Jeffry Allen Eller, age 60, lost his battle to Frontotemporal Dementia on October 7, 2019, at The Bay of Burlington Health and Rehabilitation Center, Burlington Wisconsin.
He was born July 27, 1959 in Tachikawa, Japan, son of Gary L. Eller and Kay (Bates) Eller Tittel.
He was a 1977 Graduate of Hays High School and worked in the field of Civil Construction & Design. He enjoyed playing pool and his beloved guitars.
Survivors include his wife Heidi, DeKalb, Illinois; one son Matthew Aaryn Eller and wife Melissa, Emporia, KS; father, Gary Eller and wife Lela, Hays, KS; mother, Kay Tittel, Pea Ridge, AR; one sister Lori Bieker and husband Robert, Hays, KS; five stepsisters Micki Kuhlmann, Smith Center, KS; Marla Copper and husband Jeff, Hays, KS; Fern Hess and husband Gary, McPherson, KS; Lana Girrens and husband Tim, Wichita, KS; Jana Methany and husband Frank, Kansas City, KS; one stepbrother Mike Moore and wife Pam, Springtown, TX; two nephews Devin Legleiter and wife Mariah and Derek Legleiter, Hays, KS; two great nieces; two step grandchildren and numerous step nieces and nephews.
He was preceded in death by his Grandparents Kenneth and Lola Bates and Ross and Gladys Eller and stepfather Ralph Tittel.
A memorial and interment will take place at a later date.
SHAWNEE COUNTY — Law enforcement authorities are investigating a robbery and after asking the public for help to identify and locate two suspects have made two arrests.
Just before 6:00 a.m., Wednesday, police were dispatched to the Kwik Shop located at 1700 SW
Topeka Boulevard in Topeka in reference to an aggravated burglary to a vehicle, according to police spokesperson Gretchen Koenen.
A female suspect reportedly entered the vehicle which was occupied by a passenger. The suspect forced the passenger out of the vehicle and fled the scene. The vehicle was located a short time later, unoccupied, near NW Jackson and Crane in Topeka.
On Wednesday, police arrested 28-year-old Samantha R. Stephens and booked her into the Shawnee County Department of Corrections on requested charges of aggravated burglary and aggravated robbery.
Photo Topeka police
The male suspect was interviewed and found to not be related to the case. He was booked into the Shawnee County Department of Corrections for multiple felony warrants associated with a separate investigation, according to Koenen.
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SHAWNEE COUNTY — Law enforcement authorities are investigating a robbery and asking the public for help to identify and locate two suspects.
Just before 6:00 a.m., Wednesday, police were dispatched to the Kwik Shop located at 1700 SW
Topeka Boulevard in Topeka in reference to an aggravated burglary to a vehicle, according to police spokesperson Gretchen Koenen.
A female suspect reportedly entered the vehicle which was occupied by a passenger. The suspect forced the passenger out of the vehicle and fled the scene. The vehicle was located a short time later, unoccupied, near NW Jackson and Crane in Topeka.
Police are attempting to identify two persons of interest in this case and have released security camera images.
Anyone with information regarding this crime is encouraged to contact the Topeka Police.
Bonnie Jane Klein, 82, died October 9, 2019 at her home in Burdett.
She was born September 23, 1937 in Anderson, Indiana to Raymond and Ola (Wise) Badger.
On June 10, 1955 she married Gene Raymond Neeley. He died on May 23, 1994. They were the parents of three sons, James Howard “Jim” Neeley, Ronald Eugene “Ron” Neeley, and Clarence Allen Neeley.
While living in Virginia, Bonnie was employed as a licensed beautician and also worked as a substitute cosmetology instructor at two private and two public schools. Following Gene’s Retirement from the U.S. Army in 1975, she was employed at John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance Company, Chesterfield, Indiana, taking early retirement in 1989. She graduated from Anderson High School, class of 1955. She received her BA from Anderson University in Anderson, Indiana, double majoring in criminal justice and social work. She received her master of social work degree from Indiana University. She was involved in the Big Brother/Big Sister program for nine years, as well as volunteering for several years at a male maximum security prison at Pendleton, Indiana and a women’s prison in Indianapolis. Employment included The Center for Mental Health, Anderson, Indiana, and the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at Phoebe Putney Hospital in Albany, Georgia. She also worked briefly at Larned State Hospital in Larned, Kansas, and retired in 2007 from St. Joseph Hospital’s Behavioral Health Unit, also in Larned, Kansas, as a clinical social worker.
