The Hays City Commission is exploring the possibility of allowing Sunday liquor sales in Hays. What do YOU think?
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Month: January 2017
Sternberg education director gets creative in funding summer camps
FHSU University Relations
The summer science camps started by David Levering three years ago have been a success, with more students each summer. Many of those students seek financial aid.
Levering, education director at Fort Hays State University’s Sternberg Museum of Natural History, wants to avoid prospective students not receiving financial aid to lack of funds, so he is reaching out for donors through a crowdfund page. He started the page Dec. 26, 2016, and contributions will be accepted for another six weeks. Levering hopes to raise $26,000 — $13,000 for financial aid scholarships and $13,000 for equipment needs.
“I need to increase the amount of aid available to give away, otherwise there’s going to be a lot more disappointed students out there,” Levering said. “We’ve had increased requests for financial aid every year.”
Levering raised money through a crowdfund page when he first started the summer camps, which will be in their fourth year in 2017. He raised funds for basic equipment, and many of the contributors from that crowdfund campaign have become regular camp benefactors.
“As the camps program gets bigger, we need to increase the amount of funds,” Levering said. “Most of these funds have come from repeat donors. I’m trying to increase the number of return donors as well as a single big boost this year.”
The equipment upgrades have a purpose, too. Levering wants to teach the students how to use the equipment. The video and photos shot in the field will then be free to educators as classroom activities.
“My hope is to use the video and photos from the field programs to create classroom lessons that teachers can download from the museum’s website for free,” Levering said.
Following is the crowdfund link: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/nature-connect-field-science-to-classrooms-education#/.
State Rep. Waymaster seeks pages for 2017 legislative session
TOPEKA — With the legislative session opening Monday, State Rep. Troy Waymaster, R-Bunker Hill, is inviting students 12 years of age and older to apply to be a legislative page. The page program is an excellent way for students to gain firsthand experience with the legislative process. Representatives are allowed 10 pages per legislative session, and dates are on a first-come, first-served basis.
“Pages are a valuable part of the Legislature, and greatly appreciated,” Waymaster said. “I’m looking forward to hearing from students that are interested in serving.”
To apply, interested students should contact Waymaster’s office. As a reward for service, pages will receive a certificate of appreciation from their legislator, and if available, a photograph with their sponsoring legislator and the governor.
The Latest: Kansas House leader doesn’t expect proposed budget cuts
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — The Latest on the opening day of the Kansas Legislature’s annual session (all times local):
9:45 a.m.
A Republican leader in the Kansas House says he expects GOP Gov. Sam Brownback to propose one-time fiscal moves to avoid big cuts in the current budget.
Dighton Republican and House Majority Leader Don Hineman said Monday that options for balancing the current budget are limited but does not expect Brownback to propose big spending cuts.
Lawmakers were opening their annual session Monday. The state faces a projected shortfall of $342 million when the current fiscal year ends June 30.
The state could delay contributions to public employee pensions. Lawmakers also have talked about liquidating a state investment fund.
Hineman declined to be specific about what he expects from Brownback.
Brownback also wouldn’t provide details in a brief interview Monday. He plans to release budget proposals Wednesday.
___
12:27 a.m.
The Republican-controlled Kansas Legislature expects to kick off its debate over ending an income tax break championed by GOP Gov. Sam Brownback shortly after lawmakers open their annual session.
The House Taxation Committee plans to meet Monday afternoon, less than two hours after both chambers convened for what traditionally has been a day long on ceremony and speeches and short on substantial business.
But Chairman Steven Johnson, an Assaria Republican, said he wants the House panel to begin working quickly on revenue-raising proposals.
Lawmakers must close a projected $342 million shortfall in the current budget and gaps in funding for existing programs totaling nearly $1.1 billion through June 2019. Kansas has struggled to balance its budget since GOP legislators slashed personal income taxes in 2012 and 2013 at Brownback’s urging in what many voters now see as a failed economic stimulus effort.
Ellis Co. Commission will meet Monday to reorganize
By JONATHAN ZWEYGARDT
Hays Post
The Ellis County Commission will conduct its annual reorganizational appointments at Monday’s meeting.
The commission will make a number of appointments including a new chair and vice chair of the Board of Commissioners, representatives to various boards and committees, and confirm appointment of department heads.
The commission will also discuss the 2017 Noxious Weed agreement with the Kansas Department of Transportation.
