I feel a little badly about writing this now that our area just had a nice rain, but there are still those that haven’t and maybe it will bring a chuckle or two to everyone. So knowing how dry Kansas can get, think in that context as you read.

Last Sunday after church, a western Kansas rancher and a visitor from Washington State struck up a conversation and the topic naturally turned to how dry it was there in western KS. “Does it ever rain in this blooming state?” the visitor asked. “Oh sure,” answered the rancher. “Do you remember the story in the Bible where it rained for forty days and forty nights?” “Yes, I’m familiar with Noah’s flood,” replied the visitor. “Well,” began the rancher, “That time we got about 2 ½ inches.”

Someone asked me today if I’d been doing any frog hunting yet, being frog season is open now. I told them I would if I could find some water. I got to thinking that I should try the sewage treatment ponds just outside town; there’s always water there and for that reason the frogs are probably so thick there we could catch em’ with dip nets. Besides that, they probably glow in the dark, makin’ them easy to net, and I’ll bet they have four legs ta’ boot!

A new friend of mine, a recent transplant to Kansas, shared with me some pages from his diary:
June 10th – Just moved to Kansas, now this is a state that knows how to live; beautiful sunny days and warm, balmy evenings. It’s beautiful, I love it here!
June 14th – Really heating up, got to 100 today. Not a problem, I live in an air conditioned home, and drive an air conditioned car. What a pleasure to see the sun everyday like this.
June 20th –I had the backyard landscaped with western plants today, lots of rocks and cactus. No more mowing the lawn for me. Another scorcher today, but I love it here.
July 3 – The temperature hasn’t been below 100 all week. How do people get used to this heat? At least is kind of windy though. Getting used to this heat is taking longer than I expected.
July 5 – I missed Lomita my cat sneaking into the car when I left for work this morning. When I got to the car after work, she had roasted to death, now my hot car smells like grilled cat! Good ol’ mister sun strikes again.
July 7 – The air conditioner shot craps and the repairman charged me $200 to drive by and tell me he needed to order parts. I’ve been sleeping outside on the patio for three nights now; a $225,000 house and can’t even go inside! Lomita is the lucky one; why did I ever come here?
July 10 – Got the AC fixed; it cost $500 and drops the temperature down to 85. If one more wise guy asks “Hot enough for you today?” I’m going to strangle them. I hate this stupid state!
July 12 – My car smells like fried cat, my new air conditioner barely gets the inside of my house cooler than my morning coffee, my new cactus can’t even live in this blasted heat, and the weather report might as well be a recording! Does it ever rain in this God forsaken place?
July 14 – Welcome to HELL! Forgot to crack the car windows at work today and since it was 115, the windshield blew out. When the repairman came to fix it, guess what he asked me??? “Hot enough for you today?” …It cost my sister $1500 to bail me out of jail. What kind of demented idiot would want to live in a place like this?

Just when you thought you’d heard every possible way to finish this sentence “Its soo dry that…, let me offer a few more:
It’s so dry that the Baptists are sprinkling, the Methodists are using wet-wipes, the Presbyterians are giving rain checks and the Catholics are praying the wine will turn back to water.
It’s so dry that cows are giving evaporated milk and hens are laying hard-boiled eggs.
It’s so dry that the river only runs twice a week.
And finally, it’s so dry that they’ve had to close two lanes at the local swimming pool and swimmers are actually encouraged to pee in the pool.

As a farm boy in Ohio, the Ohio State fair was the perfect end to summer. We took our flock of registered sheep and stayed there for most of the fair. Just up the midway from the sheep barn was a dunk tank manned by a clown calling himself BoBo. Now BoBo knew just exactly how to taunt kids to the point where they would spend their life savings just to try to dunk him. His famous one -liner that I can still remember echoing across the midway into the wee hours of the morning was “BoBo, High and Dry!” BoBo, I feel your pain!

Continue to Explore Kansas Outdoors anyway!

Steve can be contacted by email at [email protected].

We’re getting ready for the first test of a political-season, non-partisan primary election that comes up in August, followed by November’s general, and we’ll see just how non-partisan things stay.

The movement of city, school district and some other elections from spring to the traditional fall season—when for decades Kansans have been looking for that little elephant or donkey on yard signs and on handbills—may be the first chance we have to see whether those nonpolitical local offices are going to become just as political as the races for the Legislature, statewide offices and national offices in even-numbered years.

Both Republicans and Democrats have been doing some campaign seminars for candidates for those nonpartisan seats, maybe just showing candidates how to best organize a campaign, get voters to turn out—and maybe offering up some party activists to assist in those races.

Nothing dramatic yet, but there’s a little background work going on, in which parties can get a look at potential candidates for partisan offices, get a little more background on local issues, or maybe just interest more Kansans in politics and government and public policy.

