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Month: August 2019
Hays woman sentenced for mail fraud in dispute over Field will
WICHITA– A Kansas woman was sentenced today to a year of supervised probation for mail fraud in a scheme to make it appear her employer left her half his estate when he died, U.S. Attorney Stephen McAllister said in a news release Monday.
In addition, she was ordered to make monthly payments of $100 to Fort Hays State University during her probation.
Wanda Oborny, 66, Hays, pleaded guilty to one count of mail fraud. In her plea, she admitted that in 2013 she mailed a fraudulent purported codicil to Kansas banker Earl O. Field’s will to Fort Hays State University. The document falsely claimed Field had left a fourth of his estate to the university, a fourth to his lawyer and half to Oborny. In fact, Field left the majority of the estate to the university.
McAllister commended the FBI, Assistant U.S. Attorney Annette Gurney and Assistant U.S. Attorney Debra Barnett for their work on the case.
RELATED STORY: Kansas Supreme Court refuses to hear Oborny’s case on Field will
RELATED STORY: Oborny enters plea to mail fraud in Field will case
RELATED STORY: Court rules in FHSU’s favor; bookkeeper denied millions in Field will case
City commission to consider amendments to residential and electrical codes
By BECKY KISER
Hays Post
The Hays city commission knew there would need to be some tweaking of the residential and electrical code updates adopted by the city in July 2017.
Three concerns in relation to upgrades and remodels of existing homes requiring a city permit were brought to their attention during the commission work session last week.
“Almost all rooms except bathrooms and garages now require AFCIs (Arc Fault Circuit Interrupter),” explained Jesse Rohr, public works director. An AFCI protects against electrical- related arcs from an electrical circuit or a device, which commonly lead to fires. If an arc is detected, the AFCI is tripped and kills the power to that individual circuit.
“AFCIs and the wiring are easy to install in new homes. However, in existing houses, that’s where we have an issue.”
AFCI receptacles are much more expensive – $22 to $75 – as compared to $1.20 for a regular non-AFCI receptacle.
Some existing electric panels are not configured to work with AFCI breakers and older wiring methods may not be conducive to new devices and codes.
“Homes that were wired 30 to 80 years ago just weren’t wired the way you would wire homes today,” he added, “making it very difficult to protect an electric circuit with an AFCI.” The labor costs to do so are quite high, according to Rohr, “thousands of dollars extra.”
Similar issues affect placement and interconnection of smoke and carbon monoxide alarms in remodel/addition situations. Current code requires the alarms to be installed throughout the house and to be connected to each other, the same as required for new construction.
“You can see why this is problematic, having to fish wires through walls and ceilings. … the labor is probably $1,500 to $2,000 and that’s probably on the cheap side if you have to do an entire house.”
Local contractors recently brought the concerns to the attention of Rohr who agreed with them.
“We kind of liken this to bringing your 1950 Ford to the mechanic for a fuel pump and the mechanic says you now have to put seatbelts in it. You have to bring it up to current code. Again, this is may be an overstep of bounds that we’re seeing as we’ve started enforcing this code.”
Rohr is proposing amendments to the 2014 National Electric Code (NEC) and 2015 International Residential Code (IRC) which were adopted in an update by the city of Hays in July 2017. The suggested changes remove many AFCI and smoke alarm requirements for remodel projects in existing dwellings.
One proposal is to allow modified or extended electrical circuits in existing dwellings to not be AFCI-protected due to the high cost and impracticability of doing so. Rohr also suggests that changing a receptacle should not require the new receptacle to be an AFCI-type receptacle.
A third suggestion is “a change to the code that would not require a placement of smoke alarms and carbon monoxide alarms unless a sleeping room is remodeled or added.”
Rohr noted that’s how the code has been enforced the past several years.
City commissioners will consider the proposed residential and electrical code amendments at their Aug. 8 meeting.
In other business, commissioners set Aug. 8 as the public hearing date for the proposed 2020 budget.
