By CRISTINA JANNEY
Hays Post

Students at Hays Middle School are helping solve the tech troubles of their fellow students and even teachers.

Twenty-one students are members of the HMS Tech Team, which began as a pilot program this school year. The students had to apply to be on the team.

Two HMS eighth-grade students on the Tech Team — Wyatt Waddell and Chason VanDerWege — gave a presentation on the team’s work at the USD 489 school board meeting last Monday.

“We help the students with all their technology needs. We try to make the setup of iPads easier and all technology,” VanDerWege said, “and we help with classroom support for teachers and implement technology.”

The middle school has created a ticket system for students to submit technology problems. The Tech Team students are on call during a Tech Team class or during their seminar class period. They try to respond to tickets within one or two class periods.

The ticket system is on the HMS website, and students don’t need to leave their classrooms or miss instruction time to submit tickets.

The Tech Team students have been collecting data on the success of the ticket program. The students have received 54 tickets in the last six weeks. They have been able to resolve 68 percent of the issues. Most of the remaining problems related to hardware and had to be sent in to school’s technology director.

The Tech Team also helps with other school projects, including the iPad rollout, setting up Apple IDs, setting up Hoopla and Libby with Hays Public Library and HMS Library staff, developing and maintaining the Student Life website, learning the ins and outs of a new educational robots for implementation in classrooms, and creating tutorials for the HMS Canvas page.

The robots the students worked with are from Wonder Workshop and are called Dash and Dot. One of the HMS teachers received a grant to purchase the robots. The students can use the robots to learn coding and work on problem-solving skills. The Tech Team students have learned how to program the robots and will be teaching small groups of other students how to use Dot and Dash.

The students also are learning about coding and last week started making an anti-bullying video. The video is based around the word “respect.” The students hope to show the video during an elementary school assembly. They are also developing an online scheduling system for the HMS counselors.

One of the team’s most recent projects was building a platform for the Zones of Regulation Check- In.

Zones of Regulation has been a concept that has been around for years. Students report their emotions as good, sad, frustrated or angry. In the past, this has been done with physical indicators, such as popsicle sticks, Julie Zollinger, school psychologist, said.

Zollinger searched online for a program that would allow students to self report their emotions online, but she didn’t find anything.

“We know we have middle school kids we need to track. With 700-some kids in our building, that is hard to do,” she said.

She sought the help of the Tech Team.

“I said this is the program,” Zollinger said. “I pulled it up on my computer and was Googling pictures they use. And it was just awesome because they turned to each other. I felt like I was just a fly on the wall at a startup in Silicone Valley. They had their iPads, and they were like, ‘We can do this.’ ‘Hey, if we do this then this would work better.’ I just sat back and watched them. It was a great feeling.”

HMS Tech Team members Peyton Zimmerman and Jude Tippy gave a report to the school board on Monday on their work on the project.

The students used Microsoft Forms to create a Zones of Regulation quiz. They then added the Apple app Remind as notification system that will alert the students in the program to take the quiz when they first get to school.

That data is forwarded to teachers, counselors and the school psychologist so they can help the student better regulate their emotions. The students plan to further add a system to remind teachers to check the data.

The Microsoft Forms data can be downloaded into an Excel document and graphed.

The Tech students piloted the program to work out bugs. The program rolled out to a limited number of target students on Oct. 12.

“This quiz is going to make it a lot easier for school administrators, teachers and school psychologists to get the information that they need because sticks don’t work anymore,” Tech Team student Zimmerman said.

The HMS Tech Team Video Team hopes to make a video tutorial for students on how to use the Zones of Regulation online quiz.

Board members said they were very impressed with the students’ work.

“It is like that age-old thing where you are walking down the hall or see a stranger on the street and you say, ‘Hey, how’s it going?’ ‘Fine, fine, fine.’ Sometimes I think are you really getting accurate data?” board member Luke Oborny said. “If you are interacting with students in a method with technology that they are already used to and are comfortable with, I think you can get more data and a lot more accurate data.”

