SALINE COUNTY —Rolling Hills Zoo’s new lion pride arrived from Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago Wednesday morning.

The pride, made up of a male and two females, along with Lincoln Park Zoo’s animal curator and keepers, left Chicago at 3 p.m. Tuesday and drove through the night to arrive at Rolling Hills Zoo.

The pride includes 9-year-old male Sahar and 5-year-old female littermates Kamali and Zalika.

Sahar, a 429 lbs. African lion, was born on January 27, 2010, at the Bronx Zoo/Wildlife Conservation Society and moved to Lincoln Park Zoo in February 2012. Arriving at 2 years of age, Sahar had become an icon at Lincoln Park Zoo. In the summer he could often be found lounging on the high rocks in the middle of his habitat, or in cooler months he was often found on the heated rocks. Sahar likes to keep both of the females nearby (especially Zalika), and if they wander out of view you can hear his roar across the zoo grounds. A little more shy by nature, Sahar is expected to take a little longer to warm up to his new home.

As littermates, Kamali and Zalika were born on September 7, 2013, at the Oregon Zoo. To tell the two apart, Zalika is the larger of the two females, weighing in at 415 lbs. Kamali weighs 371 lbs. and also has a black scar on her front left leg from when she was over-groomed by her mother as a young cub. Both arrived at Lincoln Park Zoo in April 2015, at which time they were also introduced to Sahar.

Both females are outgoing and curious, especially with new people, and acclimate well to their new environments. Overall they are playful and calm, but Zalika takes the lead on the majority of things and has a very strong bond with her sister as well as with Sahar. Kamali, on the other hand, is more reserved then Zalika, and will often let her sister take the lead. Both are motivated to learn behaviors and work with their keepers to participate in their own health care.

This pride was moved to Rolling Hills Zoo on the recommendation of the African Lion Species Survival Plan (SSP), a collaborative effort among Association of Zoos & Aquariums (AZA) – accredited institutions.

Now settling into the Lion Exhibit at Rolling Hills Zoo’s at for observation, the pride is on “lion time” to determine when they will be allowed into their habitat for public viewing. During their first one to two weeks of observation, the keepers will be getting to know the pride while the pride will also be acclimating to their new keepers along with their new environment. Once the keepers feel that the pride is comfortable with their surroundings and with each other, then they will go out into their habitat for visitor viewing.

Nikole Cain will serve as the Northwest Leadership intern for the summer of 2019. This position has been funded through support of the Dane G. Hansen Foundation. Counties included within this program include Lane, Ness, Rush, Ellis, Ellsworth, Barton, Russell, Phillips and Rooks.

Growing up in Admire on a fifth-generation farm, Cain has deep roots within agriculture. She was a 12-year 4-H’er and was heavily involved within the National FFA organization throughout high school. This summer, Cain will be offering leadership day camps for middle and high school students across northwest Kansas that focus on developing leadership skills and team building, while incorporating a service-learning component.

Cain said she is excited to get to work with the youth (ages 12-plus) of northwest Kansas and is available to provide day camps, workshops or presentations as requested by any community group or organization.

For more information, contact the Cottonwood District Extension office in Hays at 785-628-9430.

— Submitted

Salina Post

SALINA — Drivers stopped for a train got a surprise early Tuesday afternoon when a woman got out of a stopped vehicle, tried to get into the other vehicles, and then disrobed and lay down in the roadway.

By the time Saline County Sheriff’s deputies got to the scene in the 1700 block of West State Street (where State Street intersects with Old 40) shortly after 12:30 p.m., the woman had taken off some of her clothes and was lying in the roadway, Saline County Sheriff Roger Soldan said Wednesday. Soldan said that prior to taking her clothes off, the woman had gotten into one of the vehicles and attempted to take some money from the console, but the driver snatched it back.

Soldan said that Chelsea Shanks, 30, of Salina, was transported to Salina Regional Health Center (SRHC). While there, she allegedly battered one of the security guards and attempted to stab a nurse with a syringe, he said.

After Shanks was treated at SRHC, she was booked into the Saline County Jail on suspicion of the following, Soldan said.

• Aggravated burglary
• Attempted theft
• Aggravated assault
• Battery

By DAN MARGOLIES
Kansas News Service

Nine nursing homes in Kansas and 14 in Missouri are among nearly 400 nationwide with a “persistent record of poor care” whose names had been withheld from the public, according to a U.S. Senate report released Monday.

The facilities are not included on a shorter list of homes that get increased federal scrutiny because of health, safety or sanitary problems.

The nearly 400 homes qualify for the federal Special Focus Facility (SFF) program but aren’t selected to participate because of limited resources at the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), according to the Senate report.