On February 2, 2002 she married Roy Allen Klein in Rozel, Kansas. Bonnie Attended the Rozel Methodist Church. Her favorite hobby was genealogy, which she avidly pursued for several decades.
She is survived by her husband, Allen Klein, Burdett, Kansas; two sons, Jim (Irina) Neeley Fairfield, Ohio; Clarence (Cori) Neeley, Alexandria, Indiana; four stepchildren, Tim (Noreen) Klein, Abilene, Kansas, Randy (Debbie) Klein, Paola, Kansas, Jol (Sherri) Klein, Wamego, Kansas, Marta Klein, DR-Congo, Africa; a sister, Carol (Jerry) Neeley, Indianapolis, Indiana; eight grandchildren: Jim, Jason, Anthony, Clay, Chance, Kayla, Cameron, and Kelsie Neeley; fifteen step-grandchildren, Caleb (Jami) Klein, Bel Aire, Kansas, Joshua (Stephanie) Klein, Kansas City, Missouri, Seth (Kayla) Klein, Ozark, Missouri, Micah Klein, Manhattan, Kansas, Tasha (Brad) Rice, Baldwin City, Kansas, Oree Klein, Canton, Kansas, Gabriel (Daniel) Jensen, Wamego, Kansas, Mollie (Patrick) Hobbs, Manhattan, Kansas, Jacob Klein, Wamego, Kansas, Anya Radzivon; four great grandchildren, Brionna Durham, Zoe Neeley, Myles Neeley, and Addison Neeley; six step-great-grandchildren Jackson Klein, Olivia Klein, Isabella Klein, Jax Rice, Oren Klein, Joyce Klein.
Bonnie was predeceased by her parents, brother, Lee Badger (U.S. Army, retired), and son Ron Neeley (U.S. Army, retired).
Memorial service will be 2:00 p.m. Monday, October 21, 2019 at Rozel United Methodist, Rozel. The family invites friends to join them in fellowship with a meal at noon at Rozel United Methodist Church, Rozel. Memorials may be given to the Rozel United Methodist Church or Burdett EMS in care of Beckwith Mortuary, PO Box 477, Larned, Kansas 67550. Personal condolences may be left at www.beckwithmortuary.com.
Donna M. Fronterhouse, 73, passed away October 10, 2019, at Homestead Assisted Living, Wichita. She was born October 23, 1945, to Louie & Martha (Maier) Bender. She married Terry Fronterhouse in Great Bend on December 18, 1965. He survives.
Donna, a longtime resident of Great Bend living previously in Wichita and Phoenix, was a cosmetologist, owning and operating a salon in Great Bend and Phoenix. She was a current member of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Catholic Church, Wichita, and formally St. Joseph Catholic Church, Phoenix and Prince of Peace Parish, Great Bend.
Survivors include, husband Terry Fronterhouse of Overland Park; one son, Troy Fronterhouse of Phoenix, AZ; one daughter, Dee Hettinger of Wichita; one sister, Lela Johnston of Phoenix, AZ; two aunts, Eleanora Postlethwaite of Great Bend and Leona Slankard of Wichita; three grandchildren, Natalie Herndon and husband Nicholas of Wichita, and Blake Hettinger and Tate Hettinger, both of Wichita; and four great grandchildren.
Visitation will be held from 3:00 to 9:00 p.m., Monday, October 14, 2019, at Bryant Funeral Home, with Altar Society Rosary at 4:00 p.m. and family receiving friends from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m. Mass of Christian Burial will be at 10:30 a.m., Tuesday, October 15, 2019, at St. Patrick Catholic Church, Great Bend, with Father Louis Trung Dinh Hoang presiding. Interment will be in the Great Bend Cemetery Mausoleum.
In lieu of flowers, memorials are suggested to the Golden Belt Humane Society, in care of Bryant Funeral Home.
Quarterback Jeff Miller looks for an open receiver during his playing days at FHSU in the mid- to late-1980s.By DIANE GASPER O’BRIEN FHSU University Relations and Marketing
Madi Miller enjoys visiting with her older brother, Jordan, about their lives as student-athletes at Fort Hays State University.
