Kansas First District Congressman Tim Huelskamp hosts a telephone town hall tonight – Wednesday, January 18 at 7:05 PM CT for constituents in the First District.
Huelskamp will take questions and talk about a number of important issues facing the country, including the most recent debt limit increase the President has requested and that the House will vote on today.
To join the town hall meeting:
Dial: 1-877-229-8493
When prompted, enter 17795
A TMP-Marian High School alum was one of the moderators at Monday night’s debate among the Republican presidential candidates in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.
Jerry Seib is a 1974 graduate of the Hays catholic school and is the Washington bureau chief of the Wall Street Journal. The debate was sponsored by W-S-J , FOX News, and the South Carolina Republican Party.
The candidates will debate again Thursday night in Charleston.
Jerry Seib’s parents, Dick and Annette Seib, are retired and live in Hays.
Although there’ve been a few complaints by visitors, the city of Hays does close the restrooms in its parks each winter.
Director of Parks Jeff Boyle did look into the possibility of heating each restroom. It would cost about 400 dollars a month per restroom, plus initial installation costs of the equipment.
The Parks Department also considered purchasing porta-potties, but they’re not cost effective according to Boyle, and also can freeze up during cold temperatures.
The restrooms are re-opened each spring when there’s a consistent pattern of non-freezing nighttime temperatures.
Repairs and renovations are under way at the historic Cathedral of the Plains in Victoria.
Repair work began last week on a crack near the center of the ceiling over the sanctuary because of concerns that plaster might fall on visitors and worshipers.
The 100-year-old limestone church is on the National Register of Historic Places. In 2008, Saint Fidelis was named one of the 8 Wonders of Kansas.
Other repair projects planned at the church this year include the heating system, handrails and renovation of confessional rooms.
A gathering to honor longtime Russell resident and art teacher Art Priddy will be hosted at the Deines Cultural Center Sunday at 2p.m. Pieces of Priddy’s original artwork will be displayed and the public is invited to share memories of him.
The 76- year- old Priddy died January 3 at his home.
He first taught art in his hometown of Tescott, then moved to Russell in 1957. Priddy taught fifth grade art for ten years and continued his career as an elementary art teacher in Russell, Gorham and Dorrance.
Priddy also helped create Russell’s Original Art Review, ROAR, in 1968, helping with the show every year. 
Two pickups collided just before 5 o’clock Monday night northeast of Victoria at the corner of Victoria Road and 350th Avenue, injuring five people. According to the Ellis County Sheriff’s office, one pickup t-boned the other.
31-year old Kory Pfeifer of Hays was driving south on 350th Avenue. 21-year-old Phillip Funk of Great Bend was driving on Victoria Road, when they collided at what Sheriff Ed Harbin describes as a straight, level intersection.
Both vehicles rolled. Pfeifer’s truck landed on its wheels but was disabled. Funk’s pickup came to rest on its top next to an oil tank battery. Pfeifer was ejected from his vehicle. He was flown by Eagle Med to Wesley Medical Center in Wichita with possible chest injuries.
Funk and his passenger, Jessica Funk, 19, Great Bend, and Pfeifer’s passengers, Brenton Hoffman, 20, Hays, and Ricardo Carrillo, 30, Hays, were taken for treatment to Hays Med.
The vehicles knocked a pipe off a tank battery, and also struck a Midwest Energy power pole and Eagle Communications fiber-optics box. The Eagle outage included cable TV, internet and phone customers between WaKeeney and Hillsboro/Marion. Services were fully restored by 4:30a.m. Tuesday.
TOPEKA – Forty-three Kansas elementary schools, 11 middle/junior high schools and 18 high schools recently were recognized as part of the fifth annual Governor’s Achievement Awards, honoring top performing schools in the state.
O’Loughlin Elementary School and Kennedy Middle School, USD 489 Hays, have received the award. Kennedy Middle School will close in May, leaving just one public middle school.
Kansas Education Commissioner Diane DeBacker says, “The accomplishment recognizes a school’s high expectations and the ability of the school staff to assist students in achieving to those expectations.”
To receive the award, schools must have achieved the Standard of Excellence in both reading and mathematics for 2011. Additionally, the school must have made Adequate Yearly Progress in both reading and mathematics and one additional measure in 2011.
For elementary schools and middle/junior high schools, the additional AYP measure is attendance and for high schools the measure is graduation rate. Additionally, the school must have been among the top 5 percent of schools in both reading and mathematics on the 2011 state assessments at its respective level, i.e. elementary schools, middle/junior high schools, or high schools.
Those tall cranes you can see operating just south of the Hays Water Treatment Plant on Vine Street are working to remove contaminated soil.