“Despite being indistinguishable from participants in terms of their qualifications for enhanced oversight, candidates are not publicly disclosed,” the report states. “As a result, individuals and families making decisions about nursing home care for themselves or for a loved one are unlikely to be aware of these candidates.”

Here are the Kansas and Missouri homes that are candidates for the SFF program, according to the Senate report, along with the number of their certified beds. (The bed numbers come from Nursing Home Compare, an online reference maintained by CMS that rates nursing homes based on health inspection reports, quality of care measures and overall staffing.)

Kansas

• Enterprise Estates Nursing Center, Enterprise, 41 beds
• Great Bend Health & Rehab Center, Great Bend, 65 beds
• Woodlawn Care and Rehab, DBA Orchard G, Wichita, 93 beds
• Indian Creek Healthcare Center, Overland Park, 120 beds
• Fort Scott Manor, Fort Scott, 45 beds (This facility closed last year.)
• Pinnacle Ridge Nursing & Rehab Center, Olathe, 94 beds
• Westy Community Care Home, Westmoreland, 43 beds
• Via Christi Village Pittsburg Inc., Pittsburg, 96 beds
• Mount Hope Nursing Center, Mount Hope, 45 beds

Missouri

• Kansas City Center for Rehabilitation and Healthcare, Kansas City, 180 beds
• Crestview Home, Bethany, 92 beds
• Normandy Nursing Center, St. Louis, 116 beds
• Garden Valley Healthcare Center, Kansas City, 156 beds
• Life Care Center of Bridgeton, Bridgeton, 91 beds
• Hillside Manor Healthcare and Rehab Center, St. Louis, 208 beds
• Parklane Care and Rehabilitation Center, Wentzville, 240 beds
• Crystal Creek Health and Rehabilitation Center, Florissant, 158 beds
• Maple Wood Healthcare Center, Kansas City, 150 beds
• Edgewood Manor Center for Rehab and Healthcare, Raytown, 66 beds
• Christian Care Home, Ferguson, 150 beds (This facility is no longer participating in the Medicare and Medicaid programs.)
• Lewis & Clark Gardens, St. Charles, 142 beds
• Redwood of Raymore, Raymore, 142 beds
• Rancho Manor Healthcare and Rehabilitation Center, Florissant, 120 beds

Two Kansas nursing homes and three Missouri nursing homes are in the SFF program:

Kansas

• Serenity Care and Rehab, Overland Park, 145 beds
• Garden Valley Retirement Village, Garden City, 78 beds

Missouri

• Hidden Lake Care Center, Raytown, 112 beds
• St Johns Place, St. Louis, 94 beds
• Green Park Senior Living Community, St Louis, 188 beds

As the Senate report notes, the SFF program “targets those facilities that ‘substantially fail’ to meet the required care standards and resident protections afforded by the Medicare and Medicaid programs.” The program aims to stimulate improvements in their quality of care.

Linda MowBray, vice president of the Kansas Health Care Association, a trade association representing 260-plus Kansas nursing homes, said that SFF program participants are chosen from the poorest performing facilities in the bottom 20% of state inspection surveys.

“The state survey agency identifies two to three facilities from the lowest 20% that have demonstrated a special need for more oversight due to history of deficiencies, staffing levels and/or quality outcomes,” she said.

“They may very well need to be a special focus home,” MowBray said. “But it may be that they are in that bottom quintile because of one particular incident, not necessarily a longstanding history that’s care-related. But some facilities do have a record of having more widespread problems.”

She added: “It’s public information and people need to know it, but I really believe that in Kansas we’re getting our act back together.”

Only 88 nursing homes out of more than 15,700 nationwide are currently participating in the SFF program, according to the Senate report

The program dates to 1987, when Congress enacted the Nursing Home Reform Act requiring nursing homes to maintain “the highest possible mental and physical functional status of residents.” The act also established oversight procedures, including regular surveys and inspections.

Unlike SFF participants, which are required to notify the public of their participation in the program, SFF candidates are not. Adding further confusion to the picture, 27% of the SFF candidate facilities had two stars out of a maximum of five on Nursing Home Compare.

In Kansas, some of the ratings may be dated. The Kansas Department for Aging and Disability Services (KDADS), the agency that conducts nursing home surveys, had fallen behind the federal schedule that calls for nursing homes to be inspected at least once a year.

“It’s taken KDADS quite some time to get caught back up with surveys,” MowBray said. “So we’ve had facilities that have gone as long as 24 months between surveys, and we don’t like that, the homes don’t like that.

“Some of the rankings have been hanging around their neck for a long time and they’ve made quite a few improvements since that bad point. But that bad survey’s still hanging out there.”

Dan Margolies is a senior reporter and editor in conjunction with the Kansas News Service. You can reach him on Twitter @DanMargolies.