By CRISTINA JANNEY
Hays Post

USD 489 staff member Debbie Barnett was honored with the Hays school district’s Best of the Best award for November at the school board meeting Monday night.

Barnett, Hays High counselor secretary, was nominated by Suellyn Stenger, HHS counselor.

Debbie Barnett is “often the first person to welcome new students and their families to Hays High,” Stenger said, “and she is always very pleasant and helpful.

“Debbie multitasks more efficiently than anyone I have had the pleasure of working with. She remains positive no matter the demands placed upon her. Debbie’s attention to detail is second to none. I have been told everyone is replaceable, but I beg to differ in this situation.”

Stenger said Barnett’s responsibilities are too numerous to list. She also assists the school psychologist, school nurse, staff and administrators.

“She is often the initial the contact for students and parents who are distressed,” Stenger said, “and she handles every situation very calmly.”

Stenger added Barnett is professional and understands the importance of student confidentiality.

“The counseling office would simply not be as efficient without Debbie Barnett. She is the Best of the Best,” Stenger said.

Lucy Tippy, Lincoln fifth-grader, was honored as the student Best of the Best.

She was nominated by her teacher, Taylor Reynolds.

“Lucy is such a light to have in my classroom,” Reynolds said.

Reynolds read her nomination letter.

“Lucy is a very bright student and goes above and beyond to help other students around her,” she said. “She is constantly asking the classroom teacher if she is able to help anyone who may not understand something. She spends all of her free time making sure her peers understand the assignment.

“She is always smiling and has a bright and happy energy about her that makes her light up a room. She just walks in the room, and she is always smiling and making funny jokes and just makes the classroom just that much better. I love having her in my class.”

By CRISTINA JANNEY
Hays Post

Children can join a baby owl and a young Pegasus, who eats rainbows for dinner, as they fight the forces of the evil night Night Mare in Hays librarian Nicole Thibodeau’s new book “Pegasus Dan and the Little Owl.”

For her first her first book, Thibodeau teamed up with Ellinwood artist Robert Joy.

Last week, Thibodeau and Joy were on hand at the Hays Arts Center for a book signing.

All the books on-hand at the HAC sold out. However, an exhibit of Thibodeau and Joy’s artwork is on display at the HAC until the end of October. Books can be purchased online through Amazon for $12.

The book is a tale of tolerance that Thibodeau, 38, said was inspired by her uncle. Her uncle was gay, and Thibodeau said he was misunderstood by his family. He recently died, and Nicole went to California to help her mother with her uncle John’s estate.

“It was a very moving experience, and it really inspired me to search for bringing more narratives into the world that are about inclusion and overcoming fear,” she said. “That was the narrative of this story and what this story is about.”

The main character in the story is a young Pegasus named Dan, who lives in a treehouse in an enchanted forest. Dan’s parents tell him not to trust the night creatures in the forest below.

One day, Dan is flying to school and he hears a noise. He swoops down to find a little owl whose wing is caught under a branch. He realizes she is a night creature.

“He says, ‘Just this once I would like to help you, but will you promise not to hurt me with your talons?’ She says, ‘I promise.’ He lifts up the branch and she flies away,” Thibodeau said.

Dan thinks about the little owl all day at school and hopes her wing is doing OK.

“He flies home at the end of the day and tells his parents he helped a night creature in the forest below. They look very worried and they tell him to be careful that the night creatures can be dangerous,” she said.

Dan has rainbows for dinner and goes to bed.

He wakes up to the sound of a crash and finds his father fighting the evil Night Mare, a horse.

“The little owl flies into the window, and she hoots, and the Night Mare vanishes into the night,” Thibodeau said.

Dan’s father thanks the owl, and Dan and the little owl are friends forever.

