Combine driver Joe Schumacher, son of Tim and Tammy Schumacher of rural Victoria, cuts wheat Sunday evening. (Photos by Tammy Schumacher)
By BECKY KISER Hays Post
Many combines are idled today in Ellis County following drenching rain and quick moving thunderstorms Tuesday night. Most of Ellis County reported more than two inches of rain.
Crews were racing against the weather yesterday, cutting as much wheat as possible and getting it to local grain elevators before the storms hit.
Although the precipitation was welcomed by farmers with fall crops, it comes too late for the 2018 wheat crop.
Knowing it’s been a dry season, the Tim Schumacher family, who farm southwest of Victoria about six miles, was pleasantly surprised with yields a little better than expected.
The Schumacher wheat crop yielded an average 35 bushels per acre, better than they anticipated in this drought.
“It’d averaged about 35 bushels an acre. With the lack of moisture, it’s pretty darn good,” reported Tim’s wife, Tammy Schumacher. “Because of the lack of rain and snow the past eight months or so, we weren’t sure what we’d be getting.”
“At least we aren’t scraping the dirt with the combine headers, which other farmers around are doing,” she said.
Brigg Schumacher, 2, son of Joe and Danielle Schumacher, plays in the wheat. Brigg is the youngest grandchild of Tim and Tammy Schumacher. Briggs’ picture was taken by his brother, 9-year-old Levi Schumacher.
The farm land has been in the Schumacher family for five generations. Their wheat harvest this year started Friday and finished up Monday evening.
This year they planted just 225 acres of wheat.
“It’s the least amount we’ve planted in years, due to the price of of wheat being so low,” Schumacher explained.
In addition to drought, northwest Kansas wheat farmers are dealing with freeze damage that hit in mid-November following unseasonably warm temperatures early in the growing season.
On Monday, the National Agricultural Statistic Service rated 28 percent of the wheat in Kansas in poor to very poor condition. About 44 percent was reported as fair, followed by 26 percent in good and 2 percent in excellent condition.
OMAHA, Neb. (AP) – The Detroit Tigers and Kansas City Royals will play a regular-season game in Omaha the week the 2019 College World Series opens, The Associated Press has learned.
Major League Baseball and the NCAA have been working to arrange a game as a kickoff event to the CWS, two people close to the situation told the AP on Wednesday on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss details.
A news conference with MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred was scheduled for Thursday at TD Ameritrade Park, the host site for the CWS.
The move would be similar to the regular-season games played in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, in conjunction with the Little League World Series.
DENVER (AP) – The home of the Denver Broncos will be known as Broncos Stadium at Mile High while the team continues to look for a new naming-rights sponsor.
The team announced the temporary name change Wednesday following a vote by the district that oversees the taxpayer-built stadium.
The stadium has had two naming-rights sponsors since it opened in 2001, most recently Sports Authority. Both names included a reference to the Broncos’ original stadium. The team took down large signs with Sports Authority’s name earlier this year after the company declared bankruptcy and stopped making payments.
In a statement, Broncos Chief Commercial Officer Mac Freeman said the team has had “many productive conversations” and is confident it will find the right partner.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Bowing to pressure from anxious allies, President Donald Trump signed an executive order Wednesday ending the process of separating children from families after they are detained crossing the U.S. border illegally.
President Trump with the executive order in the Oval Office Wednesday- White House courtesy image
Defense Secretary Jim Mattis says the Pentagon will “respond if requested” to house migrants detained after crossing the U.S.-Mexico border illegally.
When a reporter noted that federal agencies have assessed four military bases for potential use as temporary housing for detained migrants, including unaccompanied children, Mattis said the Pentagon will “support whatever” the Department of Homeland Security says it needs. In the meantime, he said, this is not a matter for the Pentagon to comment on.
The executive order was a dramatic turnaround for Trump, who has been insisting, wrongly, that his administration had no choice but to separate families apprehended at the border because of federal law and a court decision.
The news in recent days has been dominated by searing images of children held in cages at border facilities, as well as audio recordings of young children crying for their parents — images that have sparked fury, question of morality and concern from Republicans about a negative impact on their races in November’s midterm elections.
Until Wednesday, the president, Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen and other officials had repeatedly argued the only way to end the practice was for Congress to pass new legislation, while Democrats said he could do it with his signature alone. That’s what he did on Wednesday.
“We’re going to have strong, very strong borders, but we’re going to keep the families together,” said Trump who said he didn’t like the “sight” or “feeling” of children separated from their parents.
He said his order would not end the “zero-tolerance” policy that criminally prosecutes all adults caught crossing the border illegally. The order aims to keep families together while they are in custody, expedite their cases, and ask the Department of Defense to help house families.
