Longtime Goodland, KS resident and former Sherman County Clerk, Janet R. Rumpel, 68, passed away unexpectedly on Wednesday, July 31, 2019 at the Presbyterian St. Luke’s Hospital in Denver, CO.
Janet was born on June 30, 1951 in Russell, Kansas to Bernard and Josephine (Hammerschmidt) Thomas. She was one of three children. Janet attended school in Wakeeney, KS and graduated from Trego Community High School in 1969. She then went on and attended two years of college at Northwest Kansas Vocational School in Goodland, where she earned a degree in Data Processing.
On November 20, 1971, Janet married Alan Rumpel in Wakeeney, KS. To this union, two children, Scott and Brian were born.
Following her graduation, Janet started her career working at Goodland Glass as a bookkeeper until a job opportunity came up for her to start working at the Sherman County Courthouse as a Deputy Clerk under Velma Holste. Upon Velma’s retirement, Janet was appointed by the Kansas Governor to fulfill Velma’s position until that term was over. Janet was then elected as the Sherman County Clerk where she worked for 33 years until her retirement.
Following her retirement, Janet worked part time for a couple years at Dependable Glass Company as a bookkeeper. She was also a member of Our Lady of Perpetual Help Catholic Church in Goodland. She held every position on the Kansas County Clerks Association; working her way all the way up to being the President. She had a love of animals, enjoyed baking, painting, sketching, playing the piano and gardening. She was also a Lector at church, and spent many hours working as a Sherman County Election Official, getting prepared for many elections.
Preceding her in death were her parents, her son Scott, and a half-brother Don Thomas.
She is survived by her loving husband Alan of the home in Goodland, her son Brian (Linda) Rumpel of Goodland, KS, six grandchildren, and a brother LeRoy (Barb) Thomas of Goodland, KS. She is also survived by numerous extended family, nieces and nephews and many friends.
A Mass of Christian Burial was held on Monday, August, 5, 2019 at 10:30 AM MT at the Our Lady of Perpetual Help Catholic Church in Goodland with Father Andrew Rockers and Father Norbert Dlabal officiating. Burial followed in the Goodland Cemetery.
Visitation was held on Sunday, August 4, 2019 from 5:00 to 7:00 PM MT at Koons-Russell Funeral Home in Goodland with a Vigil Service and Parish Rosary at 7:00 PM.
Memorials may be designated to the Janet Rumpel Memorial Fund and may be left at the services or mailed to Koons-Russell Funeral Home, 211 N. Main Ave., Goodland, KS 67735.
Online condolences for the family may be left at www.koonsrussellfuneralhome.com.
Funeral services have been entrusted to Koons-Russell Funeral Home in Goodland.
Nancy Jane Wyatt, age 77, of Emporia, Kansas died Tuesday, July 30, 2019, at the Good Samaritan Society of Hays. She has lived in Hays since 2015.
A memorial service and inurnment will be held at Emporia, Kansas at a later date.
Services are entrusted to Cline’s-Keithley Mortuary of Hays, 1919 East 22nd Street, Hays, Kansas 67601. Condolences can be sent via e-mail to [email protected] or can be left by guestbook at www.keithleyfuneralchapels.com
WICHITA, KAN. – A Salina pharmacist was sentenced today to serve 36 months on probation — including 18 months house arrest — for diverting prescription drugs containing opioids, according to U.S. Attorney Stephen McAllister said. Her husband, who received the drugs from her, got the same sentence.
Kirsty C. Hartley, 29, Salina, Kan., pleaded guilty to one count of distributing a prescription painkiller outside the usual course of professional practice without a legitimate medical reason. Co-defendant Dalton R. Hartley, 29, Salina, Kan., pleaded guilty one count of acquiring controlled substances through fraud.
Kirsty Hartley admitted she unlawfully distributed approximately 21,289 tablets of hydrocodone with acetaminophen while working at a CVS Pharmacy in Salina. She gave the pills to her husband for him to consume or trade to others for marijuana.
In her plea agreement, Kirsty Hartley agreed to surrender her pharmacist’s license. Both defendants agreed to perform 200 hours of community service.
