By CRISTINA JANNEY
Hays Post

Creek Side Resort has broken ground on its new RV park and wedding venue one and a quarter miles south of Interstate 70, 157 exit on the 183 bypass.

The park will have spots for 36 RVs with electric, water and sewer hookups, as well access to high-speed wifi. In addition, the park will have a clubhouse with restrooms and men’s and women’s showers. Owner Aaron Dreher said he hopes to have the park open by Memorial Day weekend.

Once the RV spots are completed, Dreher plans to add three 12-by-24-foot cabins at the site. They will be equipped with sleeping lofts, restrooms with showers, and kitchens. He said he hopes to expand to 12 cabins at some point.

He plans to have an outdoor wedding and concert venue, which will hold up to 300 people, open by this fall on the same property. Dreher also owns the Diamond Luxury Party Buses and was originally looking for land to build a venue that would function with his party bus service.

He said he hopes to have a grand opening for the whole facility by late summer or early fall.

Dreher said he plans to rent the RV spots for $30 a night and the cabins for $65 to $75 per night. He is considering discounts on the cabins for long-term stays or rentals during the week.

The property is ringed by trees and bordered on two sides by Big Creek. Dreher said he thought the location is ideal, with the woodsy landscape and its proximity to I-70, the sports complex and RPM Speedway.

Once complete, the RV park will be only one of two in Hays. The next nearest RV parks are 30 miles to the east or west.

“When I got married, we had family asking for places to bring their RVs and their campers,” he said, “and there really wasn’t a good place to do that, so I decided to do my own.”

The property, which is on the west side of the the bypass, has been annexed into the city of Hays and will be on city water and sewer.

Dreher bought the property and the RV park plans from a group of owners who had intended to develop the property into an RV park, but never completed the project.

Dreher, who has a bachelor’s degree in construction from FHSU, tweaked the plans and is doing most of the labor on the project himself with some help from his brother-in-law on the weekends. His father-law-in is a draftsman and helped Dreher complete the final plans for the park.

For more information, see Creek Side Resort webpage at creeksidehays.com.

By CRISTINA JANNEY
Hays Post

The Hays USD 489 school board approved on a split vote Monday night the purchase of new iPads for Hays Middle School students.

The district will purchase 680 iPads and cases for $238,000.

Board members Lance Bickle and Greg Schwartz advocated for purchasing less expensive Chromebooks without touchscreen capability. The difference between buying devices with touchscreens was $40,000.

“At this point it is the process of this whole thing that frustrates me,” Bickle said. “We can absolutely get by without touchscreens without a doubt. Probably 90 percent of the other districts out there can get by without other touchscreens, but for some reason, we can’t here at USD 489. Those other districts also do it and save money, but again, we don’t seem to be able to do that.”

During the fall, the district Technology Committee conducted a Chromebook pilot study in which the Learning Center, and select HMS and elementary classes participated. After that study, the Technology Committee recommended purchasing iPads.

The district’s Technology Committee surveyed HMS teachers to determine how often they use the touchscreen function and how eliminating touchscreens would affect student learning.

Of the 36 teachers surveyed, 21 of the 36 said their students used the touchscreen function hourly. Thirty-one of 36 teachers said student learning would be negatively impacted by the elimination of touchscreens.

The teachers were then asked to elaborate on how the touchscreens were used in their classes. Many of them said the students took notes or completed assignments by writing or drawing using the touchscreen function. A group of HMS teachers as well as Principal Tom Albers attended the meeting so they could answer the board’s questions if necessary.

Bickle said he found many of the comments from the teachers who were surveyed perplexing, such as a comment which said it would be difficult for middle school students to take notes on paper and keep them organized.

“Seriously?” he said. “Have we really fallen that far that our kids can’t keep their notes in order now on paper and pencil?”

Bickle continued, “At the end of the day, it is frustrating because all of this shouldn’t be looked at now. It should have been looked at all the way along here, because it seems at the end of the day, the decision was made we are going to go with iPads and every one’s mind was made up that we’re going with iPads and we are going to find every reason we can to why we shouldn’t look at anything else.

“I can honestly say the thing that we have to look at as a board is, ‘Is this the most important place to be spending money?’ Right now, I can’t say that it honestly is. We have enough other things going on. We can’t even pass a bond. For me, it is awfully hard to go back and ask a community to support a bond when we can come up with money and spend more money than we need to get by.”

Schwartz said he was not happy with the bidding process on this technology purchase or other recent purchases.

“We go out and pick a brand and then we figure out how to make it fit,” he said. “Those aren’t good ways to save money. They are not sound ways to do this.”

