INDEPENDENCE, Kan. – TMP-Marian’s Michael Braun shot a 19-over-par 90 and finished 30th at the 3A State Golf Championships Monday at the Independence County Club. Teammate Cameron Rozean shot a 95 and tied for 53rd.
Jacob Huffaker of Southeast Saline won the individual title with a 6-over 77.
Jacey Kellerman lead Phillipsburg with a 15-over 86 and tied for 15th.
Fredonia won the team title with a 341, one shot ahead of Hesston. Phillipsburg finished sixth with a 357.
GARDEN CITY, Kan. – Salina-Sacred Heart shot a 309 and won their third straight 2A boys golf state title Monday at the Golf Club at Southwind. Pittsburg-Colgan was second with a 316. Plainville finished fifth with a 369 and Trego seventh with a 381.
The Cardinals Tanner Copeland shot an 8-over-par 79 and finished seventh. Dalton Mai and Emmit Owens both shot a 13-over 84 and tied for 15th to lead the Golden Eagles.
Grant Herrenbruck of Sacred Heart won the individual title with a 2-over 73.
GOODLAND, Kan. – Osborne shot a 360 and won the 1A State Golf Championship by six shots over Olpe Monday at Sugar Hills Golf Course. Jetmore-Hodgeman County finished third with a 375.
Tanner Conway led the Bulldogs with a 10-over 81 and finished third, edging Stockton Brady Beougher in a playoff. Osborne’s Justin Burch shot an 11-over 82 and finished fifth.
LEONARDVILLE, Kan. – Brett Herman of La Crosse shot a 12-over-par 78 and finished second at the Sand Green State Championships Monday at the Leonardville Golf Course. Teammate Blake Herman shot a 93 and tied for 10th.
The Leopards finished fourth in the team standings after shooting a 392. Tipton Catholic won the team title by 30 shots over Cottonwood Falls-Chase County by shooting a 351.
DICKINSON COUNTY – Law enforcement authorities are investigating 3 suspects on drug charges.
Police received a call, reporting suspicious activity at a Super 8 Motel in 2200 Block of North Buckeye Avenue in Abilene, according to a media release. Early Saturday, officers received consent to search room number 306.
“The search resulted in the discovery of 188 grams of methamphetamine, personal use marijuana and numerous items of drug paraphernalia. The methamphetamine has an estimated street value of approximately $19,000, according to police.
Officers arrested 21-year-old Lindsey N. Whisenhunt, Salina and 34-year-old Bailey E O’Brien, Wichita, on numerous drug charges.
A third individual, Michael J. Thompson, Salina, was also arrested for an outstanding warrant from the Kansas Department of Corrections.
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Records show that the stepmother of a Kansas boy whose father killed him and fed his remains to the family’s pigs talked on a private Facebook group about restraining the child with handcuffs, ace bandages and splints.
A search warrant released Monday shows that 31-year-old Heather Jones also made a reference to having “no problems” with having the boy, Adrian Jones, “look at flowers.” The quote was a reference to the TV show “The Walking Dead” in which a woman fatally shoots a child after telling her to “look at the flowers.”
Jones also described Adrian as a “psychopath” and said “pain compliance does not work.”
Jones and the boy’s father, Michael Jones, have been sentenced to life in prison. Adrian Jones’ remains were found in November 2015, weeks after he died.
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — The Latest on the Kansas Legislature’s debate over raising taxes to fix the state budget and provide extra funds to public schools (all times local):
8:35 p.m.
The Kansas House has rejected a proposal that would have raised income taxes to fix the state budget and provide additional funds for public schools.
The vote Monday night was 68-53 against a bill raising $1.2 billion over two years. House and Senate negotiators will have to draft a new plan.
The measure would have raised income tax rates and eliminated an exemption for more than 330,000 farmers and business owners.
The plan would have undone most of the past income tax cuts championed by Republican Gov. Sam Brownback. But rates would have remained lower than they were before the tax-cutting began in 2012.
Kansas faces projected budget shortfalls totaling $887 million through June 2019 and the state Supreme Court ruled in March that the state’s education funding is inadequate.
___
KANSAS CITY, Kan. (AP) — A former executive of a Kansas City-area roofing company has been sentenced to one year and one day in federal prison for employing people living in the country illegally.
U.S. Attorney Tom Beall says 71-year-old Tommy Keaton, of Shawnee, Kansas, was sentenced Monday. He will serve a year of supervised release after he leaves prison.
Federal prosecutors say Keaton was indicted in June 2016 for using the workers for Century Roofing to install roofs in the Kansas City metropolitan area. In a plea agreement in February, he admitted harboring up to 24 people in the country illegally for roofing projects for Century.
Keaton also was ordered to forfeit $1.4 million.