A Wyandotte County jury on Tuesday convicted UG official Dennis ‘Tib’ Laughlin, right, of misdemeanor battery against his now former employee Maddie Waldeck, far left. Laughlin resigned after the conviction.-photo Kansas News Service
Dennis “Tib” Laughlin was director of General Services and worked for the UG for 21 years. According to the UG, he submitted his resignation in writing after the verdict was handed down Tuesday afternoon.
Had he not resigned, the UG told KCUR that Laughlin would have been fired.
Last May, now former Unified Government employee Maddie Waldeck said she was having a “light-hearted” conversation with colleagues after work when Laughlin, her boss at the time, grabbed her by the shirt and pushed her against a wall.
“At the time, it struck me as funny,” Laughlin testified.
Eyewitness Theresa Duke, who was subpoenaed to testify, told the court she did not find it funny.
“Honestly, I was shocked,” Duke said.
In a statement Tuesday, the UG said it had investigated the incident thoroughly and came to a different conclusion than the jury.
UG Public Relations Director Mike Taylor told KCUR that UG officials were surprised by the guilty verdict.
“We were a bit disappointed, but we knew that was certainly a possibility,” Taylor said. “[Tib Laughlin] was well-liked in the organization, so I think there’s some surprise and disappointment that an incident like this happened, and that it came to the end that it did.”
After her old boss was convicted Tuesday of battery against her, Maddie Waldeck told KCUR she is relieved. ‘I hope this sends a message that no one else should have to go through what I went through,’ she said.
CREDIT ANDREA TUDHOPE / Kansas News Service
She documented several incidents over those two years that she felt were inappropriate and made her uncomfortable, including comments Laughlin made about his sexual relationships or about how Waldeck looked.
Two other employees, who spoke to KCUR on the condition of anonymity, backed up Waldeck.
One said Laughlin’s “inapproprate” behavior was “not something hidden.” The other said she was warned early in her career “not to spend any time alone with him.”
Waldeck said she tried to go through the proper channels inside the Unified Government but they failed her.
After she left the UG for another job following the battery incident, Waldeck saw Laughlin on TV talking about the project they worked on together at work.
“You know that he put his hands on me, you know that he has pending battery charges against him, you know all of that and you put him on camera,” Waldeck said. “Horrible, it was horrible.”
Taylor said the UG has mandatory training for sexual harassment and violence in the workplace.
“It teaches employees what’s appropriate and what’s not. And clearly I think our view was that you don’t put your hands on an employee,” Taylor said. “We’ve got a good foundation in place to, as best we can, make sure things like this don’t happen.”
Laughlin faces up to six months in jail and a $1,000 fine for the misdemeanor conviction. His sentencing has been set for the end of August.
WASHINGTON (AP) — A hard-won budget and debt deal easily cleared the Senate on Thursday, powered by President Donald Trump’s endorsement and a bipartisan drive to cement recent spending increases for the Pentagon and domestic agencies.
Senators during Thursday morning’s vote image courtesy CSPAN
The legislation passed by a 67-28 vote as Trump and his GOP allies relied on lots of Democratic votes to propel it over the finish line. Kansas Senators Pat Roberts and Jerry Moran voted to approve the measure.
Passage marked a drama-free solution to a worrisome set of looming Washington deadlines as both allies and adversaries of the president set aside ideology in exchange for relative fiscal peace and stability. The measure, which Trump has promised to sign, would permit the government to resume borrowing to pay all its bills and would set an overall $1.37 trillion limit on agency budgets approved by Congress annually.
It does nothing to stem the government’s spiraling debt and the return of $1 trillion-plus deficits but it also takes away the prospect of a government shutdown in October or the threat of deep automatic spending cuts .
The administration and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., played strong hands in the talks that sealed the agreement last week, producing a pragmatic measure that had much for lawmakers to dislike.
Trump did step back from a possible fight over spending increases sought by liberals, and achieved his priorities on Pentagon budgets and the stock market-soothing borrowing limit.
“Budget Deal is phenomenal for our Great Military, our Vets, and Jobs, Jobs, Jobs!” Trump tweeted before the vote. “Two year deal gets us past the Election. Go for it Republicans, there is always plenty of time to CUT!”
Pelosi won remarkable Democratic unity in pushing the bill through the House last week despite divides on issues such as impeachment and health care.
