HUTCHINSON– A Kansas man was seen walking by a Reno County Sheriff Deputy around 1:45 a.m. Thursday morning in the 3700 block of North Wilson Road in Hutchinson.
When the deputy stopped to talk with the man, he stated that he had run out of gas in the vehicle he was driving.
He also gave the deputy his name as Tyler Sutton.
Deputies didn’t show anything for that person but did find some information on a 22-year-old Kyler Milbrandt of Hutchinson.
After seeing his photo the deputy was able to identify him as Milbrandt.
He apparently had warrants through both Hutchinson Police and the sheriff’s office. One of those was for being an absconder from Community Corrections for a drug conviction from 2015.
Deputies also ran the tag number of the vehicle and discovered it had been reported stolen in Kingman County.
When Deputies arrested Milbrandt they also apparently found him to be in possession of methamphetamine, marijuana and drug paraphernalia.
He was booked into the Reno County Correctional Facility for suspicion of being in possession of stolen property, various drug charges, drug paraphernalia as well as the warrants.
Bond in the case is set at $15,500 and he is expected back in court next week.
Thursday accident in Topeka photo by Nick Viviani courtesy WIBW TV
SHAWNEE COUNTY – Law enforcement authorities are investigating a Thursday afternoon accident in Shawnee County that injured a Kansas Highway Patrol officer and two others.
Just after 3:30p.m. on Thursday, a vehicle driven by Bill Dowden, 83, Lenexa, was eastbound on Interstate 470 in the number two lane. The vehicle drifted out of the lane, traveled across the number 1 lane, drove onto the inside shoulder and struck a Kansas Highway Patrol vehicle legally parked on the inside shoulder of the Interstate.
The trooper, Dowden and a passenger Marion Dowden, 79, Lenexa, were transported to a hospital in Topeka.
The name of the trooper was not available early Friday.
The accident remains under investigation.
SHAWNEE COUNTY – Law enforcement authorities are investigating a Thursday afternoon accident in Shawnee County that injured a Kansas Highway Patrol officer and two others.
The KHP reported just after 3:30p.m., a motor carrier inspector was involved in a two-vehicle crash on Interstate 470 between Gage and Fairlawn. The officer was sitting stationary in the median facing east when his vehicle was rear-ended.
The officer and two others were transported to a local hospital.
The Patrol’s Critical Highway Accident Response Team responded to the scene.
By DIANE GASPER-O’BRIEN FHSU University Relations and Marketing
Members of the Fort Hays State University volleyball team have been learning it takes time to rebuild the program back to its glory days of the early 1980s and early ’90s.
Kurt Kohler, in his eighth season as the Tiger head coach, is teaching his players the virtue of patience in other areas as well.
In their fifth year of Pass, Set, Pink Night at Gross Memorial Coliseum, the Tigers earned more than $1,600 from the sale of pink T-shirts, a silent auction and private donations.
That pushed them over the top of the $10,000 mark necessary to establish an endowed scholarship. The volleyball team has been working toward that goal since 2012, to develop a scholarship to benefit FHSU students who are directly impacted by cancer.
“I’m really glad we’re going to be able to help out some students,” said Sydney Dixon, a sophomore outside hitter from Louisburg.
Pass, Set, Pink scholarships will be awarded to students who are either dealing with cancer themselves or have someone in their family fighting the disease.
“There are college age kids with younger siblings that they have to help with when someone in their family is dealing with cancer and is having a hard time keeping up with everything,” Dixon said.
Callie Christensen, a junior middle hitter from Raymond, Neb., agreed.
“I think it’s important for sports teams to give back,” she said. “I’m fortunate to be here playing volleyball, so I’m glad to be able to help others.”
The Tiger volleyball players personally visited businesses around town, picking up gifts for the silent auction.
“Everyone was really open to giving donations,” Christensen said. “The community of Hays is so college friendly.”
Students will now be able to fill out applications for the scholarships for the 2017-18 school year.
“We’re always sending money to charitable organizations,” said Kohler, who instituted a fundraising program for his team when came to FHSU in 2009. “We thought, ‘Why not help out some of our own students?’ We thought this was a way to make it easier for some students who might be struggling with finances because of cancer in their family.”
During his first three years as the Tigers’ coach, Kohler said the team awarded whatever money it earned that particular year to students in need.
Then he learned that if they could raise $10,000, they could start an endowed scholarship.
