Richard A. “Rick” Rhoades passed away Thursday, April 07, 2016 at the age of 63. He was born on May 28, 1952 in WaKeeney, to the late Wayne E. and Doris V. (Jamison) Rhoades. He graduated from Quinter High School with the Class of 1970 and served in the Air Force after graduation.
Rick drove a fuel truck by trade, but his real love was driving his Corvette. Throughout his life, Rick enjoyed photography and especially enjoyed photos of his family.
Rick is survived by two daughters, Abigail (Jacob) Crandall, Hays, and Crista Rhoades, Salina; two grandsons, Austin Rhoades and DeLane Sauvage, Salina; one brother, Bob (Gail) Rhoades, Quinter; and his step-mother, Phyllis Rhoades, Wichita.
He was preceded in death by his parents and sister, Lynette Rhoades.
Cremation has been chosen. A memorial service will be held at 2 p.m., Thursday, April 14 at the Church of the Brethren, Quinter. The family will receive friends at 1:00 p.m. Inurnment will be in the Baker Township Cemetery, Quinter. Memorials may be made to the Sheridan County Fair Board and sent in care of Baalmann Mortuary, P.O. Box 204, Oakley, KS 67748. For information and condolences, visit www.baalmannmortuary.com
The Hays USD 489 Board of Education met over lunch Monday with Gary Sechrist, Kansas Association of School Boards leadership specialist, to begin the search for the next superintendent for the district.
Dean Katt, current superintendent for the district, will step down at the end of the school year.
During the meeting, board members Paul Adams, Sarah Rankin, Luke Oborny and board president Lance Bickle discussed with Sechrist details of the search process, including using the KASB to assist in the search at a cost of $5,250 plus travel.
Using the KASB would be cheaper than doing the search independently, according to Katt.
The truncated time available for the search also creates a sense of urgency to begin the process.
Normally, the process is scheduled over six weeks, but due to the timing, the search will be compressed to a four-week process.
“We’re a little late,” Sechrist said. “I’m a little nervous about that.”
With the little time available, the board completed the first phase of the search during the meeting, deciding on preliminary timing for search processes.
The board agreed to allow Sechrist to produce brochures for the position that would be sent to superintendents throughout the area that could be produced in as little as two weeks.
The brochure will cost the district an additional $350.
The position would also be listed on the KASB website and teachingjobs.com, and the brochure would be sent to 286 school district offices.
A routine portion of the search and the next step that will be taken by the district is to schedule meetings for district employees and members of the community to receive input into what is wanted in the next superintendent.
Similar meetings were held for the search at the end of 2013, but as the district has faced undergone changes since that time, the board agreed it is important to once again get input.
“You’re probably safer to do it,” Sechrist said.
Groups likely to be scheduled for 45-minute meetings include teachers, parent organizations and community members.
During the last search, seven meetings were held over the course of two days.
At the April 28 board meeting, the findings of those meetings will be reviewed with Sechrist.
Following that meeting, Sechrist recommends an application deadline of May 10.
Sechrist and two other area superintendents will screen candidates based on what the board decides to look for in a candidate and will recommend candidates to the board the following week.
Interviews will then be scheduled with the full board. Sechrist recommends the full board be present during the candidate interviews and also recommends the candidates be given the opportunity to tour the district and the city of Hays.
While the search is ongoing, the board continue to discussions during its work session and board meetings.
The next board meeting is scheduled for April 18 at 6:30 p.m. in the Rockwell Administration Center, 323 W. 12th.
Mike Cooper talks with Don Barber about the 48th Annual Barbershop Show coming up this weekend to Beach/Schmidt Performing Arts Center on the campus of Fort Hays State University.
TOPEKA, Kan. – The Kansas Department of Health and Environment (KDHE) has published a report titled Abortions in Kansas, 2015, Preliminary Report.
The report reveals there were 6,974 abortions reported in 2015, which is 320 less than what was reported in 2014.