Two other people have been sentenced. A total of more than $2 million was forfeited in the case.
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Attorney General Derek Schmidt has asked Kansas City, Kansas police for more investigative material surrounding the death of a boy last year on a water slide.
Schmidt said in a statement Monday that his office is still reviewing the case and that he didn’t know when the inquiry would conclude.
The Wyandotte County district attorney asked Schmidt’s office in December to review the case and determine whether anyone should be charged with a crime related to the death of Republican Rep. Scott Schwab’s 10-year-old son, Caleb. Caleb’s death on the “Verruckt” water slide at Schlitterbahn Water Park spurred lawmakers to ramp up oversight of amusement parks.
Neither Schmidt’s office nor the Kansas City police would say what additional information Schmidt requested.
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach says he’ll declare within the next two months whether he’s seeking the Republican nomination for governor in 2018.
Kobach said during a recent Associated Press interview that he’s looking at the race very seriously. GOP Gov. Sam Brownback is term-limited.
The Kansas secretary of state was considered a candidate for a job in President Donald Trump’s administration. But he said he turned down positions in the White House and the Department of Homeland Security because he and his family wanted to stay in Kansas.
Kobach began advising Trump on immigration early last year during the presidential campaign and has been appointed by the president to a new commission on election fraud.
Kobach said he’s not interested in running for Congress or state attorney general.
By JOHN P. TRETBAR
Independent Oil & Gas Service reported a 16% increase in the statewide rig count last week, noting 11 active drilling rigs in eastern Kansas, up three, and 25 in western Kansas, up two. Baker Hughes reported 901 active oil and gas drilling rigs on Friday, that’s an increase of eight rigs drilling for oil and an increase of eight rigs targeting natural gas. Canada reported 23 active drilling rigs, up three for the week.
Independent Oil & Gas Service reported 24 new well completions last week, bringing the year-to-date total to 545. There were ten new completions east of Wichita, and 14 in western Kansas, including one each in Ellis, Russell and Stafford counties.
There were 29 permits filed for drilling at new locations in Kansas last week. That’s 562 new drilling permits so far this year. There were 12 filed in eastern Kansas and 17 west of Wichita. Independent Oil & Gas reported four new permits in Ellis County, but none in Barton, Russell or Stafford counties.
The Oklahoma Legislature is scheduled to adjourn on Friday, May 26, but lawmakers are making little progress toward resolving its $878 million budget-deficit impasse. Last week the Oklahoma Independent Petroleum Association and the Oklahoma Oil and Gas Association held a press conference to announce their plan to prevent what other industry leaders called “draconian cuts.” They expressed willingness to raise what’s known as the Gross Production Tax — levied on new wells for 36 months — from two percent to three percent — and to slash the so-called “rebates on wells that are restarted after going dormant. GOP negotiators say they won’t go any higher than four percent, while Democrats are insisting on a five percent rate. The Governor is expected to call a special session to run concurrently with the orginary session, according to reporting over the weekend by the Daily Oklahoman.
As we’ve reported before, Russia may be fudging the numbers on it’s promised output cuts. George Friedman writes on the News Max Web site that Russia’s drop in production is a mirror image of the one last year at the same time, raising the question of whether this is just a monthly seasonal adjustment. Russia has technically met its obligation if the benchmark for the cuts is December 2016. But it has not met its obligations if the standard is a year-on-year comparison of cuts. Russia raised crude production in January and March of this year when compared with the previous year. The April 2017 decrease in production, when viewed year-on-year, is just over half of Russia’s commitment.
OPEC and other producers, including Russia, meet this week, and could extend their deal to cut supplies for another six or nine months. According to Reuters, the possibility of deepening the cuts was also being discussed ahead of the meeting May 25.
An official with the International Energy Agency said Tuesday that the international oil market has “essentially reached a balance,” and says that will continue to accelerate in the near term. According to reporting by CNBC, global oil markets are on course to reach a supply-demand balance this year and supply deficits are expected to pick up speed in the near term.
The bankruptcy of SemGroup nine years ago continues to make headlines. Last week the U.S. Supreme Court sided against the bankruptcy trustee. The justices refused to review a circuit court decision allowing Barclays to keep a $143 million fee the bank received for taking on SemGroup’s commodities positions at the New York Mercantile Exchange a week before its 2008 bankruptcy filing. The bankruptcy filing reverberated across the Kansas patch. Kansas producers had to settle about $130 million in SemGroup debts for about 40 cents on the dollar in a mediated settlement in 2009. Producers and lawyers also discovered that Kansas law did not, as intended, give oil producers a “secured interest,” with priority over banks and other creditors, in the event their customers declared bankruptcy.
Halliburton Co. said Wednesday that Jeff Miller, a board member and president of the oil-field-services company, will be its new chief executive officer.
