From 7 to 9 p.m. Thursday, Options will host its second-annual Purple Light Night at Big Creek Crossing.
The location has been changed to the mall due to inclement weather.
The free event will serve as a family activity night as well as an attempt to bring awareness to the issue of domestic violence.
Options Domestic and Sexual Violence Services provides personal, medical, court, law enforcement, youth/child and parent/child advocacy, as well as crisis intervention, a safe shelter, counseling, support groups, community education and a 24-hour Helpline.
Nationally, October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month. Purple is the color for domestic violence awareness.
Grand Rental Station, Be Made, Taco Shop, PoPt, Breathe Coffee House and McDonald’s have all agreed to be sponsors for the event. The Press will be providing cinnamon rolls and chili for the first 75 people, Trinity Lutheran will provide a game and the Hays Area Children’s Center will have a ball pit for the kids.
Scentsy representative Amanda Long will be present, and a portion of her proceeds will go to Options. There also will be face painting and children’s tattoos, as well as a game for adults.
The chief of police, sheriff and mayor will all speak at the event. For more information on the event, contact Ashley Hecker at Options at (785) 625-4202.
Options’ 24-hour hotline is (800) 794-4624. No appointment is needed to seek Options’ services.
Options is also encouraging people to place purple light bulbs in their outdoor to light up the night for domestic violence during the month of October. The bulbs are available through Options for $2 each.
The program seeks to do three things: support survivors of domestic violence, give hope to people who are still living with abuse and remember victims who lost their lives to domestic violence.
Options has seen a 174 percent increase in domestic violence services in the last year, because in part of a greater awareness of services and the signs of domestic violence, Option officials said.
Troy Wade, of the district’s architectural firm, DLR, and members of the Community Vision Team, talk Tuesday night about a proposed $78.5 million USD 489 bond issue.
By CRISTINA JANNEY Hays Post
About 50 people gathered at Wilson Elementary School on Tuesday night for a tour and Q &A session related to a proposed Hays USD 489 $78.5 million bond issue.
The cost for the 30-year bond will be $16.43 per month for a $150,000 home.
Teachers talked about the small spaces they have in the Wilson building, about 650 square feet for most of the classrooms.
“Once you get 24 desks in there, it is pretty crowded,” Anita Scheve, Wilson principal, said of the classrooms.
The bond proposal would build two new elementary schools and renovate Roosevelt Elementary School. A new elementary school would be built adjacent to existing Wilson school, and the old school would be torn down when the new school opens. The Wilson pool will remain in place.
John Thissen, USD 489 superintendent, Tuesday says the district has only had $5 million in bonds since the 1980s compared to more than $100 million for some schools the district competes against in athletics.
Scheve said the new classrooms would be closer to 900 square feet and 1,000 square feet for kindergarten.
Some teachers, including Betsy Forinash, have done away with their own desks to make more room for student activities. Her classroom has a sink, which is important for science projects, when it works. Her room had a sewer line break recently while children were in the room, and they had water all over the floor.
Amy Wasinger, an O’Loughlin Elementary teacher and also a member of the Community Vision Team that helped create the bond proposal, said the rooms are not conducive to modern teaching techniques.
The reading workshop encourages students to get on the floor or other comfortable positions to read. The students also are gathered in small groups to work on science and other projects.
Wasinger said there is just nowhere to put the students or files or classroom libraries.
The Wilson boiler is original to the building when it was constructed in 1959. The district can no longer buy parts, and it often keeps rooms as hot as 85 degrees in the middle of the winter.
There is also no common space for children. The gym is also used as a cafeteria and auditorium, which means it is constantly booked. Children have an average of about 12 minutes for lunch due to the tight scheduling for this space.
Wilson elementary was built in 1959 and has the original boiler system. Once the boiler is on for the season, it can’t be shut down. Some rooms are as hot as 85 degrees in the middle of winter.
Wilson also has no storm shelter. Children have to shelter in the hallways, which have skylights. The school has also had problems with these skylights leaking when it rains.
Scott Summers, technology director, said technology has been challenging in the district’s older buildings. The building materials used in 1959 when Wilson was built are not compatible with computer networks. Wilson has to have an Internet connection in each room because the signal will not pass through the walls.
