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Month: March 2018

5-year-old Kansas boy missing for one month

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SEDGWICK COUNTY — Law enforcement authorities continue to ask the public for help with any information on a missing Kansas boy.  Five-year-old Lucas Hernandez was last seen one month ago.

Lucas Hernandez

Wichita Police Department spokesman officer Charley Davidson reminded the public Friday the case is still an active investigation. “We still need information from the community.”

Police continue to work with the volunteers from Texas EquuSearch on the case.

When he was last seen on February 17, Lucas was wearing a gray t-shirt with a bear on it, black sweat pants and socks. Lucas is missing his top / front teeth, and he has silver caps on his remaining teeth. He also has a small scar on his upper / left abdomen from a prior medical procedure. If you have seen Lucas or if you know of his current whereabouts or if you have any information whatsoever concerning his disappearance; please call 620-267-2111 or 268-4407.

JoAnn McCurdy

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JoAnn McCurdy, age 87, of WaKeeney, passed away Thursday, March 15, 2018 at Hays Medical Center.

Schmitt Funeral Home, WaKeeney is handling arrangements.

Hays woman announced as new principal at ABBB

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Jessica Dennis

ABBB

The certified public accounting firm of Adams, Brown, Beran & Ball, Chartered (ABBB) is pleased to announce that Jessica Dennis has been voted in as a firm principal.

Dennis joined ABBB in 2004. She works in the firm’s tax department, providing tax and accounting services to clients in a variety of industries.  Dennis also chairs the firm’s Tax Advisory Board and co-leads the firm’s Tax Service Line.

“Congratulations to Jessica on this significant achievement,” said Brian Staats, CPA, CGMA, managing partner of ABBB.  “We look forward to our future success as a result of her leadership, determination, and technical expertise.”

Dennis attended Fort Hays State University, graduating summa cum laude in 2004 with Bachelor of Business Administration degrees in both Accounting and Finance. She is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA), the Kansas Society of CPAs (KSCPA), and the Central Kansas Chapter of the KSCPA.  Outside of the profession, Dennis is a member of the Hays Area Young Professionals and serves as treasurer of the Hays Sunrise Rotary Club. Dennis currently resides in Hays, Kansas, with her husband and daughter.

Adams, Brown, Beran & Ball, Chartered provides a wide range of traditional and non-traditional CPA and consulting services to clients throughout Kansas, including agriculture organizations, construction companies, feed yards, financial institutions, governmental and not-for-profit organizations, manufacturers, medical practices, oil and gas companies, professional service firms, real estate companies and small businesses. Founded in 1945, today the firm maintains 15 office locations throughout the state. For more information about Adams, Brown, Beran & Ball, please visit www.abbb.com. 

CORRECTION: Headline corrected to reflect correct title, March 19.

Now That’s Rural: Dan Hohman, Sugar Creek Country Store

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Ron Wilson is director of the Huck Boyd National Institute for Rural Development at Kansas State University.

By RON WILSON
Huck Boyd National Institute for Rural Development

“This Reuben sandwich,” said the New Yorker, “is better than we get back in New York.”  That is high praise, for this sandwich comes from a store in the middle of the country.  Not only does this place provide great sandwiches, it provides the experience of entering an old-time general store with lots of classic products.

Dan Hohman is founder and owner of Sugar Creek Country Store in St. Marys, Kansas.  In 1992, Dan and his wife Jen relocated their family from Pennsylvania to St. Marys because of the school system. They were seeking the traditional Catholic education that is offered at the St. Marys Academy.

Dan’s background was in the industrial hydraulics business. After coming to Kansas, he eventually launched his own company which specializes in recruiting engineers and technical sales people for the fluid power industry. For more information, see www.fluidpowerjobs.com.

One year when Dan and Jen went to visit their oldest daughter in Minnesota, they came across something remarkable. It was like an old time country store furnished with Amish goods and located out in the middle of nowhere. Dan thought that a store with those types of goods would be a wonderful addition to his hometown of St. Marys.

