ENGLEWOOD, Colo. (AP) – Pat Bowlen, the Denver Broncos owner who transformed the team from also-rans into NFL champions and helped the league usher in billion-dollar TV deals, has died. He was 75.
In a statement on the team’s website, Bowlen’s family says he died late Thursday night at home surrounded by loved ones. The statement did not specify a cause of death. Bowlen had battled Alzheimer’s for several years.
Bowlen, elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame this year, was the first owner in NFL history to have his team win 300 games – including playoffs – in three decades. He had as many Super Bowl appearances (seven) as losing seasons, and the Broncos had a 354-240-1 record since he bought the team in 1984.
HAYS – Jarrod Belbin hit a two-run home run to highlight the Hays Larks six-run first inning as they cruised to a 14-5 win over the Park City Rangers in the first game of their four-game series at Larks Park Thursday night.
Drake Angeron, Max McGuire and Justin Lee all had two hit games as the Larks scored in double-figures for the fifth straight game and ran their winning streak to nine games.
Mason Mahre allowed five runs on four hits with seven walks and three strikeouts over 5 2/3 innings for the win.
Game two of the series is Friday night. It’s First Responders night with free admission courtesy of Nex-Tech Wireless, Lodge 48 of the Fraternal Order of Police and the Hays Firefighters Local 2119.
In third grade, Hays native Chuck Schmidt turned in a writing assignment and the teacher was so impressed he was told he could be an author someday.
After 33 years in education working as a teacher, coach, principal and superintendent, that day has finally come.
Schmidt recently published his first book “Tales from School: You Can’t Make This Sh*t Up!” and is currently promoting his work that shares his experiences in the classroom and as an administrator.
“This book has been a real labor of love,” Schmidt said. “I have been thinking about writing a book about my experiences for a long time, but never had the time to do it until I finally retired.”
The book is a chronological narrative recounting of many of his experiences throughout his career.
“I have had so many tremendous experiences good, bad, indifferent, funny, sad, tragic, whatever, I thought I ought to record this,” he said.
Schmidt hopes the book will be helpful to teachers and administrators entering the field of education.
“A lot of stories that I think would be really helpful to new teachers and new administrators, to see the things that I ran into and how I handled them,” Schmidt said. “Sometimes they can learn from my mistakes, and sometimes they can learn from my successes.”
While the book recounts stories from Schmidt’s career, he said it is not about him, but rather what he has learned over the years.
“It is not necessarily an account about my career, but it takes the experiences I have had in all of the different positions I have been in in education and then talks about the stories and experiences and some of the lessons you can get in that,” Schmidt said. “A lot of it is stories about some of what I see as successes where I might have contributed, some places where I have made mistakes and things did not turn out so well.”
Schmidt
The book runs the gamut of his career, covering his time as a coach, extracurricular activities, humorous recollections of interactions with students, challenging students, and his time returning as a sixth-grade social studies teacher after years of serving as a superintendent.
“I spent my last 14 years as a superintendent in two different places, and then after I retired as superintendent my successor called me in August and said, ‘Hey would you teach sixth-grade social studies because we can’t find a teacher?’ ” Schmidt said.
So he returned to the classroom after 22 years.
“It was at the same time, a terrifying and a gratifying and a heartwarming experience all at the same time.”
Returning to the classroom allowed Schmidt to compare teaching from the beginning of his career in 1972 to today, giving him valuable insights into how much has changed in the classroom.
Despite changes in technology, funding and administration, Schmidt said the importance of relationships with students remains crucial.
“In order to be a successful teacher or administrator, you have got to establish relationships with kids, you have got to show them that you care,” he said. “I think what I have seen in my career is that is even more important now.
“I think kids are smarter today than when I first started teaching, but they don’t know what to do with it because they don’t get as much guidance,” Schmidt said, noting several tough situations he observed with his students in recent years.
“That’s where a teacher becomes even more crucial today.”
Amazon publishing platform gives Schmidt outlet to share experiences
As any author knows, writing a book is only the first step in a long process of getting it into readers’ hands.
Schmidt shopped his manuscript around before deciding to self-publish on the Amazon publishing platform.
“They have a pretty good process,” he said.
But before you get to that point you have to have an editor, he said, and he found one for his book using an online service that connected him with a professor of English at Southern Arkansas University.
Layout and design of the cover was completed with the help of a Wichita cover artist who Schmidt met during a panel on self-publishing.
The artist had some help, though, as Schmidt’s 12-year-old granddaughter mocked up the cover idea that the artist used to make the final cover.
