HUTCHINSON— The preliminary hearing for a Kansas man arrested after two domestic incidents, one where he held police at bay on Christmas eve for nearly six hours was bound over as charged Friday.
Charles Mendenhall III, 34, Hutchinson, faces arraignment next month on both cases.
The victim returned to the stand Friday and testified that she didn’t feel like she was being held against her will during the standoff on Christmas Eve.
She said she was staying with him trying to get the guns away from him and to keep police from shooting him.
At some point during the incident, the two came to doorway and she was in front of him. Police believe he had a gun to her back, but she testified that he had the gun, but wasn’t sure where he had it.
During cross examination, the state said those statements in court are contrary to other testimony and what she told law enforcement.
The victim had an attorney with her because she had indicated in an earlier hearing that she felt she might incriminate herself with a crime.
Apparently, when the defendant was crawling through a window of the home during the incident on January 10, she struck him and was worried she might be charged with battery, domestic violence. The state indicated in court they wouldn’t consider that a crime since he entered the residence when he wasn’t supposed to be there and she had a right to defend herself.
The defense noted it was his home and doesn’t believe he committed aggravated burglary.
Mendenhall is charged with kidnapping, aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, criminal discharge of a firearm, criminal threat and two counts of aggravated endangerment of a child in the Christmas Eve incident. In the case from January, he’s charged with aggravated battery, aggravated burglary, interference with law enforcement, violation of a protection from abuse order, criminal restraint and battery of Hutchinson Police Officer Josh Long.
LINDSBORG, Kan. – Hays High qualified three three wrestlers out for 4A State Wrestling Tournament in Salina. Conrad Vajner (145), Austin Dale (152) and Trey VanPelt (220) all advance from the Smoky Valley regional. Vajner finished third and is 31-12 on the season. Dale was fourth and takes a 20-10 record to state. VanPelt finished third and is 26-18.
TMP-Marian’s Tucker Rhoades was the Monarchs lone qualifier out of the Beloit 3-2-1A regional. Rhodes was runner-up at 132 and is 27-4 heading into the state tournament at Gross Coliseum in Hays.
Ellis had three advance. Bryce Younger (120) and Dalton Hensley (145) were both runner up in the Cimarron regional.
Plainville has four headed to state. Gabe Wilkens finished second at 170 in the Beloit regional. Brandon Rohr (106), Noah Hansen (145) and Jared Plante (285) all finished third.
Trego has three qualified. Corbin Schoenthaler finished runner up at 152 while TJ Hafliger was third at 170 and John Kuhn fourth at 113.
The 4A state wrestling tournament begins Friday at Salina while 3-2-1A is at Gross Coliseum in Hays.
HAYS, Kan. – Craig Nicholson scored 22 points, dished out six assists and had three steals with no turnovers to lead Fort Hays State to a 79-65 win over Lincoln in front of 4,125 Saturday at Gross Coliseum. The senior hit all three of his 3-point attempts including one with 3:37 to play to push the Tigers (18-8, 12-8 MIAA) lead to eight. Rob Davis and Kenny Enoch would also hit 3-pointers down the stretch as the Tigers win their 10th straight at home.
Mark Johnson Postgame Interview
Craig Nicholson Postgame Interview
Game Highlights
Fort Hays State missed their first five shots and turned the ball over six times in the first five minutes and fell behind by 11. They put together an 11-0 run to go up eight with 4:14 to play in the first half and led by four at halftime. Lincoln (13-13, 9-11 MIAA) got as close as two in the second half but the Tigers responded with a 6-0 run and never let them closer than four the rest of the way.
The Tigers shot 59-percent in the second half and went 6-for-9 from beyond the arc after halftime and 9-of-15 for the game.
Jake Stoppel scored 16, Davis added 13 (all in the second half) and Enoch chipped in with 11.
Anthony Virdure led the Blue Tigers with 20 points after scoring 14 in the first half.
Nearly 90 percent of the patients at HealthCore Clinic in Wichita live at or below the federal poverty level. BRYAN THOMPSON / HEARTLAND HEALTH MONITOR
A recent national report credits the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, for helping to reduce racial and ethnic inequalities in health insurance coverage. But Kansas has not made as much progress as other states.
Before the Affordable Care Act, blacks, Hispanics, American Indians and Asian-Americans were much more likely than whites to be uninsured. But an analysis by the nonprofit Center for Global Policy Solutions shows that gap has narrowed because of the health reform law.
Ocie Corner is one example. The African-American woman lives in Bel Aire, a suburb on the northeast side of Wichita, and had been uninsured since 2012. She says she just kept her fingers crossed.