“I think the girls have enjoyed the opportunity to help others,” Kohler said. “Once we start giving the actual scholarships, this is the group that will see the rewards of it. This is a really good thing.”
It got even better Tuesday when the Tigers won both of their non-conference matches, pushing them to 18-5 this season and within two victories of back-to-back 20-win seasons for the first time since the ’03 and ’04 seasons.
The 6-foot, 2-inch Christensen is the team’s blocking leader with 94 total for the season. That number is far and away the best in the tough MIAA conference, where she also ranks second in the blocks-per-set category with a 1.19 average.
Christensen was playing on a club team out of Lincoln, Neb., when FHSU began recruiting her.
It took just one visit to campus to convince Christensen Fort Hays State would be her home for the next four years.
“The facilities are great, and I really liked the team and the direction the program was headed,” said Christensen, who was in third grade the last time FHSU had consecutive 20-win seasons.
“And I liked the prospect of playing right away,” added Christensen, who earned a starting position her freshman year.
The idea of being part of an up-and-coming program also appealed to Christensen.
“It takes time to build,” she said, maybe referring to both the volleyball team and its Pass, Set, Pink scholarship.
Kohler took over a program that had gone 28-67 combined in its three previous years. After the Tigers won just seven matches in each of his first two years at the helm, they have won at least 13 per season ever since, including 20-win seasons in 2012 (23-14) and last year (21-13).
“It’s fun to be a part of all this,” Christensen said.
Tiger fans can be a part of that fun, too, beginning with Friday’s 6 p.m. home match at GMC vs. the University of Central Oklahoma. UCO (20-1) is ranked 10th in NCAA Division II.
Coincidentally, UCO’s only loss this season was to the University of Central Missouri, another nationally ranked team that Fort Hays State upset in a Sept. 30 match at GMC.
All but one of the Tigers’ losses this season have been to nationally ranked teams. Following Friday’s action, the Tigers will be at home again the next day, hosting Pittsburg State University in a 2 o’clock Saturday afternoon match beginning.
For a recap of Tuesday’s matches and to find the remainder of FHSU’s schedule, visit the Tiger athletics website at www.fhsuathletics.com.
OLATHE, Kan. (AP) — The four men charged with killing the co-owner of a suburban Kansas City gun store during a robbery will have separate trials.
A Johnson County judge on Thursday granted a motion from two of the defendants, Londro Patterson and De’Anthony Wiley, seeking separate trials.
The Kansas City Star reports prosecutors wanted Patterson and Wiley tried to together but did not object to separate trials for the other defendants, Hakeem Malik and Nicquan Midgyettt.
The four men are charged with first-degree murder in the January 2015 shooting death of Jon Bieker. He died while defending his wife at the She’s A Pistol gun store in Shawnee.
LAWRENCE, Kan. (AP) — Nearly 6 percent of University of Kansas freshmen were admitted through an alternative process after failing to meet the school’s new and tougher standards.
The Lawrence Journal-World reports that the more exacting standards took effect this semester. A committee reviews applications from students who don’t meet the criteria for automatic admission.
The change led to concerns that minority enrollment would drop. But university data shows 47 percent of the 750 students admitted through the committee process were minorities. Among those committee-admitted students, 243 enrolled this fall, and they made up 5.7 percent of the overall 4,233-student freshman class.
Enrollment official Matt Melvin says most of the students admitted through the new committee process would have had high enough test scores and grades to be admitted under the old standards.
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — A judge says the winner of a Hot Lotto jackpot can continue a lawsuit that contends he would have won millions of dollars more if the prior drawing had not been rigged by a lottery vendor.
Iowa District Court Judge Karen Romano refused to dismiss the case Wednesday. The suit is the first against the Multi-State Lottery Association, that including Kansas, over a jackpot-rigging scandal inside the organization.
Romano says the association and the Iowa Lottery aren’t immune from the lawsuit filed by Larry Dawson of Webster City, Iowa.
Dawson won a Hot Lotto jackpot worth $9 million in May 2011. He argues that the jackpot should have been worth $25.5 million had the prior jackpot in December 2010 not been fixed by then-association security director Eddie Tipton.
DeVry University has agreed to stop advertising a claim about the success of its students that had been challenged by the federal government. The school has a campus in Kansas City, Oklahoma City, two in Colorado and locations in fifteen other states.
The Education Department announced a settlement with DeVry on Thursday after saying the for-profit college chain couldn’t support one of its marquee claims.
