RUSSELL — The second annual Downtown Russell Market, pop-up event will take place the Saturday before Father’s Day, June 15, from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Over 1,000 spectators planned to arrive in the community for a Father’s Day Softball Tournament, and organizers are anticipating a lot of foot traffic.
The market event will take place outdoors on the bricks in Downtown Russell. We are currently searching for vendors of all categories including: collectibles, antiques, artwork, crafts, food, clothing, homemade, homegrown, and handmade. Vendors will be set up in the parking stalls between 6th and 8th street while Downtown businesses utilize the sidewalks for sales and specials.
If you are interested in joining us the cost per vendor booth is $30.00 for Non- Members and $20 for Members. Booth space is approximately 12’x15′. We ask that all booths be set-up before 8:30 am the day of the event, with set-up beginning at 7:00 am, unless prior arrangements are made. Event will take place rain or shine. Each vendor is responsible for all their own display tables, racks, tent, etc. Power is limited to food vendors only, please document on the registration form if electricity is needed, there will be an additional $10 fee for electricity. All food trucks/vendor trailers must call to make arrangements prior to registering.
Children draw planets during Astronaut Training Thursday at the Hays Public Library.
By CRISTINA JANNEY Hays Post
The new early literacy coordinator at the Hays Public Library says even before babies can talk, they can benefit from their parents reading to them.
Sara Schoenthaler, HPL early literacy coordinator, said babies learn to recognize text very early.
“Let them hold the book, and let them turn the pages,” she said. “That is so important that they know that is how a book works because when they see someone else using a book, they will know how to hold it. Eventually when they have encountered print enough, they can see it in the book and understand that ‘A’ is upside down. I need to turn the book around. Now it is right side up even if they can’t read it.”
Research has shown children who are read to as babies, toddlers and preschoolers are better prepared to enter kindergarten and perform better later in their school years.
Astronaut Training is at 11 a.m. Mondays through Fridays at the Hays Public Library.
The library is offering storytimes throughout the week for varying ages to get some of that reading time in.
Itty Bitty Book Buddies at 10 a.m. on Wednesday at HPL is a hands-on storytime designed for infants and toddlers. Children learn skills that are the building blocks for literacy. Parents can also get tips to enrich children’s early learning.
Children ages 3-5 are encouraged to attend storytime at 10 a.m. Mondays and Tuesdays. At 10 a.m. Fridays, storytime is offered in English and Spanish.
Although the library has established programs for preschoolers and older children, Schoenthaler said she is trying to schedule more programs for babies at the library.
For parents who work and can’t make storytime during the day, HPL is trying to launch a evening program called Babynauts, which is named for the space theme of the Summer Reading Program.
The library has toys especially geared for developing fine- and gross-motor skills for infants birth to about 1-1/2 (crawlers or early walkers). Each night will also feature a special sensory experience for the babies, like bubble wrap, sand or destroying gelatin to get to a toy.
Children participating in Astronaut Training at the library will learn about the moon next week.
“Babies really learn through their play and sensory,” Schoenthaler said, “so figuring out how things work by touching them and understanding different feels and sounds and different things that those objects do — that is a big learning element.”
The babies are learning early problem-solving skills and developing social skills by interacting with other children, she said.
The program has a blow-up swimming pool so the babies can use it to pull themselves up, climb, walk around or sit inside with toys off the carpet.
“I try to, especially when I am planning for babies, do a lot of physical activity because that is a big thing they need to develop, obviously” she said.
Schoenthaler envisioned the event, which is at 6:30 p.m. every Thursdays of the month, to be a time during which parents of infants can network while also spending quality time with their infants.
To date, Babynauts has had poor attendance. Schoenthaler encouraged parents to contact the library if they have interest in this program, but would prefer the program be offered at another time or on another day.
For children who are walking, ages 2 to 5, the library offers STEM Tots at 6:30 p.m. Tuesdays. The programs are 15 to 20 minutes.
A variety of STEAM-related programs will be offered at the library this summer in conjunction with the space-themed Summer Reading Program “A Universe of Stories.”
For older children, the library has a variety of STEAM-related programs set for this summer in conjunction with its space-themed Summer Reading Program “A Universe of Stories.”
Schoenthaler is coordinating Astronaut Training for children 3-11 at 11 a.m. Mondays through Fridays in the children’s department. The program was purposely scheduled right before the Summer Lunch Program, which is being offered in the Schmidt Gallery downstairs at the library starting at 11:30 a.m. Lunch is free for children 18 and younger.
This week, children learned about planets. Thursday the children drew their own planets and told stories about those planets. Schoenthaler said the activity helped the children express their creativity and build verbal skills. The children will be learning about the moon next week.