Justice Department lawyers had been working to find a legal workaround for a previous class-action settlement that set policies for the treatment and release of unaccompanied children who are caught at the border.
Still, Trump’s order is likely to create a new set of problems involving length of detention of families, and may spark a fresh court fight.
Also playing a role in his turnaround: First lady Melania Trump. One White House official said Mrs. Trump had been making her opinion known to the president for some time that she felt he needed to do all he could to help families stay together, whether by working with Congress or acting on his own.
Nielsen traveled to Capitol Hill Wednesday afternoon to brief lawmakers. And members on the fence over pending immigration legislation headed to the White House to meet with Trump.
Trump had tweeted earlier Wednesday, “It’s the Democrats fault, they won’t give us the votes needed to pass good immigration legislation. They want open borders, which breeds horrible crime. Republicans want security. But I am working on something – it never ends!”
The administration recently put into place a “zero tolerance” policy in which all unlawful border crossings are referred for prosecution — a process that moves adults to the custody of the U.S. Marshals Service and sends many children to facilities run by the Department of Health and Human Services. Under the Obama administration, such families were usually referred for civil deportation proceedings, not requiring separation.
The policy had led to a spike in family separations in recent weeks, with more than 2,300 minors were separated from their families at the border from May 5 through June 9, according to the Department of Homeland Security.
Two people close to Homeland Security Secretary Nielsen said early Wednesday that she was the driving force behind the plan to keep families together after they are detained crossing the border illegally.
One of the people said Nielsen, who had become the face of the administration’s policy, had little faith that Congress would act to fix the separation issue and felt compelled to act. Nielsen was heckled at a restaurant Tuesday evening and has faced protesters at her home.
But others pushed back on the idea that Homeland Security had led the rollback. One official said it was the Justice Department that generated the legal strategy that is codified in the working executive order, and disputed the notion that Homeland Security was involved in drawing up the document.
Planning at the Justice Department had been underway over the past several days to provide the president with options on the growing crisis, said the official, who, like others, spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the effort before its official announcement.
The person said Trump called the Justice Department Wednesday morning asking for the draft order. The official did not know what prompted Trump to change course.
The Flores settlement, named for a teenage girl who brought the case in the 1980s, requires the government to release children from custody and to their parents, adult relatives or other caretakers, in order of preference. If those options are exhausted, authorities must find the “least restrictive” setting for the child who arrived without parents.
In 2015, a federal judge in Los Angeles expanded the terms of the settlement, ruling that it applies to children who are caught with their parents as well as to those who come to the U.S. alone. Other recent rulings, upheld on appeal, affirm the children’s rights to a bond hearing and require better conditions at the Border Patrol’s short-term holding facilities.
In 2016, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that child migrants who came to the border with parents and were held in custody must be released. The decision did not state parents must be released. Neither, though, did it require parents to be kept in detention, apart from their children.
CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — A New Hampshire hospital is closer to holding others financially accountable for a traveling medical technician who infected dozens of patients in multiple states with hepatitis C.
David Kwiatkowski worked at the Hays Medical Center catheterization lab between May and September 2010.
David Kwiatkowski, a traveling medical technician accused of causing a hepatitis C outbreak at over 18 hospitals across the country including Hays
He is serving 39 years in prison for stealing painkillers and replacing them with saline-filled syringes tainted with his blood.
Despite being fired numerous times over drug allegations, he had worked as a cardiac technologist in 18 hospitals in seven states before being hired in New Hampshire in 2011. After his arrest in 2012, 46 people in four states were diagnosed with the same strain of the hepatitis C virus he carries, including one who died in Kansas.
His last employer, Exeter Hospital, sued the American Registry of Radiologic Technologists and several staffing agencies in hopes of recouping some of the settlement money it has paid to dozens of infected patients and nearly 200 who were not infected but claimed some harm. In the most recent development, attorneys said the hospital has reached a settlement with Triage Staffing. The complaints against two other agencies were dismissed in 2014, so if a judge approves the Triage settlement, the registry organization would be the only remaining defendant.
Attorneys for the hospital and the registry organization did not respond to requests for comment Wednesday. In court documents filed in February, all parties said they hoped mediation would resolve the issues. If not, the case is set to go to trial early next year.
Hepatitis C is a viral infection that attacks the liver. For most people, it turns into a chronic disease. Kwiatkowski, who learned he had the disease in 2010, apologized to his victims at his sentencing in 2013, saying his crime was caused by an addiction to painkillers and alcohol.
In all, 32 patients were infected in New Hampshire, seven in Maryland, six in Kansas and one in Pennsylvania. Kwiatkowski also worked in Michigan, New York, Arizona and Georgia.
