On Oct. 5, the Thomas More Prep-Marian cheerleaders had the opportunity to dance at halftime of the University of Kansas football game.
Varsity Spirit hosted a Spirit Day at KU for schools across the state of Kansas. The cheerleaders had the opportunity to practice with the KU cheer squad before the game in which they learned a dance and the “Rock Chalk Jayhawk” chant.
FHSU University Relations
Fort Hays State University’s College of Education will celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Plymouth Schoolhouse moving to FHSU’s campus during Homecoming festivities at 10 a.m. on Friday, Oct. 11 on the first floor of Forsyth Library.
Originally constructed in Russell County, the hard, post-rock limestone schoolhouse was transported to FHSU’s campus in 1977 to undergo restoration. It was completed and dedicated in 1979.
“It took them two years to get the schoolhouse here. They moved it stone by stone,” said Dr. Elodie Jones, assistant professor of advanced education programs.
Members of Phi Delta Kappa as well as Bill Claflin, Dr. Allan Miller, and Dr. Nancy Vogel were instrumental in proposing and leading the restoration process.
The celebration is open to the public and will include speeches from both Miller and Vogel as well as the opportunity to explore the inside of the schoolhouse.
Inside the school house are three original desks and the original school bell. An original diploma that was received by a student when the schoolhouse was in Russell County also will be dedicated on Friday.
“There are tons of primary artifacts within the school, many of which have been donated,” said Jones. “My students were jazzed looking through the repository of books stored at the schoolhouse as well as some cool historical maps dating back to the early 1900s.”
Freshman and sophomore students from the Opportunity Through Education living and learning community helped clean and prepare the inside of the schoolhouse for the festivities.
During the year, the schoolhouse is used by faculty on campus and other educators in the area who take their students there to experience the roots of American public education.
The reception will be held inside the library with refreshments to follow in the schoolhouse. The schoolhouse will be open from 9 a.m. to noon for visitors to explore.
Following the schoolhouse celebration, attendees are invited to walk over to Forsyth Library’s South Study Area and visit the smart classroom exhibit featuring the Plymouth Schoolhouse as well as other archival materials on display.
Using a 3D model of the schoolhouse created at FHSU’s Institute for New Media Studies and digitized archival photos and documents from the library, the two units have collaborated to create a special exhibit about the schoolhouse in the portable smart classroom, a new grant-funded immersive space.
“The goal of the smart classroom project is to make immersive spaces affordable, portable, and low-cost,” said Claire Nickerson, learning initiatives and OER librarian at FHSU.
A separate exhibit containing artifacts from the University Archives will also be on display at 8 a.m. on Saturday, Oct. 12, in the Memorial Union’s Pioneer Room.
Nickerson and Dr. Gordon Carlson, associate professor of communication studies who oversees the Institute for New Media Studies, were the primary investigators on this project after receiving funding from the Institute for Museum and Library Services.
“I hope that attendees will come away with not only more knowledge and appreciation of the importance of one-room schoolhouses in Kansas history, but also more curiosity and enthusiasm about the smart classroom technology that makes the exhibit possible,” said Nickerson.
“Expectations of teachers really have not changed as much as we think,” said Jones. “They were seen as advocates for education on the prairie and teachers continue to be advocates today for their students.
Those wishing to attend the celebration can park in the lot west of the Memorial Union. A shuttle will transport people from the Art and Design Ribbon Cutting to the Plymouth Schoolhouse.
Louis D. Guillen, age 79, died on October 8, 2019 at the Hays Medical Center in Hays, Kansas. He was born on November 23, 1939 in Garden City, Kansas, the son of Guadalupe and Mary Guillen.
He worked for Valley View Cemetery, City of Garden City, and as a facility maintenance for various locations in Garden City, Kansas.