Board member Paul Adams spoke in favor of the Technology Committee’s recommendation.

“I think we entrusted the Technology Committee with that. On our part we probably should have put a board member on there. I think it is something we may want to do in the future. I appreciate the effort and the work you put in. I think the fact is that you are closer to what the students do need and don’t. We are forming uniformed opinions often, whereas you are there at the classroom with them and may be closer to the research.”

Board member Mike Walker agreed the committee and teachers were closer to the students than the board. He also said he appreciated the committee had stayed within budget and was continuing with a four-year replacement rotation as the the board had requested.

“I respect your position and opinions,” he told the Technology Committee, “however, that doesn’t mean that next year we can’t change things up by putting a board member on the committee or have some more discussions about how the process goes on.”

The final vote was 4-3 with Schwartz, Bickle and Board President Mandy Fox voting against.

The new iPads should be ready for students to use this fall.

Next year, the district is scheduled to replace devices for grades three, four and five. Those students are also currently using iPads.

By CRISTINA JANNEY
Hays Post

Suicide is like a bomb going off in your life, one member of the Healing After Loss of Suicide grief support group said.

On a recent visit to a meeting of the Center for Life Experiences’s HALOS grief support group, some of the members talked about the emotional fallout from losing a loved one in this devastating way.

The members of the group respect the pain that the stigma often brings when the story of a loved one’s life is shared. They also respect each member’s need to tell their story, so they asked specific names not be shared.

In addition to stigma, guilt was a reoccurring theme.

One member lost her sister-in-law as a result of suicide four decades ago. The pain persists.

“At that time, and to a certain extent today, there is a stigma to suicide. You didn’t talk about it at all,” she said.

After her brother died four years ago, she started to attend the HALOS group and talk about her sister-in-law’s death.

“I am finally able to talk about it,” she said. “I couldn’t do it, because there was also guilt that ‘What did I do that lead her to do it?’

“It is hard to explain the things that you think of that might have led to it.”

Ann Leiker, CFLE executive director and group facilitator, said in that era there were no support groups and you were basically told you just had to get on with your life, not look back and not talk about it.

Another member’s daughter had taken her life. She was diagnosed with depression before she entered grade school and had struggled her whole life emotionally. Yet this HALOS member also talked about her shock at the death and the extreme guilt she felt when her daughter died.

She said she is still pained by how the people around her responded to her daughter’s death. She said they pretended like she never existed.

“It was like being ignored, and the pain was so acute and you are in shock at first when it happens,” she said. “You feel like you’re … I don’t know … a ghost walking through this world.”

As bad as that pain was, she still had to function, go to the grocery store and take care of her other children.

“It was as though I was a non-entity. The world didn’t seem real to me. It is such a profound loss, you can’t experience anything like that,” she said. “People don’t know what to say to you or how to act.”

A neighbor led her to the group.

“If I didn’t have this group to go to, I don’t know… When something like that happens, the guilt is so horrible. To this day, you could tell me over and over again, ‘It’s not your fault. It’s not your fault. You did everything you could,'” she said but her voice began to quiver and she began to cry. “But I know there was something there that I could have done.”

“There is no one when you come right down to it, even with the group. … You’re all alone. You’re just alone. There is that guilt to suicide. It is a profound loss for all of us. It is a different kind of death, and you don’t really want to experience it because you can’t get rid of it.”

Yet another member came to the group after many years of not being about to talk about her brother’s suicide. He died in the 1970s.

“It was discussed within family only, not outside. There was such a stigma with suicide,” she said. “And so my children and my nieces and nephews — they didn’t even know my brother or anything about him. Like she said. They act like they don’t even exist. Well, my brother existed. He was alive.

“I loved him, so I made an album for him my children and my nieces and nephews if they ever want to find out about their uncle. ”

She continued, “With suicide, there is no closure because you don’t know. You may think you know the reason and probably it might have been the straw that broke the camel’s back. But I think it is many little things that happen throughout their lives.”

For years, she had wanted to connect in some positive way with other people who had been affected by suicide. When she moved back to Hays in 2009, she saw an ad for HALOS on Channel 8. She has been with the group ever since.

She focuses on trying to celebrate her brother’s life and not his death.

“You don’t want your loved ones to be forgotten,” she said. “They existed and they deserved to have a life. One thing we do is share what they did throughout their lives. It’s a story, and we focus on the life.”

Nursing students were observing the group the night the Hays Post visited as they do regularly for CFLE groups.

The member addressed the nurses, “I want to tell you, as nursing students, if you come across anybody who has had suicide in their lives, don’t be afraid of them. They are just normal people. They just need a boost. Be there for them. They need an ear.”