The children will be exercising on Wednesdays during Astronaut Training, just as the astronauts have to do in space to keep up their muscle tone in low gravity. Later this summer, children will participate in a solar oven demonstration and learn about telescopes.
In the long term, Schoenthaler, who is in her first summer at HPL, hopes to do an early literacy needs analysis and develop a strategic plan for early literacy at the library. The library is conducting stakeholder meetings from 1:30 to 3 p.m. and 6 to 7:30 p.m. Monday, June 10 in the Schmidt Gallery at HPL. The public is invited to either session.
You can find a complete list of library events on the HPL website.
Also follow this link to learn more on the Summer Reading program for youth and adults.
If you have question on children’s programs or would like to offer library input, you can also contact the library at 785-625-9014.
Correction 11;47 a.m. June 4, 2019: Babynauts is every Thursday at 6:30 p.m. at the library. 1,000 books before kindergarten will start this fall.
Monday A 40 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms, mainly between 3pm and 4pm. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 82. South southeast wind 8 to 15 mph.
There will be a chance for strong to severe thunderstorms across southwest Kansas late Monday afternoon and evening. #kswxpic.twitter.com/2ZIhfNo6lq
GEARY COUNTY—The Army Corps of Engineers will begin releasing 4,000 cubic feet of water per second on Monday, according to Geary County Emergency Management.
The Corps has been required to hold water at the 25 cfs low-flow level since March 12, due to the need to retain water to prevent downstream flooding. As of Sunday the lake level had exceeded 1172 feet.
KANSAS CITY – A Kansas City woman pleaded guilty in federal court Thursday to her role in conspiracy to illegally transfer ownership of firearms, according to the United State’s Attorney.
Iesha T. Boles, 43, waived her right to a grand jury and pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Greg Kays to a federal information that charges her with conspiracy to make false statements during the purchase of firearms.
By pleading guilty, Boles admitted that she made false statements regarding the purchase or transfer of six firearms between Nov. 22, 2013, and June 11, 2017. Boles admitted that she was not the actual transferee/buyer for each of the firearms, but was acquiring the firearms on behalf of another person.
According to the plea agreement, a co-conspirator purchased a Jimenez 9mm pistol on Nov. 22, 2013; a Jimenez .380-caliber pistol on Nov. 13, 2013; a Jimenez .380-caliber pistol on Nov. 22, 2013; and a Jimenez .380-caliber pistol on Dec. 10, 2013. Those four firearms were all shipped to Conceal & Carry, a federal firearms licensee in Kansas City, Mo. Ownership was transferred to Boles, who later reported the firearms were stolen. In one instance, she reported a firearm was stolen within two days after purchase.
On Nov. 14, 2013, a Jimenez 9mm pistol was transferred to the same co-conspirator, who then transferred ownership to Boles. On Oct. 27, 2016, that co-conspirator purchased a Jimenez .380-caliber pistol and transferred the firearm to Boles, who reported the firearm stolen 41 days later.
Boles admitted that, on each of those six occasions, she made a false representation to the federally licensed firearms dealer in order to complete the firearm transfer.
Under federal statutes, Boles is subject to a sentence of up to five years in federal prison without parole. The maximum statutory sentence is prescribed by Congress and is provided here for informational purposes, as the sentencing of the defendant will be determined by the court based on the advisory sentencing guidelines and other statutory factors. A sentencing hearing will be scheduled after the completion of a presentence investigation by the United States Probation Office.
This case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Brad K. Kavanaugh. It was investigated by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the Kansas City, Mo., Police Department.
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A former state commerce secretary whose conduct is being reviewed by the Kansas Bureau of Investigation participated in transferring state data to a private company with ties to him while in office, according to a newspaper report.
Former Commerce Secretary Antonio Soave answers questions in July 2016 at the Kansas Statehouse. CREDIT STEPHEN KORANDA
The Topeka Capital-Journal reports that it used state documents and interviews to link ex-Secretary Antonio Soave to the transfer of state files containing contact, personnel and financial data on more than 10,000 businesses. Soave served as the Department of Commerce’s top administrator from December 2015 until June 2017 under Republican Gov. Sam Brownback.
The data went to Capistrano Global Advisory Services, an Overland Park firm that advises businesses about international commerce, the newspaper said. Soave was its CEO before and after serving as commerce secretary.
Brownback fired Soave over questions about agency contracts for consulting and marketing services, with The Kansas City Star later reporting that at least nine Soave friends or business associates received such contracts. The KBI opened an investigation of Soave’s activities at the department in 2018, and KBI spokeswoman Melissa Underwood told The Associated Press last week that it is ongoing.
Soave did not respond to a Facebook message seeking comment; two home telephone listings for him were disconnected, and there was no answer at the number for Capistrano Global Advisory Services. Soave said previously that he was “very careful to comply with all existing policies” at the department.