“It’s her concept,” Schmidt said.
With the book ready, Schmidt is now working on getting the word out and hoping new or future educators can value his insights from 33 years of education.
He has already hosted book-signing events in Independence and Topeka and was featured in the Topeka Capital-Journal.
He is also pushing the book through social media and in areas where he taught, with a Hays event to be scheduled soon.
Schmidt said he is also contacting schools of education in Kansas, with the hope that future educators may read it and use his stories as they embark on their own careers.
While completing his bachelor’s degree in secondary education at the University of Kansas in 1972, Schmidt said he remembers a first-hand experience of a teacher and found it to be more helpful than any textbook and hopes his book may be as helpful to new educators.
Time at Thomas More Prep-Marian shapes life in education
Schmidt credits much of his success, and the success of many others to Thomas More Prep-Marian, 1701 Hall.
“I had some great teachers, both in grade school and at Thomas More, which was St. Joseph’s Military Academy at the time,” Schmidt said.
One teacher stuck out to Schmidt as having a particular impact on his life and career; freshman English teacher James Traffas.
“He opened my mind,” Schmidt said. “I was just a farm kid from western Kansas at he started us reading Great Expectations and we read the Bronte sisters books and all of that stuff which was completely foreign to the life I had.”
“It opened my eyes and mind to the world.”
His class sparked Schmidt’s interest in education, but in general, he credits TMP with creating many notable alumni.
He noted several school superintendents attended the school as did former Kansas Gov. Jeff Colyer, author and journalist John L. Allen Jr., and executive Washington editor for The Wall Street Journal Gerald Seib.
“They challenged us so much. They challenged us to reach our potential,” Schmidt said.
Those challenges in turned pushed Schmidt to drive his own students, several of which are now superintendents as well.
“I think there was an atmosphere of striving to be the best you possibly can and we a lot of kids that went on and did that,” Schmidt said. “For me, that came from my teachers in grade school and high school.”
The culture that shaped Schmidt at TMP stuck with him and over the years he dreamt of coming back to Hays to serve as the principal and president at TMP, but as he moved through his career and accepted other challenges and opportunities kept his dream never came to pass.
Students success reward enough for former educator and author
Without a doubt, Schmidt cares deeply for education and for his students, and the biggest reward he could seek is the knowledge that his teaching had a positive impact on someone’s life.
He recalled recently one of his students from the early 1970s saw the book announcement and texted him telling him he was one of his best teachers and thanked him for what he had done.
“That’s enough to take care of me for the next couple of years,” Schmidt said. “Sometimes you don’t even realize how you are helping them. That’s the reward.”
You are never going to get rich as an educator he said, but “the richness comes from the knowledge that you have helped people in their lives and helped them to be successful in some way.”
“When you hear those things, there is nothing better, nothing better than that.”
Technology is a tool to create better-educated students
When Schmidt began his career as a teacher in Topeka during the 1972 school year, technology in the classroom as we know it was in it infancy, but Schmidt embraced new tools and valued their ability to assist teachers in their classrooms.
Early in his career, he recalled sending letters around the world in order to collect stories to share with students about life around the globe first-hand.
Embracing the internet as a tool for learning, during his last year of teaching pulled up a live stream of people climbing Mount Everest.
“That could sear into their memory the height and the magnificence of the mountain,” he said.
The embracing of technology in the classroom has gone through ups and downs, Schmidt said, but he sees the value of integrating technology to enhance student learning.
“I think for a long time it became a fad, and then we finally figured out that technology is just a tool to help us think better, to help us find information and then we still have to use our brains to analyze it.”
“I think we have gotten more sophisticated now to use it when we need it to quickly find information.”
In particular, Schmidt said the value of technology in the classroom is the ability to prompt deeper discussions about a topic rather than spending time only on information gathering but warns technology can also be a detriment if not monitored.
“We have to be careful how we use it in schools, a lot of schools ban smartphones in the classroom and there is a good reason for that,” Schmidt said. “Kids will get on there and they will be texting and not paying attention, But there is also a lot of great use of those smartphones as well. If you can regulate and get those students to use them well, it’s a great tool.”
The information available to students with access to the internet is so vast Schmidt believes teachers now need to shift their lessons to demonstrate how to filter information, rather than how to collect it.
“I think kids are smarter than they ever were today because they are exposed to so much information, the key now is we have to teach them how to use that information, and what to do with it,” he said.