DeVry had advertised that 90 percent of its graduates since 1975 found employment in their field of study within six months of graduation. Last year, the department asked DeVry to provide evidence of the claim and found that it couldn’t.
Under the settlement, DeVry must stop advertising the claim and must pay the department $68 million.
DeVry said in a statement that it is pleased to resolve the case. The Illinois-based chain still faces another federal lawsuit over alleged deception in its advertisements.
KDWPT
CEDAR BLUFF RESERVOIR – For more than 40 years, trout have provided winter fishing fun in select Kansas waters, and the Cedar Bluff stilling basin has been a part of that program from the beginning. However, the stilling basin below Cedar Bluff Dam won’t be stocked with trout in 2016. Kansas Department of Wildlife, Parks and Tourism Fisheries Division staff considered several factors before making the decision to discontinue stocking trout at the Cedar Bluff location.
Poor water quality has been a hindrance to trout welfare in the stilling basin for many years. Recently, the problem has become more acute due to lack of flow. Late seasonal turnover, brought about by prolonged warm weather in the fall, delays water quality improvement and limits the basin’s ability to provide a suitable environment for trout.
Economics also played a role in this decision. In the last two years, the cost of trout increased from $1.50/lb. to $4.00/lb. Revenues from trout permit sales did not keep pace with this increase, necessitating a statewide reduction in the number of trout stocked.
To maintain acceptable angler catch rates in the face of this reduction, it will be necessary to reallocate trout regionally. Some trout, originally destined for Cedar Bluff, will go to Webster stilling basin, which receives nearly twice as much trout angling pressure as Cedar Bluff.
For more information, contact district fisheries biologist, Dave Spalsbury, at (785) 726-3212, or visit ksoutdoors.com to learn where trout will be stocked this fall. The trout season opens Nov. 1, and more than 30 locations across the state will receive regular stockings until the season ends April 15, 2017.
Anglers 16 and older are required to have a $14.50 Trout Permit, in addition to a Kansas fishing license. The daily creel limit, unless posted otherwise, is five per day. Anglers 15 and younger do not need a trout permit, but they may only keep two trout per day.
TOPEKA – Kansas consumers will receive more than $1 million in loan write-offs and account credits under a settlement reached last week with a company that targeted sales of jewelry and other items to military families, Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt announced today.
USA Discounters, which also did business as USA Living and Fletcher’s Jewelers, sold consumer products, including furniture, appliances, televisions, computers, smart phones, jewelry and other consumer goods principally on credit. USA Discounters typically marketed to members of the military and veterans, advertising that military, veterans and government employees would never be denied credit for goods purchased from the retailer.
Schmidt and the attorneys general of 49 other states recently reached a settlement with the company to resolve allegations that it engaged in unfair, abusive, false and deceptive acts and practices. These allegations include that, in collecting on consumer debts, USA Discounters engaged in abusive tactics, constantly contacted service members’ chains-of-command and caused some service members to lose security clearances and face demotions. The states also alleged that USA Discounters filed its collection lawsuits in Virginia jurisdictions, no matter the service member’s location, deployment status or residence. This made it difficult or impossible for service members or their families to travel to another state to represent themselves in court in these collection proceedings.
In addition, the states alleged USA Discounters sold overpriced household goods at high interest rates, often using the military allotment system to guarantee payment. These unlawful business practices, the states claim, were secured through misrepresentations and omissions in advertising, during the loan’s origination, and during the collection process.
Virginia-based USA Discounters closed its stores in the summer of 2015, including a store in Junction City near Fort Riley. It later declared bankruptcy, and the states’ settlement agreement has been filed as part of the bankruptcy proceedings.
“The high stress and burden placed on military families are not an invitation for businesses to engage in deceptive practices,” Schmidt said. “Our Kansas consumer protection laws include special protections for military families and veterans, and this settlement will return money to those families who did business with this company.”
USA Discounters agreed to provide relief to certain former and current customers. The total estimated value to consumers for these restitution measures to Kansas consumers is more than $1 million, primarily benefiting active and veteran service members. Namely, USA Discounters agreed to:
Write off all accounts with balances for customers whose last contract was dated June 1, 2012, or earlier, and correct the negative comment from the company on those consumers’ credit reports;
Apply a $100 credit to all accounts whose contracts were dated after June 1, 2012, which were not discharged in bankruptcy, and correct the negative comment from the company on those consumers’ credit reports;
Write off all judgments not obtained in the correct state, and correct the negative comment from the company on those consumers’ credit reports; and
Credit all judgments that were obtained in the correct state against members of the military with a credit equal to 50 percent of the original judgment amount.