One attendee asked why the district chose to build new elementary schools rather than renovate. Wilson is valued at $5.9 million. The cost to renovate would be $16 million, and a new building will cost $21 million. Based on the value of the building and the cost to renovate compared to the cost of a new building, the architects recommended a new building.
Wilson Elementary School has no storm shelter, and students have to shelter in this hallway, which has skylights. This hallway also has a steep ramp, which makes mobility difficult for students in walkers and wheelchairs.
Amber Beverlin, of the district’s architectural firm, DLR Group, said the district will save about $200,000 per year in operational costs by going from four elementary schools to three. This does not include other savings that can be reaped by eliminating travel between schools for some staff and other efficiencies gained with the new schools.
All three of the elementary schools will be able to accommodate five sections of kindergarten and first grade and four sections of second through fifth grades. This means that the schools will have room for anticipated growth. In the short-term, the district has a goal to reduce class sizes.
At the middle school, the bond would enlarge the cafeteria and add a new gym for physical education. Both facilities at HMS were designed to hold about 300 students. Today, they are serving 700 students. In addition, the kitchen at HMS prepares food for another 400 students at Wilson.
Jessica Younker, nutrition director, said the food service equipment is stored throughout the cafeteria because there is limited storage.
Valerie Wente, Community Vision Team member, said as many as 100 students have to use the gym space at one time for PE. If there are any events scheduled in that space, all those students have to be moved into the hall for their class time.
At the high school, the district will add an auditorium, which had been a dream for the district since the high school was built in 1981. Classrooms will be added and enlarged and the Career Tech Education classrooms will be renovated.
Secure entrances would be added to all schools.
In addition, O’Loughlin Elementary will be renovated to accommodate the Westside Program, Learning Center and the Early Childhood Center.
The district considered breaking the bond into several smaller bonds over time, but Troy Wade of DLR said he district stands to save tens of millions of dollars by doing the 30-year bond. Interest rates are at record lows, which can save the district at least 1 percent. The inflation rate for construction is 3 percent to 5 percent.
Mike Walker, of the Community Vision Team, talks Tuesday night about a proposed $78.5 million USD 489 bond issue.
If the bond does not pass, the problems with the buildings do not go away, and the district does not have enough in capital outlay to address all the issues, Shanna Dinkel, assistant superintendent, said.
The district would have to come back with yet another bond proposal.
Should that happen, Wente said the best scenario is a new bond project would cost millions more. The worst scenario would be a school would have to be closed because of structural or mechanical issues and there would be nowhere to put the students.
Ana Unsworth, a parent who has students in high school and elementary school, said she thought she could get behind the school bond plan.
Members of Nabholz Construction, the construction manager at risk, Paul Wertenberger Cosntruction, and Shanna Dinkel, assistant USD 489 superintendent, talk about the bond construction process. Ground could be broken within a year if the bond passes, and new elementary schools could be open another 12 to 18 months after groundbreaking.
“Will I vote for it? Probably,” she said of the bond. “They have put a lot of good work into it, and they answered all the questions I had and my major questions were put at ease.”
If the bond passes, groundbreaking could occur on the new schools within a year. Construction could take between 12 to 18 months. Some projects would be done simultaneously with the new elementary schools likely being the first projects started and finished.
The deadline to register to vote is Tuesday, Oct. 17. Advance voting is set to start on Oct. 23, and the general election is Tuesday, Nov. 7.
The 45th annual Oktoberfest will kick off at 8:30 a.m. Friday at Municipal Park, Fourth and Main streets, with friends, food and beer.
The Volga German Association Centennial Association of Ellis and Rush Counties has organized 44 vendors, even more than last year.
Most of the vendors will be serving food for the annual event that honors the community’s Volga-German heritage. There is no admission cost.
Between 8,000 and 15,000 people are anticipated at the event.
Some of this year’s foods will include many of the community’s German favorites along with such oddities as chocolate-dipped bacon and bacon-wrapped potato tots.
Other cultural groups will participate including the FHSU Chinese Student Group; African student group, which will serve a twist on bierocks; Hispanic students, who will be serving walking tacos; and the Black Student Union, which will be serving fried chicken and cornbread.
NCK Tech will have its drive-through for food again this year. Customers can call 785-625-2437 or 785-301-2309 to place orders. Also connect with Oktoberfest Hays on Facebook.
The beer bands will cost $2 again this year and will be available between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m., when beer sales close.
Both American beers and Defiance Brewing Co. craft beers will be available.