The Public Building Commission will meet at 5 p.m. with the county commission meeting to follow at the County Administrative Center.
Sheriff: Kansas bomb squad detonates reported explosive device
DICKINSON COUNTY -Law enforcement authorities in Dickinson County are investigating a reported explosive device found over the weekend.
Just after 10:30 p.m. on Saturday, Herington police and sheriff’s deputies responded after a citizen called to report a suspicions device seen under a bridge near Vane Road and Highway 4 just outside Herington, according to Dickinson County Sheriff Gareth Hoffman.
Officials contacted the Explosive Ordinance Disposal Team from Fort Riley. They checked the device, moved it and detonated it.
“We have no leads and are not 100 per cent sure what it was,” said Hoffman.
The team from Fort Riley is still working to learn more about what it was and who might have been responsible.
I-70 rest areas will close for renovations
KDOT
The Kansas Department of Transportation will close the I-70 rest areas in Trego County located near WaKeeney for a construction project.
Starting Monday, the westbound facility will close for renovations, with work on the eastbound facility beginning later in the month. Work includes remodeling the existing restrooms and upgrading the surrounding lighting. Both facilities are expected to be reopened by Memorial Day weekend, weather permitting.
Travelers may use the Grainfield facilities located near milepost 96 during the construction. RDH Electric and Construction is the primary contractor for the project with a total contract cost of approximately $306,000.
Fort Hays State’s Hispanic College Institute receives award from NASPA
The Fort Hays State University Hispanic College Institute was recently selected as a recipient of the 2017 National Outstanding New Program Award from the NASPA: Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education — Latino/a Knowledge Community.
The award will be presented in San Antonio at the NASPA Annual Conference, Latino/a Knowledge Community Mena-Valdez Awards Ceremony, in March.
Brett Bruner, director of transition and student conduct, and Dr. Keegan Nichols, associate vice president for student affairs and compliance, will receive the award on behalf of the HCI.
“The Latino/a Knowledge Community is one of four ethnic-based knowledge communities within NASPA, which actively develop and encourage cross-cultural communication, collaboration and awareness,” said Bruner.
“As a knowledge community, the Latino/a KC actively promotes the empowerment of NASPA members through education, research, shared knowledge, mentoring initiatives and the use of online forums to disseminate information and facilitate discourse,” he said.
The Latino/a Knowledge Community’s Outstanding New Program Award recognizes a NASPA member university that has created new programs or services to better support and serve the Latino college community.
“This program has changed the landscape of the university and the Latino student body population by highlighting the importance of a college-going Latino community,” said Bruner.
James Edward Patterson
James Edward Patterson, 82, passed away on Friday, January 6, 2017 at the Long Term Care, Quinter. He was born September 2, 1934, at the home of his Grandparents, outside of Lubbock, Texas, to Aaron Edward Patterson and Margaret Leona (Anderson) Patterson.
In 1956, James committed to a four year enlistment in the United States Navy. On July 19, 1959 James married Janice Charlene (Wente) Patterson and after several years of marriage, the couple settled in the Quinter, Kansas area.
James was an avid lover of metal fabrication and welding. He worked for several years for Quinter Manufacturing and then the Gove County Road and Bridge Department before opening his own Welding Service.
James is survived by his two children, Jana Kamp (Karl), Elgin, Texas and James T Patterson (Allison), Cedar Creek, Texas; Sister Ann Wente (Duane), Hoxie, Kansas; brother David Patterson (Kathy), Hoxie, Kansas; and three grandsons, Jacob Kamp, Cody Patterson, Shawn Patterson. Also surviving are many cousins, nieces and nephews. James was preceeded in death by his parents Aaron & Leona (Anderson) Patterson.
Visitation will be held at the funeral home, Tuesday, January 10th, from 6pm to 8pm.
In lieu of flowers, the family suggests memorial contributions be made to the Jim Patterson Memorial Fund. Donations to the fund may be sent to Schmitt Funeral Home, 901 South Main, Quinter, KS 67752.
Services will be held at Schmitt Funeral Home, Quinter, on Wednesday, January 11, 2017 at 12:00 noon with burial immediately following at the Kansas Veterans’ Cemetery, WaKeeney.
Condolences: www.schmittfuneral.com
MADORIN: A recipe to cure winter doldrums
Doldrums is a mariner’s term for windless conditions that becalm sailing vessels. For many, icy Januaries trigger a metaphorical emotional state. To help the winter-bound outlast every new year’s first two months, weather-induced blahs require creative solutions.