“You just hope you don’t get sick and have to go someplace, because you don’t … you really don’t know where to go. You really don’t,” she says. “You just kind of, ‘Well, it’ll work out. It’ll work out.’ And, you know, sometimes it don’t work out.”
Corner wasn’t aware of the federal insurance marketplace that became available in 2014. But a few weeks before Christmas, she saw a message on TV about the penalty people have to pay if they don’t have health insurance.
“I wasn’t paying no $600, so it got me to sign up,” Corner says.
And it’s a good thing she did. Corner went to HealthCore Clinic in Wichita a couple of weeks later for treatment of a burn that wasn’t healing. They referred her to specialty care, which Corner says she couldn’t afford to pay for on her own.
While her burn was being evaluated, she learned that her blood pressure was too high and causing damage to her eyes. Her insurance will help her pay for the care she needs.
But that peace of mind continues to elude a disproportional share of minority Kansans. A recent analysis by the Kansas Health Institute found that 17.4 percent of black Kansans were uninsured in 2014, compared to 7.6 percent of white Kansans. That’s a larger gap than in any other state. Nationwide, 13.6 percent of black Americans were uninsured in 2014, significantly lower than the rate in Kansas.
Teresa Lovelady heads HealthCore Clinic, a federally funded safety net clinic in a predominantly African-American neighborhood in northeast Wichita. She says 88 percent of the clinic’s patients live at or below the federal poverty level.
“These are individuals that will not qualify for the insurance marketplace,” Lovelady says.
By that, she means they don’t make enough money to qualify for federal subsidies to help cover the cost of their insurance premiums.
The ACA extended Medicaid to adults with incomes up to 138 percent of the federal poverty level. But Gov. Sam Brownback and legislative leaders have blocked efforts to make more low-income adults eligible for KanCare, the state’s privatized Medicaid program.
Lovelady thinks that’s the main reason for the racial disparity in insurance coverage. And she says those left without insurance are hard-working Kansans.
“Their income was too low to meet the federal threshold, but they were too rich to qualify for Medicaid in the state of Kansas,” she says. “And because we did not expand Medicaid in Kansas, it disproportionately impacted the patients that we serve here at HealthCore.”
While the disparity between whites and blacks was higher in Kansas than in any other state, the largest uninsured gap in Kansas was between whites, at 7.6 percent, and Hispanics, at 24.2 percent. That’s more than a threefold difference.
KanCare doesn’t cover non-disabled, childless adults no matter how poor they are. Brownback and many Republican legislative leaders say the state shouldn’t extend coverage to them while Kansans with disabilities remain on waiting lists even though those waiting lists are for disability support services, not medical care.
There is mounting evidence showing that states that have not expanded Medicaid are lagging when it comes to reducing the uninsured rate and narrowing racial and ethnic gaps in coverage.
As the KHI analysis summarized, the average decrease in the uninsured rate for states that expanded Medicaid was 25.6 percent. In states like Kansas that did not expand Medicaid, the uninsured rate declined by an average of 13.8 percent.
The Center for Global Policy Solutions report, meanwhile, concludes that eliminating the disparities in coverage between minorities and whites will not happen unless government coverage, like Medicaid or Medicare, is extensively expanded.
Editor’s note: The Kansas Health Institute is the parent organization of the editorially independent KHI News Service.
Bryan Thompson is a reporter for KHI News Service in Topeka, a partner in the Heartland Health Monitor team.
HAYS, Kan. – Chelsea Mason scored 18 points and Beth Bohuslavsky added 15. The seniors were two of the four Tigers to reach double-figures in a 91-63 rout of Lincoln in front of 4,050 on Senior Day at Gross Coliseum. Jill Faxon added 15 points and Nicola Kacperska 14 as the Tigers (23-3, 17-3 MIAA) put the wraps on their second straight unbeaten regular season at home.
Tony Hobson Postgame Interview
Game Highlights
The Tigers scored the game’s first four points and never trailed, leading by as many as 14 in the first half. Lincoln (8-18, 4-16 MIAA) closed the gap to seven late in the second quarter and were within nine early in the third before a 13-1 run by the Tigers put the game away.
FHSU shot 44-percent from the floor including 5-of-19 from 3-point range and hit 26-of-37 free throws. They outrebounded the Blue Tigers by 11 and scored 22 points off 16 turnovers.
Freshman Tatyana Legette had four of FHSU’s nine blocked shots.
MANHATTAN, Kan. (AP) — Frank Mason III scored 15 points, Perry Ellis added 14 and second-ranked Kansas escaped after blowing most of a 17-point second-half lead for a 72-63 victory over Kansas State on Saturday.
Wayne Selden Jr. also scored 12 for the Jayhawks (23-4, 11-3 Big 12), who needed a jumper from Devonte Graham and some free throws down the stretch to secure their first win at Kansas State in three years.