This year, the woman of the community have requested a non-beer option, which will be Mike’s Hard Blood Orange.
There will be history re-enactors offered by the Hays Community Theatre. This will include such characters as Catherine the Great and a Volga-German farmer. The Hays Community Theatre will also present Wild West shootouts.
German educational opportunities will occur throughout the day coupled with German music and polka dancing.
The event will have a sauerkraut-making demonstration as well as actresses demonstrating early female settlers’ work.
Nick Werth, whose family helped create the festival, said the event serves as a means for many nonprofits to raise money and a place for people to visit and come together.
“A lot of people only come back for Oktoberfest and homecoming,” Werth said.
There is no designated parking for the event, expect for the parking lot next to the shelterhouse, which is for handicap only.
The Volga German Association provides a scholarship for students of Volga-German decent. The group is working to develop a similar scholarship for NCK Tech.
Any additional money raised through Oktoberfest is dedicated to help Volga German communities and churches in case of disaster.
Oktoberfest 2017 Schedule
8:30 – Oktoberfest grounds open to public
8:30-noon – Face painting
9 a.m. – Vendor booths open
9-9:30 a.m. Hays Community Theatre performance
10-1 p.m. Joe Dolezal and Galen Schmidtberger
10 a.m. – Beer banding booths open
11 a.m. – Opening Ceremonies
MC Mike Cooper
National Anthem by Jackie Maxwell
Invocation by Father Josh Werth
Welcome by Nick Werth
Volga German Welcome Tom Haas
FHSU Welcome Interim President Dr. Andy Tompkins
FHSU Alma Mater Dr. Terry Crull
FHSU German students
NCK Tech President on stage and possibly welcome speech
Ellis County Historical Society Welcome Lee Dobratz
Sunflower Chapter of AHSGR Welcome Kevin Rupp/Janel Moore
Catherine the Great Welcome – Cheryl Glassman
Award presented by Nick Werth
Northwest Printers
Midwest Energy
City of Hays Welcome by Mayor Shaun Musil and tapping of the keg
Beer Song by Joe Dolezal Band
Ringing of the Bell by Nick Werth
Oktoberfest is officially open
1-1:30 p.m. – HCT reenactors
1:30-4 p.m. – Ron Werth Band
4 pm – Hays Community Theatre performance
4:30-6:30 p.m. – Ron Werth
6 p.m. – Beer Banding booths close
6 p.m. – Beer sales end
7 p.m. – Oktoberfest officially closed until Sept. 28, 2018
NCK Tech is the signature sponsor for this year’s event. The beer tavern is sponsored by EnerSys. Other sponsors include the Hays Convention & Visitors Bureau, Golden Belt Bank, Uber, Cedar Lodge Dental, JD’s Country Style Chicken and Jeff Pinkney, CPA. In-kind sponsors include John’s Fencing Services, Nate’s Liquor, BOS Motorsports, Carrico Implement, Copper’s Carts, Northwest Printers, Hays Professional Fire Equipment, Budweiser, Coors, RD Graphics, Defiance Brewing Co., Nex-Tech, Emily Knowles Designs, Orscheln, Hadley Center, Western Extralite and Ralph’s Electric. Cash and in-kind donors are B & B Taxi and Taco Shop.
Thomas More Prep-Marian Junior Night at Sonic will be from 5 to 8 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 11. To ensure 10 percent of the proceeds go to the Junior Class mention you are supporting TMP-Marian when placing your order.
Hays USD 489 will have another Q&A and talking tour on the proposed school bond at 7 p.m. Tuesday at Wilson Elementary School.
School board members, teachers, administrators, and representatives of DLR Group, Nabholz Construction, Paul Wertenberger Construction, the Community Vision Team and Piper Jaffray will all be present to answer questions.
For more information on the bond, go to usd489.com.
Crisis bags were created last week for every classroom in the Hays school district.
The USD 489 Foundation for Education Excellence, in partnership with Sunflower Bank’s ABC Program, funded the crisis bags, which will be used to address both natural and manmade disasters. The cost of the kits was $7,500.
Each classroom crisis bag includes a backpack filled with a clipboard, an abridged copy of the district crisis plan, water, granola bars, a first-aid kit with tourniquets, scissors, sanitizer, medical gloves, gauze and a whistle.