The Capital-Journal said that emails and other documents showed that Soave asked Department of Commerce employees to extract information about businesses from agency computers. The newspaper said it obtained the documents recently through an open records request — after being told by the department in 2017 that they didn’t exist or couldn’t be found.
Spreadsheets, reports and lists were forwarded to Soave’s special assistant in the department, who then emailed files to the business development director at Capistrano Global, who later became a state contractor, the newspaper said. The Capital-Journal said it would have been difficult and expensive for outsiders to replicate the same data.
Soave’s Linked-in profile listed him as the company’s CEO from January 1989 until January 2016 and again since July 2017.
Jessica Farrell, a former Department of Commerce information technology administrator, said she pushed back against Soave’s requests about the agency’s data on businesses. Farrell said state employees are trained not to release state data to vendors or contractors without specific instructions in a contract or formal agreement.
“It appears Soave and his associates gained an unfair advantage through information released to private parties,” said state Rep. John Carmichael, a Wichita Democrat and an attorney. “That property was intellectual property of the state of Kansas.”
In a May 2016 email to Soave, Michael Miravalle, his special assistant at the department, said there was consternation within the agency with Soave having access to data about businesses.
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Computer files discovered in the home of a Republican operative who died last year contain a blueprint for how the GOP could extend its domination of legislatures in states where growing Latino populations favor Democrats and offer compelling context about a related case currently before the U.S. Supreme Court.
The files from North Carolina redistricting expert Tom Hofeller include detailed calculations that lay out gains Republicans would see in Texas by basing legislative districts on the number of voting-age citizens rather than the total population. But he said that would be possible only if the Census asked every household about its members’ immigration status for the first time since 1950.
The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to rule on that question as early as next month. But Republicans who support adding the citizenship question have rarely acknowledged any partisan political motive. The emergence of the documents now could figure heavily in the case the court is considering.
To civil liberties lawyers suing to block the question, it’s now clear that partisan politics were at work all along. They assert in court filings that Hofeller not only laid out the political benefit for the GOP but also ghost-wrote a U.S. Department of Justice letter calling on the Census Bureau to add an immigration question to next year’s survey.
The Justice Department denied the allegations in a statement on Thursday, saying Hofeller’s Texas analysis “played no role in the Department’s December 2017 request to reinstate a citizenship question to the 2020 decennial census.” In that 2017 letter, Justice said it needed citizenship information to protect the voting rights of minorities.
The U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments on the citizenship question in April and is expected to rule by July whether it will be allowed.
“What it would result in is outrageously overpopulated and underpopulated districts,” said Matt Angle, a Democratic redistricting strategist, adding that the resulting maps would harm Texas’ booming Hispanic population with the aim of benefiting Republicans.
Many of the state’s top Republicans, including Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton , have publicly expressed support for a citizenship question on the Census. On Friday, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s office did not respond to questions about whether he would endorse using citizenship data to draw new maps, although a spokeswoman said last year that the Census question would provide greater transparency and was dismissive of fears of under-reporting.
Opponents contend that many noncitizens and their relatives will shy away from being counted, fearing that law enforcement will be told of individuals’ citizenship status. That could cause undercounts in places with large Latino populations, including parts of Texas, California, Florida and Arizona, and could cost them seats in Congress as well as federal funding.
But the political impact of the citizenship question could go beyond an undercount if states use citizenship information to draw the maps for state legislative districts. The concept was introduced in legislation over the last few years in Missouri and Nebraska, where the state constitution already calls for excluding “aliens” from its apportionment. And Alabama has sued the federal government saying it should supply citizenship information.
In Texas, Hofeller calculated in his report that about a half-dozen Latino-dominated districts would disappear, including a portion of one in the Dallas area, up to two in Houston’s Harris County and two or three in the border counties of South Texas. “A switch to the use of citizen voting age population as the redistricting population base for redistricting would be advantageous to Republicans and Non-Hispanic Whites,” he wrote.
There’s a question of whether the switch would be legal.
The U.S. Constitution specifies that congressional districts should be based on how many people — not citizens — live there. But it’s murkier for many state legislative districts.
The case at the heart of Hofeller’s 2015 report was brought by Texas voters who contended it was unfair that noncitizens and minors were counted in making legislative districts because it gave a bigger voice to a smaller number of eligible voters in places with a lot of noncitizens and children. In response, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2016 that states could not be forced to use voting-age citizens as the basis for districting.
Justice Clarence Thomas agreed with that decision but wrote a separate opinion that seems to invite states to do it on their own. “It instead leaves states significant leeway in apportioning their own districts to equalize total population, to equalize eligible voters, or to promote any other principle consistent with a republican form of government,” Thomas wrote.