There were 3,579 reports of in-state residents compared with 3,395 out-of-state residents. Of the 3,395 out-of-state residents who obtained abortions in Kansas, 3,060 (90%) were residents of Missouri. Women 20-24 years of age comprised the largest age-group seeking abortions (31.6%).
State law requires that physicians, hospitals and ambulatory surgical centers report abortions to KDHE. The Women’s Right-to-Know Act requires physicians who perform abortions to provide certain information and certify to KDHE the number of informed-consents obtained from patients.
This report is a preliminary analysis of these data as collected by the KDHE Bureau of Epidemiology and Public Health Informatics. The preliminary report can be viewed here
The Ellis County Rural Fire Department is getting help purchasing some new equipment — thanks to a grant from Midwest Energy.
According to Rural Fire Director Darin Myers, the department recently received a $1,000 grant to purchase quick connect couplings for hydraulic rescue equipment. The tools are stored on the Company 5 truck that is used in rescue situations.
Jared Shelton with Company 5, based out of Hays, submitted the grant request, Myers said.
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach says he has advised Donald Trump’s campaign on immigration issues, particularly the GOP candidate’s plan to force Mexico to pay for a border wall.
Trump has proposed making Mexico pay for the wall by cutting off remittances that Mexicans living in the U.S. send back to their homeland, unless Mexico makes a one-time payment of $5 billion to $10 billion.
Kobach, who has built a national reputation for fighting against illegal immigration, says the remittance plan is consistent with advice he gave Trump’s campaign. He says he has spoken to Trump directly and the candidate was receptive to his ideas.
The Topeka Capital-Journal reports the Trump campaign didn’t respond to a request to elaborate on Kobach’s involvement with the campaign.
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A Kansas appellate court says five children of a Navy veteran and his wife were taken into state custody because of suspected drug use and neglect, not because of his use of medical marijuana.
The Topeka Capital-Journal says a Kansas Court of Appeals panel determined Friday the children don’t feel safe returning to Raymond and Amelia Schwab.
The appellate court found that Raymond Schwab tested positive for methamphetamine and opioids during a court-ordered blood screening last year.
Raymond Schwab says he has used medical marijuana to treat PTSD, even though Kansas has not legalized medical marijuana. He alleges the state “kidnapped” the children in April 2015.
The Schwabs’ case has become a rallying cry for marijuana advocates.
Ellis County is expected to join the growing list of counties that have enacted county-wide burn bans when the commission votes at Monday’s commission meeting.
At last week’s meeting, Rural Fire Director Darin Myers told the commission he would present the commission with a resolution banning all outdoor burning until further notice.
In him memo to the commission, County Administrator Phillip Smith-Hanes said due to the dry weather and drought conditions, “It is in the best interest of the county residents to start the burn ban.”
The commission will also hear a presentation on a Kansas Workforce ONE elected official board agreement.
WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — Barry Grissom says he will step down as U.S. attorney for Kansas effective Friday.
U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch on Monday said in a news release that Grissom helped make Kansas and the entire United States a safer and more just place. She lauded his work building new relations with state and local law enforcement.
First Assistant U.S. Attorney Tom Beall will serve as acting U.S. attorney. He also served as a member of the U.S. Attorney General’s Advisory Committee and served on Justice Department subcommittees focusing on civil rights and other issues.
Grissom was nominated by President Barack Obama in 2010.
MCPHERSON COUNTY- A Kansas man died in an accident just before 4:30 p.m. on Sunday in McPherson County.
A vehicle driven by Raine Reitsma, 16, Inman, was eastbound on Commanche Road and failed to yield at a stop sign, at 8th Avenue, according to Captain Anderson with the McPherson County Sheriff’s Department.
A motorcycle ridden by Steven Goering, 62, Inman, that was traveling southbound, hit the vehicle.
Reitsma left the scene of the accident, according to the sheriff’s department.
Goering was airlifted to Wesley Medical Center where he later died from his injuries.
Reitsma was later located in McPherson.
The investigation has been turned over to the McPherson County Attorney’s Office where charges could be filed in the case.