When he got back to Kansas, Dan connected with a local businessman and investor named Ken Moats and explained his vision to Ken. Ken ended up buying and renovating a historic downtown building. This became the location of Dan’s store.

“We wanted to create a design like a general store in the early 1900s,” Dan said. He had learned that the original St. Marys Mission to the Native Americans was located at Sugar Creek, Kansas, near the Missouri border. After facing a number of challenges there, the priests had prayed for guidance and come north to relocate the mission along the Kansas River in 1848. Eventually the town of St. Marys grew at this new location.

Using the historic name Sugar Creek, Dan set out to create the new store. He connected with Amish vendors and consulted with the Kansas Small Business Development Center. Ken Moats worked on renovating the old historic building.

“Ken was wonderful,” Dan said. “We found this beautiful, native stone wall on the west side of the building. I suggested we put a window in the inside wall so people could see it. ‘Ken said, no let’s not cover it up at all.’” The stone wall was painstakingly restored and now is attractively lit for display. Several original columns and the original wood floor are beautifully restored and in place.

Sugar Creek Country Store opened in July 2016. It specializes in bulk foods, classic food items, a deli and specialty groceries. “We want to offer great quality products at a reasonable price,” Dan said. “We get many products from the Amish, because they have lots of simple, good-tasting foods without a bunch of preservatives.”

This includes Amish deli meats, cheeses, and sauerkraut. Together with select marble rye bread, this creates the Reuben sandwich which was proclaimed by one New Yorker to be better than those from the Big Apple. The deli offers various kinds of ham, beef, turkey, bologna and specialty meats. Cheeses include traditional Swiss, smoked, cheddar, hot cheeses, and more.

Bulk foods include lots of goods and spices. The store offers party trays, gift boxes, and specialty items like Rada knives.

“Every one of our 10 children, either directly or indirectly, has had a hand in this store,” Dan said. His four youngest children are now working in the business. The goal is excellent customer service. “We go above and beyond to make sure our customers feel like they are part of the family,” Dan said. It’s added a new attraction to the rural community of St. Marys, population 2,627 people. Now, that’s rural.

For more information, go to www.sugarcreekcountrystore.com.

For a New York-style Reuben that tops New York, one can visit the Sugar Creek Country Store in St. Marys. We commend Dan Hohman and family for making a difference by blending modern entrepreneurship with great sandwiches and a trip back in time.

The Press offers new fine dining experience on weekends

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By CRISTINA JANNEY
Hays Post

The Press restaurant at the Hadley Center, 230 E. Eighth, Hays, is now opening for weekend hours with a new evening menu with amped up sandwiches and fine dining entrées.

Philip Kuhn, owner of the The Press, started the business in 2016 as a sandwich shop to cater to the lunch crowd in and around the Hadley Center. Everything is cooked fresh in-house.

The Press offers a lunch menu 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Mondays through Saturdays and brunch 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Sundays.

As the business started to grow, Kuhn and his staff, which represents about 70 years of cooking and restaurant experience, decided they had more to offer the community.

“As we were thinking about this, we thought, there are a lot of other times and a lot of other things that we would like people to experience,” Kuhn said of The Press.

The Press is now opening 5 to 10 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays with a new dinner menu.

One of Kuhn’s favorites is the Oscar burger, which is a burger with lump crab meat with a béarnaise sauce and shaved asparagus on a brioche bun.

“I had it once, and I had dreams about for about two weeks,” he said.

Another inventive sandwich is called The Southern Gentleman, which is a braised short rib sandwich on a hoagie with monterey jack cheese, fresh arugula and pickled red onions.

“Everything in this restaurant has a very bold and distinct flavor profile, and that is the way we created it,” he said. “We wanted people to experience that and start training people to understand what they are eating. That’s thyme or that’s rosemary or there is a hint of capers in this remoulade sauce. To try to introduce some new ideas to people.”