A man and his wife began attending the group together after their son died. He said they continue to come back to the group because they can share their experiences.

“To talk to somebody who knows what you went through,” he said. “You can’t just go out here on the street and run into someone and talk to them. We have all been there. We have all had it happen. We can talk, and you don’t get funny looks or ugly faces.

“We just talk as friends. This basically become our second family. We talk to these people just like family.”

“There is no stigma in this room,” another member said. “We don’t judge.”

The woman who lost her daughter said, “There is a compassion here that we can’t get anywhere else, not even from our best friends, not even our family members. It is only the people who have had to live through it. It is not understandable to other people.”

The people in the group said the cliches many people use to try to comfort you after a death just don’t work. They don’t want to hear things, such as “They are in a better place” or “God won’t give you more than you can handle.”

People who are suffering in that way really need friends and family to anticipate needs, such as food, mowing the lawn, an hour of housework, listening or a simple hug.

“We need someone to listen,” she said. “We need to talk about that person. You have to let us miss that person and talk about that person.”

She said she really appreciated a fellow-support group member who came over and cleaned her bathroom. Another member of the community baked her family bread.

The woman who lost her brother said, “Suicide is something that needs to be talked about. It’s happening. It is in our society. It’s amongst our young ones, and we just need to talk about it honestly. Don’t be ashamed.”

The group also talked generally about the stigma associated with mental illness. Members agreed more resources need to be dedicated to assist people who suffer from mental illness. Western Kansas has the highest suicide rate in the state and that rate is climbing, yet because of its rural nature, accessing treatment for mental illness can be difficult, Leiker said.

HALOS is the only suicide grief support group west of Salina and only one of a half a dozen in the state.

Leiker said mental illness also needs to be decriminalized.

“Our societal approach to suicide needs to be rethought and reframed,” she said, “so people who are in so much pain the only solution they see is ending their lives are not re-traumatized by becoming a part of the legal and law-enforcement systems unless a crime is committed.

“Law enforcement are often the first responders to a suicide attempt and want to help the situation but are often short on available resources due to cutbacks in funding mental health at all levels. Everyone is trying, but we need more people available to help.”

When a suicidal person is reported to 911, they send the police and that person is sometimes taken to treatment in handcuffs.

The HALOS group is open to anyone. It is free, and all you have to do is show up to the group. Leiker and the Center for Life Experience also facilitates Healing Hearts, for those grieving the loss of a child; Healing After Loss, for those grieving the loss of adults; and the National Alliance on Mental Illness, which offers support groups for both people who suffer from mental illness and their families.

If you or someone you love is in immediate danger of suicide, call 911. For non-emergencies, you can contact High Plains Mental Health at 1-800-432-0333.

To learn more about HALOS, NAMI or any of the Center of Life Experience groups or programs, visit its website.

See related story: Center for Life Experience moves; same purpose remains

See related story: After tragic loss of their teen son, couple finds solace through Healing Hearts

See related story: Healing After Loss helps the grieving to repair, reconnect

Cover graphic courtesy CanStockPhoto.com

By CRISTINA JANNEY
Hays Post

Doreen Timken has suffered much loss in her life.

She shares some of those loses with the support group Healing After Loss at the Center for Life Experience in Hays. She is an example of how grief has no time limits — and neither does learning how to reconnect.

Her journey started in 1991. In December of that year, her daughter who had just graduated from high school the previous spring called and said, “I have some good news and some bad news. I’m pregnant, and I have acute leukemia.”

First, her daughter lost the baby.

In June, her dad died of lymphoma. In July, her husband was diagnosed with prostate cancer. In November, Timken lost her daughter to cancer.

Her husband died in 2007 also from cancer.

“I though I handled things pretty well,” she said, “Because sometimes God gives you things in multiples, so you don’t just concentrate on just one thing. I learned a lot about God through my daughter, because she was very, very brave.”

Then one day at work, she met Alan Scheuerman, who was already attending the Healing After Loss support group. He had lost his wife and, years earlier, a young son.

“We started talking, and we had some of the same types of losses,” she said. “I said, ‘I don’t think I need to go to a group. It’s been too long.’ I started to go to a group and discovered I never, ever dealt with my daughter’s death.

“Thank goodness for a great support group, a great facilitator. You are going to find that a lot of us have multiple losses here, and I think from here on out with the new organization, I think the word needs to get out more. … every time I come, as many years have past, I still learn something about myself because you still have to recreate yourself.

