TOPEKA – Northwestern Kansas Community Corrections was awarded a grant to improve drug testing and surveillance of high risk offenders, Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt announced today.

The organization will receive $80,087 for substance abuse programs, methamphetamine abuse programs and increased drug testing and surveillance.

“Combatting substance abuse remains a significant issue in our communities,” Schmidt said. “This grant will support Northwest Kansas Community Corrections in its efforts to provide these much-needed services.”

The grant is part of the Federal Edward J. Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant Program and was awarded by the Kansas Criminal Justice Coordinating Council. Schmidt serves as the chair of the council.

Northwest Kansas Community Corrections has locations in Hays, Norton and Colby.

The Hays Police Department responded to 3 animal calls and conducted 20 traffic stops Fri., Feb. 15, 2019, according to the HPD Activity Log.

Intoxicated Subject–100 block W 7th St, Hays; 1:25 AM
Welfare Check–300 block W 6th St, Hays; 5:35 AM
Animal At Large–2100 block Milner St, Hays; 9:43 AM
Suspicious Activity–2700 block Walnut St, Hays; 12:22 PM
MV Accident-City Street/Alley–8th and Ash St, Hays; 12:37 PM; 12:38 PM
Identity Theft–2700 block Vine St, Hays; 10/23/18 6 AM; 8 PM
Theft (general)–3600 block Vine St, Hays; 12:58 PM
MV Accident-City Street/Alley–General Hays and Downing, Hays; 2:11 PM
MV Accident-City Street/Alley–1500 block Haney Dr, Hays; 3 PM
MV Accident-City Street/Alley–500 block W 36th St, Hays; 3 PM
Civil Dispute–100 block W 12th St, Hays; 3:48 PM
Theft (general)–2700 block Vine St, Hays; 11/1/18 8 AM; 6 PM
Mental Health Call–200 block E 7th St, Hays; 5:05 PM
Suspicious Activity–300 block E 12th St, Hays; 8:36 PM
Suicidal Subject–3700 block Vine St, Hays; 8:55 PM
Disturbance – General–200 block Castillian Blvd, Hays; 10:20 PM

The Hays Police Department responded to 3 animal calls and conducted 26 traffic stops Sat., Feb. 16, 2019, according to the HPD Activity Log.

Disturbance – Noise–500 block W 17th St, Hays; 2/15 10:12 PM; 2/16 12:12 AM
Suspicious Activity–300 block E 6th St, Hays; 2:14 AM
Welfare Check–1000 block E 8th St, Hays; 2:55 AM
Disturbance – Noise–1900 block Fort St, Hays; 4:06 AM
Lost Animals ONLY–300 block W 19th St, Hays; 10:26 AM
MV Accident-City Street/Alley–100 block W 9th St, Hays; 10:33 AM
Found/Lost Property–3400 block Vine St, Hays; 11:24 AM
Welfare Check–4300 block Vine St, Hays; 3:40 PM
Welfare Check–100 block W 23rd St, Hays; 3:58 PM
MV Accident-City Street/Alley–1300 block Hall St, Hays; 1:30 PM
MV Accident-City Street/Alley–13th and Hall, Hays; 5:32 PM
Abandoned Vehicle–300 block W 18th St, Hays; 5:36 PM
Robbery–300 block E 6th St, Hays; 2/15 9 PM; 9:30 PM
MV Accident-City Street/Alley–500 block E 12th St, Hays; 2:30 AM
MV Accident-City Street/Alley–1300 block Vine St, Hays; 8:02 PM
Unwanted Person–1300 block W 27th St, Hays; 8:36 PM; 8:53 PM
Disturbance – Noise–500 block Halladay St, Hays; 11:18 PM; 11:52 PM
Lost Animals ONLY–1700 block Douglas Dr, Hays; 11:52 PM

The Hays Police Department responded to 5 animal calls and conducted 15 traffic stops Sun., Feb. 17, 2019, according to the HPD Activity Log.