Some  of the new entrées include duck confit, duck slow cooked in garlic, shallots and herbs de Provence; merchant de vin, a fillet with demi-merlot sauce; chicken marsala; chicken sautéed in mushroom sauce; chicken madeira, chicken breast sautéed in a madeira wine and mushroom sauce; and chicken kiev; chicken with herb compounded butter.

Kuhn said the demi-merlot is one of his favorite sauces, adding, “I could drench it on everything.”

From the hoof, The Press offers prime rib and center-cut sirloin. From the sea, the restaurants serves crab cakes and salmon with beurre blanc sauce.

“I would much rather give people an experience,” he said of his menu.

Kuhn said he The Press will continue to change its menu and try new things. The Press is already on its fourth lunch menu.

Keeping with the newspaper theme, The Press menus are printed at a newspaper in Spearville, and you can take your menu home with you. There is even a word search and fun food trivia on the back of the menu.

The name The Press originally came from the idea of a sandwich shop with sandwiches grilled on a panini press. That theme broadened to include wax paper for the sandwich baskets that looked like newsprint and famous posters of newspaper pages to decorate the walls.

Kuhn said he wanted to create a place that brought people together.

“We want people to be happy. We want people to enjoy themselves. It is not like anywhere else,” he said. “I think my favorite part of it — I’ve analyzed it and looked over it the last year — is when people come in here and they have conversations. You don’t see a lot of people pulling out their cellphones or getting on the internet. We don’t have TVs, so they aren’t watching sports games. I think it is a true interaction between one person and another. I think that is really neat.”

Kuhn has an extensive background as a chef and a restaurant manager. He started cooking when he was 9 and eventually attended culinary school in Denver. He managed the Airport Steakhouse in Hutchinson before moving on to work at hotels and convention centers. He also was the food and beverage director for the casino in Dodge City. In Hays, Kuhn is also the instructor for the NCK Tech culinary school.  Although Kuhn sometimes hires NCK Tech culinary graduates to work at The Press, the two are not affiliated.

Reservations are encouraged for evening service at The Press, but not required. Reservations can be made by calling The Press at 785-301-2309 or online at hayspress.com.

Kuhn’s business also caters. More information on catering is also available online.

Don’t Book On Kansas Sports Gambling Yet; MLB Is Watching

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By STEPHEN KORANDA

March madness has many Kansans filling out their NCAA brackets. Kansas lawmakers are considering legislation that could tap into that market by legalizing sports gambling in the state.

A bill before the House Federal and State Affairs Committee would allow sports betting through the Kansas Lottery. At least one major professional league says it wants some input on the rules, and a cut of the winnings.

Federal law doesn’t allow legal sports betting in most states — yet.
FILE PHOTO by SAM ZEFF

Currently, federal law bars most states from allowing sports gambling. However, a lawsuit surrounding a New Jersey law and pending before the U.S. Supreme Court could knock down the federal rule. That would let Kansas and other states authorize sports gambling, and to tax it.

“You never know what the Supreme Court’s going to do, but a number of states have kind of jumped on the bandwagon looking at this,” said Republican Rep. John Barker, chairman of the Kansas House committee considering the bill.

Yet Barker said he doubts the bill will make any headway. He said he’s still considering his stance on the issue, but he said the committee could consider other proposals this year to allow sports betting.

“There’s a possibility,” Barker said. “It’s a great revenue source. It would not be a big revenue source, but it would be a good revenue source.”

The hearing Tuesday had the attention of some major sports organizations. Major League Baseball sent Bryan Seeley, its senior vice president of investigations and deputy general counsel.

He said the league has opposed gambling for years, but he didn’t urge lawmakers to reject the idea. Instead, he said if Kansas legalizes sports gaming it needs to put controls in place so games aren’t fixed.