Submitted photo
Each school will also have a duffel bag with the same contents plus a bullhorn, binoculars, weather radio, drop cloth and flashlights.
The Hays school board approved a crisis plan in December that includes the public schools and Thomas More Prep-Marian and Holy Family Elementary School.
“If the situation should arise,” said Sarah Wasinger, assistant to the USD 489 superintendent, “heaven forbid either a manmade or natural disaster, we only have four ambulances in Ellis County. If multiple people were injured, a tourniquet could potentially save a life.”
Submitted photo
Not all teachers and staff in the district have first-aid training, but many of the administrators do, as well as the school nurses.
“I think as a foundation, we are always trying to do positive things for our school,” Wasinger said. “We are thankful for the projects and donations we have received that can be used to support student safety and learning and make the schools better overall.”
If you would like to donate to the USD 489 Foundation online with a credit or debit card, click here for a donation link.
Fort Hays State University Students for Life helped organize the annual Life Chain Sunday afternoon in Hays.
A group of pro-life supporters lined the sidewalk on Vine Street along Mount Allen Cemetery.
Participants held quiet witness and prayed with signs reading such things as “Pray to End Abortion” and “Jesus Forgives and Heals.”
The first Life Chains were organized in California 30 years ago. The National Life Chain movement began 25 years ago in 1992. The event is now conducted annually on the first Sunday in October.
Catherine Wahlmeier of St. Joseph Catholic Parish in Hays has participated every year since 1992 and said Sunday she feels strongly about the abortion issue.
Hannah Michaud, sophomore in radiology at FHSU, was among the students who helped organize Sunday’s event.
“What I believe is life is a gift,” she said. “It is very precious. Taking it away violates our rights and dignity as humans.”
The Students for Life has about 20 members on campus with a good contingent of the group in attendance at the event on Sunday.
Father Fred Gatschet of St. Joseph Catholic Church, as well as many parishioners from area Catholic churches, were on hand at the Life Chain event.
When asked why he was making a public proclamation on his abortion views, he responded, “Because people are being shredded to pieces in a nonpublic manner.”
He noted the Life Chain was not a protest, but a witness to the sanctity of human life.
Volunteers from Emprise Bank of Hays spent a couple of hours on Tuesday night volunteering at the ARC Thrift Store.
Sixteen people were scheduled for the evening, which was a part of the Emprise Empowers Campaign. The event was to coincide with Emprise’s statewide United Way campaign.
All donations made through the local campaign stay in the local area, said Wayne Woofter, Emprise market president.
The volunteer effort has become an annual event, although the group does not always volunteer for a United Way agency. Last year the Emprise group volunteered with Habitat for Humanity.
Woofter said the volunteer effort gets employees in the frame of mind of giving.
“We know community involvement is really important,” he said.
Mary Dinkel, ARC Thrift Store volunteer, said the help from the Emprise employees was much appreciated.
“It helps us get things out on the floor,” she said. “We can process a lot of merchandise in a short amount of time.”
During this particular evening, the volunteers were helping process and price clothing.
Wichita businessman and Republican Mark Hutton made a campaign stop in Hays Wednesday on a multi-city tour after declaring his candidacy for governor Monday.
Hutton began his company, Hutton Construction, in 1992 in Wichita, which has grown to 250 employees who work on commercial and industrial projects across the Midwest.
Hutton has spent two terms in the Kansas Legislature, serving the 105th District that represents northwest Wichita.
Hutton said his platform begins with budget reform, and he hoped to see more collaboration between the Legislature and the governor’s office in forming the budget.
“Right now, it is this game,” he said. “The governor prepares the budget in secrecy and dumps it in the lap of the Legislature, who has a limited amount of time to look at a very large budget. That process does not yield a good benefit to the taxpayers of this state.”
He said the governor should be more business-like and detailed with the budget, a lack of which in the past has caused a credibility gap. Priorities need to established, he said.
“Government has core functions that we are obligated to step up to, both morally and fiscally,” he said. “We need to look at that.”
On the issue of K-12 funding, Hutton who has a son who is high school vice principal, said he would like to see Kansas school districts provide more data to be used in the budget process.
“We need to determine a correlation of dollars to outcomes to determine where to best spend the money,” he said.
In terms of higher education, Hutton acknowledged Gov. Sam Brownback had cut millions from higher education budgets. However, he hoped the higher education institutions could work with businesses in the state to better prepare students for the jobs that are available.
