POTTAWATOMIE COUNTY— One person died in a fire at a home in Pottawatomie County Sunday, according to the Kansas State Fire Marshal’s office.

Just after 10:30p.m., fire crews responded to the home at 13910 Antelope Run Road in rural Westmoreland. The home had totally collapsed prior to the arrival of fire crews and deputies from the sheriff’s department.

Fire crews found a victim dead in the home, according to the State Fire Marshal’s office.

A positive identification of the victim will not be made until it is confirmed by autopsy.

The Investigation Division of the Fire Marshal’s office has classified the cause of the fire as undetermined. Loss is estimated at $200,000. It is unknown if there were smoke detectors in the structure.

Companies have said deal will result in up to $300 million in expense reductions

NEW YORK (AP) — Two of the largest U.S. newspaper companies are set to combine after shareholders approved GateHouse Media’s $1.4 billion acquisition of Gannett.

New York-based New Media Investment Group, which owns GateHouse, announced in August its plan to buy USA Today owner Gannett.

Gatehouse owns Kansas newspapers in Hays, Hutchinson, Salina, Topeka, Garden City, Dodge City, McPherson, Newton and El Dorado, among others.

The combined company would have more than 260 daily papers in the U.S. along with more than 300 weeklies — one of every six papers in the country.

The companies said when announcing the merger the deal will cut up to $300 million in costs annually.

The deal creates the largest U.S newspaper company by far. Media expert Ken Doctor estimates the combined company will have a print circulation of 8.7 million, 7 million more than the new No. 2, McClatchy.

Local papers, faced with the complex and expensive process of building digital businesses to replace declining print ads and circulation, have been aggressively consolidating in recent years.

The combined company will take the Gannett name and keep its headquarters in Gannett’s current home of McLean, Virginia.

The deal is set to close on Tuesday.

By ROD ZOOK
Hutch Post

HUTCHINSON, Kan. — Mark Buckley always liked toys. He especially likes trains. It’s the centerpiece of his shop at the Toy Depot.

The store can take anyone back in time with board games, toys and — of course — trains.

“When I retired, I wanted to sell toys at antique malls and the flea market,” Buckley recalled. “And we had a friend who owned this building and they said we’d like to sell.”

What has transpired is a store that is truly unique. Old board games line one side of the store. There are thousands of Hot Wheels still in the packages, many types of Tonka trucks and O, N and HO scale trains and merchandise. Buckley said he had no trouble filling the store once it opened.

“All through my life, I enjoyed toys, but we were poor and couldn’t afford anything. So we got one toy a year,” Buckley said. “When I turned 30, I decided I was going to buy all of the toys I had as a child, then I wanted to buy all the toys my friends had and then I wanted to buy all the toys I always wanted.”

The store not only sells toys, but also buys toys and trains from those looking to sell. The clientele comes from all over the nation. One of his clients comes from New York. On the day of this interview, Buckley had customers from Liberal, Denver, Oklahoma City and Kansas City.

While the toy collection is second-to-none, it is the Lionel train collection that leaves the young and old amazed. They stare into the glass cases full of locomotives and cars. In the middle of the area, a train layout lets customers interact by pushing various buttons that operate it.

“I have a true passion for Lionel. I’ve loved it since I was four,” Buckley said. “I used to carry TV Guides . . . so I’d take my money and go to Jim’s Hardware and I would put a dollar a week down against a train car until I got it paid off.”

Buckley said his friends eventually started selling him their train sets and the collection continued to grow. It now numbers about 3,500 locomotives and cars.

Buckley says it’s the memories the store generates that makes it special, noting it’s a love of watching people enjoying what you’ve done. Most of the memories surround the board games. Nearly everything you can think of is in there.

“Parents or grandparents will come in and buy a board game. It’s got to be the right box, the right color. It has to be exactly what they remember in their youth,” Buckley stressed. “Then they take it and show it to their grandchildren. People say board games are dead, they’re far from it. We sell hundreds of them every year.”

The store is rare, there are just 14 like it in the world, according to Buckley. He says as much as he enjoys selling toys and trains, he likes the reaction he gets from those who visit.