Speaking via phone, Mayor Henry Schwaller asked the commissioners if the proposed $12,000 in funding to the Ellis County Historical Society (ECHS) should be reconsidered.
The ECHS Board of Trustees announced last week the closure of the gallery and stone church to the public due to mold growth. Offices, photo collections and archive materials are being relocated to to 1111 E. 30th.
“Our funding was originally intended to help them with building maintenance,” Schwaller noted.
SPONSORED: Hays chamber seeking VP of marketing and communications
The Hays Area Chamber of Commerce (HACC) is seeking qualified applicants for the full-time position of Vice President of Marketing and Communications.
This position reports to the President/CEO and works closely with the rest of the HACC staff, Board of Directors, Chamber members and other stakeholders. This position is responsible for effectively marketing the Chamber, its businesses, and the Hays area.
The Vice President of Marketing and Communications will maintain the Chamber’s social media accounts, photograph and video record events, assist in website maintenance, create advertisements and ads, send weekly correspondence to the membership, and write and design the monthly newsletter and annual Community Guide.
Applicants must be proficient in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Publisher, InDesign, and Photoshop. Preference will be given to candidates who possess strong written and oral communication abilities.
Candidates should be highly energetic, organized, self-motivated, and pay strong attention to detail, as well as understand, assist, and promote the Chamber in achieving its mission. Please send cover letters and resumes to:
Sarah Wasinger
Hays Area Chamber of Commerce
2700 Vine Street
Hays, KS 67601
[email protected]
Resumes will be accepted until position filled.
Warren W. Tindall
Warren W. Tindall, 82, died August 4, 2019, at Locust Grove Village, LaCrosse, Kansas. He was born July 12, 1937, in Hoisington, Kansas, the son of Elmer and Loretta (Eveliegh) Tindall.
Warren graduated from Hoisington High School in 1955.
A lifetime resident of Hoisington, he was a farmer and a stockman.
On November 29, 1959, he married Barbara A. Spanier in Garden City, Kansas.
Warren was a member of the First United Methodist Church and the Hoisington Masonic Lodge #331.
He is survived by his wife of nearly 60 years, Barbara A. Tindall of the home; and two sons, James “Jim” Tindall, and Gary Tindall and wife Jametta, all of rural Hoisington; sisters, Shirley Shellenberg and husband Art of Topeka, and Elma Jean Augustine and husband Kerry of Bemidji, Minnisota; a grandson, Garrett Tindall of Hoisington; and Warren’s favorite little harvest helpers, Isaac and Isiah Bruce of Wichita.
Friends may sign the book 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday- Friday now until service day at the funeral home. There will be no viewing as cremation has taken place.
Graveside Service will 10:30 a.m., Wednesday, August 14, 2019, at the Hoisington Cemetery, with Rev. Seong Lee and Ron Bailey presiding and masonic rites by the Hoisington Masonic Lodge #331.
Memorials may be made to the Masonic Lodge #331 or Kans for Kids in care of Nicholson-Ricke Funeral Home, PO Box 146, Hoisington, KS 67544.
BriefSpace celebrates first year with a free week of co-working
By JAMES BELL
Hays Post
Celebrating a year of bringing like-minded professionals together, local business leaders gathered at BriefSpace, 219 W. 10th, for a ceremonial ribbon-cutting that will kick off a week of free co-working at the location.
“We are celebrating a year in this incredible space that has done wonders for our community and gives so much opportunity,” said Sarah Wasinger, president and CEO of the Hays Area Chamber of Commerce.
“This whole venture started several years ago, actually,” said Doug Williams executive director of Grow Hays. “Through a whole lot of trials and tribulations, and a whole lot of gray hair, we got it done about a year ago and we moved in.
“It’s been very well utilized so far,” he said.
BriefSpace has “stunning workspaces to help you be productive, as well as functional meeting and training spaces for networking and collaboration,” according to its website. “We offer access to the professional services of Grow Hays and the vibrant, diverse local business community of Hays. BriefSpace was designed and built through a generous grant provided by the Dane G. Hansen Foundation, a nonprofit organization providing opportunities for the people of northwest Kansas to enjoy the highest possible quality of life.”
