BY JOHN P. TRETBAR

An ugly legal battle comes to a head for SandRidge Energy this week, but Bloomberg reports the company is probably bound for the auction block. Once the leading oil producer and wastewater disposer in Kansas, SandRidge is trying to reverse a 40% slide in its stock price while it fights off efforts by activist investor Carl Icahn to replace the board of directors. Both sides want to sell the company, whose market value cascaded from $11 billion in 2008 to about $550 million last week. SandRidge has drilling rights on more than a half-million acres across Oklahoma, Kansas and Colorado.

Kansas operators filed 29 new drilling permits last week, 16 east of Wichita, 13 out west including one new permit in Ellis County. 726 permits for drilling at new locations have been filed so far this year.

Independent Oil & Gas Service reports ten newly-completed wells for the week, 654 so far this year. Operators completed one well in eastern Kansas, and nine west of Wichita, including two in Barton County and one in Stafford County.

Baker Hughes reported 1,059 active drilling rigs Friday, up one oil rig but down four seeking natural gas. The count in Texas dropped by four rigs. Both New Mexico and North Dakota saw increases of three rigs. Canada reported 139 active rigs, up 27 for the week. Independent Oil & Gas Service reported a 20% increase in the active rig counts across Kansas: 13 east of Wichita, up two, and 28 in the western half of the state, up five for the week. Operators report drilling underway on one Barton County lease. They’re moving in completion tools at five sites in Barton County and five in Ellis County.

Operators filed 138 new drilling permits across Kansas during the month of May, including three in Barton County, six in Ellis County, one in Russell County and four in Stafford County. Independent Oil & Gas Service reports Kansas operators completed 130 wells last month, four of them in Barton County, four in Ellis County and four in Stafford County. Out of 74 completed wells west of Wichita last month, 31 were dry holes.

The Oklahoma Supreme Court will decide if a petition drive aimed at repealing recent tax increases can move forward. Petitioners hope to repeal the measure, part of a package passed in March that raises taxes on some oil and gas production, motor fuels and tobacco, to pay for teacher pay raises.

The fracking-sand boom continues across Texas, with new sand plants selling out soon after they’re announced and months before they begin production. The Houston Chronicle reports Alpine Silica plans to break ground soon, hoping to produce another three million tons of sand per year.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration reported another big jump in production last week to 10.9 million barrels of crude per day, another weekly record. That’s an increase of 100,000 barrels per day.

North Dakota came just a few hundred barrels short of an all time production record in April, and shattered the record for production of natural gas. But Mineral Resources Director Lynn Helms says natural gas flaring has returned to historic highs not seen since 2014, and some oil wells may need to restrict production. The state produced more than 1.2 million barrels of crude per day in April, an increase of 5.4%. Current policy requires operators to burn off no more than 15 percent of the natural gas produced at oil wells. Operators flared 16 percent statewide.

After a three-month review of more than 10,000 public comments, regulators in North Dakota have given final approval to Meridian energy Group to build a new refinery. The company may still need air-quality permits to operate once construction is done on the project near Roosevelt National Park. Company officials say they will now proceed detailed design, engineering, procurement, and construction.

Know what’s going to make this year’s elections for Kansas legislative races intriguing?

It’ll be just who voters send to Topeka from the 13 districts where in 2016 voters checked Republican Donald Trump for president on the same ballot they voted for a Democrat to represent them in the Kansas House of Representatives.

Oh, and then there are the seven Republicans who were sent to Topeka from districts where Democrat Hillary Clinton was the winner of the presidential vote.

Here are the 13 Democrats in Trump-carried districts: Reps. Adam Lusker, Frontenac, Monica Murnan, Pittsburg, Cindy Neighbor, Shawnee, Tom Burroughs, Kansas City, Debbie Deere, Lansing, Jeff Pittman, Leavenworth, Tim Hodge, N. Newton, Ed Trimmer, Winfield, Tom Sawyer, Wichita, Brandon Whipple, Wichita, Steve Crum, Haysville, Patsy Terrell, Hutchinson (deceased), and Eber Phelps, Hays.

The Republicans in Clinton-carried districts: Tom Cox, Shawnee, Stephanie Clayton, Overland Park, Jan Kessinger, Overland Park, Linda Gallagher, Lenexa, Melissa Rooker, Fairway, Randy Powell, Olathe, and Tom Sloan, Lawrence,

These are the districts where…apparently…votes don’t trickle down on party-line tickets.

We’ve had two years of Trump as president, and while there was party allegiance in most Kansas House districts, we Statehouse habitués wonder what happens this year when the Republican president’s policies start trickling down on Kansas.

