RILEY COUNTY   — A Kansas man died in an accident just before 4a.m. Sunday in Riley County.

The Kansas Highway Patrol reported a 2013 Jeep Wrangler driven by Cyrus A. Renfrow, 23, Greenwood, SC, was eastbound on Interstate 70 just east of the Deep Creek Road exit in the left lane.

The jeep hit Matthew J. Bailey, 21, Mayetta,  who had walked into the roadway.  Bailey was pronounced dead at the scene and transported to Yorgensen-Meloan-Londeen in Manhattan.  Renfrow and a passenger were not injured.

The accident investigation closed eastbound lanes of the Interstate between Kansas 177 in Geary County and Kansas 99 in Wabaunsee County for several hours Sunday morning, according to the Kansas Department of Transportation.

SUMNER COUNTY —A second earthquake over the past week shook Kansas. The quake just before 5p.m. Saturday measured a magnitude 3.2., according to the U.S. Geological Survey. It was centered approximately ten miles east of Caldwell.

The USGS reported a magnitude 2.5 quake on Monday in Harper County, seven miles northeast of Harper.

There are no reports of damage from Saturday’s quake.

WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach will not represent himself during the appeal of a voting rights case in which he was ordered to undergo more legal education and was twice found in contempt of court.

Instead, the attorney general’s office will handle the case. Solicitor General Toby Crouse filed Kansas’ appeal this past week of a federal judge’s ruling that the state cannot require documentary proof of U.S. citizenship to register to vote. The judge found such laws violate the constitutional right to vote in a major setback for Kobach, a Republican who is running for governor. Kobach has long championed restrictive voting laws and led President Donald Trump’s now-defunct voter fraud commission.

Micah Kubic, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Kansas, said the change in legal representation won’t have much of an effect on the appeal because “even a good lawyer with a bad case still has a bad case.” The ACLU had filed one of the lawsuits challenging the proof-of-citizenship law.

“A good lawyer who is defending something that is illegal, unconstitutional and wrong is still going to lose on the merits regardless of how technically skilled they might be,” Kubic said. “So despite the fact that there were clear issues with procedure and the way in which Secretary Kobach handled the trial, at the end of the day that is not what the decision is based on. At the end of the day, the judge struck down the law because it is illegal under federal law, unconstitutional and contrary to the values we share as Americans.”

Republican Gov. Jeff Colyer said he supports the appeal. Asked about the significance of Attorney General Derek Schmidt’s office handling it instead of Kobach, Colyer said: “I think the attorney general will do a fine job, and I intend to win this. I think it’s an opportunity for us to win this thing.”

Kobach spokeswoman Danedri Herbert downplayed the significance of the move, saying that had always been the plan for when the case reached the appellate level.

“Secretary Kobach and Attorney General Schmidt have met and spoken about the case and they have agreed that the attorney general’s office handle the case with the full support and assistance of the secretary of state,” Hebert said.

The attorney general’s office said in an email that it is committed to “vigorously defending” the constitutionality of the law.

Former U.S. Attorney Barry Grissom said the change in legal representation won’t make much difference because the appeals court will only review the facts as laid out at trial.

“Just having new counsel come in and represent the interests of the secretary of state is not going to change any of the facts that the secretary of state and his trial team laid out,” Grissom said.

U.S. District Judge Julie Robinson’s decision last month came in two consolidated cases challenging a Kansas voter registration law requiring people to provide documents such as a birth certificate, U.S. passport or naturalization papers. Along with throwing out the law, she also ordered that Kobach complete an additional six hours of legal education on top of other requirements before he can renew his law license for the upcoming year. She imposed the sanction for his numerous disclosure violations.

She had already held him in contempt earlier for not fully registering voters as she had initially ordered. A previous contempt ruling dealt with evidence he had misrepresented to the court.

By BRIAN GRIMMETT

P.J. Sneed is a nurse at a hospital in Wichita, but only until the end of the June. That’s when he’ll quit to become a hemp farmer. 

“I’ve not grown a stitch of hemp,” he said. “But I feel like I know how I could do it and have a plan to do it.” 

He’ll need more than just enthusiasm to succeed as he trades the stresses of checking patients’ vital signs and administering medicine for the stresses of growing a new crop without experience or the benefits of crop insurance.

Earlier this year the Kansas Legislature paved the way for Sneed’s decision after it legalized the cultivation of industrial hemp. Industrial hemp is the same species of plant that marijuana comes from (cannabis sativa), but it’s been specifically cultivated to produce a very small amount (by law, under 0.3 percent) of the psychoactive chemical, known as THC, that gets people high. 

Boosters of the plant argue it has tens of thousands of uses. The fibers in its stalk can be turned into insulation, while the plant’s flower can be pressed into an oil rich with a chemical known as cannabidiol, or CBD. 

CBD oil products are marketed to treat a variety of ailments. They drive most of the demand for hemp plants in the U.S. now. But experts and economists warn that creating a market from scratch, especially one with a stigma like hemp, is full of obstacles.