“I am a businessman,” he said. “When I hire a student from a university, I knew I am going to have to invest more money in them because they are not coming out prepared for the job I need them to do.”
He said if the universities would step up and meet the needs of industry, the private sector would step up to help colleges reduce costs and sponsor programs.
Hutton hopes to improve the climate for businesses in Kansas in order to grow the Kansas economy. He said economic development and industry recruiting has been lacking in Kansas.
“It goes back to what I call elephant hunting,” he said. “I think the administration in an attempt to validate the tax package they had, which essentially they were relying on for their economic development incentive, (went) out and looked for the big companies. When you look at Kansas, rural Kansas needs jobs too, and the big elephants aren’t going to go to small towns.”
Kansas needs to recruit the right-size businesses for the right-size communities in Kansas and recruit on the state’s work ethic, Hutton said.
Rather than incentive programs to bring new businesses to Kansas, Hutton said he prefers programs that reward businesses for creating jobs. He gave the example of the PEAK program, Promoting Employment Across Kansas, which rewards businesses once they have created Kansas jobs.
This is different from the so-called LLC loophole, which rewarded companies for jobs that were never created, Hutton said.
Hutton touched on Kansas water policy, which he said should be left in the hands of people in the agriculture industry.
“All too often, government thinks they have all the answers,” he said. “Government’s job should be to remove the obstacles out of the way to develop the good policies toward our management of water resources.”
Hutton acknowledged the Brownback administration had made cuts to state agencies and that had concentrated work on fewer employees.
“We want to make sure our employees of our state are valued for the contribution they make to the services we make to our No. 1 customers, the taxpayers out there. Pay plays a role, but there are other issues that play a role in that. I know as a business person (it also includes) working conditions, respect for what they do and appreciation for that fact they are working at a job that is pretty darn difficult.”
He said you improve the efficiency of a business with its frontline staff, and he would do the same with the state.
For some children, the daily noises and rigors of a standard elementary school classroom can be too much.
They need a soft place to land, and the Hays school district has created that through the STAR program, which stands for Strategic Teaching with Adaptations and Reinforcement.
This program serves children with multiple disabilities, severe autism disorder and high needs who can’t function in the general education classrooms without some intensive support. Three newly modified rooms have been dedicated to the STAR program at Roosevelt Elementary School, and they look a little bit different compared to a standard general education classroom.
“It is the mission of this district to make sure every child has what he or she needs to learn in every classroom every day,” Roosevelt Principal Paula Rice said.
The 21 students at Roosevelt are focusing on daily life skills. There are 13 adults in that program.
“It is not uncommon for these kiddos to have the social and spacial needs of 10 of their general education peers,” she said.
Three classrooms may seem like a lot of space, she said, but these students have a greater need.
The special education staff created a video in which the STAR students take viewers on a tour of the STAR classrooms. The video (below) was shown at the school board meeting Monday night.
McDaniel said the school plans to share the video with general education students soon so they can understand these students can learn too.
The closets in these rooms have been turned into break rooms for the children. Some children who have sensory issues need dark quiet spaces, so the school gave them that.
Beans bags have been placed in corners to create reading spaces. There are places to work on reading, math, life skills and communication skills.
It is a place where the special education staff says just in the first 27 days of the school year children have grown.
Lindy McDaniel, special education teacher, said when the special education teachers came to Raj Sharma, director of special education, last school year and asked to build this structured learning program for these K-12 kids, she said she was not sure what she had signed up for.
“As we have moved forward, it has been amazing what these kids have become,” she said,” and they feel part of something.”
These are children who typically do not participate in other youth programs like recreation sports or Boy or Girl Scouts, but they can be a part of the Shining Stars, the special education elementary group.
“I know it may seem like small gains when you see a kid write ‘I can’ and then scribble write, but he is sitting, he is complying, he is participating,” McDaniel said.
A little girl in the video who was using a flip book to communicate had no means to communicate at a functional level before the flip book was introduced to her at the beginning of the school year. She doesn’t have to act out physically because she can communicate, McDaniel said.
Tasha Lang, special education teacher said, “It is the little steps. We always have to tell ourselves it’s the little steps. They are not going to shine overnight. We have to help them shine over the whole year.”
School board member Mandy Fox visited teacher Tasha Lang’s room at Wilson, and she said the new STAR rooms compared to former facilities were wonderful for the children.