He is survived by:
Four Sons
Juaquin Guillen of Yuma, AZ
Gerardo Guillen of Yuma, AZ
Mario Sandoval of Yuma, AZ
Arthur Ramierez of Yuma, AZ
Two Daughters
Yesenia Guillen of Yuma, AZ
Naomi Sandoval of Yuma, AZ
One Brother
Lupe Guillen of Garden City, Kansas
One Sister
Delores Arevalo Guillen of Goddard, Kansas
20 grandchildren, and 2 great grandchildren.
He was preceded in death by his siblings, Baltzar, William, Alfred, Dela Orozco Guillen, and Bernie Guillen.
Mass of the resurrection will be held on Saturday, October 12, 2019 at 10:00 am at St. MaryCatholic Church.
Rosary will be recited on Thursday at 7 pm at the Funeral Home
Memorials are suggested to the St. Mary Catholic Church in care of Price & Sons Funeral Home, 620 N. Main St. Garden City, Kansas 67846.
Q: Why couldn’t the pirate play cards?
A: Because he was sitting on the deck!
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KANSAS CITY—Ivanka Trump, daughter of President Trump and advisor to the president, will visit Kansas City with U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar for a child care roundtable on Thursday afternoon at Metropolitan Community College, according to a release from HHS.
Missouri Governor Mike Parson and Senator Roy Blunt will join the first-daughter and HHS Secretary for the event.
President Trump has made working families a focus of his administration. He wants to offer mothers and fathers more choice and flexibility with child care, so they can choose how to balance home and work life in a way that best serves their needs, benefits their children, and allows them to fully participate in the economy, according to Lynn Johnson, Assistant Secretary, Administration for Children and Families (ACF).
The roundtable, hosted by HHS’s Administration for Children and Families (ACF), is the 7th in a series of ten roundtables to be hosted nationwide as part of the Trump Administration’s larger effort to support working families by promoting access to child care, a key initiative for the administration.
To most people, this is great news – who doesn’t want a strong economy? But employers are desperate for workers. The inability to fill open jobs is the number one challenge across many sectors of our economy. Meanwhile, there are still thousands of workers, here in our communities, who want to join in and contribute, but face a critical shortfall. I’m talking, of course, about one of the single greatest barriers to economic mobility facing American families today: access to affordable, high-quality child care.
As Assistant Secretary of HHS’s Administration for Children and Families (ACF), I can say unequivocally that one of our most pressing challenges is supporting working families as they raise their children, while balancing home life and work. Presently, the cost of center-based child care for two children, an infant and a 4 year old, exceeds home mortgage costs in 35 states and D.C., and annual median rental payments in every state. However, child care is more than just a major expense for families – it’s also a significant barrier to work.
By CRISTINA JANNEY
Hays Post
After spending three months in Hays as part of an around-the-world trip to learn new ways to be a family, author Dan Kois is back to promote his book “How to be a Family: The Year I Dragged My Kids Around the World to Find a New Way to Be Together.”
Kois, accompanied by his daughter, Harper, will speak and sign books at 6 p.m. Thursday at the Hays Public Library.
Kois, an editor for Slate magazine, his wife, Alia Smith, and two daughters, Lyra and Harper, left their home in Arlington, Va., for the grand experiment on being a family.
They also spent three months each in New Zealand, The Nertherlands and Costa Rica before ending their journey with a stint in Hays, America.
“The book is about our epic 2017,” he said. “As the title suggests, we spent time in four different countries to try to shake ourselves out of our family rut, our parenting rut, to see what family living was in places other than where we lived before, which was Arlington, Va., a suburb of D.C.”
The Koises chose Hays in part because they wanted to learn a different way to be American parents. They are also friends with playwright and Hays resident Catherine Trieschmann, who Dan knew from college.
“We were looking for the real small-town experience,” he said. “Where we live, it is a suburb of a big city. It is very stereotypically fast-paced. Our kids are over-scheduled, and we are overworked. We thought a kind of closeness of community and a more deliberate pace of life might be great for us to experience.”
Kois said he did find that to be the case in Hays.