BriefSpace has a variety of membership levels, Williams said, and also has meeting space available Monday through Friday 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.
“We are pretty flexible if we don’t have anything else going on we are going to be very reasonable on somebody using it,” Williams said. “What we are really after is usage of the facility.”
Williams said he views the goal of the facility is not to make a profit but to be a valuable space for local business.
“Our entire goal here is not to make money, it’s to try and break-even,” he said. “We want usage more than anything else.
“If somebody has an event or something like that, call us and we’ll figure it out,” Williams said.
Features of the space include 1-gigabit WiFi, 24/7 building access, an on-site community manager, conference and training rooms, unique common areas, private phone booths, a copier/printer/scanner, a coffee bar, a kitchen, and the Proximity app.
More about Grow Hays and BriefSpace can be found on their website by clicking here.
Ella Mae Eisenhour
1934 – 2019
An obituary and services are pending with Price & Sons Funeral Home.
Record attendance — again — for Chiefs training camp
By BRENT MARTIN
St. Joseph Post
ST. JOSEPH, Mo. — Fans turned out in record numbers last weekend at the Kansas City Chiefs training camp in St. Joseph, which included the annual Family Fun Day.
Missouri Western State University reports more than 8,000 fans observed the team practice Sunday, even more than attended the opening day of camp July 27, which was a record.
That came on the heels of the 7,500 fans who turned out for the Saturday practice, which was the annual Family Fun Day.
The Chiefs attracted more than 15,000 fans the first weekend and more than 16,000 this weekend.
Missouri Western State University has been the home of the Chiefs Training Camp for 10 years and though Chiefs Chairman and CEO Clark Hunt has praised the facilities and the hospitality of St. Joseph, he says the team will listen to pitches from other cities to host the training camp.
Chiefs training camp concludes Aug. 15.
The Latest: Trump calls 2 mass shootings ‘evil attacks’
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump on Monday condemned weekend shootings in Texas and Ohio as “barbaric” attacks and crimes “against all humanity” as he called for bipartisan cooperation to strengthen the nation’s gun laws.
President Trump Delivers Remarks https://t.co/sSVPZM8ypj
— The White House (@WhiteHouse) August 5, 2019
Trump said he wants legislation providing “strong background checks” for gun users, but he provided scant details and has reneged on previous promises after mass shootings.
“We vow to act with urgent resolve,” Trump said Monday.
Trump spoke Monday from the White House about shootings that left 29 dead and dozens wounded. He suggested early on Twitter that a background check bill could be paired with his long-sought effort to toughen the nation’s immigration system.
But he didn’t say how or why he was connecting the issues. Both shooting suspects were U.S. citizens, and federal officials are investigating anti-immigrant bias as a potential motive for the El Paso, Texas, massacre.
“In one voice, our nation must condemn racism, bigotry and white supremacy,” Trump said, adding that he had directed the FBI to examine steps to identify and address domestic terrorism. “These sinister ideologies must be defeated. Hate has no place in America,” he said.
Trump has frequently sought to tie his immigration priorities — a border wall and transforming the legal immigration system to one that prioritizes merit over familial ties — to legislation around which he perceives momentum to be building.
Over the weekend, Trump tried to assure Americans he was dealing with the problem and defended his administration in light of criticism following the latest in a string of mass shootings.
“We have done much more than most administrations,” he said, without elaboration. “We have done actually a lot. But perhaps more has to be done.”
Congress has proven unable to pass substantial gun violence legislation this session, despite the frequency of mass shootings, in large part because of resistance from Republicans, particularly in the GOP-controlled Senate. That political dynamic seems difficult to change.
And Trump himself has reneged on previous pledges to strengthen gun laws.
