Editor’s note: This month’s Hays Post Teacher of the Month was awarded a special prize. Heidi Wamser, Roosevelt kindergarten teacher, will be the honorary game captain at the Harlem Globetrotters game Feb. 5 at Gross Memorial Coliseum.

By CRISTINA JANNEY
Hays Post

When you walk into a classroom full of students who love you and are all excited to be at school, it is an easy place to be, said Heidi Wamser, Roosevelt kindergarten teacher.

Wamser is in her 19th year of teaching kindergarten, all of which have been in Hays USD 489 schools.

She was nominated to be January’s Hays Post Teacher of the Month by parent Brandi VonLintel.

“Throughout every parent’s journey in their child’s education, many of us are lucky to have teachers like Mrs. Wamser,” VonLintel wrote in her nomination. “She taught my child four years ago and still has left an imprint on him to this day.

“Helping in her classroom throughout his year with her, I saw exactly what every child got to experience while in her care. She has the ability to inspire, ignite imagination and truly care about her students — going above and beyond to provide extra activities and special treats throughout the year.”

VonLintel continued, “I cannot thank her enough for helping instill the love of learning in my child, and I know without a doubt that she will continue to do this for all of her classroom children throughout her career.”

Wamser said she loves teaching kindergarten because of the kids.

“The biggest thing is that they still love every minute of being at school,” she said. “They love each other. They love their school. They love their teacher.

“Plus the math gets super harder as you get older, and I am not good at math,” Wamser joked.

Wamser said her favorite part of teaching the littlest students is when they learn something new.

“I think the best is the light in their eyes and the moment they actually figure something out they have been working so hard on,” she said. “You can literally see the light bulb go on by the smile on their face or you can see their shoulders aren’t hung anymore.

“I always try to tell them, ‘Look what you did! Look what you figured out!’ So that they know this was on you. This is not me. It wasn’t me who figured it out. You did. You are 5 or 6 and you read that book or you wrote that story or you did that math problem. I don’t think you see that kind of joy and love in classroom work at the upper grades as much.”

Wamser comes from a family of teachers. Both her father and mother were teachers. Her mother taught for more than 30 years at Munjor and then at Wilson Elementary School.

“I saw the work she put in,” Wamser said. “She was a first-grade teacher and then switched to second grade. Weekends, nights, holidays — she was always at school. I knew that it was going to be a difficult profession, but yet so rewarding in the end.”

Wasmer said she has seen that reward in her career. She has the opportunity to touch the lives of the 23 children in her class seven hours per day for 10 months out of the year.

“Everyone’s profession is important,” she said. “One couldn’t do something without another. But when you think about it, lawyers couldn’t be lawyers without a teacher. Doctors won’t be doctors without a teacher. A teacher has to touch every single person’s life. No matter what their outcome is as a job or profession, they are influenced by a teacher all the time. It is a pretty powerful position to be in.

“People who teach are amazing individuals. It is a lot when you sit down and think about it.”

She takes that position of power seriously. She described kindergarten as the children’s ground floor. She builds on that ground floor through positive reinforcement, teamwork and success.

When a child accomplishes a task, Wamser encourages the child to share the accomplishment with his or her friends.

“For instance if Legos was in groups this week and someone created their snowmobile, we show the entire class. Everyone gives that child a round of applause and we take their picture and we post it — so parents can see and their friends can see. It becomes an important thing, and it drives them in the end to create again. When they have another group like that, they are more apt to work hard to see if they can get to that point again.”

One of Wamser’s great honors in her teaching career was teaching both of her daughters. During school hours, the girls had to address their mother as Mrs. Wamser, but it was still “Mom” at home. The children in her class didn’t figure out until January when her oldest daughter’s birthday rolled around the two were related. The children in her youngest daughter’s class didn’t figure out the relationship until almost spring break when the class started talking about last names.

“Not treating them differently was tricky, because I am Mom, but yet being able to see everything that they were experiencing at a kindergarten level because I was the teacher, that was pretty amazing,” she said.

In January, Wamser focuses lessons on Martin Luther King Jr. and the holiday that celebrates his birthday. She wears a “Teach Peace” T-shirt and the children participate in an activity involving eggs. This activity provoked one of her favorite teaching memories.