“Not only that, but you are helpful to others, and others kind of seek you out when they get in the same predicament. Before I had any losses, did I pay any attention to anybody else? No. it makes me feel really bad because I never knew what to say.”

The Center for Life Experience recently reorganized as a stand alone non-profit. It is now located in the Hadley Center. In addition to Healing After Loss, it also facilitates meetings for Healing Hearts, a grief support group for parents who have lost children; Healing After Loss of Suicide (HALOS); and the National Alliance on Mental Illness.

Doreen addressed nursing students who were attending a recent support group meeting to observe as part of their clinicals.

“I appreciate all of you going into nursing. I really do. It’s super. Don’t be afraid to talk to patients when you know there is no hope for them,” she said. “Don’t be afraid to talk to their families. You can be a lot of help for them.”

Scheuerman lost his 2-year-old son from spinal meningitis in 1981. As a parent, he blamed himself for the death and suffered for about 10 years with that loss.

“I really loathed myself,” he said. “My wife loved me dearly and helped me through that and her family did too, so I am very thankful for that.”

His wife died in 2008 of breast cancer.

“I didn’t want to take 10 years to heal the second time around. About two weeks after I put my wife in the ground, I came to this group and Ann (Leiker) was a great facilitator, and it was a great group. I was very thankful.”

Scheuerman has been attending the group ever since.

“I have been very thankful for all they have given me and shared with me,” he said.

Ken Windholz, FHSU psychology instructor, visited the group during a recent meeting. People who are grieving might suffer from depression. He said support groups help people who are grieving make social connections, and that can help them be more resilient.

Another group member, Mike, lost his wife to pancreatic cancer in 2008. He is close to his son who lives in Salina and they talk almost every day, but he said he didn’t know what do to do after his wife died.

“This was a lifeline for me,” he said of the support group. “Rather than sit in my house … alone … I came to this after I lost Jane. It’s been a godsend.”

Windholz shared the story of his journey through grief. About 12 years ago Windholz’s younger sister died of cancer. They had been close as kids, playing football together. Ken was the protector, getting his younger sister out of jams.

Windholz was there with her when she died on Christmas morning at her home. Winholdz’s two brothers came to L.A., where their sister was living. On the day of the funeral, his oldest brother had a heart attack at a hotel across town. He was rushed to a nearby hospital, but died within 45 minutes of arriving at the hospital.

“I wanted it to go away,” he said. “I wanted it to stop.”

“We got through it, but I shut down, and I stayed shut down for the longest time,” he said. “I stayed shut down for the most part because I felt, ‘God, I have had enough. I can’t do this anymore, so let’s close it off.’ ”

Two years after the loss of his sister and brother, his mother, with whom he was best friends, died of lung cancer. A year and a half ago, his other brother, who he idolized, also died of a heart attack.

When we develop a relationship with someone, our brains develop connections with that person. We respond to the sound of their voice, the smells that we associate with that person and the image of their face, Windholz explained.

When Windholz’s family was preparing for his brother’s funeral, the family was reviewing video footage to play at the funeral, and they found some footage of his dad. He said even though his dad had been dead for years, he made an instant connection with the sound of his father’s voice. After her husband died, Windholz’s sister-in-law kept her husband’s shirts, because the smell reminded her of him.

After someone dies, you have to come to accept a new reality without them. Even if you have prepared for that person’s death, that usually doesn’t prepare you for the emotional impact of the actual death, Windholz said. The part of your brain that is the thinking part of your brain and is making those preparations is separate from the emotional system in your brain and body that operates in the here and now.

Over time, the thinking part of your brain and the emotional parts of your brain come together to form acceptance.

“When we finally come to an acceptance, there seems to be a blending of the emotional circuit in the brain with this cognitive piece. They seem to balance.

“They say, ‘I know this is a reality.’ Some of you may have experienced that reality maybe a few months later or maybe a couple of years later, maybe quite some time later. You look around and say, ‘This is the new reality. I have been hoping, hoping, hoping. I have been waiting for them to come back through the door. I have been waiting for that voice. I have been waiting for that news that this isn’t the truth. That there is something wrong here. ‘Oh, I got it, this is the new reality.’ ”

He described himself as a 69-and-a-half-year-old orphan.

“I use that term because orphans by definition are disconnected and alone in their lives, and it is very, very common to feel left alone when we are in the mist of loss.”

Windholz said people in support groups have strong social brains. They are making new connections in support groups to help them move through their grief.

“There are other folks sitting at home who wouldn’t venture out to a group like this and are suffering for it,” he said, “because they are not ready or don’t know how to make that connection socially.”

