SHAWNEE COUNTY- A Kansas man was injured in an accident just after 6p.m. on Wednesday in Shawnee County.
The Kansas Highway Patrol reported a 2002 Chevy Silverado driven by Craig Kelley 41, Clearwater, was southbound on Kansas 4 at the intersection of U.S. 24.
The pickup crossed the centerline and hit a 1999 Dodge Durango driven by Judy M. Cunningham, 56, Valley Falls, head-on.
A 2003 Pontiac Grand Prix driven by Lindsey N. Wells, 29, Osage City, rear-ended the Durango and a 1997 Honda Civic driven by Joe T. Large, 26, Topeka, hit the rear end of the Grand Prix.
Kelley was transported to Stormont Vail.
Cunningham, Wells and Large were not injured.
Kelley was not wearing a seat belt, according to the KHP.
Celebrating Women is hosting “Divinely Designed,” a weekend of friendly fellowship, inspiring worship and amazing speakers — all committed to help women grow in their faith.
Featured speaker is Sharon Glasgow from Proverbs 31 Ministries, who is an internationally known presenter who has touched thousands with her contagious love for Christ.
She is a master storyteller and communicator compelling her audience to walk in the power of Jesus Christ.
Registration begins this Friday at 5:30 p.m. with the first session beginning at 7 p.m. at Celebration Community Church, 5790 230th Ave. The cost is $50.
PRATT – Kansas Wildlife and Parks magazine staff invite you to enter your favorite outdoor photographs in the 4th annual Wild About Kansas photo contest beginning Monday, April 11. Participants can submit up to three photos in select categories including wildlife, other species, hunting and fishing, outdoor recreation, or landscapes. There is no fee to enter, and the contest is open to both residents and nonresidents.
CATEGORY DESCRIPTIONS
Wildlife: game and nongame animals, primarily mammals, migratory birds, furbearers, etc.
Other Species: insects, reptiles, and amphibians.
Hunting and Fishing: hunters and anglers; set-up shots following a hunt or fishing trip will be accepted. However, “action” shots, or photos taken during the activity will be given preference.
Outdoor Recreation: people participating in recreational activities outdoors, not hunting or fishing.
Landscapes: scenery; wildlife may be present, but should not be the sole focus of the image.
Photographers can submit up to three photos. Photos must be taken within the state of Kansas and must be the entrant’s original work.
Each photo will be judged on creativity, composition, subject matter, lighting, and the overall sharpness. Winners will be featured in the 2017 Special Photo Issue of Kansas Wildlife and Parks magazine.
Only electronic images will be accepted and must be e-mailed to Kansas Wildlife and Parks magazine managing editor, Nadia Marji, at nadia.marji@ksoutdoors no later than 5 p.m. on Nov. 4, 2016. Photos must be in JPEG or TIFF format and file size should be not less than 1mb and not more than 5mb.
Additional information and entry forms will be available on the April 11 contest start date at
By DIANE GASPER-O’BRIEN FHSU University Relations and Marketing
There are so many activities surrounding the 50th annual Fort Hays State University Rodeo that Bronc Rumford has to check a list to make sure he isn’t forgetting anything.
The three-day event that annually brings approximately 3,000 people to Hays is set for April 15-17 at Doug Philip Arena, located on Golf Course Road, a half mile west of U.S. Highway 183 Alternate.
Performances are scheduled for 7 p.m. Friday and Saturday and 1 p.m. Sunday, which will follow a 10 a.m. cowboy church service at the arena.
Ticket prices are $8 for adults in advance or $12 at the gate. Children are $5 in advance and $8 at the gate. FHSU students are admitted free with their Tiger ID card. Tickets can be purchased at three different locations in Hays — the Student Service Center in FHSU’s Memorial Union; Orscheln Farm & Home, 2900 Broadway Ave.; and Vanderbilt’s, 2704 Vine.
Various memorabilia will be for sale at the rodeo, including T-shirts and sweatshirts. Also for sale will be a limited number of 50th anniversary commemorative belt buckles, created by Tobias Flores, FHSU associate professor of art and design, and each engraved with their own number. Belt buckles No. 1 and 50 will be auctioned off at the alumni banquet.
Alumni from around the country are expected to return for the milestone event, which is the second oldest college rodeo in the Central Plains Region.
Bronc Rumford
One of those alums is Rumford, who has been involved in the FHSU Rodeo since he was a youngster.
Rumford’s family and FHSU Rodeo have been synonymous from Day One. The family’s business, Rumford Rodeo Co., out of Abbyville, furnished stock for the rodeo for several years. Bronc then competed in rodeo during his college days at Fort Hays State in the early 1970s and now serves as the head coach for the FHSU Rodeo Club.