Good facilities facilitate good education
A significant part of the job of school administration is maintaining facilities, and with 20 years of administration experience, Schmidt has seen a wide range of buildings in various states of need, dedicating a chapter of the book to facilities and bond issues.
“It’s not the major thing and it’s not the only thing, but it is an important part of it,” Schmidt said. “Kids have to be comfortable, they need to take pride in their facilities. You lose something if you are teaching in an old dump.
“You still have to have the basic things in your facilities, and you have got to be modern and you have got to prepare kids for the world they will be coming into and if you are in building that you haven’t done anything to in 100 years you’re not going to be able to do that. Technology is one of the big things, technology is something that was not considered in very old buildings, and they need to be upgraded.”
Preparing for the bond issues, Schmidt said he learned a lot of valuable lessons, not just about facilities, but also about leadership.
“I did some things wrong on the first one,” he said. “The second one, I hold up as an example of the best democracy in action I have ever seen.”
During his second bond issue, it was presented three times, all three for around $20 million.
All three failed.
On the fourth one, a community group was brought together, and they came up with a 45 million bond issue.
“I was stunned,” Schmidt said. “‘I said ‘What the hell makes you think we can pass 45? We can’t even pass 19.’ ”
But the community push, succeeded with 58 percent voting yes.
“It was an amazing process,” Schmidt said.
He shared those lessons with Leadership Kansas on how to build a consensus.
Generally, Schmidt hopes people stop to learn about the facilities in the districts and they come to understand their importance.
“We had the people that said ‘It was good enough for me back then, it’s good enough for them today.’ Well, that’s short sighted,” he said.
He recalled during his bond issues others told him it’s not the building that makes the education, teachers do.
“All of those have some element of truth in them, but they are not the whole story,” he said.
Finding educators harder during far-right leadership in Kansas
He believes many of the difficulties finding high-quality teachers in Kansas lays squarely on the shoulders of Republican leadership in Kansas that frequently attacked education in the state.
Schmidt said it is getting harder and harder to find teachers.
“When Sam Brownback came in and the far right leadership of the legislature, they started attacking education, they started with attacking administrators, saying we get paid too much, and we don’t do enough and there is too many of us, then they even started attacking teachers.”
He said the trend has continued causing many to abandon their hopes of becoming teachers knowing they will get attacked and paid at a lower level than similarly educated professionals.
“That’s reflected right now in our low numbers in lower numbers in our schools of education,” Schmidt said.
But he believes the current Kansas governor is pro-education and has hopes the trend may start to reverse, but without higher pay, it will still be challenging to find teachers.
“We have got to raise that pay,” Schmidt said. “I think what we have got to do is continue to try and explain to people why it is important and why we need to fund it.”
Unlike many other professions, no matter what technology comes along Schmidt said the problem is education is a people-intensive business and leaders must recognize the value of good teachers in Kansas schools.
“We have got to have political leaders who talk about the value of education and recognize the outstanding teachers that are out there,” Schmidt said.
And he knows both sides of the pay issue — as a superintendent he often had to negotiate pay with teachers to make a budget, noting the teachers were not always happy, but he always did what he could.
“The bottom line is that it pays off if we have an educated population we do better as a state, everybody does better,” Schmidt said.
Kansas, he said, has always been a leader in education until that last decade, corresponding with the attacks on education, and that was an attraction for people to come to Kansas.
“All of that has come together and pulled us done where we are not in the top 10 anymore.”
Jessica Moffitt, a health educator, said she wants to give a voice to members of the community she does not believe are being heard.
She has filed for election to the Hays USD 489 school board.
Moffitt, 29, joins a field of eight other candidates for four open positions on the board, including incumbents Paul Adams and Luke Oborny and newcomers Craig Pallister, Lori Hertel, Tammy Wellbrock, Alex Herman, Allen Park and Cole Engel.
Moffitt also is the owner of Prospectively Healthy and is store manager for American Shaman in Hays.
“One of the transitions I have been making for my company is to do a little bit more online classes,” Moffitt said, “but with that being said, really I wanted to have an impact in the community for education, specifically with the younger population, which is my favorite group to work with in terms of age demographic.
“I thought it would be a good combination to combine my education background with expanding USD 489’s goals and accomplishments for the next four years.”
Moffitt outlined several goals if she was elected to the school board.
“I think some of the most heartfelt reasons that I was motivated to run for the board include advocating for the community. I think there are a lot of unspoken voices that really need to be heard. I would like to help those people do so. [I would like to] serve as a resource for the community to let them know that the board of education wants to know what they are doing and wants to hear their ideas,” she said.