“Anything that gives players an incentive to not perform at their absolute peak is a huge danger to our business and can cost us tens, if not hundreds, of millions of dollars,” Seeley said.

Fixing can be more subtle than deciding the winner of a game, or even the point spread, Seeley said. Pro sports officials fret about much more specific bets — over a single pitch in a baseball game or the first foul in a basketball game.

“Those are the kind of bets we worry about,” Seeley said. “That’s why we want to have a say in whether casinos can offer those kinds of bets.”

The league wants rules over data sharing so they can spot betting trends that might indicate a player or umpire was planning to make a pre-arranged move.

Seeley said all that number crunching won’t be cheap. So MLB is also asking for a cut of the gaming revenue to help cover the league’s costs.

That didn’t sit well with Richard Klemp, director of governmental affairs for Boyd Gaming. The group owns the Kansas Star Casino in Mulvane. He said the firm opposes the so-called “integrity fee” going to sports leagues because there’s no such fee for sports gaming operations in Nevada.

“Which have been operating for decades in Nevada with a spotless record in terms of integrity,” Klemp said.

Casino representatives and MLB also disagreed on how the gaming should take place. Seeley argued for mobile apps allowing people to gamble on their phones. Without that, he said, people would continue to use illegal gaming apps for convenience.

Whitney Damron spoke to lawmakers on behalf of Kansas Entertainment, the company that owns the Hollywood Casino in Kansas City, Kansas. He said sports gaming should take place inside casinos or other gaming facilities.

“The public does have an interest in this kind of wagering,” Damron said. “It can be provided in a protected manner.”

Stephen Koranda is Statehouse reporter for Kansas Public Radio, a partner in the Kansas News Service. Follow him on Twitter @kprkoranda.

MDC to host intermediate Excel workshop in April

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FHSU University Relations

Fort Hays State University’s Management Development Center will offer a new workshop, “Intermediate Excel: Data Analysis,” from 8:30 a.m. to noon on Wednesday, April 11, in McCartney Hall, room 116.

Dr. Emily Breit, associate professor of finance, will teach participants how to utilize different elements of Microsoft Office Excel, such as pivot tables, vlookup, what-if-analysis, goal seek and scenario manager.

Participants will learn how to use these functions to solve real-world problems and to increase productivity and efficiency.

The workshop is $119 and includes a certificate upon completion as well as three continuing education units.

To register, visit www.fhsu.edu/mdc. For more information and to learn about upcoming trainings, contact Hannah Hilker, MDC senior administrative assistant, at 785-628-4121 or[email protected].

The Management Development Center at FHSU is recognized by the Society for Human Resource Management to offer professional development credits for SHRM Certified Professionals and SHRM Senior Certified Professionals.

For more information about certification or recertification, visit shrmcertification.org.

Sunny, mild Saturday

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Today
Sunny, with a high near 61. Northwest wind 7 to 10 mph becoming east in the afternoon.

Tonight
Clear, with a low around 35. East wind around 10 mph.

Sunday
A slight chance of showers between 1pm and 4pm, then a slight chance of showers and thunderstorms after 4pm. Mostly sunny, with a high near 64. Breezy, with a southeast wind 9 to 14 mph increasing to 16 to 21 mph in the afternoon. Chance of precipitation is 20%.

Sunday Night
Showers and possibly a thunderstorm. Low around 39. Breezy, with an east southeast wind 17 to 23 mph becoming north northeast after midnight. Chance of precipitation is 90%. New rainfall amounts between a half and three quarters of an inch possible.

Monday
Showers likely, mainly before 1pm. Cloudy, with a high near 45. Windy, with a north wind 25 to 28 mph. Chance of precipitation is 70%. New precipitation amounts between a tenth and quarter of an inch possible.

Monday Night
Mostly cloudy, with a low around 29. Windy.

Tuesday
Mostly sunny, with a high near 55.

Wednesday
Mostly sunny, with a high near 65.

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