A friend inadvertently brightened this normally dreary season when she gifted me a copy of our church’s 1971 cookbook. Afterwards, I spent hours examining old recipes and familiarizing myself with cooking preferences of women I’ve recently met as well as their mother’s who’ve passed. In short time, wimpy spirits vanished. Instead of longing for spring, exploring new ingredients and ways to cook familiar ones energized me.
Decades ago, churchwomen in Meade gave me my very first hometown cookbook as a shower gift. Sorting through it to plan meals for my new husband taught me much about these friends’ culinary practices. In addition to following their instructions to bake irresistible breads and savory casseroles, I discovered a sour cream blackberry pie so delicious family still requests it at holidays.
Over time, my collection multiplied. Favorites include worn books with spidery handwriting noting someone’s Aunt Gertie’s favorite meatloaf and similar comments. Despite loving these tried and true treasures, I don’t ignore brand new editions full of gastronomic delights.
I find amazing batter-spattered texts while attending garage sales and auctions. Online ads offer the best avenue to seek specific titles. It took patience to find an out-of-print People Chow copy, but one eventually turned up. Newspaper ads and church bulletins highlight newcomers hot off the press.
Local collections display favorite regional foods with recipes unique to ethnic settlements. Area books frequently include instructions for making homemade sauerkraut, pickled chicken feet, blood sausage, or bean and noodle soup. A treasure I bought in Wilson contains familiar bierock recipes but also suggests a half-dozen ways to make kolaches and tomato noodles unique to Bohemian cooks.
A New Mexico purchase intrigued me with recipes requiring beef stomach as well as 1000 uses for red and green chilies. An addition from a mining town in Idaho offers pasty (not pastry) recipes to make meat pies that miners carried to work inside the nearby mountain. It’s also clear that huckleberries are the fruit of choice for jelly and pie makers in that town.
Speaking of fruits, few prairie cookbooks fail to include more than one way to make sandhill plum and chokecherry jellies or fruit leathers. Cooks can also find guidelines to prepare pheasant, venison, and occasionally raccoon, possum, or rattlesnake. Good local cookbooks explain how to make indigenous ingredients edible.
Ironically, recipe ingredients may be the same from one town to another, but titles can vary. A nearby village listed the same ingredients and instructions for concocting a dish residents called party potatoes. A burg down the road labeled the same item funeral potatoes. Guess it relates to when you eat it.
For a month that began uninspired, it’s a wonderland of possibility now. More than a dozen new recipes beckon. First, I’ll explore a locally favorite butterhorn roll formula. The tidy note written next to a previous owner’s favorite promises “A delicious batter for sweet rolls as well as dinner rolls.” I can’t wait to find out.
Native Kansan Karen Madorin is a local writer and retired teacher who loves sharing stories about places, people, critters, plants, food, and history of the High Plains.
Dr. Max L. Rumpel
Dr. Max L. Rumpel, 80, Hays, died Thursday, January 5, 2017 at the Ellis Good Samaritan Society from complications related to Alzheimer’s.
He was born March 17, 1936 in Trego County, Kansas the son of Philip Arthur and Rosa Carolina (Deines) Rumpel. After attending grade school and middle school in a one room schoolhouse near Ogallah, Kansas, he graduated from Trego Community High School, WaKeeney, in 1953. He earned his A.B. degree in chemistry and mathematics from what was then Fort Hays Kansas State College in 1957. While at Fort Hays, he was the recipient of numerous scholarships and honors.
In order to help pay for school, he worked at the Hays Flour Mill and at the Hays Pathology Laboratory while earning his undergraduate degree. On the basis of his scholastic achievements at Fort Hays, he was recruited by the University of Kansas Chemistry Department for graduate study where he completed his PhD in Inorganic Chemistry in 1961. While at the University of Kansas, he was awarded a National Science Foundation Fellowship to pursue his research, developed his passion for teaching chemistry, and met the love of his life, fellow chemistry teaching assistant Joan Hubbell.
On August 26, 1961 he married Joan Celia Hubbell in New York. Together they celebrated nearly 54 years of marriage until she preceded him in death in May of 2015. Upon completion of his doctoral studies and marriage to Joan, he returned to Western Kansas where he joined the faculty of the Chemistry Department at Fort Hays State in the fall of 1961. He was promoted to Associate Professor in 1965, full Professor in 1968 and served as Chair of the Chemistry Department for 16 years from 1972 until 1988. He returned to teaching full-time until his retirement in 2010. He was awarded Professor Emeritus status in 2010 and continued to participate in the activities of the Department until he was no longer capable due to his illness.