“And then ultimately my goal over the next four years would be to find a solution for improving, for example, the heating systems in the schools with the bond, but a solution that still works for everyone in our community, as well.”
The Hays school district has had two failed bonds in the last three years — in 2016 and 2017.
Moffitt said she supported both of those past bonds.
“I know there needs to be a solution that is both feasible for everyone in our community on a financial basis, but also feasible for the school district,” she said. “And it is going to have to be a compromise on both sides. The only way to find that compromise is for both parties to really be able to objectively look at both sides of the story.
“That’s my goal — to help each side hear the other person and understand the other person’s point of view in hopes that we perhaps can find a compromise in between.”
The board keeps coming back to three projects for a next bond election attempt, although it has not taken a vote on the matter. These projects include finishing HVAC upgrades to the Hays High School, expanding the cafeteria at Hays Middle School and expanding and renovating Roosevelt Elementary School.
Moffitt said she was extremely alarmed about reports from friends and family that schools have gone without heat because of problems with HVAC systems. She said the cafeteria issue is also on her mind with her nutrition background.
The Hays school board reached impasse with its teachers last year during negotiations.
“With a fresh and open perspective on the school board, hopefully, we’ll find that solution as a team,” she said of teacher relations. “I don’t necessarily know there is one right or wrong answer, but I think, at this point, we are at a little bit of a stalemate with frustration, and hopefully that fresh view might find the solution they are looking for.”
In recent years, the board has been divided on the types of devices to purchase for its one-to-one computer program for students.
“I think any technological advancements in the school districts have to be supportive of keeping people in our community,” Moffitt said, “so if improving technology is what we need to do to keep our younger generation in Hays, then it is definitely a priority, but I do think nutrition, class size, teacher satisfaction and HVAC are significantly higher on the list at the moment.”
“My dream goal would be to create an environment where all four parties are 100 percent happy,” she said. “The children are in the best possible environment for learning. The teachers are feeling rewarded and appreciated for the amount of work they put in. The district is financially and goal supported and the community feels like it is making an impact without being burdened. If we can find that happy medium for all, that would be a good start.”
Moffitt lives in Hays with her husband. She is an active Hays Area Chamber of Commerce member and a committee chairwoman for Hays Area Young Professionals. She volunteers frequently in the community through HAYP.
She teaches health education classes through the Hays Recreation Center, Hays Public Library and other entities. She has a bachelor’s of science degree in public health from Portland State University with an emphasis in physical activity and exercise. She has a certification as a health education specialist.
“I feel I have a well-rounded knowledge of different groups in town and different ways we can all work together to help [the district] succeed,” she said. “While USD 489 is an extremely successful district with some absolutely amazing teachers, there is always 5 percent more that we can find. Rather than focusing on the negatives, I really want to help everyone focus on the positives and everyone pushing just a little bit more ultimately to be able to keep people in the community who prioritize education hopefully as much as I do.”
HaysMed, part of The University of Kansas Health System, will hold a career event on Tuesday.
The come-and-go event will be from 3 to 6 p.m. in the Hadley Rooms at HaysMed, 2220 Canterbury, Entrance C. Simultaneous events will be held at the MOB Conference, 3717 Sixth, Great Bend and the St. Joseph meeting room at the Pawnee Valley Campus, 923 Carroll Ave., Larned.
At all locations, representatives from nursing, support services, and clerical areas will be available to speak to job seekers and assist with the application process the day of the event.
Rep. Barb Wasinger, R-Hays, and Sen. Rick Billinger, R-Goodland, touted contributions to KPERS as they gave recaps Thursday night to the Hays City Commission on the spring legislative session.
“This year I think the big thing was that we started funding KPERS properly again,” Wasinger said. “We put $115 million in late payments in and also was able to overturn the governor’s veto on this year’s payment of $51 million.
Rep. Barb Wasinger, R-Hays, gives a legislative recap to the Hays City Commission Thursday night.
“We are really proud that we are taking care of our teachers, we are taking care of our state employees. We still have a long way to go, but we are working on that. It was good to avoid reamortization of KPERS, which would have cost the state another $7.5 million to extend it with interest. We thought that was poor fiscal policy.”
Billinger said on KPERS, “In eight years, I think we have come a long, long way. We are above 60%. I think we are at the upper part of 60%. I think totally over the last five years we have put $5.1 billion in KPERS. We have taken it seriously. Pass that on to your city employees. When they make their contribution, I feel the state needs to make theirs.”