A dispute in Colorado over whether regulators could and should put more weight on public health and the environment when they draw up rules for oil and gas could be decided by the state Supreme Court. The Attorney General says a lower court ruling rewrites state law and contradicts prior Supreme Court rulings. She is appealing on behalf of the regulators, which the governor says don’t have the authority to appeal. So, there are more than one legal issue for the high court to decide, although they’ve given no indication whether they’ll hear the case.
WAKEENEY — A WaKeeney family is reeling after a house fire Friday afternoon destroyed their home.
The fire in the home of David and Susan Bailey, longtime WaKeeney residents, started on the third floor of the home. Son-in-law Bryan Bennett said investigators reported the cause as accidental.
No one was home when the fire started, Bennett said, but the family lost pets, antiques and many items with sentimental value.
“It’s four generations of memories,” said Bennett, a professor at Fort Hays State University who lives in the house neighboring the Baileys. “It’s a total loss on the house. You can walk in the front door … and just see sky.”
David Bailey is retired military and served in Desert Storm and in Germany, where many of the heirlooms came from, Bennett said.
“It’s just devastating,” he said.
The community of WaKeeney has rallied behind the family, with more than a dozen showing after the fire to lend a hand, others offering to store salvaged items from the house and someone else setting up a community fund at a local bank.
Those wishing to contribute to the fund can send funds Citizens State Bnk, c/o the Bailey Family, 100 N. Main, WaKeeney, KS 67672.
“I have to really compliment the community of WaKeeney for what they’ve done to help and what they continue to do to help,” Bennett said.
SHAWNEE COUNTY -Two people were injured in a chain reaction motorcycle accident just before 9a.m. Monday on Interstate 70 in Shawnee County.
The Kansas Highway Patrol reported six motorcycles were eastbound on Interstate 70 in the right-hand lane when one of them started to slow down as they approached Rice Road.
The bike that started to slow was struck by the motorcycle directly behind it, causing a chain-reaction collision.
Clinton Way Gunter, 65, Yuma, AZ, and James Marshall, Jr., 69, Bruceton Mills, WV., were transported to a hospital in Topeka.
Four others including riders from Indiana and Missouri were not injured. All six were wearing helmets, according to the KHP.
EMPORIA, Kan. – Lindenwood earned an 8-4 victory over Central Oklahoma to claim their first NCAA Division II Central Regional title and earn a trip to the Division II Championship Tournament.
The Lions got on the board in the bottom of the first inning as Tyler Muehling drove in Wes Degener with an RBI groundout. Drew Quinones would then single through the right side to drive in a run. Conor Behrens would then come up and a hit a two run home run to left field to give his team a 4-0 lead.
In the bottom of the third inning Quinones would come up and triple to center field driving home Muehling and then came around to score on a delayed stolen base.
The Lions got two more in the bottom of the sixth inning as Sam Baxter doubled to left center to score Rayce Singbush. Paul Sherwood would follow that up with a single down the first base line to drive home Sherwood.
The Bronchos plated a run in the top of the eighth inning as TJ Sparr hit a double to left center scoring Jon Kamies. They would grab three more runs in the top of the ninth as Dayne Sommer hit a home run to left field.
For the Lions Drew Quinones was two for two with two runs driven in while Behrens also added two runs driven in. On the mound Blake Beckman pitched eight innings striking out a season high nine hitters to earn the victory.
Earning All-Tournament team honors from the MIAA were Emporia State second baseman Ryan McBroom. From Lindenwood, first baseman Conor Behrens, shortstop Paul Sherwood, outfielder Ryance Singbush, designated hitter Drew Quinones and closer Connor Law. From Central Oklahoma outfielders Caleb Peters and TJ Sparr joined closer Gibson Russ on the team.
Lindenwood advances to the NCAA Division II Championship Tournament at the Ballpark in Grand Prairie, Texas. They will open the tournament against the winner of Delta State and West Alabama from the South Region. First pitch for that game is scheduled for 7 p.m. on Saturday, May 27.
MIAA
SALINE COUNTY- Law enforcement authorities in Saline County are investigating a suspect for alleged lewd behavior.
Just before 12:30 p.m. Sunday, police were called to Target, 2939 Market Place in Salina after report of bizarre behavior by a man in possession of a knife, according to Police Capt. Paul Forrester.
An officer confronted the man, identified as 24-year-old Raymond Kaumans, in the shoe aisle.
Kaumans then allegedly exposed himself to the officer, according to Forrester. A customer also reported that Kaumans exposed his penis to them.
Kaumans, who is reportedly homeless, was taken into custody for lewd and lascivious behavior.
He has previous arrests for drugs, theft and disorderly conduct over the past five years.