Affected consumers will be contacted regarding their eligibility for restitution. Consumers who believe they are eligible may also contact the attorney general’s Consumer Protection Division at (800) 432-2310 or online at www.InYourCornerKansas.org.
Tiger Gold on Friday committee members will share recent progress of the TGOF campaign at this month’s Chamber Chat at 9 a.m. Friday, Oct. 14, in Gross Memorial Coliseum’s Victor E. Lounge.
All members of the Hays Area Chamber of Commerce are invited as well as members of the campus and Hays communities. Light refreshments will be served.
The TGOF committee is a partnership among Fort Hays State University’s Office of University Relations and Marketing, FHSU Athletics, the FHSU Alumni Association and Eagle Communications. Their goal is to promote school spirit by encouraging Tigers everywhere to wear Tiger Gold each Friday.
When asked how the TGOF movement started, Assistant Alumni Director Charlene Nichols gave some insight.
“Tiger Gold on Friday began as just an idea to increase school spirit on campus and in the community,” Nichols said. “Thanks to the work of our initial steering committee, which was comprised of faculty and staff from across campus and the Hays Area Chamber of Commerce, we were able to take this simple idea and build it into a new FHSU tradition.
“Eagle Communications provided support that first year by supplying T-shirts and promoting this new initiative, and they’ve been key to its success ever since,” Nichols said. “It really is amazing what has grown from this simple little idea that Dr. Mary Martin and I came up with one afternoon.”
The committee continues to build a database of TGOF Partners, which are businesses that offer discounts or specials to customers wearing gold on Fridays.
Once a business registers to be a TGOF Partner, it will receive TGOF materials for its place of business and be recognized in various FHSU promotions. There is no fee to register, and businesses can sign up at www.fhsu.edu/tgof.
For more information on the TGOF campaign, contact TGOF committee co-chairs Melissa Dixon at [email protected] or Mary Ridgway at [email protected].
SHAWNEE COUNTY – Law enforcement authorities are investigating a pedestrian accident in Shawnee County and looking for a vehicle that fled the scene.
The Kansas Highway Patrol reported just after 8p.m. on Tuesday, a late ‘90s or 2000 dark blue or black Chevy pickup was northbound on Kansas 4 just north of Northeast Seward Avenue when it struck a pedestrian and continued on without stopping. The truck will be missing a right side mirror and the passenger side headlight might be inoperable, according to the KHP.
The victim Daniel Christopher VIning, 38, Lawrence, was transported to Stormont Vail for treatment of severe injuries, according to the KHP.
Anyone with information in the case is asked to contact Master Trooper Adam Simone at 785-296-3102
Texting and driving endangers you as a driver and everyone around you. When you take your eyes off the road, the chances of causing a devastating vehicle crash increase dramatically.
It takes an average of three seconds after a driver’s mind is taken off the road for any road accident to occur. That’s the time it takes to turn on your ignition when starting your vehicle.
I challenge all Kansans to take a pledge this fall to stop texting and driving by going online to engage.att.com/icwkansas. Taking the pledge there also shows your support and school pride for your favorite participating Kansas university: the University of Kansas, Kansas State University, Fort Hays State University, Wichita State University, Washburn University, Pittsburg State University and Emporia State University. All of them are in a friendly competition to get the most pledgesbetween now and November 22.
Texting 50555 and the appropriate school code (KU, Wildcat, Tiger, Shocker, Ichabod, Gorilla, Hornet) will also send a vote and secure your pledge.
This stop texting and driving campaign is sponsored by the Kansas Insurance Department, the Kansas Department of Transportation, The Kansas Turnpike Authority, AT&T, the Kansas Automobile Insurance Plan and several insurance companies operating in Kansas. For more, go online to www.ksinsurance.org/justdrive .
In taking the pledge, you show dignity for yourself and for others. Please make this commitment to improve driver safety in Kansas because it is important for you and your family. Remember the campaign’s slogan: “Eyes up, phone off, save lives.”
Ken Selzer, CPA, was elected as Kansas Insurance Commissioner in 2014.
Texting and driving endangers you as a driver and everyone around you. When you take your eyes off the road, the chances of causing a devastating vehicle crash increase dramatically.