33 degrees below zero; Colby-32 below, Goodland–27 below, and Hill City–26 below. These temperatures were the coldest ever recorded at each location.”
Today’s weather forecast for Hays is cooler than Wednesday, with a chance of rain tonight.
Suspect arrested on Thursday morning photo courtesy KCTV
KANSAS CITY – A manhunt has ended in the Kansas City suburb of Blue Springs after an officer involved shooting.
Just before 9 a.m. police arrested a suspect believed involved in the early morning pursuit of a stolen vehicle, according to a social media report.
No additional details on the suspect were released.
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KANSAS CITY – A manhunt is underway in the Kansas City suburb of Blue Springs after an officer involved shooting.
Just after 4:30 a.m. Thursday, Blue Springs Police Department officers were in pursuit of a stolen vehicle when the vehicle left the roadway, according to a media release.
Law enforcement on the scene of Thursday’s manhunt in Kansas-photo courtesy KCTV
The suspect exited the vehicle and displayed a weapon.
The officer fired shots and the suspect fled the scene north across Interstate 70.
BSPD is searching for a White Male with Brown Hair, wearing a Black Jacket and Blue Jeans. He should be considered armed and dangerous. 1/2
Law enforcement set up a perimeter and is looking for a; White Male, with Brown Hair, wearing a Black Jacket and Blue Jeans.
He should be considered armed and dangerous.
The department is asking the public to be on the alert and call (816) 228-0151 or 911 if you see anything suspicious.
Please be on the alert and call (816) 228-0151 or 911 if you see anything suspicious. 2/2
On Saturday, Dec. 24, Celebration Community Church will be hosting three Christmas Eve Services at 3pm, 4:30pm and 6pm.
All are welcome to experience joyful Christmas music, an encouraging time for kids, inspiring videos and a message of hope about Peace on Earth. There will also be a photo shoot set for you to take a family Christmas picture.
Because Christmas Day falls on a Sunday, there will be no services on Sunday morning.
By BECKY KISER
According to the 