Driving Under the Influence–100 block Main St, Hays; 12:31 AM
Driving Under the Influence–700 block Fort St, Hays; 12:43 AM
MV Accident /DUI-600 block Park St, Hays; 1:31 AM
Driving Under the Influence–100 block E 6th St, Hays; 2:10 AM
Domestic Disturbance–2700 block Augusta Ln, Hays; 2:29 AM; 3:30 AM
Theft of Services–3200 block Vine St, Hays; 2/16 8:45 PM; 2/17 8:45 AM
Animal Cruelty/Neglect–2700 block Canal Blvd, Hays; 9:11 AM
MV Accident-Hit and Run–400 block W 3rd St, Hays; 12 AM; 9:30 AM
Suspicious Activity–800 block Main St, Hays; 10:19 AM
Animal At Large–1400 block US 183 Alt Hwy, Hays; 1:14 PM
Disturbance – Noise–2700 block Canal Blvd, Hays; 1:45 PM
Found/Lost Property–45th and Vista, Hays; 3:58 PM
Animal At Large; 3500 block Hillcrest Dr, Hays; 5:24 PM
Aggravated Battery–1500 block 40 Bypass Hwy, Hays; 6:40 PM; 6:43 PM
Lost Animals ONLY–2000 block Metro Ln, Hays; 8:15 PM

The Hays Police Department responded to 3 animal calls and conducted 10 traffic stops Mon., Feb. 18, 2019, according to the HPD Activity Log.

Found/Lost Property–2300 block Plum St, Hays; 7:33 AM
Found/Lost Property–1300 block Canterbury Dr, Hays; 8:17 AM
Found/Lost Property–500 block W 27th St, Hays; 2/169 9:30 AM; 10 AM
Disturbance – General–400 block E 6th St, Hays; 11:30 AM
Phone/Mail Scam–700 block W 12th St, Hays; 12:55 PM
Disturbance – General–2200 block Canterbury Dr, Hays; 1:43 PM
Found/Lost Property–2700 block Vine St, Hays; 2 PM; 2:05 PM
Warrant Service (Fail to Appear)–2700 block Epworth St, Hays; 4:07 PM
Driving Under the Influence–2200 block Canterbury Dr, Hays; 4:18 PM

The Hays Police Department responded to 4 animal calls and conducted 17 traffic stops Tue., Feb. 19, 2019, according to the HPD Activity Log.

Abandoned Vehicle–1000 block 40 Hwy, Hays; 1:08 AM
Civil Dispute–100 block W 12th St, Hays; 6:50 AM; 8 AM
Found/Lost Property–1300 block 40 Hwy, Hays; 8:56 AM
Civil Dispute–400 block E 18th St, Hays; 9:07 AM
Abuse of Child–1700 block Volga Dr, Hays; 12:34 PM
Parking Complaint–1600 block W 29th St, Hays; 1:22 PM
Assist – Other (not MV)–1000 block Fort St, Hays; 2:02 PM
Civil Dispute–1600 block Main St, Hays; 3:18 PM
Abandoned Vehicle–1000 block E 8th St, Hays; 5:47 PM
MV Accident-Private Property-Hit and Run–1200 block E 27th St, Hays; 9:09 PM
Driving While Suspended/Revoked–1600 block E 27th St, Hays; 10:12 PM
Burglary/vehicle–2300 block E 15th St, Hays; 9 PM; 11:10 PM

 Hays Post

According to information released by the Manhattan school district, Hays High Principal Martin Straub will interview for the Manhattan High School principal position on March 1.

Straub has been the principal at Hays High School for six years. He was assistant principal at HHS for 19 years prior to that. Before coming to Hays, he also worked in Derby and at Kapaun Mt. Carmel High School in Wichita.

Straub, one of five to be interviewed for the position, said he did not wish to comment on his application in Manhattan at this time.

Benjamin Jiminez, middle school high school principal at Decatur Community Schools in Oberlin, is also a finalist for the position, Manhattan USD 383 reported.

USD 383 invites the community to meet the Manhattan High school Principal Candidates. All sessions take place from 3:15-4:30 p.m. on the specific dates in the MHS West Campus Library. See Facebook for more details. pic.twitter.com/ZfDNaJ1mGT

— USD 383 (@usd383) February 19, 2019

By BECKY KISER
Hays Post

Ellis County election officials got a look at a second company’s electronic voting machines Tuesday.

The demonstration was presented in commission chambers of the county Administrative Center in Hays by Adkins Election Services, Clinton, Missouri. The company has placed its partner Unisysn voting systems in most of the counties of Missouri and Iowa, as well as 21 Kansas counties, including Russell and Gove.

Legislation approved in 2018 requires that all Kansas counties be able to perform a post-election audit. The audit will require a hand recount of paper ballots. The aging iVotronic machines used in Ellis County do not produce a paper ballot.

A three-person team demonstrated the Unisyn OVO OpenElect Voting Optical Scan (OVO), a comprehensive and secure paper-based digital optical scan voting system. It both validates and tabulates ballots at each precinct.