“We immediately made a lot of friends. We became very involved in our community in our three months here in service and in church and in neighborhood activities,” he said. “We really did find we were a lot more relaxed and chilled out here than we found ourselves to be in Arlington.
“Our kids found school a wonderful place with great friends, and we found the pace of everyday life just a lot more manageable than what we had been previously doing.”
The final quarter of the book is about Hays in which Kois talks about the glut of parades the family experienced in the fall and how it immediately gave them a sense of community and belonging.
He also describes the showing of the French documentary of “A Quiet America,” which was filmed in Hays in April 1976.
He writes about the Hays Symphony’s Halloween performance, where his daughters were drafted to act alongside the symphony with other children and adults.
Kois said he learned from his family’s international travel there is no one way to do things.
“You can go to New Zealand where kids have enormous amounts of independence and kids are encouraged to take huge risks with their bodies and their educations,” he said. “You can go someplace like The Netherlands where the entire society is built around cycling and cars aren’t used by most families and where children are prized for their independent thought, but just coincidentally all behave the same way like very traditional Dutch people.”
In some cases, the Koises found the communities in which they lived had things they can bring back and use in their family, and in other cases they found they didn’t fit in at all.
“In The Netherlands, our older daughter had a huge problem fitting in and never really felt completely at home,” he said. “Our younger daughter fit right in and immediately transformed herself into a tiny Dutch woman.”
As a parent, Kois said he brought home a lot of humility from the experience.
Some aspects of the trip turned out just as he imagined. Other aspects were so difficult he wondered why they ever attempted the trip.
“I also think both me and my wife have found a real new closeness with our kids and a sense that all four of us, all of us as team can really set out and accomplish things that we might never have thought we otherwise could do.
“One of the big problems we had that I hoped we could address on the trip was this sense that each one of us in our family lived our lives in sort of separate little pathways or lanes. We each had our things that we were worried about. We each had our school or work or home or whatever that was our concern, but we rarely all four of us got out in the world and challenged ourselves and challenged each other in ways we had to overcome all together. A year on the road definitely gives a chance to do that.”
Lyra and Harper both weigh in on the adventure in the book. Lyra at the end of the book is asked about how her dad portrayed her in the book. She answered she thought he was wrong.
Kois said the girls, who were fifth and seventh graders at the time, say in the book there were some very challenging times during the trip, but they grudgingly admit it was kind of cool.
“I’m going to take that as a huge win for me,” Kois said.
The family has moved back to Arlington, and they are trying to apply the lessons from the trip to their old life.
“In big ways and small, it is making our old life feel a little bit better and a little bit easier and a little bit new. Taking for example the lessons I learned about community here in Hays—the way that people in this smallish city make this the city they want to live in.”
He gave the example of Cathy Drabkin, who learned how to bake bread and now has her own bread business and Catherine Trieschmann, who wanted more theater in Hays, so she created pockets for that to happen.
“We’ve taken those lessons and tried to bring them back to our big community to make Arlington the place we want it to be instead of complaining about the things that it isn’t,” he said.
Kois’ book is available anywhere books are sold. They will be for sale at the signing. The Hays Public Library has copies for checkout pending availability.
JACKSON COUNTY — Law enforcement authorities are investigating a robbery and have a suspect in custody.
On Tuesday, deputies in Jackson County made a traffic stop on U.S. 75 south of Mayetta, according to Sheriff Tim Morse. Deputies discovered the 1990 Lexus had been stolen in Topeka. They arrested the driver Ronnie Lee Brandenburg Jr. 48, Horton, for felony possession of stolen property and driving while suspended.
Brandenburg has previous convictions for drugs, interference with law enforcement, trafficking contraband in a correctional institution and two for DUI, according to the Kansas Department of Corrections.
Whether it’s for the holidays or a class reunion – coming home is such a special time to rekindle relationships, share joyful (and sometimes mischievous) memories, and take time to reflect on our growth. A university, like a family, provides roots for that growth. And like a family, there is often a lot of planning, preparation and heart that accompanies traditional coming-home events.