Democrats in the GOP-controlled Senate delivered most of their votes for the deal. Many of the more solidly conservative Republicans said it allowed for unchecked borrowing and too much spending.
The measure was an epitaph to the 2011 Budget Control Act, which came about due to a tea party-fueled battle over debt limit legislation during the run-up to President Barack Obama’s re-election. That law promised more than $2 trillion in deficit cuts through 2021, including automatic spending cuts that were put in place after the failure of a so-called deficit supercommittee.
“It’s not just Democrats. Republicans are also guilty. At least the big-government Republicans who will vote for this monstrous addition of debt,” said Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky. “Many of the supporters of this debt deal ran around their states for years complaining that, ‘President Obama’s spending too much and borrowing too much,’ and these same Republicans now, the whole disingenuous lot of them, will wiggle their way to the front of the trough.”
The bill would lift the debt limit for two years, into either a second Trump term or the administration of a Democratic successor.
It would reverse scheduled 10 percent cuts to defense and nondefense programs next year, at a two-year cost of more than $200 billion. An additional $100 billion over two years would add to recent gains for military readiness, combating opioids and other domestic initiatives, and would keep pace with rising costs for veterans’ health care.
Those increases alone, assuming they are repeated year after year, promise to add $2 trillion or more to the government’s $22 trillion debt over the coming decade.
The bill was powered by a coalition of GOP defense hawks, Democrats seeking to preserve gains in domestic accounts, and the leaders of the House and Senate Appropriations Committees. Democrats voted for the bill by a wide margin, and it won a healthy majority of Senate Republicans.
“Providing sufficient funding for our military and eliminating the threat of sequestration for good are absolutely necessary for our military to have the budgetary stability and predictability they so desperately need,” said the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla.
It was also a long-sought victory for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who initiated the negotiations and was deeply invested in bringing order and relative predictability to the budget and debt deadlines.
Losers included more conservative elements of the White House. Acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney, a former tea party congressman from South Carolina, and acting budget director Russell Vought were rebuffed in attempts to add spending cuts to defray the bill’s cost.
“We have to invest in improved readiness to help our military commanders plan for emerging challenges, in research and development to support the U.S. military of the future, and in rock-solid support for our alliance commitments,” McConnell said. “This deal is an opportunity to do exactly that. This is the agreement the administration has negotiated. This is the deal the House has passed. This is the deal President Trump is waiting and eager to sign into law.”
Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., a longshot candidate for president, accused Republicans of financial hypocrisy.
“When I first came here in 2009, Republicans railed against the rising debt and federal spending, even as our economy reeled,” Bennet said. “Remarkably, they seemed to have forgotten their supposedly principled calls for fiscal discipline now that President Trump is in office.”
Follow-up legislation would fill in the line-by-line details of agency budgets when the Senate returns in September. Trump is sure to continue seeking billions of dollars for border security and wall construction, but unlike last year he does not appear eager for a government shutdown over it.
SEDGWICK COUNTY —Authorities have identified a 56-year-old man who died after becoming trapped in machinery at a manufacturing business as Zachary C. Ritchey of Wellington, Kansas, according Lt. Tim Myers with the Sedgwick County Sheriff’s office.
Location of the fatal industrial accident google image
Emergency crews were called Wednesday to Younger & Sons Manufacturing north of Viola.
Ritchey was trapped in a tooling machine he was working on. The Sedgwick County Fire Department and other company employees were able to reverse the machine. Ritchey pronounced dead at the scene.
It is currently unclear how the man became trapped.
Ritchey worked for a company that performs maintenance on machines at the company.
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VIOLA, Kan. (AP) — Sedgwick County authorities say a 56-year-old man died after becoming trapped in machinery at a manufacturing business.
Emergency crews were called Wednesday to Younger & Sons Manufacturing north of Viola.
The worker was trapped in a tooling machine he was working on. The Sedgwick County Fire Department and other company employees were able to reverse the machine. The man was pronounced dead at the scene.
It is currently unclear how the man became trapped. His name has not been released.
Sedgwick County Sheriff’s Office Lt. Tim Myers said in a news release that the man worked for a company that performs maintenance on machines at company.
Downtown Hays Development Corp. is seeking the public’s input on events and businesses in historic downtown Hays.