The self-contained ballot counter, about the size of a Hays refuse polycart, includes a color touch screen display for voters, ballot scanner and precinct report printer. Ballots are recorded and then deposited into a locked ballot box, each of which has a capacity of more than 5,000 ballots.

There are numerous locks and seals on the OVO for security.

Price of the OVO is approximately $5,000 with a cost of 28 cents per ballot. The system, built with components, scans and validates full-page, multiple page, two-sided ballots as well as those on the OpenElect Freedom Vote Tablet (FVT).

The smaller tabletop FVT was shown next. On this system, voters have the option to initialize their ballot by scanning the bar code created by a poll book and then navigate through the ballot using a touch screen. A voting interface with Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) features is also available. Freedom Vote produces a printed ballot which may reviewed by the voter prior to being scanned.

“One difference between this tablet-based machine and the ones you have been using is instead of ‘cast ballot’, this one says ‘print’,” Brad Bryant explained to the group as the machine kicked out a narrow paper ballot. He also noted the FVT requires voters to scroll down the entire ballot, read as a single page, before a ballot can be marked.

Holding the ballot up, Bryan reiterated that “this ballot has been marked and printed, but not cast. It’s not cast until it goes through here,” he said as he pointed to the much larger OVO.

The FVT cost is approximately $3,000. The ballot price is also lower than the OVO at 10 cents each.

At the end of the election day, poll workers will remove a memory stick from the OVOs and take it to election headquarters where the encoded results will be read by a laptop computer.

Currently Ellis County has 69 iVotronic machines that are deployed at 10 polling sites throughout the county.

The election officials, poll workers, county employees and interested residents also were shown the Unisyn OpenElect Voting Central Scan (OVCS) which would reside at election headquarters. The bulk scanner is designated to read absentee and provisional ballots and to perform vote counts. It can also produce a write-in image report for manual processing.

A third vendor is scheduled to present its voting system to the county Thursday morning at 10 a.m. in commission chambers.

Sales representatives from Election Systems & Software (ES&S) of Omaha, Neb., were in Hays Feb. 5.

By BECKY KISER
Hays Post

Depending on which weather forecast you followed, Hays was supposed to receive up to 5 inches of snow Tuesday.

It was actually just one inch, as officially measured at the K-State Agricultural Research Center south of town. The white stuff, which fell with no wind, yielded 0.08 inches of precipitation.

So far in 2019, 1.09 inches of snow has fallen in Hays, with 17.8 inches to date for the season.

Tuesday’s high temperature in Hays was 22 degrees with the overnight low dipping to 13 degrees.

It was considerably warmer a year ago on Feb. 19 when the high reached 63 degrees.

By CRISTINA JANNEY
Hays Post

FHSU student Yuchen Wang-Boswell wanted to go home to visit her family during the summer of 2017, but President Donald Trump was in his first year in office, and the new administration was coming down hard on immigration with his newly instated travel ban.

Wang-Boswell was in the country legally on a student visa, but with nationalist sentiments running high, Fort Hays State University’s international student office advised Wang to stay in the States.

Wang-Boswell went three years between visits with her parents. She has since married an American and is embroiled in what she admits will likely be a prolonged and expensive process of applying for permanent residency in the United States.

She said she did not think Americans understood the complexity of the U.S. visa and immigration system or what it means to students or immigrants like herself.

Wang, who will graduate in May, said she thinks the perceived change in attitude toward foreigners in the United States has resulted in fewer students deciding to study in the United States.

Carol Solko-Olliff, FHSU director of international student services, said although FHSU has not seen a significant decrease in international student enrollment, nationwide universities are reporting a dip in international student enrollment. Some are attributing the decrease to election of President Trump.

Nationally, international student enrollment in the U.S. dropped by 6.6 percent during the 2017-18 school year, and universities and colleges reported further declines as of the fall of 2018.

The university can help international students prepare their VISA applications, but it has no control over whether those visas are granted. Solko-Olliff said the university has also seen an increase in the number of student visas that have been declined since Trump took office.

Both Wang-Boswell and Kingsley Udenze of Nigeria, were approved for their visas on their first attempts. However, Udenze said of the 20 people ahead of him the day he interviewed for his visa at the U.S. consulate, all 20 were denied. One friend applied five times for a student visa before he was accepted.

Only a fraction of the FHSU’s on-campus student body is international students — 4.5 percent. Most of the university’s international students come from China, but the college has 32 countries represented on campus.

