The following students for successfully auditioning for the All-State Honor Choir: Eric Adams, Tenor 1; Brett Bowles, Bass 1; Adam Klausmeyer, Bass 2; Shelby Knoll, Alto 1; Nathan Leiker, Bass 1; Hannah McGuire, Soprano 2; Erin Muirhead, Alto 1; Levi Smith, Bass 2; Cade Swayne, Tenor 2; and Ryan Will, Tenor 2.
These students performed Feb. 23 at Century II in Wichita.
USD 489
Lori Hertel, local therapist, recently donated $500, as well as a collection of hundreds of books for elementary school students to Hays USD 489.
The donation was given in memory of Ana Hertel, Lori’s daughter, who unexpectedly passed away on Feb. 11, 2010 at the age of 17.
“We are proud to accept these generous donations in Ana’s honor,” the district said.
The Hays Optimist Club has been purchasing dictionaries for sixth graders in Ellis County for the past 30 plus years.
This year, the Hays Optimist Club contributed $800 to the “Library Reading 2018.” This donation will be used to purchase books for the Hays Middle School library.
“USD 489 wishes to extend its gratitude to the Hays Optimist Club for its continued support of students in Ellis County,” the district said.
HMS Principal Craig Pallister said the Optimists have wonderful to work with during his many years at the school.
Submitted
Over the Feb. 23 weekend, the Hays Pride girls basketball team won the Kansas Kids Sports State Championship Tournament for the second-consecutive year. The tournament was Feb. 24 and 25 in McPherson.
The team is coached by Frank Werth and Brandi Zimmerman.
Options Inc.
COLBY—Options Domestic & Sexual Violence Services, Inc., serving victims and survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault, and stalking for over 30 years, has announced plans to expand in far Northwest Kansas by re-opening its Colby satellite office.
The office will be at 225 W. Fifth St. The unique residential location will provide free, confidential walk-in services between the hours of 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. Mondays through Fridays, as well as 24-hour crisis intervention response.
Services will include 24-hour helpline, 24-hour crisis intervention, 24-hour medical advocacy, 24-hour law enforcement advocacy, personal advocacy, court advocacy, 24-hour emergency accommodations, 24-hour safe shelter, supportive counseling, support groups, child/youth services, parent and child advocacy, and community awareness and education.
For the next eight to 12 months, safe shelter will continue to be provided in the Options Shelter House in Ellis County, allowing the agency time to expand services again to also include a safe shelter location in Thomas County in the near future (pending funding). The Colby office location will focus on serving residents of Thomas, Cheyenne, Rawlins, Decatur, Sherman, Sheridan, Wallace, Logan and Gove counties.
“The new Options satellite office will minimize barriers that victims and survivors in rural communities have in accessing services,” said Jennifer Hecker, executive director for Options. “We’re excited to restore local walk-in services to far western Kansas that are survivor-driven and trauma-informed. It’s a long time coming.”
The new satellite office will be staffed with two family advocates, feature a resource library for victims and survivors, and offer weekly support group services.
Through a grant from the Kansas Department for Children and Families, a variety of classes including a 12-week “Pattern Changing for Abused Women & Men” class designed to help survivors look at abusive patterns in their lives and empower them to create new, healthier patterns; a three-week “Conscious Discipline” class designed to rebuild the confidence and skill of parents who’s parenting has been undermined by an abusive partner; and monthly Parent Café events, which help to build the protective factors that reduce child abuse and build resiliency in adults and children who experience trauma, will also be offered.
As with all Options services, these classes are offered free of charge to survivors and victims of domestic violence, sexual assault, stalking, dating violence and human trafficking.
“When fuel cost is a barrier for people to attend the classes, we can offer a stipend to help offset the cost so they can come. We never want financial issues to be a barrier that prevents someone from seeking services,” Hecker said.
Over the past two years, Options, Inc. services have increase an astounding 295 percent – growing from about 1,150 services in 2015 to over 7,000 services in 2017. Services have continued to rise in the Thomas County area as well.