The little owl in the book was inspired by a baby owl that baby owl fell out of a tree in Thibodeau’s backyard. After a friend who works at the Sternberg examined the owl, he deemed it healthy enough to go back into the tree.

“It is about friendship, because he is afraid at the beginning because he doesn’t know any night creatures,” Thibodeau said. “Then he gets to know one and she helps him out. It is the overcoming of fear and learning about different kinds of creatures, which could be in our world different kinds of people.

“I also feel in this time in our society it is so important to generate more narratives that are bringing more people together and increasing the amount of compassion.”

Painting and drawings by Nicole Thibodeau and Robert Joy at the Hays Arts Center

Thibodeau said she did not think the book was appropriate for very young children because of the length of the story. She recommended it for first- through third-graders.

“Pegasus Dan and the Little Owl” was self-published. Thibodeau became acquainted with Robert Joy through an area art show. Joy and Thibodeau corresponded through the mail, and Joy sent her intricately hand-decorated envelopes with her letters. Photos of some of these made it into the back of the book.

Thibodeau is a library assistant in the young adult department at the Hays Public Library. She received her bachelor of arts in studio art from Bethany College in Lindsborg and her MFA from FHSU. She also received instruction at the Art Student’s League in New York, Lacoste School of the Arts in France, as well as from Studio Art Centers International in Florence, Italy. Additionally, she earned a master’s degree in English from FHSU.

Thibodeau has written and hopes to publish other children’s books. She is also a poet and visual artist.

“It is rewarding to create,” she said. “That is my favorite thing.”

By CRISTINA JANNEY
Hays Post

In an interview with Hays Post on Thursday, Hays USD 489 Superintendent John Thissen said he resigned last week due to personal reasons.

Thissen presented his letter of resignation to the board Friday, Oct. 19. A letter went out to staff on Sunday. Thissen’s resignation was accepted in the personnel transactions at Monday’s school board meeting.

He will be serving out the remainder of his current contract, which ends June 30.

Thissen said he entered his resignation now because he wanted the school board to have ample time to find a replacement. The early notification should give the school board a broader applicant pool, he noted.

“I can tell you that a lot has happened on a personal level in the last two or three years,” Thissen said.

Thissen underwent treatment for Hodgkin’s lymphoma in his first semester as superintendent in 2016 and said he is still struggling with some of long-term effects of his chemotherapy.

His wife has not be able to find a job in Hays as the couple had hoped. Therefore, she is still living in Herington.

“Being apart for this length of time has been very challenging,” Thissen said.

In addition, both of his parents have had recent health issues, and he said he wanted to be closer to his parents to help them.

“All of this is happening and is going on with me trying to make it work with me feeling pretty isolated out here in Hays when all of the family is two to three hours east of here,” he said. “I had committed. I just finally decided I must live and work closer to where my family is.”

Thissen, 56, said he has not found a new job and has not ruled out the possibility of retirement.

Thissen said he hopes people will not associate his resignation with some of the challenges facing the district, including an impasse in teacher negotiations, acquisition of new property for a new home for the Early Childhood Connections projects and two failed bond attempts.

“That’s the job,” Thissen said. “Being a superintendent of schools, you have to deal with those particular issues.”

Thissen did say he regretted not being able to unite the school board.

“I feel in the last two and half years that I have been here, the one the thing I really have failed at for sure is a team,” he said. “My job is to make a team of the board of education. I would say that isn’t the case.

“I don’t feel bad about not passing bond issues, because that happens. I don’t feel bad about even negotiations, because that happens. Those are things you work through, but one thing I think is really part of my job is to create a team effort.”

The board has been split on its most recent facilities project, the purchase and remodel of the Oak Park Medical Complex. The board was also unable to come to a consensus on a third bond attempt, and in a split vote, postponed any further discussion on a future bond until next year.

The district had failed bond attempts in 2016 and 2017.

Thissen said he still hopes the ECC project at the Oak Park Medical Complex will be completed. The district is in a protest period on the financing. If the district passes that hurdle, renovations are to be completed by the end of June.