Their stories differ from those of their dad, Jeff, who played quarterback for the Tiger football team in the early 1980s.
Watching his children compete at the collegiate level now is different than what Jeff remembers from several decades ago.
Jordan completed his baseball career as a Tiger five years ago, and Madi began suiting up for the FHSU volleyball team this fall.
The Miller siblings don’t get to hear too much about their dad’s athletic career, although he still holds some FHSU passing records.
“Dad’s pretty humble about everything,” Madi said with a smile, “but I hear from other people how good he was.”
Jody Wise, middle, the winningest coach in FHSU volleyball history, talks to her team during a 1986 match.After battling all types of weather to watch Jordan compete on the college level, Jeff welcomes following an indoor sport these days. He usually searches for a place to sit alone in the bleachers in Gross Memorial Coliseum for Tiger volleyball games.
He finds himself glancing around at the spacious arena that seems much the same as when he attended Fort Hays State from 1983-88. Completed in 1973, GMC still is known as one of the best basketball and volleyball arenas in the MIAA conference.
But the atmosphere and the competition are different than they were 30-plus years ago. Most of these student-athletes have been playing competitively since they were in elementary school.
Jeff says that sports for women have indeed come a long way in 35 years, from back in the day when FHSU coaches of non-revenue sports were responsible for driving the team vans in sometimes treacherous weather on long trips in the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference.
One of those van drivers was Jody Wise, the winningest volleyball coach in FHSU history with 546 victories. Even while road trips could be challenging back then, Wise maintains that the female athletes were always “treated pretty fairly at Fort Hays State.”
“Fort Hays State had such nice facilities, even back then,” said Wise, who coached at FHSU from 1978-95. “With the four Cunningham Hall gyms down the hallway from the main arena, there was always enough room to practice.”
Wise, now retired and living in California, graduated from high school in Nebraska in 1970 and went on to play three sports at the University of Nebraska-Kearney – without a single athletic scholarship dollar.
That was two years before Title IX, in the Education Amendments Act of 1972. Title IX was established to provide everyone equal access to any program or activity that receives federal financial assistance, including sports.
According to the Women’s Sports Foundation, one in 27 girls played high school sports prior to Title IX. Today, that number is two in five.
FHSU defensive specialist Madi Miller passes the ball to a teammate in a match earlier this season.
The addition of more women’s sports to the Olympics, better media coverage and the explosion of youth travel teams all have contributed to the rise of female participation in athletics.
Today, recruiting is different for all sports, both male and female. Thirty years ago, coaches put in a lot of windshield time, as well as relying on word of mouth, to recruit quality players.
Now, they can gather a lot of the players’ data electronically and communicate with them that way, too.
However, some players are still recruited in more traditional ways.
Madi contacted the FHSU volleyball coach when she graduated from Neosho Community College in 2018. Even though the Tigers’ roster was full, Madi still chose Fort Hays State to continue her education, partly because of the great reputation of the radiology program and partly because of family.
One of her grandmothers lives in Hays, the other in Victoria. Her mom, Nancy – also an FHSU grad – grew up in Hays in a family of 14 children. And a lot of Madi’s aunts, uncles and cousins live in Hays or within driving distance.
“We grew up in the Kansas City area and didn’t get to enjoy my family being around,” Madi said. “I thought, why not come out here to experience that and get a great education at the same time.”
To top it off, Madi honed her volleyball skills for a year, got acclimated to college at FHSU and made the team this season. A defensive specialist, she is in the regular rotation for the Tigers.
“I say that I’m a purebred Tiger, so I had to come to Fort Hays State,” she said, “and now I get to continue my volleyball career, too. And having so many family members around, we always have so much support at the games.”
While Madi’s parents get to enjoy a couple more years of watching their daughter compete in a college sport, they are particularly pleased with the quality of education that Fort Hays State offers.
“What it really boils down to is the education,” Jeff said. “Sure, it was nice to be able to play football past high school. But the academics were great here for me, too, and I had a lot of good, positive instructors at Fort Hays State. It provided me with the tools for a really good career.”
FHSU volleyball player Madi Miller, left, always has time for her dad, former Tiger football player Jeff Miller, after a match.
“It was a really good fit all the way around,” added Jeff, who grew up in nearby Victoria and, like his children, followed his dad to Fort Hays State. Marvin Miller was an assistant coach for the Tiger baseball team in the 1970s.