Wamser brings in eggs that are brown, white, speckled and sometimes blue. The children talk about how the exteriors of the eggs look very different. She then asks the children what they think the eggs will look like on the inside. Most of think the eggs will look very different on the inside. She cracks the eggs and all of the eggs look the same on the inside.

She has the children look at their skin and hair. They notice that they all look a little different.

One year, Wamser had a boy in her class whose father was from Africa and had dark skin. When the children compared skin, it was if for the first time he realized that his was different.

“At 5 years old, it took 87 days for him to figure out, ‘I’m different on the outside,’ but in kindergarten you can make them believe they are all the same. They are all 5 and 6 years old. They all look the same. They all feel the same. …

“Then all of the other kids were,’So, who cares that you look different on the outside?’ By that time we had opened up all the different eggs, and the kids said, ‘But you are the same on the inside. You’re our friend, and that makes you like everybody else.’ I tear up, because they are so innocent and so lovingly blind to the fact people are different. What point do they change and become nasty to each other? Everyone needs to see that lesson from a 5 and 6 year old’s eyes — to see, ‘No, everybody’s the same.’ ”

She said she walks away from instances like that and thinks, “Thanks for teaching me something today.”

Wamser tries to end each day with a moment of love and reassurance. Each child can opt for a handshake, high five or a hug as they leave her class.

“I feel they walk out with something positive even if it has been a really cruddy day or something happened. So the next day they are still going to know that Mrs. Wamser is still going to love you. She is still going to be right here at the door. Sometimes the most normal part of a child’s life is that seven hours they are at school in the day.”

By CRISTINA JANNEY
Hays Post

A new rocket-powered ice cream truck might bring you ice cream from the moon someday if some ambitious entrepreneurs from Wilson Elementary have anything to say about it.

Hays High DECA students are celebrating entrepreneurship this week with an elementary student product build and a speaker.

DECA at Wilson

With the aid of DECA students, the first-grade students drew their creations Wednesday. On Friday, they will build the products out of Legos, present to the class and explain where they would sell their products.

One group of Wilson students created a rocket-powered ice cream truck that would sell alien ice cream.

Another group drew pictures of cherry, strawberry and other food-shaped inflatables for swimming pools.

Another group developed their own Fortnite characters, while two other groups drew images of various designs for jets and airplanes.

“We are trying to promote entrepreneurship around the community,” Madelyn Waddell, junior DECA student, said. “We wanted to use Legos for the kids to express their creativity. We picked the first graders because they are in the middle of learning how to add up money and learning how to use their creativity to put it on paper or build it somehow.”

Although the cost of the students’ projects were supposed to be limited to $5, the students differed greatly on how much they thought their products should sell for.

One group of students who designed jets thought their planes should cost between $100 and $900.

Whereas the students who designed the Fortnite characters thought their in-game purchases should cost “$2,000 billion.”

On Wednesday, the HHS students also read the first graders a book about a person who was struggling to sell lemonade.

Former DECA student returns to HHS for speech

Also on Wednesday, HHS students were invited to hear Allyson Werth, a former HHS DECA student and recent FHSU grad, talk about her Farmhouse Crafts business.

Werth started her wooden sign business when she was still in college in 2016. She bought a commercial vinyl cutting machine from her father-in-law.

This  allowed her to create custom signs for business windows, wooden signs and door mats. She also offers DIY workshops.

Her signs start at about $35 each. Because all of the signs are custom designs, she requires payment in advance.

Although she has sold to people of all ages and genders, she determined her target market was women between 20 to 50 living in the U.S. She has primarily marketed through word-of-mouth and social media, including Facebook and Instagram. She does giveaways through Facebook posts. She also offers coupons to returning customers.

“More than 50 percent of my customers are return customers, so it is very important that my customers are happy and satisfied with the work that I have given them,” she said.

She said community involvement is important. This helps her grow her customer base through personal interactions. She also gets advice from national social groups of other entrepreneurs and crafters.

In 2018, she launched on Etsy and shipped to 15 states. However, the additional cost and labor involved with handling Etsy orders led her to closing that account at the beginning of this year.

Since graduation, Werth has taken a full-time job in addition to her craft business. She said orders tend not to be stable in her business, which makes it difficult for her to rely on that as a sole source of income.