Stephen Hurt and Barry Brown scored 13 points apiece for Kansas State (15-12, 4-10), which got within 65-62 with less than 2 minutes to go. But that’s when Graham knocked down his first basket after five straight misses, and the Jayhawks pulled away from the foul line to wrap up the win.
PRATT-Just six hunting-related incidents were reported in Kansas in 2015, tying the record low set in 2013. Unfortunately, one hunter lost his life.
While six incidents is an amazingly low number considering hunters recorded more than 5 million hunter-days last year, it doesn’t lessen the impact on a family and community who lost one of their members.
Once again, most of incidents were the result of careless firearm handling. These types of incidents concern those involved in hunter education because they are preventable and stem from a violation of one of the four basic firearm safety rules: treat every firearm as if it loaded; always point the muzzle in a safe direction; keep your finger off the trigger until you’re ready to fire; and never climb a fence or other obstacle with a loaded gun. All hunters must remember to: “Load your brain before you load your gun,” because the most important piece of safety equipment a hunter can have in the field is between his or her ears.
There were also five elevated stand incidents, including one fatality, reported last year. A full body harness/fall arrest system should becorrectly usedany time a hunter leaves the ground. But a full body harness/fall arrest system is not a parachute, so it will not protect a hunter if not attached to the tree.
When you compare hunting-related incidents to the number of incidents reported for other activities per 100,000 participants, hunting is safer than cheerleading. And the trend in safe hunting can be directly attributed to the dedicated efforts of the 700 Kansas Hunter Education Program volunteer instructors, who have taught and certified more than 500,000 Kansas students since 1973.
ST. CLOUD, Minn. – Fort Hays State split a pair of games to round out the Kelly Laas Memorial Tournament in St. Cloud, Minn., on Saturday. The Tigers had just one hit in a 7-1 loss against Minnesota State-Mankato, but responded with a 3-2 victory over the home team St. Cloud State in game two.
Minnesota State-Mankato 7, Fort Hays State 1
Coley Ries had the Tigers’ number as she sat down all but one of the 19 FHSU batters she faced in 6.0 innings and retired 12 straight to start the game. Fort Hays State’s lone hit came off the bat of Samantha Vallarreal, when she hit her first homerun of the season to lead off the fifth inning.
Carrie Clarke took the loss for the Tigers throwing all seven innings, giving up seven runs (six earned), with two K’s and two walks.
With the win Ries record on the season now sits at 3-3, and the Mavericks move to 4-4.
Fort Hays State 3, St. Cloud State 2
Game two was a pitcher’s duel throughout with the only run over the first four innings coming in the form of a home run from St. Cloud State’s Morgan Emmans in the bottom of the second.
The score remained 1-0 in favor of the Huskies, until the Tiger bats came alive in the top of the fifth. Kiley Strand broke up a no-hit bid by doubling down the left field line, then Chermayne Yago ended the shutout with an RBI triple to right center. She later scored on a sacrifice fly off the bat of Paxton Duran to give the Tigers a 2-1 lead.
Fort Hays State got a much needed insurance run in the top half of the sixth. Claudia Vazquez roped a one-out double and scored on a Samantha Villarreal RBI base hit putting the Tigers up 3-1.
The Huskies cut the Tiger lead back to one run in the bottom of the sixth when Jaiden Lund hit a one out triple and came around to score on a sacrifice fly from Alyssa Coletto. But Duran held off SCSU in the seventh as she sat down the side in order to record her second win of the year. Duran went the distance for the Tigers throwing all seven innings, giving up two earned runs, with 11 strikeouts, and one walk.
The Tigers are now 3-6 on the year and look to improve on it Monday when they take on Newman at 3 pm for their home opener in Hays, Kan.
GOLDEN, Colo. – Fort Hays State split a pair of games in Golden, Colo., on Saturday (Feb. 20) against Colorado Mines. The Tigers won game one 13-8 before dropping the nightcap 10-6.
Fort Hays State 13, Colorado Mines 8
Fort Hays State had to come from behind twice to take the first game of the doubleheader. The Tigers fell behind 2-0 early in game one but responded with a run of their own in the third. Austin Unrein sent a ball into the left center gap and scored Caleb Cherryholmes with the RBI double.
The one run deficit did not last long as the Orediggers scored pushed their lead back to two with a run in the bottom of the third.
The Tigers responded with a four run fourth to take their first lead at 5-3. Connor Ross singled to start the inning, then Alex Weiss walked. An infield single in the following at bat by Trevor Hughes loaded the bases for Alex King, who hit a ground ball that scored Ross. A balk tied the game as Weiss trotted home. King stole third and forced a throwing error by the Oredigger catcher then scored giving the Tigers the lead for the first time in the game. With two outs the Tigers hit three consecutive singles as Unrein plated the fourth run of the inning.
