By BECKY KISER
Hays Post

Designing a strategic plan for the future of Ellis County drew the biggest interest and group during Tuesday night’s meeting of the Strategic Doing Re-Start for Ellis County.

Volunteers gathered at the Rose Garden Banquet Hall in Hays to winnow down the number of project ideas for community improvements generated at a meeting last month.

As attendees enjoyed bierocks and green bean dumpling soup, facilitator Betty Johnson, Lawrence, polled the group for their top topics. Many of the people had been at the first meeting and others were there for the first time.

The voting yielded eight more areas of interest.

• More after-school activities for middle and high school students
• Decreased domestic violence and human trafficking
• Increased volunteerism in Ellis County
• Reaching out with help and understanding of mental health and anxiety
• More childcare providers
• Improved cultural diversity
• A multi-generational center
• Mentoring young entrepreneurs.

The nine groups spent more than two hours talking about what they could do. Discussions began with broad suggestions and then narrowed to specific action items with deadlines.

A spokesperson from each group explained the purpose of their project and the plan to move it forward.

“Our next steps through April of 2020 is to create a visioning process,” said Henry Schwaller, referring to the Ellis County strategic plan. “It will begin with a large meeting to get as many (residents) to the table as possible to tell us what they want this community to look like over the next five years.”

A much smaller group of three people is working on providing fun hands-on STEM learning projects after school for students in sixth grade through high school.

Many students participate in sports after school, but there’s a gap in other activities, according to the group, and they want to help fill the void.

“We want to ask kids if they’d rather learn how to build a video game instead of just playing them,” said Alan Wamser. As the IT manager at HaysMed, Wamser has a vested interest in the project.

“If we can get a college intern with IT experience and bring them in, they’re the most successful,” he said.

“And kids love to make YouTube videos and podcasts,” added group member Amanda Legleiter

The career exploration opportunities would involve teaching by local IT professionals as well as students and instructors at Fort Hays State University and NCK Tech.

“It could be similar to 4-H with the older kids or students teaching the younger ones,” Legleiter said.

“With mentoring, the kids may go on to FHSU to major in computer science or graphic design,” said the group’s spokesman, Shae Veach, HaysMed vice president of regional operations. “STEM activities can lead to scholarships, empower these students with confidence and possible local careers.”

The trio also tossed around ideas for funding and sustainability of the program as well as who will be stakeholders.

The group interested in mental health issues is working on “Can We Just Talk?,” bringing together people who are willing to listen and people who need to talk about their problems.

Kansas has had a record number of domestic-related homicides, according to Shaelin Sweet, community advocate for Options, who spoke for the group wanting to curtail domestic violence and human trafficking.

“That’s not a record we want to be breaking. The ultimate goal is for domestic homicides to go down and that will happen through education of law enforcement in the community,” she said.

Hays Police Chief Don Scheibler is a member of the group.

Strategic Doing is coordinated by the Heartland Community Foundation of Ellis, Trego and Russell counties with a grant from the  Dane G. Hansen Foundation in Logan.

“I’m walking around this room and the focus in these groups is just amazing to me,” said Sandy Jacobs, HCF executive director. “We want to be all the resource to you we can. If you need help finding meeting sites, if you need help getting information out, anything you need just call our office.”

By 8:30 p.m. each table had talked through and filled out a Strategic Doing Action Pack from Purdue. The university’s Agile Strategy Lab offers training and certification in Strategic Doing.

According the to university’s website, Strategic Doing enables people to form action-oriented collaborations quickly, move them toward measurable outcomes, and make adjustments along the way.

Johnson is a certified facilitator in the Strategic Doing process.

“It’s been tried and proved. It’s used globally. We have used it in so many large, large operations as well as small,” she told the crowd. Johnson’s position is funded by the Hansen Foundation.

Erin Hughes was hired in June as a part-time assistant to Jacobs. Hughes will compile information completed by the groups. The results will be presented and project work updated at the next Strategic Doing meeting six months from now.

In the meantime, the nine groups are to meet every 30 days or so to review their progress.

Jacobs also encouraged the groups to invite other Ellis County residents to join their causes.

“If you know people that want to get involved after you begin talking about it in the community, for goodness sake, bring them into your group and get it started,” she urged.

“That’s how these things grow and win.”

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.

— TMP-M

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.