Editor’s note: I’m out of the office this week so I decided to dust off a story I wrote in May of ’95. I was on my way to a Rattlesnake Roundup outside of Sharon Springs. While taking the back roads where I grew up, I happened upon the inspiration for the following story. While Mr. Smith is dead and gone, hardy souls and stories like his are worth revisiting.
Perched atop the weathered wooden posts, the western boots stretched nearly one mile into the horizon. Brown, black, green, gray and blue were the colors. Torn and frayed their condition.
All the boot heels pointed toward the blue, spring sky. Some of the toes still held their shape – jutting out from the fence post. Others dropped toward the grass like the tongues of cutting ponies after a full morning of sorting cattle.
This boot fence can be found on John Smith’s Boot Hill Ranch. Located on K-25 about a mile and a half north of Russell Springs, nearly 500 boots dot the top of the five-strand, barbed wire fence that runs north and south.
“The number depends on how many have been stolen on any particular day,” Smith said with a glint in his eye. “Those boots don’t just jump off the posts and walk away.”
Locals will tell you a boot fence is one method a rancher uses to signify he is just that – a rancher and not a farmer. A few will tell you it’s just a “crazy” hobby and nothing to take too seriously.
Smith fitted his first pair of boots on the fence line 20 years ago. The boots were 1948 vintage and hand-made by Charles P. Shipley Saddlers & Mercantile, Co. of Kansas City, Mo.
“They were located down by the stockyards and they made boots for ole’ Jesse James,” Smith said, proud to have owned a pair of boots made by the same company that had fitted the famous outlaw. “I got married in mine back in ’51.”
After Smith put the first pair of boots on his fencerow, it seemed only natural to add more. Before long, friends and neighbors were helping him stock the line. They’d throw worn out pairs in the back of his pickup at auctions and cattle sales. Some dumped the boots next to the fence.
Smith never turned down a pair of boots and it didn’t matter what condition they were in. At one time, he figured there were close to 700 boots on the fence. He’d been known to wear a pair that may have still had a little life left in them.
“Boots keep the water off and the fence posts last longer,” Smith told me. “The boots shelter the post top so the moisture can’t get into the post and expand it and break it up.”
Yep, thanks to Smith, each post has its own leather garage. But not all the boots have stayed on the posts.
A few years back the Logan County rancher lost a pair of women’s boots that laced up the front.
“I guess they were old and somewhat of a collectible,” Smith said.
After this incident, he never fitted a pair of boots next to one another on the posts. Instead he’d put one boot in the corner of his land and stick the other in some random spot down the line.
To hear Smith talk about his fence and why he added boots to the post tops, it all goes back to western folklore.
“Cowboys that wear boots have a special attachment to them,” he said. “That way when a cowboy died they’d bury him and put his boots upside down on a stick by his grave. People knew each other by the boots they wore, and it was only natural to put a cowboy’s boots near his grave so those that happened by would know who was buried there.”
And there will be no doubt whose fence is capped with boots on the highway a couple miles north of Russell Springs. Tumbleweeds will continue to roll up next to the wire, stay for a while and keep the old leather boots company. Prairie dogs will peek out of their mound towns and scan the horizon and see the familiar landmark.
Oh, in case you’re wondering, I took a hard look at all the boots on John Smith’s fence, but I didn’t rob any off the posts. I did see a couple pairs that would have made a fine addition to my boot collection and could have been worn for a Saturday night of dancing.
Nope, I didn’t dare touch ‘em. It wouldn’t have been right. Those boots were located just where they belonged, on top of the fence posts – silent sentinels on the great High Plains.
John Schlageck, a Hoxie native, is a leading commentator on agriculture and rural Kansas.
LAWRENCE — Neeli Bendapudi is the first of three candidates for provost and executive vice chancellor of the Lawrence campus at the University of Kansas, according to a media release.
She has served as dean and H.D. Price Professor of Business at KU since 2011. Before coming to KU, she served as a professor of marketing at The Ohio State University. Other details about the candidate, including a complete curriculum vita, are available here.