“I do it because of the love. It’s so much fun to have people come in here and smile,” Buckley said. “It’s a different business because when people walk in the door, they’re happy. When they walk through the store, they’re happy, whether they buy something or not.”

By ROXANA HEGEMAN

WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — A scathing report following an independent investigation into the heatstroke death of a 19-year-old football player who collapsed after the first day of conditioning practice at a Kansas community college found “a striking lack of leadership.”

Braeden Bradforth, a 315-pound (140 kilogram) defensive lineman for the Garden City Community College, was found unconscious outside his dorm room after practice on Aug. 1, 2018. The New Jersey teenager died that night at a hospital.

No lawsuits have been filed in the case.

A serious lack of oversight set off a series of events that led to Bradforth’s death, according to the report by investigators, including sports medicine specialists Walters, Inc. School staff failed to assess athletes prior to the conditioning test and paid little attention to assessing Bradforth’s personal level of fitness, the report said.

In particular, coaching staff didn’t consider if he had properly acclimatized to working out in summer temperatures at a higher altitude.

“A cause of death was a poorly designed and administered conditioning test for an unconditioned, non-acclimatized student-athlete at an altitude with 9% less oxygen than he was accustomed to at his home” in Neptune, New Jersey, the report said.

The college was not sufficiently prepared to ensure safety at practice or to deal with exertional heat illness, the report said. No college athletic training or coaching staff member and no emergency medical service or hospital emergency department personnel identified or treated Bradforth’s escalating symptoms of the heat stroke that caused his death, it found.

A timeline included in the report detailed the 73 minutes that passed from the moment Bradforth left the stadium to his arrival at the hospital.

“An effective plan likely would have rescued him from what turned out to be his untimely death,” the report said. “The response time and significant delays between multiple opportunities for effective treatment were a cause of death.”

Teammates found Bradforth collapsed in an alley, according to emails obtained by The Associated Press through an open records request.

Assistant football coach Caleb Young told officials Bradforth was “making a stressful moan” when he arrived on the scene, but rather than immediately dial 911 he called the head coach Jeff Sims “for instruction to see how we wanted to handle the situation.”

Young wrote in one email to university officials that while he was on the phone with Sims, players were filling jugs and bottles from drinking fountains to pour water on Bradforth and attempt to make him drink.

The college hired the investigators to conduct an independent review of the case under pressure from Bradforth’s family and the New Jersey congressional delegation. The University of Maryland also hired Walters, Inc., after the heatstroke death of offensive lineman Jordan McNair after a workout last year.

ELLSWORTH — Law enforcement authorities and USD 327 officials have determined that a possible threat made Thursday at Ellsworth Junior/Senior High School was not credible.

In a news release Thursday morning, Ellsworth Police Chief Emil Halfhill wrote that on “November 14, 2019 a possible perceived threat was vocalized at the Ellsworth Junior/Senior High School. An investigation both by law enforcement and school staff was conducted and it was determined the threat was not credible. The juvenile who made the statement was removed from the school as a precaution.”

Halfhill noted that “law enforcement personnel will continue to monitor the situation and will provide extra patrol in and around the High School in the following days.”

The chief also reminded citizens that if they see something to say something.

COWLEY COUNTY — Law enforcement authorities are investigating a fatal shooting in Cowley County.

Just before 10p.m. Saturday, police were dispatched to a residence in the 500 block of South D Street in Arkansas City for a report of a gunshot victim, according to city spokesman Andrew Lawson.

First responders arrived and located a 17-year-old Arkansas City boy with a gunshot wound. He had been struck in the face with a bullet from a 9-millimeter handgun, according to Lawson.

Police determined the victim was shot unintentionally by a family member who was handling the gun. He was transported by the Arkansas City Fire-EMS Department to South Central Kansas Medical Center and later airlifted to a Wichita-area hospital for treatment of his injuries.

The boy died Wednesday from complications related to his gunshot injury, according to Lawson. An autopsy is pending.

Authorities have not released the victim’s name.