If a state tried to use a limited population count for redistricting, a lawsuit would be likely.
“They’re always trying to argue that only citizens should be counted for drawing the lines. They think it’s to their advantage,” said Luis Vera, a San Antonio-based lawyer for the League of United Latin American Citizens who has spent decades in court with the state over redistricting battles and said he’d sue if Texas switched to citizen-based districts.
Justin Levitt, a constitutional law professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, said lawmakers may be reluctant to change which count is used for redistricting knowing they’d face legal challenges.
He said that even if a switch could be approved under a state constitution, it could run afoul of the federal Voting Rights Act, which bars state and local governments from restricting equal voting access based on race.
But Rogelio Sáenz, a sociologist at the University of Texas-San Antonio, said he expects it will be considered in Texas, where Democrats picked up 12 seats in the House last year, now giving them 67 of the 150.
“The Republican Party is really anxious to gain back those few seats they lost in the last election,” Sáenz said.
KANSAS CITY, Kan. (AP) — A young pregnant woman and her 2-year-old son were hospitalized after being wounded when gunfire erupted at a family birthday party in Kansas City, Kansas.
Investigators on the scene photo courtesy KCK Police Chief
Police say the shooting was reported late Saturday in the city’s Armourdale community. The injured woman and child were in an upstairs bedroom when they were shot from outside the home. The woman lived at the house.
Family members said more than 20 relatives, including several children, were in the back yard of a house when an altercation started in a nearby alley. They say when shots rang out, everybody ran inside the house.
Family members said they don’t know if anyone from the party was involved in the altercation.
They said the wounded victims’ conditions were improving Sunday.
RENO COUNTY —Law enforcement authorities are investigating a fatal accident in Rural Reno County.
Just after 4:30 p.m. Saturday, deputies were dispatched to a portion of roadway that is closed due to recent floods in the 800 Block of E 108th Road in rural Reno County for a fatality accident, according to the sheriff’s department.
Passerbys driving on the road saw an unoccupied ATV facing west in the middle of the washed out road and found a person pinned underneath the ATV, face down in the water.
They pulled the subject out of the water and attempted chest compressions. The driver was identified as Brian Sollers of rural Hutchinson.
At the time of this accident the road was marked as closed at Plum but there were no signs on the east side of the washout, according to the sheriff’s department.
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RENO COUNTY — One person died in an accident Saturday afternoon when the vehicle drove through and area where the road is closed due to flooding, according to a social media report from the Reno County Sheriff.
The sheriff’s office said they would release details of the accident Sunday to pending notifications of family.
SHAWNEE COUNTY — Law enforcement authorities are investigating a stabbing and have a suspect in custody.
Dean Gustin photo Shawnee Co.
Just before 5:30 p.m., Friday police responded to a report of an aggravated battery in the 100 block of NW Redbud Circle in Topeka, according to Lt. John Trimble. Once on scene, a victim was found with what appeared to be stab wounds. The victim was taken to a local hospital with non-life
threatening injuries.
The suspect, later identified as 28-year-old Dean Gustin of Topeka, was found in an apartment and initially, refused to come out.
Officers evacuated several surrounding apartments as a precaution. Contact was made with Gustin and he eventually exited the apartment and was taken into custody without further incident. After an investigation, police arrested Gustin on requested charges of Attempted Murder, Aggravated Kidnapping and Aggravated Endangerment of a Child, according to Lt. Manual Munoz.
Grow Hays invites the public to attend TriSpective, Monday, June 24, at BriefSpace, 219 W. 10th.
Similar to TED Talks, the speakers will each focus on a topic. Dallas Haselhorst, owner of Treetop Security, will address entrepreneurship. Kieran Windholz, Equity Bank lender, will discuss moving home, and Gina Riedel, owner of Gina Riedel Results, will talk on succession planning.
Doors will open at 5:30 p.m. with the event starting at 6 p.m.
TriSpective is a part of the Robert E. Schmidt Entrepreneurship Series, sponsored by Robert E. and Patricia A. Schmidt Foundation.
For questions or more information, contact Grow Hays at (785) 628-3102 or [email protected].
The Sizzlin’ Summer Basketball Tournament is June 22-23. This annual fundraiser is sponsored by the TMP-M Sports Booster Club and benefits all sports programs (Junior High & High School).
The tournament is SBC’s second largest fundraiser each year and is crucial in allowing us to be able to provide support to our teams. The SBC funded requests totaling $32,771 for our High School and Junior High sports teams over the past two years. This included uniforms, equipment and travel assistance for state competition. In addition, the SBC donated $10,000 to the school transportation fund last year and contributed $25,000 toward this year’s ACE Item #60 for the purchase of the new bus, both which benefit ALL teams.
The club is seeking volunteers to help during the tournament.
RACC