“I would hope to be able to say in June this project … even people who are against may look at it and go, ‘Wow. OK, this was good.’ I am very hopeful with that,” he said.

Thissen said he hoped in a few years, the community could look back at the decision to end negotiations with the custodians’ union, SEIU, and consider it favorably. He also hoped the process and information gathered during the failed bond votes will help his replacement with a future bond election.

“I have never been in a community that has welcomed me to a job as openly as Hays has,” Thissen said. “My leaving is not something that has been lightly thought about. Unfortunately, it is one that events in my personal life in the last two and a half years have not fallen in line with what my intentions were.”

Board member Sophia Rose Young wrote after Monday’s meeting, “John has been a great leader for USD 489. I had hoped to serve the district alongside him for my full four years on the board, but I understand his desire to move forward, and I wish him the best of health. He is committed to serving this district and community wholeheartedly for the rest of the school year.”

Board President Mandy Fox said at the school board meeting Monday she did not want to comment on Thissen’s resignation. She had not returned questions in a follow-up email as of publication of this story.

Submitted

Saturday morning, Oct. 20, all the fire departments in Ellis County came together and performed their annual mutual aid training.

Thirty-three firefighters from the Ellis County, Victoria, Ellis, and Hays fire departments attended the training.

This training brings all fire departments together while working in a training environment to test skills, operational plans and equipment. This year’s drill was conducted southwest of Hays.

The exercise included a property owner burning down an abandoned structure while fire departments were on scene. The fire departments protected multiple buildings, or “exposures,” surrounding the fire building from receiving any damage.

Firefighters tested their skills with city structural fire engines to start a draft. This includes setting up 3,500-gallon drop-tanks next to the fire trucks, filling the tanks from the water tenders and having the fire trucks suck water out of the tanks to fight the fire.

This was tested and timed for reference as there are no fire hydrants outside city limits. Water was also shuttled on-scene from a local farm pond to refill the drop-tanks.

This larger training event is conducted once a year, and this year it was the Ellis County Fire Departments year to plan and host the event. Next year, the Victoria Fire Department will host the training event.

Although this larger mutual-aid training happens only once a year, there are multiple  other events where local fire departments train together on other items.

By CRISTINA JANNEY
Hays Post

As you crest over a small hill on south U.S. Highway 283 in Trego County, a small limestone building pops out of a wild sea of golden grass and auburn milo.

For years the one-room structure known as the Wilcox School was left to decay and was overrun by rodents and spiders.

But with the help of some dedicated history lovers and a donation of the building by the Harm Schneider family, Wilcox School has been restored. It was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in May 2006. The building was dedicated Sunday to Harm Schneider’s memory.

The school was built of Niobrara limestone, quarried on the banks of the Smoky Hill River, in 1886 and was used as a school until 1949.

The stone for the building was likely quarried by hand and moved to the building site by horse-drawn wagon. A stone with the original construction date is still a part of the building, although it is mostly obscured today by an entrance that was added to the building a later date.

Also still remaining is more than a century of student graffiti. Students carved their initials or names along with dates into the relatively soft limestone along the front entrance and portions of the outside walls.

The school was named for the Wilcox family, whose farm was the closest to the school. The school had no running water, so water had to be brought in by students from the nearby farm every day that school was in session.

Raymond Mai, 94, attended Wilcox school through the eighth-grade when he had to leave school to go to work. He said school lessons stuck to the basics of reading, writing and arithmetic.

He remembered playing baseball and a game called handy over. In handy over, a child would throw a ball over the school house. They would run to the other side of the school and tag someone from the opposite team. The tagged person had to join the taggers team.

When Mai was asked about rules in the one-room school house, he laughed.

“You better behave, or you’ll get it when you get home,” he said.