After other mass shootings he called for strengthening the federal background check system, and in 2018 he signed legislation to increase federal agency data sharing into the system. But he has resisted Democratic calls to toughen other gun control laws.
In February, the House approved bipartisan legislation to require federal background checks for all gun sales and transfers and approved legislation to allow a review period of up to 10 days for background checks on firearms purchases. The White House threatened a presidential veto if those measures passed Congress.
At a February meeting with survivors and family members of the 2018 Parkland, Florida, school shooting in which 17 people died, Trump promised to be “very strong on background checks.”
Trump claimed he would stand up to the gun lobby and finally get results in quelling gun violence. But he later retreated, expressing support for modest changes to the federal background check system and for arming teachers.
Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer tweeted that if Trump is serious about strengthening background checks, he should demand Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell “put the bipartisan, House-passed universal background checks bill up for a vote.”
In the El Paso attack, investigators are focusing on whether it was a hate crime after the emergence of a racist, anti-immigrant screed that was posted online shortly beforehand. Detectives sought to determine if it was written by the man who was arrested. The border city has figured prominently in the immigration debate and is home to 680,000 people, most of them Latino.
On Twitter Monday, Trump seemed to deflect from scrutiny over the manifesto, which had language mirroring some of his own. As Democrats have called on Trump to tone down his rhetoric, Trump blamed the news media for the nation’s woes.
“Fake News has contributed greatly to the anger and rage that has built up over many years,” he claimed
As Trump weighs trips to the affected communities — the Federal Aviation Administration advised pilots of a presidential visit Wednesday to El Paso and Dayton, Ohio — local lawmakers signaled opposition to his presence.
Rep. Veronica Escobar, a Democrat who represents El Paso, said Trump is “not welcome” to visit the city.
In recent weeks, the president has issued racist tweets about four women of color who serve in Congress, and in rallies has spoken of an “invasion” at the southern border. His reelection strategy has placed racial animus at the forefront in an effort that his aides say is designed to activate his base of conservative voters, an approach not seen by an American president in the modern era.
Trump also has been widely criticized for offering a false equivalency when discussing racial violence, notably when he said there were “very fine people, on both sides,” after a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, that resulted in the death of an anti-racism demonstrator.
On gun control, a majority of Americans have consistently said they support stronger laws, but proposals have stalled repeatedly in Congress, a marked contrast to some countries that have acted swiftly after a mass shooting.
In March, a poll conducted by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found a majority of Americans favor stricter gun laws. The survey was conducted both before and after a mass shooting at two mosques in New Zealand. It found that 67 percent of Americans support making US gun laws stricter, while 22 percent say they should be left as they are and 10 percent think they should be made less strict.
Less than a week after the mosque shootings, New Zealand moved to ban “military-style” semi-automatic weapons and high-capacity magazines; similarly, after a mass shooting in 1996, Australia enacted sweeping gun bans within two weeks.
The poll suggested many Americans would support similar measures, but there’s a wide gulf between Democrats and Republicans on banning specific types of guns. Overall, 6 in 10 Americans support a ban on AR-15 rifles and similar semiautomatic weapons. Roughly 8 in 10 Democrats, but just about 4 in 10 Republicans, support that policy.
Ellis County ‘abnormally dry’ according to U.S. Drought Monitor
Official weather records from the K-State Agricultural Research Center show Hays with 14.54 inches of moisture so far this year.
By the end of August, the average annual rainfall in Hays is 17.57 inches.
High Plains
During the last week in July, rain fell in a band roughly from northeast Colorado through the Nebraska Panhandle and across central and southeast South Dakota. Otherwise, dry weather prevailed in the High Plains during the last week of July.
Temperatures were warmer than normal in the Colorado high plains, southeast Wyoming, and northeast North Dakota, while cooler than normal temperatures occurred in southwest North Dakota, western South Dakota, eastern Nebraska, and southeast and south-central Kansas. Warmer than normal temperatures in northern North Dakota were putting stress on soil moisture conditions, resulting in a slight expansion of short-term moderate drought to the southeast. Otherwise, the region remained free of drought.