Those answering the entire survey will be entered to win a pair of tickets to either the inaugural Barrels and Bites or the annual Farm to Fork Dinner.
RENO, Nev. (AP) — An unopened copy of a 1987 cult-classic video game that a Nevada man found in the attic of his childhood home is expected to sell for up to $10,000 at an online auction.
The boxed game cartridge of Nintendo’s “Kid Icarus” was still in the bag with the receipt for $38.45 from J.C. Penney’s catalog department three decades earlier.
Scott Amos of Reno told the Reno Gazette Journal he initially thought it might be worth a couple hundred dollars.
But Valarie McLeckie, video game consignment director at Heritage Auctions, says it’s one of the hardest Nintendo titles to find in sealed condition. She says there are fewer than 10 in the hands of vintage game collectors.
“To find a sealed copy ‘in the wild,’ so to speak, not to mention one in such a nice condition and one with such transparent provenance, is both an unusual and rather historic occurrence,” she said. “We feel that the provenance will add a significant premium for serious collectors.”
Wata Games, a video game grading service, gave Amos’ copy a rating of 8.0 on a 10-point scale.
Amos said no one in the family has a recollection of purchasing the game, but the Dec. 8, 1988, purchase date hints it may have been intended as a Christmas present.
“I can remember the game. My neighbor down the street had it. I remember it being hard, and I was never that good of a gamer guy,” he said. “All the family has been trying to come up with a hypothesis … (My mom) thinks she put it there and never got it back out, and then it ended up in the attic.”
The game, based loosely on Greek mythology, follows a cupid-like protagonist named Pit attempting to rescue Palutena, the goddess of light, who is imprisoned by the evil Medusa.
“Get ready for the action and adventure of Greek Mythology translated to the Video Age,” the game’s packaging says. “Will you survive to restore Palutena’s light and return it to ‘Angel Land’? Only you know.”
The online auction closes Thursday.
If the sale goes as expected, it could net Amos and his family $10,000. They’re planning to have some fun with it.
“I have an older sister, too. We’re splitting (the proceeds) 50-50,” Amos said. “We’re going to do a Disney World vacation next month.”
FRANKLIN COUNTY—A strong summer storm brought over 10 inches of rain to portions of eastern Kansas and rain continues to fall.
Flooding Thursday after 10 inches of rain photo courtesy Douglas Co. Sheriff
“We have major flash flooding and have had to conduct several water rescues,” according to Franklin County Emergency Management Director Alan Radcliffe. “There are no injuries.” Over 8 inches of rain was reported in city of Ottawa and more rain is falling.
Water rescue teams from Douglas and Anderson County are assisting with the water rescues, according to Radcliffe.
Water is also covering several roads in Douglas County, according to the sheriff’s department, especially near the Lone Star area which got more than 10 inches of rain overnight.
According to the National Weather Service, moderate to locally heavy rains are expected across far western Missouri and eastern Kansas through early Saturday. Repeated rounds of storms will lead to an increased flash flood threat across these areas. A flash flood watch remains in effect until 7 AM Saturday morning.
KANSAS CITY —A 10-year-old girl who wanted some fast food Wednesday morning took her mother’s SUV while the mom was sleeping and crashed into another vehicle.
Just before 8a.m., police were called to 12th and Olive in Kansas City on a wreck between a Chevy Tahoe and a Honda Pilot, according to a media release. They were surprised to learn that the driver of the Tahoe was a 10-year-old.
Officers learned that when the girl woke up, she wanted to get McDonald’s to eat. Her mother was still sleeping, so the girl took the Tahoe herself. She drove a couple of miles before getting lost. She attempted to turn at 12th and Olive, but since she was an unlicensed 10-year-old, she failed to yield to the Honda coming in the opposite direction.
Both vehicles sustained heavy damage, as did an electrical utility box and a stop sign. The girl was transported to the hospital with minor bumps and bruises. The other driver was not injured. The girl did not make it to McDonald’s.
Longtime Goodland, KS resident and former Sherman County Clerk, Janet R. Rumpel, 68, passed away unexpectedly on Wednesday, July 31, 2019 at the Presbyterian St. Luke’s Hospital in Denver, CO.