Jeff retired from Spring Hill High School this past summer after 31 years in the education field as a teacher, coach and administrator. Now, he has nothing holding him back from following the Tiger volleyball team.
The Millers still make their home in Spring Hill. They make the four-hour trip to Hays for most of the Tigers’ home matches, and they are able to attend a lot of their road games, too.
“It’s really handy,” Jeff said, “because a lot of the team’s opponents are closer to us here than we are to Hays. So we get to see a lot of the Tigers’ matches, both home and away.”
“But,” he added, “we always like coming back to Hays to watch. For me, there’s nothing that compares to Gross Coliseum.”
The Hays USD 489 BOE debate will take place at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 15, in Beach Schmidt Performing Arts Center on the FHSU campus.
The Hays City Commission debate will be at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 22, at Beach Schmidt.
Students from the Student Government Association, American Democracy Project, the Department of Political Science and Tiger Media Network will team up with the Hays Area Chamber of Commerce and the Docking Institute of Public Affairs to host the debates.
“We are really excited for the opportunity to host this event on campus to get students excited about local politics, and to give our community members a forum to learn more about the candidates running for these offices,” said Kaytee Wisley, legislative affairs director of SGA and organizer of the event.
The two debates will be livestreamed on Tiger Media Network’s cable stations – Eagle Communications Channel 17 and Nex-Tech Channel 102. There also will be a link for online viewing available at tigermedianet.com.
There are four positions open on the Hays USD 489 board for the Nov. 5 general election.
There are nine candidates who have entered the mix for a position on the board: Paul Adams, Jessica Ann Berg Moffitt, Cole Engel, Alex Herman, Lori Ann Hertel, Luke Oborny, Craig Pallister, Allen Park and Tammy Wellbrock.
Adams and Oborny currently serve on the board and are seeking re-election.
Three positions on the Hays City Commission will be open, with five candidates interested in filling the spots. They include Michael Berges, Ron Mellick, Mason Ruder, Ryan Rymer and Henry Schwaller.
Mellick and Schwaller currently serve on the city commission. The top two candidates will serve for four years, while the third-place vote-getter will serve for two years.
“The Hays Area Chamber of Commerce is proud to advocate for our community’s advancement,” Sarah Wasinger, president/CEO of the Chamber, said. “Providing a platform for our electorate to become engaged and informed on issues impacting the Hays City Commission and local school boards is crucial for the future of Ellis County. The Hays Chamber is honored to partner with Tiger Media Network, the Docking Institute, Student Government Association, FHSU Department of Political Science and the American Democracy Project to bring this forum to our community.”
Candidates at both debates will answer questions from the moderators. Audience members also will have a chance to ask questions. Questions also can be posed through social media such as Facebook and Twitter.
The events are free and open to the general public.
For more information about the debates, contact Wisley at 785-628-5311 or email [email protected].
KANSAS CITY, Kan. (AP) — A suspect in a Kansas bar shooting that left four dead and five wounded remains on the lam, and authorities are urging witnesses to come forward amid the ongoing manhunt .
Police continued searching Thursday for 29-year-old Hugo Villanueva-Morales, more than four days after gunfire erupted early Sunday at the Tequila KC bar in Kansas City, Kansas. Villanueva-Morales and 23-year-old Javier Alatorre are charged with four counts of first-degree murder. Alatorre was arrested hours after the shooting at a home in Kansas City, Missouri.
Alatorre had his first court appearance Thursday in Wyandotte County District Court in Kansas to hear the charges against him, and another hearing was set for Oct. 15. The court clerk’s office said he does not yet have an attorney.
Officer Thomas Tomasic says officers don’t know whether Villanueva-Morales has left the area. He says police are at a “slow point right now as far as information.” Police want to talk to any witnesses who were in the bar but left before officers arrived.
The Eagle Radio Auction is right around the corner.
The popular event, which can be heard live on KAYS 94.3 FM/1400 AM and KKQY 101.9 FM, is scheduled for Thursday, Oct. 17, and Friday, Oct. 18, beginning at 8 a.m. each day.
For details or to take a look at the items on the block, click HERE.
Jeffry Allen Eller, age 60, lost his battle to Frontotemporal Dementia on October 7, 2019, at The Bay of Burlington Health and Rehabilitation Center, Burlington Wisconsin.