Wasinger said the state legislators could not override a veto from the govern on legislation to allow taxpayers who did not itemize their federal tax returns to itemize their state tax returns. When the the federal government, increased the standard deduction, that meant some Kansans could no longer get tax breaks for items such as mortgage interest and medical payments.
Both Wasinger and Billinger said they were pleased to report less money was taken from the Kansas Department of Transportation budget than in years past, but money was still swept for the general fund.
“We are trying to stop that and we stopped some of that transfer and put money back in to try to finish the T-WORKS that were so vital to particularly rural areas,” Wasinger said.
About $60 million was not transferred this year, but $200 million was swept for the general fund, Billinger said.
Sen. Rick Billinger, R-Goodland, gives a legislative recap to the Hays City Commission Thursday night.
Billinger was on the state Transportation Task Force. He said he hoped he could help the city in addressing the bypass and Northwest Business Corridor.
“I was very impressed with the businesses going in out there and the opportunities, and I think it would be a great asset to Ellis County and the City of Hays to get that in. I want to push to make sure the state is involved in this and help all we can financially and any other way,” Billinger said of the Northwest Business Corridor.
Billinger also said he was pleased to hear the city is making progress on the R9 Ranch water project.
The budget also targeted about $35 million additional funds for the Department of Corrections to try deal with issues at the state’s prisons. Billinger briefly addressed the state’s challenge of treating patients in the state prison system with Hepatitis C. The state allocated $1.5 million for the coming year for treatment, but that will only cover about 100 of the estimated 700 to 800 patients in the system.
The Legislature also designated more funding for the Department of Children and Families. However, children are again sleeping on office floors. Wasinger said she thinks more needs to be done to loosen restrictions on potential foster parents and their homes so more children can be placed in the community.
“Our children are our future,” she said. “If we let our children down, we won’t have a good future in Kansas. We won’t have as wonderful as leader as we have now with all of you.”
City Commissioner Sandy Jacobs said she was appreciative of the attention DCF is getting, but the situation for kids in state custody is still dire.
“That is what I think about at night,” she said. “I know people who are applying to be foster parents right now, but they are having a very difficult time meeting some of the standards. I don’t think it should have no standards, but I think it should be looked at very carefully. When you have good, solid families, I think we should look at what is stopping that, because there are some really good families who are struggling to be appointed.”
Mayor Henry Schwaller said, “They started making the program much more difficult for people who just really love children and are capable and have been through the training and have a good home to get into it because they had to meet all of these other kind of whacky requirements that had nothing to do with it.”
About 7,000 children are currently in foster care system.
Billinger also noted the Legislature will have an interim committee on Medicaid expansion.
“I personally think if we are going to help rural hospitals, which is one of the things you hear about, I think an enhanced reimbursement for rural hospitals is something we should talk about,” Billinger said. “I think there should be a work requirement because we are not talking about a single mom or people who are disabled. We are talking about people who can work.”
Other business
The commission voted to make changes to its purchasing policy. Revisions include adjustment of purchasing limits, removal of references to a purchasing agent, addition of contractual provision language, the addition of a service calls section, and codification of the current process to purchase vehicles and large pieces of equipment from government contracts.
The city is testing new rock for the alleys. City Manager Toby Dougherty said the crushed concrete and limestone the city now uses is not lasting very long. If the new rock works well, the city may invest in expanding the program.
He also said work on the roadway for 41st Street will start soon. Work on 43rd Street should be finished by the end of the month. Water line and road work also continues on sections of Ash, Elm and Fourth streets.
Sometimes I wonder how long we will be talking about fixing the problems that Sam Brownback left Kansas. Our latest Brownback heartburn is prisons. The news that Kansas officials are considering sending inmates to a private prison in Arizona has generated understandable controversy.
Patrick R. Miller is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Kansas.
Bluntly, the Brownback Administration gutted the Kansas prison system, the legislature often enabled him, and Kansas now faces a desperate situation with no easy or cheap solution.
The Kansas press has well documented the problems in Kansas prisons: hundreds of vacant positions for corrections officers, mandatory overtime for overwhelmed and underappreciated employees, overcrowding, conditions that jeopardize prisoner health, and prison riots.
Since assuming office, Governor Laura Kelly has repeatedly used the term “triage” to describe her approach to the Brownback policy legacy. That decently describes using private prisons as an imperfect short-term option to address a gigantic mess that cannot be fixed overnight.
Part of what makes the private prison option unappealing is the company that it forces Kansas to keep—CoreCivic, formerly Corrections Corporation of America (CCA).