“Although we had to close our Colby office in 2016, we continued to provide services, and monitor and evaluate those services. Over the past year, services to Thomas County have increased 59 percent. At that point, we knew it was time to focus on re-opening a satellite office,” Hecker said.
Options is working with allied professionals such as court and law enforcement, health care professionals and others to ensure that services are provided through a trauma-informed lens.
“The community, as well as the city commission have been great partners, and we look forward to continuing our work to make Thomas County a safer place where no one goes without the services they need to live a safe and healthy life,” Hecker said. “Our goal is to provide help, hope and healing for those experiencing gender-based violence.”
STOCKTON—There will be a prescribed burning workshop from 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. Thursday, March 8 at the 4-H Building in Stockton with a free lunch by Ruth Ann Bigge and door prizes/drawings by the event’s sponsors.
Featured topics include reasons to burn, weather conditions for burning, liability, equipment, crew, hazards, CRP rules, precautions, fuel and prescribed burn associations.
Registration is $10, and each participant will receive a workbook.
Anyone interested in attending must register by 3:30 p.m. Friday to the Rooks County FSA Office at 785-425-6302 or to [email protected].
Mark Grabbe of Hays is a new junior member of the American Angus Association, reports Allen Moczygemba, CEO of the national organization with headquarters in Saint Joseph, Missouri.
Junior members of the association are eligible to register cattle in the American Angus Association, participate in programs conducted by the National Junior Angus Association and take part in association-sponsored shows and other national and regional events.
The American Angus Association is the largest beef breed association in the world, with more than 25,000 active adult and junior members.
Options Inc.
St. Patrick’s Day is just around the corner and Options, Inc. has the pot of gold everyone in Hays is looking for—Brews on the Bricks tickets.
Options, Inc. is excited to announce it will have an “Its your Lucky Day! Brews on the Bricks” Raffle, which includes four general admission tickets to the ever popular “Brews on the Bricks” event on April 7 in downtown Hays.
The tickets are paired with two Brews on the Bricks T-shirts, two bottle openers and four lanyards, over a $230 value.
The raffle tickets are $30 each, are available now and can be purchased at Options, Inc. office or at Cervs on Vine Street or Hall Street. The lucky winner will be chosen on St. Patrick’s Day March 17. There are only 150 raffle tickets available so hurry and purchase your tickets for a chance to win.
This year Brews on the Bricks sold out in 10 minutes. Ticket holders will enjoy a wide selection of American craft beer options from over 20 breweries, including Three Rings Brewery out of McPherson, a variety of food vendors, live music and merchandise.
A very big thank you to the Downtown Hays Development Corporation for its generous donation to help Options raise funds for victims and survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault, stalking and human trafficking.
Questions regarding the raffle can be answered by calling 785-625-4202 and asking to speak with Jennifer Hecker, executive director of Options Domestic and Sexual Violence Services.
By CRISTINA JANNEY
Hays Post
Sondra Hickert, teacher at The Learning Center, was honored with the Hays USD 489 February staff Best of the Best award.
She was nominated by Beth Ziegler, Learning Center administrative assistant, and Keri Petersen, Learning Center coordinator, who spoke on her behalf at the school board meeting Monday.
“Regularly, students of ours are dealing with things such as eviction or they simply do not have any food to eat in their homes. There are indeed many heart-wrenching plights a fair number of our students are up against,” Petersen said. “What they find in Sondra is a very smart woman who can connect them to community resources. Then once they are stable, she is able to fire up or refire an indignance in them against the insidiousness of giving up pressures.”
Petersen said she regularly sees Hickert use words of affirmation with her students.
“She is a one-of-a-kind servant in terms of working with and often counseling the population we have,” Petersen said. “Our students come in with many, many challenges. Not only does she calmly give them some rays of hope for their current predicaments, and there are a myriad of family and student challenges, she follows through and helps them elevate up from the dilemma and navigate to post-secondary enrollment and eventually success.”