Oh, and this year’s “off-year” election for nonpartisan offices might well give political parties a chance to become more involved in races without donkeys and elephants and red and blue signs to expand their influence, membership and contributions and such.

Now, this year, everything is going to be subtle. There will be candidates for the school district or city council who may, on inquiry, tell you what political party they identify with, after or before they also explain that non-partisan means non-partisan.

But, this is just the first time out with these fall elections, and so expect that those candidates will be a little quiet about what political party they belong to; actually, most issues at the school district and municipal election level aren’t hard political ones—or haven’t been turned into partisan issues…yet. For many voters, they’ll probably be interested in whether the school board candidate has kids in school. For local government seats? It might be whether you want whoever is in charge of storm water drainage to live higher up the hill than you do, with probably less interest on how well the water moves at the bottom of the hill, where your basement is…

Is this spooky? Probably not now.

Remember, the ballots don’t show a party affiliation…at least they don’t this year. But a couple election cycles from now, there might be some interesting nicknames that candidates want on the ballot. Joe “Dem” Smith, or Jack “Rep” Jones?

Now, there are some advantages to the odd-numbered year fall elections. It means that newly elected city council and school board members will not have to jump into the deep end of the pool in putting together a budget for the upcoming fiscal year. It gives those newly elected members some time to figure out just what they need to do, how things work, who’s doing what, and how they’d like to see their unit of government managed.

And…it might give some of those candidates a chance to start a political career that just might wind up in a larger office representing more constituents and larger issues that affect more people.

Or, this could just turn out to be a better way to make sure that county election offices have more time to make sure that they’re ready for the odd-year elections, and it might just provide work every year so that if there are economies in conducting an election, they can be realized.

We probably ought to be watching for the subtle party-affiliation hints, how candidates and parties participate in the campaigns, and just what is the future of “nonpartisan.”

Syndicated by Hawver News Company LLC of Topeka; Martin Hawver is publisher of Hawver’s Capitol Report—to learn more about this nonpartisan statewide political news service, visit the website at www.hawvernews.com

More teachers are leaving Kansas classrooms. That includes both veteran teachers and younger rookies. What can be done to reduce this attrition until someday the supply of new teachers returns? Simply—individual teachers who are contemplating leaving can be offered extra pay.

Over these last decades, Kansas beginning and average salaries for teachers have been dropping when compared with the other 49 states. Nor has teacher pay kept pace with inflation. Teacher salaries had their highest purchasing power in the early 1970s. Looking ahead to an eroding salary that no longer compares to other professions that require a college degree, and no longer being able to afford to send their own children to college, it is reasonable that more Kansas teachers are considering leaving the profession or leaving the state.

One stop gap measure now available to school administrators is retention bonuses, a form of differential pay. Simply, schools can pay an additional bonus to keep a good teacher in the classroom.

This is not to be confused with the supplemental pay provided to a teacher for taking on extra duties such as after-school coaching or sponsoring the student council.

In some states, there is one uniform statewide salary scale. Some of those states have a higher pay scale for teachers in a shortage area. Often, all special education or all science teachers will get a higher salary. This is called differential pay. However, Kansas has over 280 unified school districts, each with a different salary scale. And the cost of living across urban to rural districts can be quite different. So a teacher might earn a smaller salary but be better off than a richer teacher in a high-cost area.

But local control also means that schools can offer individual retention bonuses appropriate to their district. A teacher should check their district’s negotiated agreement for language pertaining to bonuses. Schools can offer extra money in the annual contract, above-and-beyond the standard salary scale, to individual teachers who have proven themselves in the classroom and for whom the school district is unlikely to find a replacement.

This is not too different from hiring bonuses, the one-time lumps of money commonly offered to attract a teacher to come to a district. Hiring bonuses have been used for years, especially by remote rural districts or high-poverty schools. But retention bonuses can be added to hold onto a veteran teacher who is considering leaving, or to recruit away an exceptional teacher from another district.

Retention bonuses are added to the yearly contracts. If a teacher is promised an ongoing bonus to stay in the district, this teacher needs to get in writing that the bonus will be added to the salary schedule dictated by the negotiated agreement each and every year through duration of employment.

For several years now, some high-performance Kansas science, math and other teachers have negotiated retention bonuses that have kept them in Kansas classrooms. Some have negotiated up to an additional $10,000–12,000 per year! The ability of a school to offer retention bonuses will depend on the district’s resources, local teaching climate and administration.

Even a modest $1000-per-year renewed retention-bonus amounts to $40,000 over a 40-year career. Such accumulating amounts can make a difference in the life of a teacher and his/her family.

It is important to do everything we can to keep our best teachers from leaving Kansas classrooms. When Kansas students return to school this fall, they need the best teachers Kansas can retain. This may not set well with non-shortage-area teachers in the teacher’s lounge. —Nor with local citizens who have a low regard for education. But Kansas needs to do what is best for Kansas students.

John Richard Schrock is a professor at Emporia State University.