Over the course of his 49 year tenure, he taught introductory, inorganic, and physical chemistry to thousands of students. He was the department’s resident expert in the art of glassblowing, and he had a keen interest in the use of computers and technology in undergraduate instruction. He served as the faculty advisor of the FHSU Chemistry Club for over 20 years and was very active in the local Sigma Xi chapter. He also mentored a number of graduate students and published papers in the field of inorganic chemistry and the use of computers and programmable devices in teaching labs. He received National Science Foundation research awards to conduct research at the University of Colorado in 1965 and Washington State University in 1971. He and FHSU colleague Dr. Edmund Shearer were recipients of NSF grants to improve the equipment and technology in the chemistry laboratories at FHSU. He enjoyed hosting the chemistry labs for the Boy Scouts’ annual Chuck Howard Memorial Campus Camporee at FHSU. He loved working in the lab and was a teacher first, taking great pride in the students he taught, advised and mentored during his career.
Dr. Rumpel was a member of the following honorary societies; Kappa Mu Epsilon (national mathematics honorary fraternity), Phi Kappa Phi (national honorary scholarship society), Delta Epsilon (national science honorary fraternity), Sigma Pi Sigma (national honorary physics fraternity), the Fort Hays State Honors Program, Seventh Cavalry (FHSU service honorary), and Phi Lambda Upsilon (national honorary chemical society). He was a member of the following professional societies; American Chemical Society Division of Chemical Education, Sigma Xi scientific research society, and the Kansas Academy of Science. He was an active runner and bicyclist, enjoyed playing tennis, and was an avid reader of science fiction. He and Joan were fixtures at Fort Hays State athletic events of all kinds and at Hays Larks baseball games. They were frequent travelers, driving all over the US and Canada to visit their children and grandchildren, relatives, friends, national parks and historical sites. He was well known for his dry, sarcastic sense of humor and his puns.
Survivors include a son; Craig Rumpel of Charlottesville, VA, a daughter; Karen Rumpel-Lopez and her husband Bart of Riverside, CA, two grandchildren; Michael Lopez and Alexis Lopez of Riverside, CA, and two brothers; James Alan Rumpel and wife Janet of Goodland, KS, and Philip Russell Rumpel of Cheyenne, WY.
He was preceded in death by his parents, his wife Joan, and a brother; Sidney Wayne Rumpel.
The family will be present for public visitation from 5:00 pm until 7:00 pm on Wednesday, January 11, 2017 at the Hays Memorial Chapel Funeral Home, 1906 Pine Street. Private family graveside services will be held at the St. John’s Lutheran Cemetery north of Ellis, Kansas. A memorial service will be announced and will occur this summer.
Memorials are suggested to the Dr. Max L. Rumpel Scholarship Fund for the Chemistry Department at Fort Hays State University, in care of the FHSU Foundation, Robbins Center, One Tiger Place, Hays, Kansas 67601. Condolences may be left for the family at www.haysmemorial.com.
Hays High wrestling takes first in Topeka
Dustin Armbruster
The Hays High wrestling team took first place at the Topeka Seaman Invitation with a perfect dual record on Saturday. The Indians finished 5-0 on the day. Hays had five named to the all-tournament team including Kyle Casper at 138, Kreighton Meyers at 145, Conrad Vajnar at 152, Xavier Dandurand at 160, and Logan Schulte at 285. Each wrestler went 5-0 on the day. Team results are below.
Hays 55 Lansing 15
Hays 66 Royal Valley 15
Hays 43 Topeka Seaman 30
Hays 58 Turner 30
Hays 60 Blue Valley 12
Kansas elementary school playground destroyed in fire
SEDGWICK COUNTY – Law enforcement authorities in Sedgwick County are investigating a weekend fire at an elementary school.
Fire crews responded to the fire Saturday at the playground at Adams Elementary School in the 1000 Block of North Oliver in Wichita.
PLAYGROUND FIRE | 1002 N Oliver St | Adams Elementary | CP says someone set the playground equip on fire | SQ14 has fire showing |
— WichitaFire.org (@wichitafireorg) January 7, 2017
There were no injuries. The playground equipment was destroyed.
Police asked the public for help to identify anyone who might be responsible for the fire.