Remember two years ago when asked about their presidential preference, many Republicans said, “Donald who?” and then moved away from conservations to make sure they’d shut off their car in the parking lot.

Nobody knew just where Trump would take the country, but for traditional Republican voters, it sounded a little risky.

And Democrats…once they learned Trump’s stance on tax cuts, immigration, international trade and such…started branding everyone with an elephant (and no union bug) on their campaign signs as “Trump supporters.”

Back in 2016, Trump won 91 Kansas House districts, Clinton 34. And in most of those districts, Clinton presidential voters voted for Democrats, Trump voters voted for Republicans for the House.

In his first two years, Trump has clearly divided his traditional Republican Party into conservatives and moderates—as they have been dividing themselves in the Kansas House for the past three or four election cycles.

Now, that division, which used to be “Gov. Sam Brownback” and “Non-Gov. Sam Brownback,” appears to be moving to “Trump” and “Not-Trump” among Republican voters.

That’s going to make the legislative elections interesting this summer and fall.

Governor? Oh, yes, we’ll elect a new governor and there will be a new Secretary of State and Insurance Commissioner and see whether we’ll keep or fire the Attorney General and State Treasurer…but that’s the top of the ticket. Those candidates don’t generally knock on your door unless they’re out of gas.

Kansans know where the work gets done. It’s the Legislature where your taxes, roads, social services, kids’ education and general quality of life are determined. Not the top of the ballot, but at ground-level (third floor actually) in the Statehouse.

So?

We’re going to see just what Kansans want in the way of representation in the state where they live. We’re going to see how Republicans campaign on state issues, not national issues that may trickle down into everyday life in Kansas. Count on Democrats to campaign on local issues too, of course, but with the parting shot that Kansans probably need a representative to “protect” them from—or at least slow down—whatever Trump might do in his next tweet.

Or, maybe those cross-party elections were just the result of candidates getting to know their voters, knowing what’s important to them, and working to make it happen.

That’d be nice…

Syndicated by Hawver News Company LLC of Topeka; Martin Hawver is publisher of Hawver’s Capitol Report—to learn more about this nonpartisan statewide political news service, visit the website at www.hawvernews.com

Every Western movie worth watching features at least one full-blown bar room brawl. Such tumultuous scenes are chock full of good guys, bad guys, flying fists and whiskey bottles.

Smack-dab in the middle of all this mayhem there’s always one unlucky cowpoke crawling under the tables toward the swinging doors and safety. After dodging falling bodies, busted-up furniture and shattering glass he crawls into the dirt street where he checks himself for holes, stands up, dusts himself off and skedaddles down an alley.

And so it is with many of us veterans who toil in the word vineyard. Like the cowpoke, some of us have escaped into the street of social media with our finely-honed writing skills intact.

I’d say that’s one heck’uva accomplishment, although one rarely recognized or valued. With each passing day it seems less and less emphasis is placed on the written word, grammar and punctuation.

We’re all too busy. Not enough time.

Include greetings or salutations in Facebook, texts or e-mails?

What are they?

Where’s the personal touch?

Whatever happened to etiquette in written communication?

Writing is the art of second thought. What first springs to mind is seldom good enough.

The skill of writing lies not in a ready gush of words, but in sifting through them carefully. Sometimes this process is swift. Other times it takes a bit longer.

A letter, e-mail or text should be clear, precise, succinct and expressive. Few can decipher one or two letters, hacked-up phrases and excessive punctuation.

Choose the best word to say what you want to convey. Never settle for meaningless exclamation points, bold-faced or underlined words.

Select strong sentences. Use the active tense. Avoid passive tense and words that end in ing. Whenever possible, pick short, one-syllable words.

Write with small words – good ones – that say all you want to say, quite as well as the big ones.

As I discovered many years ago when I read Joseph A. Ecclesine in Printer’s Ink,

There is not much, in all truth that small words will not say – and say quite well.

Small words can be crisp, brief, and terse – to the point like a knife. They dance, twist, turn, sing. Like sparks in the night they light the way for the eyes of those who read.

They are the graceful notes of prose. You know what they say the way you know a day is bright and fair – at first sight…Small words are gay. And they can catch large thoughts and hold them up for all to see, like rare stones in rings of gold, or joy in the eyes of a child.

Some make you feel, as well as see: the cold, deep, dark of night…the hot, salt sting of tears.

In case you didn’t realize it, Ecclesine’s words above were all one syllable – no punctuation, except periods.

Vary the length of your sentences. This will give your paragraphs rhythm. Short sentences are likely to be clearer than long ones and easier to read.

Keep an average sentence to a length of 12 words. Good luck.

Write (well).

John Schlageck, a Hoxie native, is a leading commentator on agriculture and rural Kansas.