Once again the Orediggers responded to the spurt of Tiger offense and came back with four runs of their own in the bottom of the fourth, taking the lead back at 7-5.
Colorado Mines added another run in the bottom of the sixth to make the score 8-5, but the Tigers put up a monster inning in their final at bat, grabbing the lead back for good. Three straight singles to start the inning from Unrein, Joe Mapes, and Ross started the scoring. Weiss then followed with an RBI double and once again it was a tie ball game. With one out, King was hit by a pitch that loaded the bases. Nick Hammeke then delivered an RBI single to tie the game and Ty Redington executed a squeeze and was safe on the play for an RBI single. After Cherryholmes was hit by a pitch to bring in another run, Unrein found another gap for his second double of the game that plated two more. Toss in an Orediggers error that scored a run and the Tigers had themselves an eight-run, seven-hit inning to take the lead 13-8.
Giles Fox shut the door in the bottom of the seventh, working around a pair of hits. He preserved the win for Casey Sedbrook, who allowed just one run in 2.1 innings of relief. Kyle Vogt started the game and went 3.2 innings giving up seven earned runs on six hits with a strikeout and a walk.
Colorado Mines 10, Fort Hays State 6
In game two, the Orediggers put a steady dose of twos on the board, scoring two runs in all but one inning. A Connor Ross home run in the top of the second cut the Colorado Mines lead to just one, but that was as close as the game would be as CSM steadily pulled away.
The Tigers got another run in the third when Nick Hammeke walked and moved around the bases to eventually score on a wild pitch, making it 4-2 in favor of CSM.
The Tiger bats sprung to life in the top half of the fifth, scoring four runs, but still left trailed 8-6. Redington singled then Austin Unrein brought two in with his second home run of the season two batters later. Mapes followed with a single to center. Two consecutive errors by the Orediggers followed by a hit batter allowed Mapes to score, and Jace Bowman plated another with an RBI fielder’s choice.
That was all the Tigers got the rest of the game and the Orediggers added two more in the sixth to make the final 10-6.
Justin Hersch took the loss for the Tigers as he went 5.0 innings suffering eight runs (five earned), on 13 hits with three strikeouts and no walks.
Now at 6-4 overall, the Tigers take on the Orediggers in the final game of the four-game series on Sunday (Feb. 21) at 12 pm MT/1 pm CT before heading home for their first taste of MIAA action of the season.
WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — McConnell Air Force Base officials say the new Boeing KC-46A refueling tankers will arrive at the base in Wichita later than expected.
The first of the new tankers, which will replace the aging KC-135 tanker, will not arrive until the spring of 2017. They originally had been expected to begin arriving early this year, which was then postponed until August.
The Wichita Eagle reports the delay is being attributed to production delays by Boeing. The KC-46 tankers are the military version of Boeing’s 767 airliner.
Rep. Mike Pompeo of Kansas said in an email that the Air Force has assured him that the first 18 KC-46s will be delivered to McConnell by August 2017.
The base is scheduled to receive 36 of the new planes by 202
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — The University of Kansas Cancer Center is joining nearly 70 other cancer centers in sounding an alarm about the high number of children not getting the HPV vaccine.
The Kansas City Star reports Kansas is last in the nation in the percentage of girls who have received the vaccine, which protects against a virus that causes cancer. The Centers for Disease Control says Missouri isn’t far behind, and both states also rank low in the number of boys who are vaccinated.
Dr. Terry Tsue at the Kansas Cancer Center says he’s troubled that so many children are not getting the vaccine.
He says some people some don’t think their children need the vaccine because they don’t have sex, while others think it will make their kids promiscuous.
PRATT–Does a park in your neighborhood need a new playground? Has your community been waiting for the right time to put in a new picnic shelter, ball fields or a dog park? Now, with the reauthorization of the Land and Water Conservation Fund Act (LWCF), the time is right to make those projects happen.
LWCF grants have provided funding for more than 700 outdoor recreation projects throughout Kansas since its inception in 1965. Kansas has received more than $50 million that has helped create and enhance outdoor recreation opportunities in almost every county.
Grants require 50 percent matches, and properties where grants are used must remain in pubic recreational use for perpetuity. Grants are available to cities, counties, school districts and other government entities. Funding is administered by the Kansas Department of Wildlife, Parks and Tourism, through the National Park Service.
The application deadline is April 15, 2016, and competition for grants is intense, so it’s important that applications be accurately and thoroughly completed. To learn more about the application process and to download an application, go to ksoutdoors.com/KDWPT-Info/Grants.