Mai lived on a farm two and half miles south of the school along the Smoky Hill River. He and his 12 siblings did farm chores in the morning before school, such as milking cows and feeding chickens, so they sometimes got a ride to school. However, they walked home in the afternoon.

Mai, who has lived in Trego County all of life, said he was pleased to see the school restored.

“It really makes me feel good,” he said,” because it is being taken care of after all this while.”

In addition to being used as a school, the Wilcox building was used as a community center where church services were conducted as well as literary programs and quilting bees. It was a voting location and draft registration site.  

During World War II, families at the school made mattresses for rural families out of surplus cotton donated by the federal government.

Vernon Schneider’s father bought and owned the land on which the Wilcox School now stands. His family donated the building to the Smoky Valley Scenic Byway Committee, which cleared the way for it to be restored. Four generations of the Schneider family were present at a dedication ceremony on Sunday.

Vernon said he remembers going to Sunday school in the Wilcox school between the ages of about 5 to 7 during the mid-1940s. He said even then the building was starting to show its age.

He said seeing the building dedicated Sunday was a great honor for him and his family.

In 1965 the Hi-Plains Gravel Grinders Motorcycle Club purchased the building for their club house. After the Gravel Grinders moved out, the school house sat in disrepair for several decades until the Smoky Valley Scenic Byway Committee began their efforts to preserve the school. 

Although the Smoky Valley Scenic Byway was designated 15 years, it was never dedicated. Cathy Albert, director of WaKeeney Travel & Tourism and Smoky Valley Scenic Byway, took a moment during the school dedication to honor the byway.

The byway makes a 60-mile U-shape. Going west it goes from Ogallah south on U.S. Highway 147 to Brownell and then west on U.S. 4 to Ransom and north on U.S. 283 to WaKeeney. The Wilcox school is 15 miles south of WaKeeney on U.S. 283. This historic Zion Lutheran Church and cemetery and byway marker can also be found on the U.S. 283 stretch of the byway.

The Butterfield Overland Despatch, which was established in 1865, crosses the byway in two locations. One of those crossings is marked with a limestone marker near Cedar Bluff Reservoir. The trail from Fort Leavenworth to Denver was the shortest, but was also considered the most dangerous because it crossed Native American hunting grounds.

During the spring through the early fall, the U.S. 283 section of the byway is a spectacular location to view native Kansas wildflowers. Volunteers reseeded the byway with native plants when U.S. 283 was reconstructed in the early 2000s.

Interpretive panels in the windows of the school discuss the school’s history as well as aspects of the flora and fauna along the byway. One window was left open so people could look inside the building, which has not been restored. It was the hope that if people could see there was nothing of value in the historic school, this would deter break-ins and vandals.

The restoration of the school was made possible by grants the byway committee received from the Heritage Trust Fund Grants through the Kansas Historical Society. The first grant was received in 2011 to restore the stonework and the roof. Metzker Restoration of Ness City reset the foundation and replaced some of the damaged stones, repaired the brick chimney and put a new roof on the school.

The second grant, which was received in 2015, was used to restore the windows, door, fascia, and soffit. Schamber Historic Preservation LLC of Damar built new windows and replaced the front door, fascia, and soffit earlier this year.

Len Schamber, preservationist, said Wilcox school was very dingy and dark when he and his brother began work on the building.

“All I saw was a dream,” he said. “All I saw was something beautiful in the end.”

He said he hoped the building interior could be restored to the point the building could be used at least occasionally by local community groups so the building would not fall into disrepair again.

“Don’t let it die, folks. Don’t let it die,” he said. “It is a beautiful thing, and it’s wow, 1886. That’s pretty awesome — been here, still here. Thank you for letting us be a part of it.”

Corrected 6:06 p.m. Friday Nov. 2, 2108:A former student of Wilcox school came forward showing historical documents that indicated the school was open until 1949 instead of the date previously listed in this story. The Wilcox school became a part of the District 14 at the end of 1947 school year, but remained open until the conclusion of the spring 1949 term.