Locally, CoreCivic has been accused of violating wiretap laws at the Leavenworth Detention Center, and has been a central player in the Lansing prison controversy. Its facilities elsewhere have attracted media attention for inmate abuse, understaffing, and poor management. Yet, there are few options for desperate states like Kansas with overcrowded prisons since media reports estimate that CoreCivic and its competitor GEO Group hold roughly 80 percent of the national private prison market.
CoreCivic is also no stranger to Kansas politics. It and GEO Group are generous campaign donors. In 2018, CoreCivic hedged its bets, donating $2,000 to Kris Kobach and $1,000 to Kelly, even though she had publicly criticized the company. Other Kansas politicians accepting private prison campaign money include Jerry Moran, Pat Roberts, Kevin Yoder, Vicki Schmidt, Derek Schmidt, Kathleen Sebelius, and various state legislators.
But the private prison industry’s favorite Kansas politician has been Brownback, who left Kansas a prison crisis as a parting gift. He accepted campaign money from Prison Health Services, Inc., whose post-merger successor Corizon holds a state contract for health care in Kansas prisons and retains Brownback’s former chief-of-staff as its lobbyist. Kansas officials have penalized Corizon for performance failures.
The Kansas Governmental Ethics Commission reports that Brownback’s gubernatorial account took $4,000 from CCA and $7,000 from its CEO. This close relationship made even one Republican legislator publicly imply impropriety in rewarding the company the Lansing prison contract given the revolving door of Brownback staffers subsequently hired as lobbyists by the company up to present day.
The ironic twist here is how Kansas legislative leaders have now decided to insert themselves into prison policy, clutching their proverbial pearls at how the Kelly Administration is handling matters. Many of these same leaders took a mostly hands-off approach to legislative oversight under their ally Brownback, never effectively checking how his administration managed the prison system while defending the Brownback tax policies that starved that system.
Fortunately, some progress was made this year on increasing corrections funding. But the system’s problems remain, and Kansas cannot solve these problems long-term with band-aids like outsourcing prisoners to private prison companies whose political and business practices fuel every worst fear about that industry.
Long-term progress on prisons requires genuine bipartisan commitment from policymakers, something that was lacking under Brownback. It requires a legislature that truly care about the problem, and not a legislature that suddenly cares just because a Democrat is governor. It took years to torch this system, and it will take years and more unattractive short-term remedies to fix it.
Patrick R. Miller is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Kansas.
The Hays Larks Baseball Association is hosting the eighth annual First Responders Night at Larks Park at 7 p.m. Friday.
Everyone is invited to attend the game to help pay tribute to law enforcement officers, firefighters, paramedics and all first responders for their commitment and contributions to the community.The Hays Larks will play the Park City Rangers, and admission is free. The game is sponsored by Nex-Tech Wireless, Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 48 and Hays Firefighters Local 2119.
All first responders are encouraged to attend the Larks baseball game with their families.
SHAWNEE COUNTY —Law enforcement authorities are investigating a shooting and have a suspect in custody.
Rowzer -photo Shawnee Co.
Just after 4 p.m. Thursday, police responded to 1611 SE 29th Street in Topeka after report of a fight and possible shooting, according to Lt. Robert Simmons. Officers arrived in the area but learned the individuals from the fight had left in vehicles.
A short time later 23-year-old Daven Eufemio Runyan arrived at an area hospital with a non-life threatening gunshot wound.
Investigators learned he was the victim from the disturbance and that the shooter was a
known acquaintance, according to Simmons. Just after 6p.m, Officers arrested Kathalena
Jean Rowzer, 23, Topeka, and booked her into the Shawnee County Department of
Corrections on requested charges of Aggravated Battery.
Friday A slight chance of showers and thunderstorms before 7am, then a slight chance of showers and thunderstorms after 4pm. Mostly sunny, with a high near 89. South wind 15 to 18 mph, with gusts as high as 28 mph. Chance of precipitation is 20%.
Friday Night A 50 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms, mainly between 7pm and 1am. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 61. South wind 6 to 11 mph becoming light southwest after midnight.
SaturdayA 20 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms after 1pm. Mostly sunny, with a high near 87. Calm wind becoming north 5 to 7 mph in the morning.
Saturday NightA 40 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 62. North wind 3 to 6 mph.
SundayA 30 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms after 1pm. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 82.
ENGLEWOOD, Colo. (AP) — Pat Bowlen, the Denver Broncos owner who transformed the team from also-rans into NFL champions and helped the league usher in billion-dollar television deals, died late Thursday night, just under two months before his enshrinement in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. He was 75.