In addition to the regularly scheduled events for the 2016 FHSU Rodeo, there will be an alumni reunion and banquet from 12:30 to 5 p.m. Saturday at FHSU’s Robbins Center.
“There will be a lot of stories,” Rumford said. “We never let the truth get in the way of a good story.”
Competition begins Friday morning and runs through Sunday afternoon for nearly 500 contestants from 25 different colleges in Kansas and Oklahoma.
“They will start rolling in here on Thursday and be here the whole weekend,” Rumford said. “It’s an exciting time.”
One of the activities Rumford is most excited about is new to the FHSU Rodeo this year — the first ever college rodeo bullfights following Friday and Saturday nights’ competitions.
Numerous alumni play a major part in the rodeo, including Mike Greenleaf, whose family owns Medicine River Rodeo from Greensburg, which provides all the stock for the competition.
In addition, FHSU graduate Frank Ringleman from Franklin, Neb., competes in cowboy cook-offs and will cook the meat for Saturday’s alumni banquet.
While putting on the rodeo is a lot of work, Rumford credits members of the FHSU Rodeo Club for the bulk of the responsibilities.
“This whole rodeo is put on by the kids,” he said. “The labor, the marketing, ticket sales. It’s their rodeo.
“The university is really supportive of rodeo,” Rumford said. “That’s what makes it fun.”
IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) — Investigators say they’ve uncovered how a lottery employee allegedly rigged jackpots and have charged his brother in connection with prizes in Oklahoma and Colorado.
Tommy Tipton, a former justice of the peace in Texas, surrendered to Iowa authorities on Wednesday. He’s the brother of Eddie Tipton, who was convicted of fixing a $16.5 million jackpot and faces charges related to other jackpots.
Prosecutors allege that he used his access to random number generators to fix jackpots in Kansas, Colorado, Wisconsin and Oklahoma and worked with associates to play winning numbers and collect prizes.
Authorities said Wednesday they’ve recovered the generator used for a $2 million jackpot claimed by Eddie Tipton’s friend. An examination found that code allowed numbers to be picked by a different program three days of the year.
All six jackpots linked to Tipton were drawn on either Nov. 23 or Dec. 29.
WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — A 36-year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of child abuse after Wichita police say doctors found a small octopus stuck in the throat of his girlfriend’s 2-year-old son.
Wichita police Lt. James Espinoza said that a 21-year-old woman returned home from work Tuesday night and found her boyfriend performing CPR on her son. Espinoza said the couple took the boy to the hospital, where doctors found and removed the dead octopus, which had a head about 2 inches in diameter, from the boy’s throat. Police said the octopus was likely to be used for sushi.
Authorities also said that doctors also noticed injuries on the boy’s face.
According to Espinoza, the boy was not breathing when he arrived at the hospital and he is in serious condition.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration says it will transfer leftover money from the largely successful fight against Ebola to combat the growing threat of the Zika virus. See the latest CDC Zika info here
Much of the $589 million would go to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for research on the virus and Zika-related birth defects, as well as the creation of response teams to limit its spread. The National Institutes of Health would continue research into a vaccine, while the U.S. Agency for International Development would intensify efforts to fight the virus overseas.
Researchers fear Zika causes microcephaly, a serious birth defect in which a baby’s head is too small, as well as posing other threats to the children of pregnant women infected with it.
WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — Gov. Sam Brownback’s administration is moving forward with a policy change that would make it harder for transgender people to change their gender on their birth certificates.
The Wichita Eagle reports that under current regulations, one can change the gender listed on his or her birth certificate by showing medical paperwork that indicates an anatomical or physiological change occurred.
The governor’s administration has proposed changing the regulations so that the gender on a person’s birth certificate can only be changed if the person signs an affidavit saying the gender was incorrectly recorded on the original certificate and also provides medical records backing up that claim.
The change developed by the Kansas Department of Health and Environment seems to block transgender people from changing their birth certificates after transitioning.
KANSAS CITY, Kan. (AP) — A Kansas woman charged in the death of her 7-year-old stepson is being transferred to a state mental hospital for an evaluation.
Heather Jones and her husband, Michael Jones, are charged with murder in the death of Michael Jones’ son. They’re both in custody in on multi-million dollar bonds.
Police investigating a disturbance in November found juvenile remains in a livestock area on the couple’s Kansas City, Kansas, property. Authorities haven’t said if the remains were those of Michael Jones’ missing son. They also haven’t addressed reports that the remains were fed to pigs.
A spokeswoman for the Wyandotte County Detention Center says Heather Jones left Wednesday for Larned State Hospital to begin a mental health evaluation. It’s unclear how long the evaluation will take.
photo U.S. Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry
WASHINGTON – U.S. Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.), chairman of the U.S. Senate Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry Committee, and U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), chairman of the U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works (EPW) Committee on have sent a letter to Arthur A. Elkins, Jr., the inspector general of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), requesting an audit and investigation of an EPA grant to the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission used to support an anti-farmer advocacy campaign in Washington state. The campaign included billboards and a website that support increased regulation of agriculture in Washington state.
