WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — Wichita fire officials are investigating how two women caught fire at a city restaurant. And they are praising an officer who came to their aid.

Officer Charley Davidson says an officer was driving by Rostizeria Los Reyes Friday night when a woman who was on fire ran out of the building. He stopped and used his hands to extinguish the flames.

The woman said her sister was inside the restaurant. Davidson said the officer broke a window to get into the business and found the second woman. He again used his hands to extinguish the flames.

Both women — ages 51 and 57 — were taken to a local hospital with serious injuries. The officer had minor injuries. No one else was in the building at the time.

HUTCHINSON, Kan. (AP) — An Olathe man convicted of stealing more than $43,000 from his mentally disabled brother must pay restitution but will not serve prison time.

The Hutchinson News reports 66-year-old Kenneth Leamon McDonald was placed on three years’ probation, with an underlying prison term of nearly three years.

McDonald has been removed from the brother’s financial accounts.

Assistant Attorney General Paul Brothers contested a claim by McDonald that he spent nearly $43,000 on expenses while visiting his brother in Hutchinson. Brothers says McDonald spent the money in Johnson County, near his home.

His 63-year-old brother, Larry, has lived at TECH group homes in Hutchinson for years.

LAS CRUCES, N.M. (AP) — A two-person leadership team will replace Garrey Carruthers when he retires as New Mexico State University chancellor and president.

The NMSU regents on Friday announced the surprise dual selections of Dan Arvizu as chancellor and John Floros as president.

Arvizu is a former senior U.S. Department of Energy official while Floros is dean of the Kansas State University agriculture college and K-State Cooperative Extension.

Flores will focus on operations of the university’s main campus in Las Cruces. Arvizu will oversee the entire NMSU system and be tasked with addressing the big-picture vision and strategy of the overall system, regents said.
They were among the top five candidates in a national search for the next chancellor.

The Las Cruces Sun-News reports that regents Chair Debra Hicks said she discussed the possibility of splitting the job titles with both men after the regents agreed Monday to take that approach.

Regent Vice Chairwoman Kari Mitchell said it has been apparent for some time that NMSU eventually would have to take the new leadership path to address challenges facing the university such as declining public funding.

“We were compelled to start thinking about how the university would overcome those challenges, given the fact the university has struggled in some of those fronts over the last decade,” she said.

By ANGIE HAFLICH

The president of Garden City Community College faces growing pressure to resign over a range of sexual harassment issues at the school and a threat to its accreditation.

This week, the college’s faculty senate demanded Herbert Swender step down — citing what it says was a too-slow reaction to accusations that a coach sexually harassed former cheerleaders and directed racist remarks at them. Local residents echoed those sentiments to the school’s board of trustees.

Meanwhile, the community college faces possible suspension of its accreditation.

At the center of criticism directed toward Swender is the handling of complaints against cheer coach Brice Knapp. Faculty members and some people in the Garden City area contend that Swender learned in 2015 that some cheerleaders Knapp had coached said he sexually harassed them.

Other cheerleaders he had coached have come to his defense, but Knapp resigned in March.

Swender and the college’s attorney did not respond to requests for comment.

At a meeting Tuesday, the school’s board of trustees received a packet from the faculty senate criticizing Swender for failing to act on complaints about Knapp. The faculty group said that seeming inaction was cause for the trustees to demand his resignation or fire him.

The board also got a letter at the meeting from more than two dozen self-described “college stakeholders” calling on the board to dump Swender and the school athletic director.

“I would like to know what have you done, what are you implementing, what changes are happening,” local resident Toni Douglass told the board.

Former cheerleader Jade Denton told the board she heard Knapp make comments she found sexually inappropriate while coaching the cheer team.

“My teammate was stretching and doing splits and she said, ‘Look, coach, I got my last split,’ and he replied, ‘Looks like somebody got more flexible in Canada,’ knowing she went with her boyfriend,” Denton said while fighting back tears. “And then he says, ‘I should send all my girls to Canada.’”

Denton said she also heard Knapp use racial slurs toward some of the cheerleaders, including a Hispanic woman, whom Denton said was afraid to perform a jump.

“She was scared to jump over the tallest one, so Brice says, ‘Jump over it like your family jumps over the border,’” Denton said.

But several former male and female cheerleaders came to Knapp’s defense.

Mercedez Showers, for instance, called him “family,” while others called him a “father figure.”

Former cheerleader Jake Hawkins said Knapp’s door was always open to the cheer team. Knapp sometimes chose his words poorly, Hawkins said, “but he always meant well in his heart.”

Another former cheerleader, Amber Tackett, said she never observed Knapp saying negative things or things that made her feel uncomfortable.

The faculty senate’s packet also accused Swender of inappropriate conduct at the school. It said he belittled, denigrated and harassed “students, employees, volunteers and the community.”

The faculty group said he called two professors “Hot Lips Houlihan” and on several occasions, told employees to come get “birthday spankings.”

Swender and the college’s attorney did not respond to requests for comment.

Swender is also leading a school that in 2017 was placed on two-year accreditation probation by the Higher Learning Commission.

Philip Hoke, a drama instructor and incoming faculty senate president, told trustees that the HLC is “watching everything we are doing, they are hearing every report, every letter to the editor, every video on YouTube. .. They will shut us down if we do not clean house.”

The accreditation group’s website says the community college has until Oct. 1 to deliver evidence that it has come in compliance with degree programs, assessments of student learning and other issues.

Peer reviewers from HLC are scheduled to visit the campus in early November.

Ryan Ruda, vice president of instruction and student services, said the college is working toward satisfying HLC’s requirements.

“A significant amount of work has been done to enhance these processes and develop sustainability measures that ensure that these processes continue as we go forward,” Ruda said.

In a campus-wide email following the meeting Tuesday, instructors in the welding department stood at odds with the faculty senate and said Swender had helped their department flourish.

“Dr. Swender has always been in our corner as faculty and as a friend,” the email said. “He has our full support.”

Angie Haflich is news director for HPPR. The Kansas News Service is a collaboration of KCUR, Kansas Public Radio, KMUW and HPPR covering health, education and politics.