In a statement posted on the Broncos’ website, Bowlen’s family said he died peacefully at home surrounded by loved ones. They did not specify a cause of death. Bowlen had battled Alzheimer’s for several years.
Bowlen was the first owner in NFL history to oversee a team that won 300 games — including playoffs — in three decades. He had as many Super Bowl appearances (seven) as losing seasons, and Denver is 354-240-1 since he bought the club in 1984.
Under his stewardship, the Broncos won Super Bowls in 1998, ’99 and 2016.
Following their 31-24 victory over Green Bay for the franchise’s first championship, Bowlen famously hollered, “This one’s for John!” Hall of Fame quarterback John Elway called it the greatest moment of his playing career.
Elway the executive returned the favor on Feb. 7, 2016, when he jabbed the silver Lombardi Trophy into the sky after Denver’s 24-10 win over Carolina in Super Bowl 50 and declared, “This one’s for Pat.”
That came 18 months after Alzheimer’s forced Bowlen to step down from his daily duties running the team.
“I’m just glad I had the opportunity,” Elway told The Associated Press in the victorious locker room that night. “I didn’t want to think about it too much because I didn’t want to jinx anything. But I was waiting for the day that I was able to do that. So, I was glad and really thrilled that I was able to do that and we’ll take that trophy over to Pat next week and let him cherish it.”
Elway delivered the prize to Bowlen’s home back in Denver. And in the Mile High City, more than a million fans packed downtown for a victory parade 17 years after Elway capped his remarkable playing career by leading the Broncos to back-to-back titles.
Super Bowl 50 was the Broncos’ eighth trip to the big game, seven under Bowlen’s watch, and all of those with Elway’s help — first as his QB and then as his GM.
Bowlen’s wife, Annabel, who recently announced that she, too, is battling Alzheimer’s, and their children were on hand to accept the Lombardi Trophy on his behalf in Santa Clara, California.
“His soul will live on through the Broncos, the city of Denver and all of our fans,” Bowlen’s family said in their statement Thursday night. “Heaven got a little bit more orange and blue tonight.”
During his 35 seasons as owner, Bowlen’s teams compiled a .596 winning percentage — tied for second-best in the NFL during that span. Among professional franchises in the four major North American sports, only the San Antonio Spurs, New England Patriots and Los Angeles Lakers were better, according to the Broncos.
Bowlen relished working behind the scenes and shied away from the spotlight. In the words of former coach Mike Shanahan, “Pat just wanted to be one of the guys.”
“That’s why I think he was so beloved by so many people, including myself,” Shanahan said. “And you also knew that he would give anything to make your football team better or at least get a chance at the Super Bowl. At that time you would say every ounce that he had — I should say every penny he had — he wanted to go into giving the football team a Super Bowl. That was his No. 1 priority. That was it. It was not trying to buy different companies and trying to make more money. His goal was winning a Super Bowl.”
Former Broncos coach Gary Kubiak said: “Most guys would tell you that played for him or worked for him that he was not only our owner, but he was your friend.”
Bowlen served as a sounding board for NFL Commissioners Pete Rozelle, Paul Tagliabue and Roger Goodell. He was crucial to the league’s growth as a member of 15 NFL committees, including co-chairing the NFL Management Council and working on network TV contracts, including the league’s ground-breaking $18 billion deal in 1998.
“Pat was the driving force in establishing the championship culture of the Broncos. He was also an extraordinary leader at the league level during a key period,” Broncos President and CEO Joe Ellis said in a statement. “With the fans, Pat felt in many ways that his team belonged to them and approached things with that in mind. There will never be another owner like Pat Bowlen.”
Bowlen had a deep appreciation for his players, whether or not they were stars, and it’s not unusual to see ex-Broncos watching practice.
“When I retired, Mr. B. told me I was welcome anytime at team headquarters,” said Hall of Fame tight end Shannon Sharpe. “He said I didn’t need a pass, either: ‘Your face is your credential.'”
Ownership of the franchise is held in a trust Bowlen set up more than a decade ago in hopes one of his seven children will one day run the team. Until then, Ellis, one of three trustees, is doing so in a “What would Pat do?” sort of way.
Although daughter Brittany is hoping to one day take over the team, the succession plan and the trustees’ oversight of Bowlen’s estate has been challenged in state district court in the last year by some members of the Bowlen family.