“We are troubled to learn that EPA’s financial assistance appears to improperly fund an advocacy campaign in Washington state that unfairly targets and demonizes farmers and ranchers. According to a recent news report, the EPA-funded advocacy campaign includes multiple billboards, bus placards, and an interactive website urging the public to contact state lawmakers. The website assists the public in contacting lawmakers by providing a pre-written email criticizing the actions of agricultural producers and blaming them for polluting local waterways. Further, the billboards and placards do not cite EPA as a funding source of the campaign. According to an EPA Region 10 official, the failure to attribute EPA as the source of the funding ‘looks like a violation’,” the Senators said.
“It appears a large portion of the EPA financial assistance went to pay a public relations and lobbying firm, Strategies 360, to conduct an advocacy campaign called ‘What’s Upstream?’ in partnership with environmental activists, including Puget Soundkeeper Alliance and Western Environmental Law Center.”
“This Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission grant appears to be part of a broader war on farmers and rural communities that the Obama Administration, through the EPA, has been waging in concert with its allies in the environmental activist community. It is imperative we learn whether EPA officials are turning a blind eye to this deceptive wrongdoing, and why the administration did not perform the necessary oversight to confirm taxpayer dollars are not mismanaged, and ensure well-established and important federal restrictions against lobbying are being followed,” the Senators concluded.
At the request of Inhofe, the Government Accountability Office issued a legal determination in December 2015 that found EPA had violated the Antideficiency Act and congressional bans against using federal funds for grassroots lobbying and covert propaganda.
Hays city commissioners will take a look at ordinances regarding alcohol consumption on city streets during their work session Thursday, April 7.
Vice-mayor Shaun Musil requested the discussion a few weeks ago.
“Currently, it is illegal in Kansas to consume alcohol on city streets or on city sidewalks. You are able to drink alcohol in the Hays parks (which are public property),” explained Assistant City Manager Jacob Wood.
“Those have been exempted (by the city commission) so you’re allowed to do things like Oktoberfest and those events but it’s not allowed downtown at this point.”
Last Saturday’s Brews on the Bricks was allowed to take place on a city street because the city leased the area to the Downtown Hays Development Corporation and it was completely blocked off from the surrounding area.
According to Wood, the city was notified by the local Alcohol Beverage and Control Agent that it’s likely the option of leasing public property to a private entity in order to include alcohol at an event will not be allowed in the future. When property is leased, a special event permit is not allowed. This means that the event would fall under other alcohol licensing requirements that are more stringent than what is allowed under a special event permit.
“City staff was asked to see what could be done to allow events such as Brews on the Bricks, Wines and Steins–those sorts of events held downtown–to allow participants to actually have possession and consumption of alcoholic beverages on the city streets or sidewalks,” said Wood.
“We’ll do a full review of our city ordinances and maybe the commission will make a decision to change what we have on the books.”
The work session gets underway at 6:30 p.m. Thursday in Hays City Hall, 1507 Main.
HUTCHINSON – A Reno County Judge on Wednesday granted a defense motion of acquittal in the case of a south-central Kansas man accused of recklessly causing a car crash that killed the other driver.
After the Kansas Court of appeals reversed the ruling of Judge Trish Rose regarding a motion to suppress evidence that the suspect was under the influence of methamphetamine, she granted the acquittal.
The Court of Appeals had ruled that Judge Rose erred in suppressing the evidence of Meitler’s blood draw, saying the good-faith exception to the exclusionary rule is applicable to the facts. They add that trooper’s Stephen Morris and John Maier’s conduct in ordering the blood draw was reliant on then-existing authority provided by law.
But, Judge Rose in her ruling said she didn’t believe there was any quantitative evidence of him being under the influence.
Troy Meitler, 46, Halstead was originally charged with involuntary manslaughter, aggravated battery and driving under the influence.
Authorities say Meitler drove across the centerline on U.S. 50 in February 2012 and collided with a van driven by 49-year-old Brian Bush of Plevna. Bush was killed, and his wife was injured.
A Kansas Highway Patrol trooper testified Tuesday that Meitler was conscious at the scene but unable to recount what happened. A test of Meitler’s blood later showed the presence of methamphetamine and the active ingredient of marijuana.
Meitler had pleaded not guilty.
The state will now file an interlocutory appeal to answer the question of law in this case, but it will not change the decision by the judge.
SHAWNEE COUNTY- A Kansas man was injured in an accident just after 6p.m. on Wednesday in Shawnee County.
KDWPT
By DIANE GASPER-O’BRIEN 
By BECKY KISER