The remediation site was once the location of a Dow Chemical distribution facility and is contaminated primarily by arsenic.
According to Assistant Public Works Director John Braun, URS Corporation workers are drilling a series of holes 35 feet and deeper to excavate the contaminated soil, then disposing it in an E-P-A approved site. The holes are back-filled with wet sand and some cement for stability.
Storm sewer pipe at the site had to be removed and bypass pumps installed for stormwater flow during the project. The original pipes will be replaced when work is completed late next month.
The Kansas Department of Health and Environment is monitoring the operation.
Despite the north wind and below-zero wind chills, the Hays Fire Department continues training at a house recently purchased by the city. They’re not actually using fire, though.
Captain Chris Stegman says firefighters are practicing other techniques, including breaking windows and cutting holes in walls. The Hays Police Department used the house last month for tactical training.
Demolition of the building will start January 16.
The property sits the lowest among the homes in the 200 block of West 17th Street, and is prone to flooding. The city bought the house after the owner died this fall.
Tentative plans call for the location to be turned into a “pocket park.”
Gloria Doreen Dole Nelson, older sister of former Kansas Senator Bob Dole, passed away Wednesday at her home in Russell.
Funeral services are Saturday at 2p.m. in the Trinity United Methodist Church, Russell.
The 90-year-old Nelson is also survived by another Dole sibling, Norma Jean Steele of Russell, as well as her five children.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s family wants a memorial in the nation’s capital redesigned, saying the current plans overemphasize his humble Kansas roots and neglect his accomplishments in World War II and the White House.
Architect Frank Gehry has proposed a memorial park framed by large metal tapestries with images of Eisenhower’s boyhood home in Abilene. In the park, a statue of “Ike” as a boy would seem to marvel at what would become of his life, leading the Allied forces and becoming president. From the White House, he integrated schools and the military, and created NASA and interstate highways. Additional sculpture elements would depict Eisenhower as general and president.
Anne Eisenhower, one of the president’s granddaughters, sent a formal objection to the National Capital Planning Commission on Tuesday on behalf of the family. Still, she noted Gehry is a talented architect.
“What one has to say is he’s missed the message here,” she told The Associated Press. “The mandate is to honor Eisenhower, and that is not being done in this current design. Or, shall we say, it is being done in such a small scale in relation to the memorial that it is dwarfed.”
National Capital Planning Commission Executive Director Marcel Acosta said in a short statement the panel “appreciates the comments provided by the Eisenhower family.”
The Eisenhower Memorial Commission, which hired Gehry, said they plan to seek final approval of the design in March and hope to break ground this year.
Images of Eisenhower as a general addressing troops before D-Day and as president studying the globe would be represented in stone in “heroic scale,” said Daniel Feil, the project’s executive architect. With all the attention on Gehry’s tapestries, some failed to see other aspects of the memorial, he said.
Feil said he does not expect to make any major changes to Gehry’s design.
The two U-S Senators from Kansas, Pat Roberts and Jerry Moran, are members of the Eisenhower Memorial Commission.
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — The first election in Kansas under a state law requiring voters to show photo identification appears to have gone smoothly, but officials debated Wednesday whether the sales tax vote in Cimarron, in southwestern Kansas, was a valid test of the new rule.
Voters in Cimarron overwhelmingly approved a 1.25 percent sales tax to finance a new municipal swimming pool for the community of 2,200 residents. About 460 people voted, with 18 casting provisional ballots that won’t be counted until the county clerk’s office confirms their eligibility to participate.
Gray County Clerk Bonnie Swartz said most of the voters casting provisional ballots had moved to a new address since they had last voted. Only one person cast a provisional ballot because she didn’t have a valid photo ID, and Swartz said the voter had declined to bring one.
The law took effect Jan. 1, having been enacted at the urging of Republican Secretary of State Kris Kobach, who argued that the measure will prevent voter fraud. Kobach traveled to Cimarron to observe the voting.
Some legislators and even Swartz questioned whether voting in a more populous area would give election officials a better indication of any potential problems. Cimarron has a single polling place, a 4-H building about a quarter of a mile from town, and officials had expected most voters to drive there — with their licenses a valid photo ID under the law.
Last month, the U.S. Justice Department blocked a South Carolina voter ID law.
23rd District Judge Tom Toepfer of Hays is retiring at the end of March.
Toepfer notified area judges and attorney December 30 in a letter, stating he’s had serious health problems the past several years, which now prevent him from working at his highest level.
Toepfer has served in the 23rd Judicial District for nearly 12 years. It covers Ellis, Trego, Gove and Rooks counties.
The Governor has 60 days after a vacancy occurs or is announced to appoint a replacement for the balance of the vacated term. Judge Toepfer’s seat is up for election this year.