Those who worked for Bowlen remember a man who put production ahead of profits; trained tirelessly for triathlons; fostered a winning atmosphere from the lobby to the locker room; and was always quick with a compliment and sure to couch his criticism.
“Pat Bowlen was the heart and soul of the Denver Broncos,” Ellis said. “Not only was Pat a Hall of Fame owner — he was a Hall of Fame person.”
Bowlen flashed his competitive streak whether on the road conducting league business, on the sideline watching his team or on the StairMaster drenched in sweat.
It was evident in his dislike for Peyton Manning when the quarterback played for Indianapolis before joining the Broncos in 2012.
“I get it, and I respect that,” Manning said, adding that Bowlen flew back to Denver from his offseason home in Hawaii to welcome him when he signed with the Broncos, and they were friends afterward.
“If there was a way for him to compete against what he’s going through,” former defensive end Alfred Williams said a couple of summers ago, “he’d beat that damn disease every time.”
Bowlen is survived by his wife, Annabel, and seven children: Amie, Beth, Patrick, Johnny, Brittany, Annabel and Christianna.
OMAHA, Neb. (AP) – Nicky Lopez hit his first major league homer in the stadium where he played college ball, Homer Bailey allowed two hits in six shutout innings and the Kansas City Royals beat the Detroit Tigers 7-3 Thursday night in the first big league regular season game played in Nebraska.
The Royals won two of three over the Tigers for their first series win since April 12-14 against Cleveland.
The game at TD Ameritrade Park coincided with the buildup to the College World Series, which begins Saturday. All eight CWS teams were among the sellout crowd of 25,454 and participated in a pregame ceremony with the major league teams.
Lopez played at Creighton University, whose campus is six blocks away, and hit just one home run in 75 games at TD Ameritrade from 2014-16. The rookie infielder returned to Omaha 8 for 61 in his previous 15 games and sat out Wednesday’s game in Kansas City before going 2 for 4.
In his first trip to the plate, he lined Matthew Boyd’s 1-1 pitch into the right field bullpen leading off the third inning. Martin Maldonado followed with a double and came home when Boyd was called for a balk.
The Royals tacked on three runs in the fourth and one each the next two innings on their way to their highest run total since May 29. They had scored a total of eight runs over their previous four games.
Bailey (5-6) gave up a pair of singles, walked three, hit a batter and struck out six before Jorge Lopez came on to start the seventh. Dawel Lugo tripled past diving right fielder Whit Merrifield and scored on a groundout for the Tigers’ first run.
Boyd (5-5), who pitched for Oregon State in the 2013 CWS and threw a four-hit shutout against Indiana, lasted four innings in his shortest outing in six starts.
Merrifield doubled twice and drove in two in his return to Omaha. He was the hero of South Carolina’s 2010 national championship team, singling in the winning run against UCLA in the deciding game of the CWS finals in the last game played at Rosenblatt Stadium.
TRAINING ROOM
Tigers: SS Niko Goodrum returned to the lineup after missing one game after fouling a ball off his kneecap Tuesday. … Casey Mize, the No. 1 overall pick of the 2018 draft, left his Thursday start for Double-A Erie after 2 1/3 innings with right shoulder soreness, vice president of player development Dave Littlefield said.
Royals: 1B Lucas Duda (back) was reinstated from the injured list after missing 42 games. He hit .286 with a homer and three doubles in his 12-game rehab assignment at Omaha. …. LF Alex Gordon, who grew up 50 miles away in Lincoln and played for Nebraska, was out of the lineup with a shoulder bruise, the result of getting hit by a pitch Wednesday. … 3B Hunter Dozier (thorax) will take batting practice on the field Friday and is getting closer to returning, manager Ned Yost said.
UP NEXT
RHP Brad Keller (3-8, 4.29 ERA) is scheduled to start Friday night when the Royals open a six-game road trip at Minnesota. LHP Ryan Carpenter (1-3, 7.89) will start the Tigers’ opener of a three-game home weekend set against Cleveland.
LARNED – The TMP-Marian Monarchs 17U baseball team was held to seven hits and four runs Thursday and was swept by Larned, 6-4 and 4-0.
The Monarchs (3-7) committed four errors in the first game which was tied 3-3 heading to the bottom of the fifth inning when Larned scored twice then added another run in the sixth. Carter Newell gave up three unearned runs over the final 2 2/3 innings and takes the loss.
The Monarchs fell behind 4-0 after one in the second game and were held to four singles, two of them from Kade Harris.
The Monarchs travel to Kinsley for a doubleheader Monday.
By JAMES BELL