And so I begin this column expressing my deep gratitude to everyone who will work hard throughout this weekend to create a wonderful homecoming celebration.
Homecoming also provides us with an extra special opportunity to recognize our alumni through our awards programs. Celebrating their success is especially important. In fact, if you pay special attention to our mission, our work with our students is not really measured by their success while they are students. Our mission is about developing engaged global citizen leaders. Thus the true measure of our success is how our alumni live their lives after they graduate; how they serve their professions, their communities, and our world.
I really value how our awards align with that mission. The Alumni Achievement Award, established in 1959, honors graduates of the university for outstanding accomplishments through career and profession, meritorious service in community betterment, philanthropic activities, and educational achievements.
Past recipients of this award include George F. Sternberg, a 1933 graduate whose first paleontological discovery was of a nearly complete plesiosaur at the age of 9. He became a world-renowned paleontologist and is credited with discovering the famous Fish-Within-A-Fish fossil. John C. Thorns Jr., a 1950 graduate, is also a past recipient. In addition to serving as a faculty member and Art and Design Department chair, he also founded the Hays Arts Council and was a leading force in establishing the on-campus art gallery now named the Moss-Thorns Gallery of Art.
Oh!, and by the way: Don’t miss the ribbon cutting for our beautiful Art and Design Building at 9 a.m. tomorrow.
The Distinguished Service Award, established in 1974, recognizes individuals, alumni or friends of the university, who have demonstrated a continuing concern for humanity on a universal, national, state or community level; who support spiritual, cultural and educational objectives; and who endorse and exemplify the highest standards of character and personal attributes. This truly mission-centered award has celebrated the compassion of people like Earl and Winona Field (Earl was a 1937 graduate) and Steve Shields, president and CEO of Action Pact Development and an emeritus member of the FHSU Foundation Board of Directors, who is relentlessly focused on positively impacting the quality of life and healthcare for senior citizens.
The Young Alumni Award, established in 1977, recognizes the outstanding achievement and recent accomplishments of 10-15-year graduates. The award is based on professional and educational achievement, community activities, honors and awards received and other noteworthy items of merit since graduation.
Last year’s recipient, Jennifer Lapka (a 2003 graduate) really touched my heart, and we have remained in contact throughout the year. Jennifer is the founder of Rightfully Sewn, a charitable organization with two special purposes. One is to provide seamstress training for at-risk women so they can enter, and thrive in, the fashion industry. The second is to re-establish Kansas City as an “epicenter of garment manufacturing” and then market Kansas City fashion designers in the production of “affordable, high-quality, American-produced garments.”
I am so eager to meet this year’s award recipients and hear the amazing stories of how they delivered big on our mission.
The four recipients of this year’s Alumni Achievement Award are:
• Buck Arnhold ’74, ’76, ’80, a retired artist living in Olathe whose commercial work has included art for Boulevard Brewing Co. and the Kansas City Chiefs.
• Kevin Faulkner ’83, ’83, a retired investor relations officer who lives in Pebble Beach, Calif.
• Dr. Leigh (Bunn) Goodson ’94, president of Tulsa Community College in Tulsa.
• Michael R. Miller ’85, ’86, ’93, Kansas City, who is a retired special agent with the FBI.
The two recipients of this year’s Young Alumni Award are:
• Dr. Cole Engel ’07, ’07, ’09, Hays, an assistant professor of accounting at FHSU.
• Joshua W. Snider ’05, an attorney and the managing shareholder for Gordon Davis Johnson & Shane P.C. in El Paso, Texas.
Dr. Christie (Patterson) Brungardt ’01, and Dr. Curt Brungardt ’81, ’84, Council Grove, both emeritus professors of leadership studies at FHSU, will receive the Distinguished Service Award.