Children start in their general education classrooms, but can move to the STAR rooms whenever they need to. Some children stay only minutes in general education, and some students stay all day. The rooms give the students and teachers the flexibility to work on a variety of skills.
Fox encouraged other board members to tour the classrooms.
Rice concluded with a thank you to the staff at Roosevelt, especially to those working in special education.
“As educators we all work very hard all the time, but these ladies really impress me,” she said of the special education teachers. “They are usually up until midnight or 1 o’clock redoing the schedules for every one of their students every single day, and then they are in the office at 5:30, 6 printing them off and getting ready to go every single day.
“They rarely take lunches. They rarely take breaks. It is nonstop from the time the kids get there until they leave, and then they are not done. They do it because they love these kids and they know they can gain.”
“The African Menagerie: An Inquisition” is more than a painting. It is a culmination of Brian Jarvi’s career spent painting African wildlife.
The seven-panel piece depicts 209 species of mammals, birds and reptiles — 150 of which Jarvi had never painted before he took on this project.
An exhibit featuring the art piece opens Saturday at the Sternberg Museum of Natural History in Hays and runs through Dec. 21.
The piece took Jarvi 17 years to create and is 32 feet wide and 14 feet high. The Sternberg is first stop for the piece since its debut on Sept. 16 at The Reif Center for the Performing Arts, in Grand Rapids, Minn., Jarvi’s hometown. The piece is oil on Belgium linen that is mounted on Masonite.
Jarvi said this might be the most significant wildlife painting in history based on the size of the work and number of species represented.
Forty of the artist’s sketches, which range from drawings to large oil paintings, surround the final work.
He said his biggest challenge was scaling all the different species to each other and creating a consistent light source on all the subjects.
Among the sketches is a painting of a quagga, an extinct species of zebra. The animal has been extinct since the 1870s and only six known photos of the animal exist, all of which are black and white. Jarvi said recreating an image of this animal required the most research and study.
Jarvi, 61, is a self-taught artist. He said his love of wildlife started when he was a child, collecting frogs and fish out of the local ponds of northern Minnesota. He began his artistic career in Minnesota drawing and painting waterfowl.
He repeatedly entered the Minnesota Duck Stamp competition in the mid-80’s and finally won. This was soon followed by a win of the Minnesota Pheasant Stamp competition. This not only gave him notoriety but enough prize money to pursue his love of art and wildlife full time.
He was commissioned to paint his first pieces of African wildlife about 30 years ago. He, along with a group of other artists, were sent to Africa for a month to observe, sketch and photograph the continent’s wildlife. He has since traveled to Africa 12 more times.
“I sort of eat, sleep and breathe Africa,” he said. “The first thing I do in the morning is check the television for any African documentaries on that day. I do a lot of research beyond just the field research.”
The portraits in the “The African Menagerie” are somewhat of a departure from Jarvi’s typical paintings, which usually portray predator/prey interactions. He most loves depicting lions, and a male lion prominently appears in the “The African Menagerie.”
Other iconic species included in the work include hippo, elephant, giraffe, rhino and leopard. These are joined by lesser-known species, such as bongo, okapi and mandrill.
“The African Menagerie” portrays the plight of wildlife and the environment at the hands of man. Jarvi said the concept for the painting is all the species have come to judge man for his actions against the environment.
The snow on Mount Kilimanjaro in the background is receding, a nod to the effects of global warming. Although the piece is not meant to be seen in a wholly biblical context, there is religious symbolism in the work, including the lion lying down with the lamb near the human figure and the four zebra, which are symbols of Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse in the far left panel.
“I hope they get a better appreciation of the grand array of subject matter and the wildlife there is on the African continent, let alone across the world,” Jarvi said of those who view the “The African Menagerie.” “Certainly there is a message of conservation in this work.”
There are definitely species that most would recognize as under threat in the painting, including the elephant and the rhino, but Jarvi noted they are pieces in a larger ecosystem.
“We have a tendency to focus on the great icons of Africa and other species around the world in regards of the possibility of them going extinct, but it goes hand in hand. If these species are in trouble, these lesser-known species are in the same situation. Extinction is not that selective, especially the current one that is going on.
“I thought it was important to put some of these lesser-known species side by side with some of the icons of Africa,” he said.