A home business takes a lot of self-discipline, but Werth said she enjoys being able to set her own hours, learn from her business and take on new challenges.

She also said she received a great deal of satisfaction knowing people enjoy her designs and are pleased with her work.

One of her goals is to start a website for her business this year.

“I always tell people to follow your dreams,” she said. “People are always going to say you are never going to make it in the real world having a business, so that is when you need to weed out that negativity and tell people you are going to make it. It may take awhile. You are not going to be a $100,000 company in a day. It is going to take years and years to build your experience before you get to where you want to be.”

“Many business owners say they are never where they want to be. They are always learning and growing to build their business.”

The theme of this year’s campaign is Passion to Paycheck. The co-chairs of the campaign are Hays High DECA members Brooke Denning, Cassidy Prough and Madelyn Waddell.

DECA prepares emerging leaders and entrepreneurs for careers in marketing, finance, hospitality and management in high schools and colleges around the globe. There are 215,000 members worldwide.

Hays High DECA is active in the community by organizing and conducting the annual Trick or Treat So Others Can Eat Food Drive, supporting and raising funds for Ronald McDonald House Charities of Wichita, and conducting various public relations campaigns as well as various related marketing projects. Hays High DECA members also compete at a state and international level.

By CRISTINA JANNEY
Hays Post

Grow Hays hosted its first “Shark Tank”-style Pitch It session Tuesday night at BriefSpace.

Competitors proposed a diverse range of products and services. A Fort Hays State University student proposed an app that could alert you to gunshots in the area. Another young man proposed building fire starters that use a chemical reaction. Other presenters included an art therapy nonprofit, a quilter, a service to help people increase their credit scores and a entrepreneur with his own line of vape juice.

Each presenter had five minutes to pitch with three minutes for questions from the judges. The winner went home with a $500 cash prize.

Chroma Quilting
Amanda Legleiter, owner of Chroma Quilting, was the winner of the challenge and took home the prize money. She hopes to move her business out of her basement and into a Hays storefront.

Legleiter uses a long-arm quilter to create throws, T-shirt quilts and complete other projects. She also would like to offer quilting classes. In the local market, Legleiter said she found there were long wait times at current quilting business and a large number of long-arm quilters retiring from the industry.

She said by creating more visibility she hopes to increase her client base.

SafetEaves

Hayden Hutchison, a Fort Hays State University student, proposed an app that would alert the user of a gunshot in the area.

The app is based on similar technology marketed by ShotSpotter, which is  being used in neighborhoods by law enforcement to detect gunshots and increase response times.

Hutchison said gunshots have a unique audio fingerprint that is distinguishable from other similar sounds that might cause a false alert, such as the sound of a gunshot on a TV.

“It would give users time to take precautions and get to a safe environment,” Hutchison said.

The personal security market is growing and is expected to be about $29 billion by 2022. He said he and his partners plan to market the app on a subscription basis.

Hutchison and his partners are looking for a software engineer to help develop the app.

Surtr fire starter

Parker Holterman pitched his Surtr fire starter. The device ejects and ignites a petroleum pellet with a single motion. Unlike other devices that only create sparks and require the user to tend kindling, the Surtr pellets remain lit in all weather conditions for several minutes. The device holds four replaceable pellets.

He has a patent on the device, but has yet to manufacture any of the devices.

Holterman has a company in Wichita that can manufacture the devices and a source for the fuel. His initial investment would depend on what type of quantity discount he could secure for his initial order.

The fire starter market in 2018 was worth $38 million and camping is on an upward trend.

Angels and Umbrellas
Mitch Lindeman of Norton wants to start a nonprofit called Angels and Umbrellas to offer arts instruction to people who suffer from mental illness.

Lindeman himself is a recovering addict and has mental illness. He said art and music has been instrumental in his recovery and he would like to offer that to others who have similar problems.

When he was in rehab, he played a piano in the center’s music room. Soon people were asking him for lessons. This inspired him to reach out to others through the arts.

“Our mission is to teach members coping skills through expressing themselves through art, music, poetry and creative thinking and to focus on the positive side of these illnesses and change the way we look at mental health,” he said.