Abnormal dryness developed in parts of central Kansas including Ellis County, and northeast Nebraska, where short-term precipitation deficits were developing.
Delpha Jennings
Phillipsburg resident Delpha Jennings passed away Aug. 2, 2019 at the Phillips County Retirement Center in Phillipsburg at the age of 91. She was born October 7, 1927 in Kirwin, the daughter of Ralph & Mary (Wisehart) Smith.
Survivors include her son Daniel of McPherson; her daughter, Patricia Wisinger of Republican City, NE; her brother, Ronald Smith of Kansas City; sister, Vanetta Woodard of Mound City, KS; 8 grandchildren & 17 great grandchildren.
Funeral services will be held Thursday, Aug. 8 at 10:30 a.m. in the Olliff-Boeve Memorial Chapel, Phillipsburg, with Pastor James Peterson officiating. Burial will follow in the Fairview Cemetery.
Visitation will be from noon to 9:00 p.m. Tuesday & 9:00 to 9:00 Wed. at the Olliff-Boeve Memorial Chapel.
In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to the Alzheimer’s Association.
Online condolences: www.olliffboeve.com.
Olliff-Boeve Memorial Chapel is in charge of arrangements.
FHSU softball adds three more transfers to 2020 recruiting class
FHSU Athletics
Fort Hays State Softball head coach Adrian Pilkington announced three more signings for the upcoming 2020 season on Monday, August 5. All three are transfers. Joining the program are Alexis Velazquez, Hannah Gates, and Jaelyn Carter.
Velazquez will have one more year of collegiate eligibility, transferring from Chaminade University in Hawaii. As a junior in 2019, she was named the team’s Most Outstanding Player and started all 47 games at first base. She led the team in hits (37) and ranked second on the team in batting average (.289), RBIs (13) and doubles (5). Prior to her year at Chaminade, Velazquez played two years at Howard College in Texas where she helped the program to a pair of conference championships. As a sophomore at Howard College, she hit .335 with six home runs and 38 RBIs. Velazquez is a native of Fontana, California.
Gates is a junior transfer from Otero (Colo.) Junior College where she played for two seasons as an outfielder. Gates hit .416 as a sophomore in 2019 with 17 extra-base hits (11 doubles, 6 triples), 50 runs scored, and 22 RBIs, while adding 24 stolen bases. In 2018 as a freshman she hit .320 with nine extra-base hits (6 doubles, 3 triples), 34 runs scored, and 23 RBIs, while adding 18 stolen bases. Gates is a native of Fort Collins, Colorado.
Carter is a sophomore transfer from Barton Community College where she played one season. In 2019 as a freshman she hit .387 with 19 extra-base hits (9 doubles, 2 triples, 8 home runs), 48 runs scored, and 39 RBIs, while adding 14 stolen bases to earn All-KJCCC Eastern Division Second Team honors. Carter saw the majority of her time at shortstop, but also saw starts in the designated player role. Carter is a native of Wichita, Kansas.
Pilkington already announced six early signings back in November of 2019, so the three most recent signings give the Tigers nine new players for the upcoming 2020 season. Below is the full 2020 signing class for FHSU Softball.
HaysMed welcomes new cardiologist
HaysMed, part of The University of Kansas Health System, is pleased to welcome Dr. Hema Pamulapati, MD, Cardiologist. She will be seeing patients at the DeBakey Heart Clinic.
Dr. Pamulapati received her medical degree at the S.V.S. Medical College in India. She completed a residency in internal medicine at the University of Missouri-Kansas City and a fellowship in cardiovascular diseases at the University of Kansas Medical Center.
“As we continue to expand our cardiac program at HaysMed, Dr. Pamulapati will be an excellent addition to our medical staff,” said Dr. Jeffery Curtis, cardiologist and Administrative Director of Cardiology.
To make an appointment, call 785-623-4699 or go to www.haysmed.com/debakey-heart-institute/