Their accomplishments and generosity are truly inspiring, their impact profound. The stories of their contributions, in large part rooted in the strong relationships and learning developed at The Fort, will be recounted and celebrated.
And I, like all of the presidents before me, will take great pride in how generations of faculty and staff have facilitated the fulfillment of our mission, and in doing so, made this world a better place.
ELLIS – The Ellis Chamber of Commerce will sponsor Art Walk 2019 from 2 to 5 p.m. Saturday.
Updated maps can be seen below or picked up at Arthur’s Pizza or the chamber office.
Approximately 20 artists will be offering works in a variety of media.
By RON WILSON
Huck Boyd National Institute for Rural Development
“If you can dream it, you can do it.” That inspirational slogan might describe the work of Chris Broeckelman and his industrial technology students at Natoma High School. They are using their classes to develop skills, not just in the shop, but in life. It’s today’s Kansas Profile.
Chris Broeckelman is the industrial technology instructor at Natoma High School in northwest Kansas. Chris grew up on a farm near Selden, one of eight children of Joe and Cathy Broeckelman.
“I always had an interest in carpentry,” Chris said. During high school, he worked at the local lumberyard. “I had a high school woodworking teacher that I thought very highly of.”
Chris studied Technology Studies and Secondary Education at Fort Hays State with a minor in business. He also worked at a cabinet shop. After graduation, he took the teaching position at Natoma. He married Megan. They now have six children.
“When I was 5 or 6 years old, I said I wanted to be a carpenter or a vegetable farmer when I grew up,” Chris said. “Now I’m teaching woodworking and have a big garden, so I’m about there.”
His industrial technology program begins with basic mechanical drafting, autocad, and woodworking classes during junior high. At the high school level, the elective classes in computer aided design and woodworking become progressively more challenging each year.
The woodworking program begins with wood processing where students learn about milling methods, identifying trees, and different drying processes. It progresses to the students imagining, designing and building a project of their own. Safety is the top emphasis throughout.
The wood is sourced locally. Farmers or power companies often donate logs which the students can cut. This year, windstorms uprooted several trees. “Ninety percent of our wood comes from salvage,” Chris said. “We resell the wood at cost to the students, which saves parents and kids thousands of dollars and supports the program.” Walnut, hackberry and white oak are popular.
The state technology competition is a motivational tool for Chris’s students. For more than 50 years, Fort Hays State University has conducted a Western Kansas Technology Fair competition open to any school in the state. Outside judges evaluate the quality of the entries. There are competitions in drafting, graphic communications, power, energy and transportation systems, plus production systems, including metalwork and woodwork, which is the largest category.
Participants receive white, red, or blue ribbons depending on the quality of the work. Superior products can be awarded a gold rosette. “It takes a lot of work to get that,” Chris said. “The kids make a big deal of it.”
More than 300 projects were entered last year. “Eleven of my 19 high school students brought home rosettes,” Chris said. Among Chris’s students, a sixth grader, eighth grader and freshman won best in class overall. Natoma has consistently been a top winner.
That’s a remarkable record for students from a school in a rural community such as Natoma, population 335 people. Now, that’s rural.
What products do students build? “The sky’s the limit,” Chris said. “I tell them, `If you can dream it up, we’ll find a way to build it.’ And they challenge me.” Projects typically include bedroom sets, dressers, dining room tables, coffee tables, and many more.
“Quality is our goal,” Chris said. “I tell them that they’re building a project that their grandkids can fight over after they’re gone.”
Not only are they building a project that will last, they are learning life skills. “To see a kid who starts with no confidence and see them grow is huge,” Chris said. “It’s about having a challenge and overcoming it, problem-solving and learning to work with others. It’s more than just wood-working, we’re teaching life.”
“If you can dream it, you can do it.” This teacher and his students are making that motto reality. We salute Chris Broeckelman and his students at Natoma High for making a difference with their creativity and skill. When a young student earns that rosette at the state competition, it can be like a dream come true.
2019 Ellis High School Homecoming Royalty