Lindeman said he wanted to open a storefront with spaces for art, woodworking, music and other creative endeavors. He also wanted to launch a website that would allow people to share their creations and positive actions in their communities. He said he already has volunteers willing to teach arts courses. The non-profit would sell art projects its to help offset costs.

He has taken the first steps to creating his non-profit, but still needs to file paperwork with the federal government to become a 501(c)3.

Credit Repair Services

Robert Readle, a local real estate agent, said he wanted to address the increasing problem of people with low credit scores.

A low credit score can affect the ability to obtain a mortgage and other types of credit. It can also affect interest rates.

“So many people underestimate what is going to take to fix this,” he said.

He said it can take months to get problems corrected and it is not a do-it-yourself project.

“Credit bureaus don’t make money by taking your call and fixing what is wrong on the report. They make money collecting data and reselling it, so you are really a thorn in their side. If you don’t know what you are doing, you can really mess it up,” he said.

Although there are some large national companies that offer similar services, Readle said he thought there was a niche for a local business who could offer a personal face-to-face touch.

He said he sees a couple of levels of service, including initial credit repair then a credit monitoring service. Software is available to aid in this type of work, but Readle said he needs a qualified partner, as he already works a full-time job.

“It would benefit our community with higher home ownership and less month-to month costs in budgets by lower interest rates on their loans,” he said.

Hazy Dayz Vapes

Donavan Rogers is seeking a $50,000 investment to open his own vape shop in Hays — Hazy Dayz Vapes.

He has his own vape blend, Throat Punch Vape Juice. He would like to open a storefront in Hays from which he could wholesale or retail Throat Punch as well as sell other vape juices.

He told the group he already has the licenses in place to sell vape juices, but needs between $25,000 and $30,000 to order inventory.

The vape industry is booming, going from $4.2 billion in sales four years ago to $22.4 billion in sales today.

He told the judges his business plan projected he would be able to turn a profit within the first month and he saw room for growth regionally.

One of the judges asked about health concerns associated with vaping. Rogers used vaping to stop smoking and said he feels he is healthier than when he was a smoker.

Doug Williams, Grow Hays director, said he would like to have at least three more Pitch It events this year.

Corrected 12:55 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 24 for the spelling of Hayden Hutchison’s name.

By CRISTINA JANNEY
Hays Post

The newest traveling exhibit to come to the Sternberg Museum of Natural History will feature the biggest shark to ever swim in the oceans.

“Megalodon: The largest shark that ever lived” will have a walk-in replica of the massive shark that stretched to 60 feet and weighed an estimated 72 tons.

The exhibit is set to open to the public on Saturday, Feb. 2. The museum will have a members-only opening from 7 to 9 p.m. Friday, Feb. 1. The traveling exhibit is set to be at the Sternberg through Labor Day.

Megalodon are believed to have lived 23 million to 2.6 million years ago. Despite myths and legends perpetuated by movies like last summer’s “Meg,” the megalodon is long extinct.

As with modern sharks, megalodon bodies were primarily comprised of cartilage. All that remains of these giants today is their teeth, which could grow to seven inches. Megalodon were on the scene after the inland sea that covered Kansas vanished. However, fossil teeth can still be found in the Carolinas.

Portions of the exhibit will allow people to look and touch megalodon teeth as well as view the progression of the shark’s jaw size as they grew from 30 feet to their full 60 feet.

Scientists believe megalodon preyed upon whales. Tooth marks have been found in fossilized whale bones.

Scientists are divided about the relationship between megalodon and modern sharks. Some scientists believe the megalodon are related to modern great white sharks and makos. However, others believe the megalodon evolved into another shark species that is also now extinct.

Visitors to the exhibit will also learn about modern sharks, their habitats and prey.

Darrah Steffen, Sternberg public relations assistant, said she thinks Americans’ fascination with sharks is born out of fear. However, she said it is important to dispel myths and create awareness to protect modern sharks in the wild.

“I think it is important to bring awareness even if we are in the middle of the United States,” she said. “Because you don’t want people to fear [sharks] if they ever come in contact with them.”

Rachel Unruh, marketing intern, noted sharks are not the mindless killing machines as they have been portrayed. Sharks are calculated hunters and humans are not their typical prey.

“It is fear to fascination,” she said of the exhibit.

The exhibit was created by the University of Florida.