Hickert is comfortable serving as a liaison between the program’s young people and adults and community organizations set up to help the students, Petersen said. She said Hickert is the poster teacher for learning center and high school teachers everywhere.
“Sondra makes sure our Learning Center students are well positioned with confidence and they are embraced, supported and boosted up for all of the good things in life,” Petersen said.
Hickert thanked the school board and the district for valuing alternative education and making sure no children are left behind.
Hickert also thanked her husband and children for supporting her in her work and allowing her to take the extra time and effort to help her students, including taking breaks out of family trips to deliver or pick up laptops or proctor tests.
Gavin Jacobson, Hays High School senior, was awarded the student Best of the Best award.
He was nominated by HHS administrative assistant Sue Rouse.
“It makes my day to see Gavin every day in the hallway with a wave and smile and a ‘Hi, Mrs. Rouse,'” she said.
Rouse met Jacobson when she was working as a job coach at HHS. Although he was not one of her students, Gavin always waved and smiled at her.
“Whenever I saw Gavin, I knew I could always count on that smile to pick me up and keep me going,” she said. “I loved it when he said, ‘Hey, Rouse.'”
She said she was thankful to have such a positive student as Jacobson at the high school.
Gavin said through a prerecorded digital recording “Thank you for this special award. Thank you to my family. I love them. Some of my favorite activities are playing basketball and music and dancing. I like to go to school and have many friends. Go Hays High!”
The Hays Public Library will present “Zoo to You!” an educational program about animals of North America at 6 p.m. Thursday, March 22 in the Schmidt Gallery on the main floor of the library.
Meet three zoo animals. All ages are welcome.
Brookdale Hays will have an Easter egg hunt at 9:30 a.m. Saturday, March 24.
The Easter egg hunt is open to children 18 months to 8 years old.
Stay after the hunt and decorate a sugar cookie with your family.
If you have any questions, call Bev Hartsook at 785-628-1111 during the day.
By CRISTINA JANNEY
Hays Post
During a Hays school board meeting, Rep. Eber Phelps, D-Hays, questioned the validity of a consultant’s study on state school financing even before it is set to be released to the public on March 15.
The $200,000 study was commissioned by the leadership in the House and Senate and is being done by a researcher at Texas A&M and a consulting group. Phelps attended a preliminary presentation from the researchers on Friday.
The researcher did a similar study for Texas that was presented to the Texas Supreme Court, and her study came in millions under what had been recommended for school funding in that state, Phelps said.
The Texas Supreme Court said the study overstated rural district behavior and underestimated the influence of urban districts.
“I think they found someone they could pay $200,000 who would say that we are spending too much money,” Phelps said.
Phelps said he thinks the consultants are going to argue funding does not correlate with outcomes. He also fears the consultants will recommend less money for education of English Language Learners and disadvantaged students.
Phelps said he believes there is enough money in the state budget to increase funding for schools $200 million per year over three years for a total boost of $600 million for schools. From July to December, the state’s revenue receipts grew by $352 million compared to a year ago. Changes to federal tax codes will result in an estimated additional $138 million for the state in 2019 and $180 million in 2020.
“Is ($600 million) enough?” Phelps said. “I think it is a start.”
The Kansas Supreme Court has issued a decision that state school funding is inadequate, and the Legislature has until April 30 to present a new funding formula to the court.
The Legislature is at its halfway point in the session, and Phelps expressed frustration more has not been done to address school finance.
“There are those of us in the Legislature who are really getting frustrated with the progress thus far, especially in light of last year where there was such a collaborative effort and desire on the part of the Legislature in both the House and the Senate to get things back on track,” he said.
The Legislature established a school finance task force, but Phelps said up until now the task force has only had informational hearings.
“I was disappointed that we don’t have something out there already,” he said. “With that task-force type committee meeting prior to the session and seeing these revenue dollars coming in, it seems to me we could have had something prepared.”