Documenting the project will be a coffee-table book by Todd Wilkinson. The book also includes other images from Jarvi’s career and the tale of his rise as an artist. Preorders are now being taken for the book.
Now that Jarvi has completed “The African Menagerie,” he is looking back to his roots for his next project and hopes to complete a piece titled “The Ducks, Geese and Swans of North America.”
The entertainment duo of Jay Cady & Leslie Seifert-Cady will be performing in Ellis County elementary schools this week.
Their visit is sponsored by the Hays Arts Council along with assistance from a grant from the Kansas Creative Arts and Industries Commission.
Brenda Meder, director of the Hays Arts Council, said although the performers have been coming to Ellis County for many years, HAC tries to have a slightly different focus each year.
This year’s performance was titled “Juggling the Earth’s Resources.” The duo used juggling to demonstrate how atoms form molecules of water and carbon dioxide.
Students were enlisted to demonstrate the water cycle including, evaporation, condensation, precipitation and accumulation. Jay showed the children how pollution can be introduced into the water system.
The entertainers demonstrated how the build up of greenhouse gases can cause global warming.
Children also learned about the environment and recycling with emphasis on the three Rs: reduce, reuse and recycle.
“Our hope is to make science fun and interesting,” Leslie said. “We hope it is not what they are expecting.”
Although some concepts like atoms and molecules are for the older children, Leslie said she and her husband try to inject enough action and humor to keep the interest of the younger children. She said the younger children can relate more to the demonstration on the water cycle.
The recycling information may be new for some kids, but for others it is good reinforcement.
Jay and Leslie are from Kansas City and travel all over the country presenting at schools, libraries and community events.
They have been full-time, professional performers since 1980. They’ve performed over 6,000 times in 35 states and six countries. To learn more, visit their website leslieandjay.com.
Leslie considered becoming a teacher, but was drawn to the theater department at Emporia State University. Her work with Jay has allowed her to pursue a different type of teaching and still work with children.
They will perform “A Drop of A Hat,” at 6 p.,m. Thursday at the Hays Public Library. It will include juggling, mime, improvisation, magic and audience participation.
USD 489 Best of the Best Award winner, Craig Pallister, Hays Middle School principal, poses with the Hays school board.
By CRISTINA JANNEY Hays Post
Craig Pallister, Hays Middle School principal, was honored with the Best of the Best Award by the Hays school board Monday night.
Pallister, who has been with the Hays district for 25 years, was nominated by Jerry Braun, HMS gifted teacher.
Braun has been on the staff at the middle school three different times, and he said it was because of Pallister that he wanted to keep coming back.
“I have had many bosses now, and he is the best I have ever had,” Braun said. “Mostly because he doesn’t get in our way. He lets us to our job. He supports us and he gives us the resources we need. He tells us every day from day one that working with students is about caring, compassion and connections. Craig Pallister is someone who practices what he preaches.”
Pallister approached the award with humility, saying, “This is not really my thing being recognized for this, because it is part of my job that I started in this district 25 years ago.”
He thanked Braun, the middle school staff and all the central administration staff he has worked with over the years.
He said he had been blessed with many assistant principals, including Shanna Dinkel, who is now the assistant superintendent of the district.
“I felt as if I should have had teachers, paras, secretaries, coaches, custodians, bus drivers, nurses, counselors and school [psychologists] all up here instead of me,” he said.
He said he went in this weekend and put in about a dozen nominations for the Best of the Best Award for people he really felt strongly about.
Superintendent John Thissen added, “There is a characteristic that we love to have leaders have, and none have it more than you in all the years I have been working in schools, and that is humility. We are very fortunate to have you care for your staff the way that you do.”
USD 489 Best of the Best Award winner Wyatt Kirkpatrick, Lincoln Elementary School fifth-grader, poses with the Hays school board.
Wyatt Kirkpatrick, Lincoln Elementary School fifth-grader, was named this month’s student Best of the Best. He was nominated by teacher Monica Dreiling.
“Wyatt Kirkpatrick comes to school each day with a cheerful attitude and is always willing to learn,” Dreiling said. “He is respectful to adults and peers and listens to directions and is honest. Wyatt actively participates in class and is a self-motivated learner.
“He sets high goals for himself and is willing to ask for help when he needs it. He frequently assists other students in the classroom and gives them encouragement. I am exited to have Wyatt in my classroom. I know he will be a role model for his peers this school year and in the future.”