SHAWNEE, Kan. (AP) — More than 20 people are homeless after a massive fire at a Kansas apartment complex.
Fire early Wednesday in northeast Kansas-photo courtesy KCTV
The blaze broke out around 2 a.m. Wednesday at Hampton Woods Apartment Homes in Shawnee, a Kansas City suburb. Flames were seen shooting from the roof and smoke filled the sky. Firefighters went door-to-door to alert residents.
Sixteen adults and six children were forced from the apartments.
Fire officials say the blaze started in the attic, but the cause remains under investigation. No one was hurt.
SALINA– Great Plains Manufacturing announced Tuesday they have entered into a contract to purchase a 350,000 sq. ft. building in Abilene.
The facility, located at 2150 NW 8th Street, will enable the company to expand production of its rapidly growing product lines, including Land Pride branded tractor implements and Kubota branded skid steer attachments. Land Pride is a market leader and producer of tractor and skid steer attachments for agricultural, roadside, landscape, and construction industries.
The close proximity of the new building to Land Pride’s current Abilene production facility was a key factor in the selection of this site.
“Our company has enjoyed a strong and a long-term relationship with the City of Abilene. We have talented, hardworking and dedicated employees who live in the area. These employees play a vital role in the success of our company, as well as in their community. We look forward to growing our workforce in the Abilene area and continuing our strong partnership with the city,” states Linda Salem, President and CEO of Great Plains Manufacturing, Inc.
In 1986, the Land Pride Division of Great Plains Manufacturing began operations, and has been in Abilene since 1989 with a fully integrated manufacturing facility encompassing 191,000 sq. ft. The new facility will be a similar, fully integrated manufacturing site with state-of-the-art manufacturing capabilities.
“The Land Pride Division has experienced tremendous growth the past five years. This growth has accelerated rapidly since becoming part of the Kubota family of companies in 2016. Land Pride and Kubota branded products are made in all seven of the current Great Plains Manufacturing facilities throughout Central Kansas,” explains John Quinley, Land Pride Division President. “This new facility in Abilene will enable us to expand production to meet the growing demands of our dealers.”
The Ellis County Public Works Department announced Wednesday the closure of a portion of Toulon Avenue for downed power lines from recent severe weather events.
The area affected begins at the intersection of Old U.S. 40 and Toulon Avenue and continues north to the intersection of Victoria Road and Toulon Avenue. The area is closed effective immediately and will remain closed for the remainder of Wednesday to allow utility crews to repair the power line damage. The closure is not expected to extend beyond Wednesday.
Motorists traveling in the affected closure area should use alternate routes of travel until the utility repairs are complete.
rairie View resident Connie K. Graham passed away June 18, 2018 at the Good Samaritan Hospital in Kearney, NE at the age of 71. She was born August 1, 1946 in Wabash, IN, the daughter of Jim & Betty (Knee) Smith.
Survivors include her husband Glen of Prairie View, KS, her mother, Betty Smith of Wabash, IN; her son Doug of Independence, KY; 2 daughters, Laura Jansonius of Prairie View and Susan Smith of Ellis, KS; 2 sisters, Shirley Long of Wabash, IN and Linda Tilley of Treaty, IN; 5 grandchildren, 2 step grandchildren & 1 step great grandchild.
Funeral services will be held Sat. June 23 at 10:30 a.m. in the Sonshine Christian Church, Smith Center, KS with James Swanson officiating. A graveside service will be held at 1:30 p.m. Sat. in the Prairie View Cemetery.
Visitation will be from 9:00 to 9:00 Thursday & Friday at the Olliff-Boeve Memorial Chapel with the family receiving friends from 7:00 to 8:00 Friday evening.
Memorial contributions may be made to the Ozark Christian College.
Online condolences: www.olliffboeve.com.
Olliff-Boeve Memorial Chapel is in charge of arrangements.
WICHITA – Three Wichita men were indicted Tuesday on charges of making counterfeit money and using it to pay for athletic shoes, according to U.S. Attorney Stephen McAllister.
Douglas D. Blocker, 21, Cornelius D. Wilson, 22, and Traevon A. McGairty, 22, all of Wichita are charged with one count of counterfeiting and one count of passing counterfeit currency. In addition, Blocker is charged with another count of passing counterfeit currency.
The indictment alleges the defendants used a photocopy machine to make counterfeit $20 bills.
In one count, Blocker is alleged to have met a victim at the Towne West shopping center and paid him $480 in counterfeit bills for four pairs of Jordan athletic shoes. In another count, the three defendants are alleged to have met another victim at Towne West and paid him $520 in counterfeit bills for three pairs of athletic shoes.
If convicted, they face a penalty of up to 20 years in federal prison and a fine up to $250,000 on each count.