When people become depressed whether as a result of a loss or genetic or biologic factors, changes in the brain can make it difficult to engage in the actions that are most likely to help ease the depression, Windholz said. This includes exercising, eating well, getting plenty of sleep and making social connections.

“Depression is this self-fulfilling prophecy,” he said. “If we are depressed, we stay depressed until we break that cycle in some way or another.”

The fact people attend support groups means they are willing to make a change and work to break the cycle of depression, he said.

“You had to fight through,” he said, “literally fight through the impulses to isolate and stay home and stay within.”

Everybody has their own way of grieving, he said.

“Everyone has their own way of repairing. Everyone has their own way of disconnecting and their own say. We each have our own say in when and how we reconnect if we choose to do that.

“Whatever the call, your brain will go along with it. It is that plastic. It is that malleable. It is that responsive. It may take a little work.”

He said he saw the value of the support group as a place to reach outside of yourself.

“I have something to give you, but I want what you can give me too,” he said.

To learn more about Healing After Loss or any of Center of Life Experience groups or programs, visit its website.

See related story: Center for Life Experience moves; same purpose remains

See related story: After tragic loss of their teen son, couple finds solace through Healing Hearts

Graphic courtesy CanStockPhoto.com

By CRISTINA JANNEY
Hays Post

Neal Younger is trying to spread the word about a resources he said made all the difference to he and his wife when they lost their 16-year-old son, Cody.

Younger and his wife have been longtime members of the the Healing Hearts support group.

The Youngers joined Healing Hearts nine years ago when they lost their son, Cody, in a tragic car crash. Another teen in the car also died in the crash.

“Without this support group, I don’t know where my wife and I would be,” he said.

He said his faith, talking about Cody and talking to other people helped him get through the grief.

The Youngers joined the support group within a month of Cody’s death and have never left.

“We got to talk to people who have been in the group before us,” he said, “and it was soothing. We asked what they did — what they did in their grief as they went through the healing process. That helped us a lot and just talking about our son — not just forgetting and going on. …

“They are helping us, and now we are at the point where we are helping other people in the group who come in.”

Younger said being able to connect with other people who were experiencing the same type of loss was important. He said friends and family often have a difficult time approaching someone who has lost a child. They don’t know what to say or how to help.

When his son died, Younger said he and his wife talked to other support group members about what they wanted people to say to them as they grieved. They talked about things they did not want people to say.

“You are going to have people who are your best friends who are probably not going to be your best friends,” he said. “There will be strangers who will come up and say, ‘Did you not lose?’ … To us that was soothing. To have a stranger come (up to us), it felt like they do care.”

Younger said talking about his son really helped him and his wife through the grieving process.

Neal said his son was an ornery teenager. He loved to be outdoors and go hunting with his dad or go to the lake. In the last year before his death, Cody was following in his dad’s footsteps and becoming more involved in the farm.

“He was a good all-around kid,” he said. “I miss him … always.”

Younger acknowledged not everyone may feel comfortable talking about their deceased child.

“Everybody heals differently,” he said. “Everybody grieves differently.”

The Center for Life Experience sponsors three grief support groups — Healing Hearts for parents who have lost children, Healing After Loss of Suicide (HALOS) and Healing After Loss, which is a general grief support group.

The CLFE groups are true support groups. They are not facilitated by clinicians, but are made up of people with similar experiences.

Younger said he and his wife, who is on the CFLE board, both strongly believe the support groups need to stay in the community.

“(I want them to know) if they are struggling and not grieving to come to these groups. It would be very soothing. Everybody who is in there is in the same situation, so we can talk amongst each other and help them get through this.”

The Center for Life Experience was launched 18 years ago in the Hays First Presbyterian Church, with donor funds specified to benefit the community, not the church.

Last May, the Session of First Presbyterian determined it could no longer financially support CFLE.

In November CFLE became a stand-alone, community-based not-for-profit 501(c)(3) and in late December, CFLE moved to the second floor of the Hadley Center in downtown Hays.

Younger along with the CFLE board are seeking donations toward the long-term sustainability of the CFLE and its mission. Any donation amount is appreciated.

“All the merchants in Hays have been excellent,” Younger said. “I can’t believe it. I am just amazed how our community can kick in when needed.”

The CFLE support groups also provide an important resource for NCK Tech and FHSU students who observe the support groups as part of the their nursing or social work programs.

You can send donations to the CLFE at 205 E. Seventh, Ste. 251, Hays, KS 67601.

You can learn more about CFLE and its programs on its website.

See related story: Center for Life Experience moves; same purpose remains

Graphic courtesy CanStockPhoto.com