For starters, hemp requires special equipment to harvest and to process. The qualities that make it great for rope are the same ones that make it harder on machines than wheat and corn. So processors have engineered their own solutions or found private investors willing to spend heavily to import a machine from abroad. 

And even though a state can legalize growing hemp, the federal government still views it as a dangerous drug, the same as heroin or cocaine. Among other consequences, that cuts potential growers and processors off from access to traditional banking. 

If Kansas farmers want to know what they’re really getting into, they can look to neighboring Colorado. Five years ago, it became the first state to let people grow industrial hemp since the 1940s. 

“It’s an amazing plant. It’s magic,” William “Wild Bill” Billings said. 

He’s the CEO of the Colorado Hemp Project. Not only does he grow hemp and sell seeds to new farmers, but he said he’s benefitted from the products it can produce too. 

Billings has arthritis and doctors told him he’d need a knee and hip replaced. Three years later he said he’s living pain-free by using a regimen of 100 mg of CBD oil a day. 

Billings also said growing hemp is a huge opportunity for struggling farmers. He thinks as soon as they see the benefits, they’ll be replacing their corn with hemp. 

If they do, they’ll need someone to sell it to. That’s where Ed Lehrburger, the CEO of Pure Hemp Technologies, comes in. 

His company has developed ways to process every part of the plant — from the fibrous stalk to the CBD rich flowers and buds. 

But getting to that point was a process of trial and error. In an effort that took more than a year, he and his employees managed to turn an old gleaner into a hemp thresher that can separate the plant into three separate components. The process required taking the machine apart, modifying it, and putting it back together at least six times before getting the results they desired. 

Even now, just because they can process the plant, doesn’t mean they’re always looking to buy — an often overlooked component of deciding to grow hemp. 

“We’d get calls from farmers, ‘God, we grew hemp. We heard you guys were processing it. Are you going to buy our hemp or not?’,” he said. “Well, no, we’re not. We’d boughten a lot and we’ve got more than we can handle.” 

Don’t put that first seed in the ground until you’ve got a buyer, Lehrburger says. 

But like in Colorado, the prospect of getting a head start in a budding industry has many Kansas farmers and entrepreneurs excited about hemp. 

Christina Hett from Marion County was among dozens who showed up to packed information meetings held by the Kansas Department of Agriculture this spring. 

“The farming markets are terrible,” she said. “It’s to the point that we have to find something else.” 

She says hemp might provide that solution and was looking for guidance. But state agriculture officials said that they still lack answers on several fronts. Final regulations won’t be approved until later this year. 

Other states face the same questions. In 2017, four states began growing industrial hemp for the first time under various pilot programs, joining 15 others that had already started. More states will soon be joining that list. Among them is Missouri, where legislators approved a pilot program this year. 

In the meantime, Kansas officials are studying places such as Kentucky that already have programs. 

“We hope it may become a game changer,” said Brent Burchett, director of the plant division for the Kentucky Department of Agriculture. “But to date, it’s just another crop we’re researching.”

He estimates farmers will plant more than 3,000 acres of hemp in his state this year. Kentucky officials see hemp as a potential replacement for tobacco. But replacing 80,000 acres of tobacco, or taking over a fraction of the millions of acres used to grow corn and soybeans, with hemp won’t be easy or quick. 

“A lot of expectation was it just needed a little bit of sunshine and it would be all well,” Burchett said. “But it needs fertilizer. It needs good soil. And, most importantly, it needs good farmers.” 

“There are no insecticides, no fungicides, no herbicides labeled for this and there’s no crop insurance and no safety net for it,” University of Kentucky Assistant Professor Tyler Mark said. 

The reality of growing hemp right now is that farmers need to be willing to lose everything they put into this crop. 

“Until it comes off of that list,” Mark said. “It becomes difficult to attract additional investment into this market.” 

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky is trying to change that and make growing hemp easier. He’s sponsoring a bill that would remove hemp from the controlled substance list and give hemp farmers access to crop insurance, but it’s still far from becoming law. 

Even so, the appeal of growing a plant that could have major economic and environmental impacts has many Kansans willing to take the risk. After all, Kansas used to grow a lot of hemp. One year during the Civil War, Kansas grew more bushels of hemp per acre than any other state. 

Sneed, the nurse and aspiring hemp farmer, has already bought 80 acres of land to start growing hemp. At first, he’ll only plant about 10 acres, but in the future he hopes for a lot more. 

“Everybody’s predicting in eight-10 years it to be a $1.5 billion dollar industry,” he said. “How do you ignore that?” 

Brian Grimmett reports on the environment for the Kansas News Service. Follow him on Twitter @briangrimmett. 

OSAGE COUNTY —Two people died in an accident during a pursuit just after 8p.m. Saturday in Osage County.

The Kansas Highway Patrol reported a stolen 2007 Chrysler PT Cruiser driven by Sharnicca D. Cannon, 23, Tucson, AZ., was  was northbound on Interstate 35 four miles south of Melvern.

The driver lost control of the vehicle and it rolled into the south ditch.

Cannon and a passenger Anthony E. Krawczyk, 20, Mesa, AZ, were pronounced dead at the scene. They were both properly restrained at the time of the accident, according to the KHP.