Phelps said he prefers to address the school funding plan now rather than having to come back and address it in a special session.
He said leaders in both houses chose to go after the Supreme Court instead of focusing on funding. Phelps was also critical of lawmakers’ attempts to discredit Dale Dennis, deputy education commissioner, over transportation funding. Phelps called Dennis one of the most honorable and respected people in Topeka and the foremost authority on state school finance.
He also hopes the Legislature could put back about $24 million that has been cut from higher education.
Phelps also briefly addressed a bill that would have created an opt-in program to teach an NRA gun safety program at elementary schools.
It was pulled from debate because it was based on an NRA program that was not fact-based, Phelps said. Legislators are working to find a fact-based program and develop a more comprehensive safety program following the school shooting in Florida.
By CRISTINA JANNEY
Hays Post
Thomas More Prep-Marian teacher Joe Hertel wants to mold his students to be responsible young men and women who will fight for what is right.
As an English teacher and avid lover of the American classics, he looks to heroes such as Atticus Finch of Harper Lee’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel to show students examples of integrity.
Hertel, a teacher for 33 years at TMP, has been named the Hays Post Teacher of the Month for February. Hertel teaches English and coaches boy’s basketball at TMP.
In his many years of teaching, Hertel, 60, said he has come to love novels like “To Kill a Mockingbird” and American novelists such as John Steinbeck and Ernest Hemingway. It is harder each year to entice students to read because of all the digital distractions, he said, and joked that, for his students, anything out of their lifetime does not exist.
On and off the court, Hertel said he hopes to build character in his students, and those classical American literary heroes are good role models.
“All of Steinbeck’s works are about the people on the bottom of the totem pole socioeconomically. In a way, I treat Steinbeck’s novels almost like a religion lesson,” he said, “because I think that is what we are called to do as Christians — as middle class or above Christians — to look out for those who don’t have anything. And that is what every Steinbeck book is about is people helping people. I think that is consistent with our TMP mission.”
Hertel’s students read “Old Man and the Sea” by Ernest Hemingway, and he related why he admires Hemingway’s characters.
“Ernest Hemingway, I really like him because all of his works, all of his novels, are about the testing and retesting of a man’s character— because I like sports so much, and I want my players to understand that competitive sports are like life. That’s Hemingway.”
Although his students aren’t assigned to read Hemingway’s “For Whom the Bell Tolls” or “A Farewell to Arms,” he noted those novels are also about character.
“Those are about people who are tough mentally, emotionally,” he said. “On the symbolic thing, they are tough physically too, but that is not the point. The point is, how tough are you in your mind and in your heart?”
He said the literature relates back to what he loves about coaching.
“What I love about coaching is taking some immature, adolescent boys and through competition, discipline, teamwork and commitment, molding them into good, decent, Catholic, Christian men by the time they graduate from high school,” he said.
Some are better success stories than others; it is no guarantee. However, he said he has given it his all and encourages his players and students to do the same.
“I don’t care if we end up with more points on the scoreboard than the other team,” he said. “What I care about is that we took our inner being and character and laid it out there. The old cliche — give ‘er all up for the group.”
Coaching was what really drew Hertel into teaching. He played three sports in college and knew he didn’t want to sever his connection with athletics when he was done with college. He came from a family in which six of the nine children were teachers. It just seemed natural to follow suit.
Hertel received dual degrees in English and physical education from St. Mary of the Plains College of Dodge City and eventually a master’s degree in counseling from Fort Hays State University.
Although he has a love of literature, Hertel said he feels his primary responsibility as an English teacher is to prepare his students to be able to write in college or for whatever profession they choose.
“As much as I like American classics, my top priority as a teacher of the language is that kids exit my class as competent writers,” he said.
He did not attend parochial school as a youth, but a contact at his Catholic college helped him land an interview with Bishop Miege High School in the Kansas City area. He taught at Bishop Miege for five years before coming to TMP. His family was looking to come back to western Kansas when the job at TMP became available. Hertel grew up on a farm in Burdett, Kansas.