The school’s cross-border program has an enrollment of about 3,500 students in China. The university also has international students who take courses online. Solko-Olliff said she predicted the number of international students taking online courses will increase.

“Some of the immigration rhetoric is for the border and people who are coming across who aren’t documented, and so sometimes I think our international students who are documented get blurred into that conversation,” Solko-Olliff said.

Wang-Boswell said although she encountered many friendly people in Hays, she had also experienced stereotypes.

“The other thing I personally feel people think about foreigners is ‘You are an immigrant. You don’t have value.’ They underestimate your value and abilities. They think you are poor and uneducated that is why you escaped your original country to come to the states,” she said.

The international students Hays Post spoke to said choosing to study at FHSU was highly influenced by the quality of the programs at the university.

Udenze, who is pursing a a degree in cyber security, said his program of study is not offered in Nigeria, yet he sees it as an emerging industry in his country. He said he appreciated FHSU’s efforts to make him feel at home on campus.

Affordability, cost of living and safety were other factors that led the students to choose to study at FHSU.

Despite a dip in international student attendance in the U.S., the number of FHSU domestic students wishing to study abroad has remained strong, Solk0-Olliff said. Just as the United States has become more selective in issuing visas for international students, U.S. students wishing to study internationally are seeing more stringent requirements for their visas, Solk0-Olliff said.

She said she thinks this has arisen from a heightened concern globally over terror threats. Students, as well as visiting faculty and researchers, are monitoring closely by the government. Information on the students and faculty are entered into a federal database.

Solko-Olliff said she thought it is unfortunate international students are having more difficulty coming to the United States to study because of the benefits they receive from the experience and what they offer to their fellow FHSU students and the Hays community.

“I think our campus is open and embraces international students. Obviously in a community, they bring cultural diversity to our campus and to our classrooms,” she said. “We are very rural, and it is very important for our domestic students to have that interaction with people from other backgrounds and countries and cultures. That is part of that liberal arts education.”

International students also engage residents in the Hays community through speaking engagements and visits to schools and community groups.

“I think they are ambassadors for their countries so we can learn more about misconceptions that Americans have, for instance about China or South Korea, about different countries. Then it helps our students to learn America is not that bad of a place.

“I think that exchange and interaction people have is so important to dispelling misconceptions, which is why it is disheartening students are having a difficult time coming to the U.S. to learn more about America but also educationally. When they go back to their countries and they are in government or leadership, they can rely back on their experience in the U.S., which hopefully was positive, and hopefully make change in their countries.”

Not only is the visa process time-consuming and complex, but it also can be expensive. Students also have to consider travel and living expenses once they are in the United States to study.

“They come to the U.S. They are coming for either two years or four years depending if they are undergraduate or graduate. They have two suitcases, so they can’t bring everything with them. They bring what they can and then they are going to buy the other things they need. Aside from the vast cultural diversity they bring to campuses, they bring a large economic impact to communities and, quite honestly, to the state of Kansas because they have to buy things when they come here.”

A round-trip ticket home to Nigeria costs about $3,000. As a result, Udenze hasn’t been home since he started his program at FHSU. He missed his sister’s wedding, the birth of her baby, and his brother’s wedding.

Wang-Boswell had not intended to stay in U.S. when she applied to study aboard. She intended to return to China, but after three years of dating, her husband, a classmate, he popped the question.

Wang-Boswell is set to graduate from FHSU in May. She said people assumed after she married, she automatically became a U.S. citizen. This is not the case. There are many steps she has to take. First, she has to apply to change her status from a student to a permanent resident, an application that could be denied.

The application packets is several inches thick and she and her husband, Korby, have hired an immigration attorney to help with the application process. She said she and her husband both have graduate degrees, but they still find the application difficult to understand. She said she feels lucky she and her husband have the means to pay the application fees and for an attorney.

“Think about those people who have limited resources and limited education or who do not have money, and they have to leave their original country and move to the States for their own safety. How are they going to get it done?” she said.

Her decision to remain in the United States with her husband has been a difficult one for her family in China. She is her parents’ only child. She also will be facing more time away from her parents as she can’t leave the country during the residency application process.

“I think my mom is pretty chill and flexible about it,” she said. “I remember one year after I studied here, she said, ‘I think you are happier and you are doing what you want to do,’ which is awesome. But my dad was closed-minded. At the beginning, it was hard for him to understand. He was, ‘Why? What is the point? You are far away from home. We can’t take care of you. You can’t see us regularly.’ I think eventually they understood, and now are happy for me, and they think I am happy, and I am valued.”