Bendapudi will deliver a public presentation to campus from 4 to 5 p.m. Monday, April 11, at the Bruckmiller Room in the Adams Alumni Center. A reception will follow in the McGee Room at the Adams Alumni Center.
A search committee chaired by Steve Warren, professor of speech-language-hearing and investigator in the Life Span Institute, identified the three candidates. The committee was assisted by the executive search firm R. William Funk and Associates.
The other two provost candidates’ public presentations are scheduled at 4 p.m. April 21 at at Alderson Auditorium in the Kansas Union and at 4 p.m. April 25 at the Summerfield Room in the Adams Alumni Center. The names of the remaining candidates will be announced approximately 48 hours in advance of their public presentations.
In the same five-page order for a hearing on whether the Kansas Legislature has met its constitutional duty to provide equal support for public education, the court also has likely taken itself off the hook for its threat to close public schools on July 1.
Nope, it’s not right at the top of the order that sets a schedule for a hearing on whether the Legislature has, to the satisfaction of the high court, equitably funded capital outlay and supplemental state aid for school districts but down on the last page.
Down on page five, it says, “The briefs should address the remedial action to be ordered, and upon what date it should take effect, if the court were to conclude compliance has not been achieved.”
That’s the key: Did the Legislature’s internal shuffling of money within the school finance formula equalize the state’s aid to school districts—even with the inherently disequalizing “hold harmless” provision—meet the court’s order to deliver equal assistance to all districts, or not?
If the court finds that the moving around of existing funds—and giving districts their mathematically computed level of aid, and some a little more—meets constitutional muster, then the deal is done, and everything goes away. Maybe, except for that troublesome “hold harmless” provision that makes sure that in the reapportionment of state aid no district loses any state money.
If the court finds that the school spending bill that Gov. Sam Brownback signed into law last week doesn’t meet that equity standard, then it gets interesting.
The high court’s Feb. 11 order to the Legislature to fix that inequity or see the jurists shut down appropriations to public schools on July 1 becomes the thick black cloud hanging over the state.
The state’s position before the court is that the Legislature has fixed the problem spending no new money, just reshuffling it among districts—except for those that would lose money in the deal, and they are held harmless. Oh, and that financing public schools is the Legislature’s job and the court should stay out of that.
The school districts which are suing the state for not meeting its constitutional duty to equitably finance public education don’t think the shuffling of money around meets that goal. They have suggested that for about $38 million more or so, lawmakers could equitably finance that capital improvement and Local Option Budget assistance, and that small piece of the school finance issue could be cured.
But that hammer the court waved around—closing schools if the appropriation of that special assistance is unconstitutionally distributed, making the appropriations unlawful to disperse to districts—got smaller when the court asked the state and the schools to offer up their own plans for remedial action.
Key is that if the finance-fix is unconstitutional, we’re betting that neither the state nor the schools in the case want schools closed. The state, which includes the Legislature that passed the bill (32-5 in the Senate and 93-31 in the House) in this year in which all members stand for re-election, doesn’t want those voters to believe legislators closed schools, and the schools, well, we’re betting that they want to stay open.
Best guess is that if neither party to the lawsuit wants schools closed, they are going to come up with “remedial action” that is just short of closing down anything. And, because five members of the Kansas Supreme Court stand for retention election this year, we’re betting that the court will find at least one side’s remedial action fits the bill.
The lawsuit isn’t over by a long shot. But we’re betting that the threat of closing down schools is.
Syndicated by Hawver News Co. of Topeka, Martin Hawver is publisher of Hawver’s Capitol Report. To learn more about this nonpartisan statewide political news service, visit www.hawvernews.com.
Richard A. “Rick” Rhoades passed away Thursday, April 07, 2016 at the age of 63. He was born on May 28, 1952 in WaKeeney, to the late Wayne E. and Doris V. (Jamison) Rhoades. He graduated from Quinter High School with the Class of 1970 and served in the Air Force after graduation. 