Hertel said his Catholic faith has been a large part of both his family and professional life. Both of his children graduated from TMP, and he tries to pass on the Catholic faith to his students.
“(Catholicism) has been huge on both sides of the family,” he said. “It is traditional and engrained. My wife and our kids and extended family were meant to be Catholic, and we are very proud of that.”
He said he feels very fortunate to have been able to teach at TMP.
“I got to work with some really good kids in basketball, and we got to win quite a few games,” he said. “And lastly, I got to meet thousands of young people — not any two of them alike. Some with struggles and some with the-sky’s-the-limit abilities, and I got to have a little bit of a hand in their development.”
By CRISTINA JANNEY
Hays Post
The Hays USD 489 Board of Education has chosen to take no action on a tax incentive district for a proposed Hays hotel, ostensibly allowing the project to go forward.
The school district and county have until March 12 to pass resolutions in opposition of a tax incremental financing district for the $19.3 million Hilton Garden Inn that is set to be built west of Walmart. However, neither entity has expressed plans to do so.
The school board heard more on the project at its meeting Monday and asked questions, but opposition was voiced.
The district is a public financing mechanism. A TIF figures the difference between the original value of the land and new value of the developed property. The taxing entities still collect the taxes on the original value, but the taxes on the increased value go back to the developer to use on financing and infrastructure improvements, such as water, sewer, roads and parking. The TIF would be in effect for 20 years.
The school district would see a partial increase in the funds it receives on the new development under the TIF district. The developers would still have to pay the general fund school mill level of 20 mills and the Hays district’s capital outlay fund of 8 mills on the improvements.
The project would mean an additional $15,000 per year for schools. However, the majority of that would be for the general fund school mill levy, which goes back to the state to be redistributed.
The district would not receive an increase in property tax for its supplemental levy of 14.92 mills or its .646 mill declining enrollment levy. However, there is only one more year left on the declining enrollment levy, and the first phase of the hotel project might not be completed by the time that levy expires.
At the meeting, board member Greg Schwartz asked Jacob Wood, assistant city manager, if the TIF would include bond financing.
He said if a school bond passed, the hotel improvements would be exempt for 20 years under the TIF district.
Wood said the district could further benefit as infrastructure improvements associated with the project open up new areas to development.
School board member Paul Adams asked Wood about employment at the hotel and if he thought the project might bring any new families to the school district.
Developers estimate the hotel will employ 80 to 90 people, with a portion of those part-time. Wood said it is hard to tell how many people might move to Hays because of the project. He said the hotel will likely bring management in from outside of Hays, but many of the part-time workers will likely be from the area.
Schwartz asked why the city was supporting the hotel, which includes a convention center, at this time.
Wood said the city has sought a convention center for some time, but all the proposals included the city being part owner in the project, which the city did not want to do.
Economic research indicates convention centers bring in $190 in revenue per night per attendee to communities. That revenue generates sales tax for the city and helps support jobs in the community, said Aaron White, Ellis County Coalition for Economic Development executive director, who was present at the meeting.
The developer is scheduled to file a final project plan with the city clerk today for the TIF. It is also scheduled to file its community improvement district petition with city clerk today. The city has a work session on the TIF project plan and CID set for Thursday, March 15.
In other business: the board:
• Set a long-range facilities planning meeting for 6:30 p.m., Monday, March 5, at the Rockwell Administration Center.
• Heard a report on a bid for concrete for the Hays High School parking lot. Staff has recommended a low bid from Brian’s Concrete of Hays for $96,900.
• Approved two grant applications for Early Childhood Connections. ECC is requesting six more slots at its infant to 18 months program at Munjor and three more slots in its childcare program.
• Received a recommendation on building level administration contract renewals. Lincoln Elementary School Principal Elaine Rohleder has announced her retirement.
