UPDATED Sunday afternoon: The Kansas Bureau of Investigation has canceled the Silver Alert for Juanita L. Stecher. She was found deceased in Reno County.
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SEDGWICK COUNTY – The Cheney Police Department has requested that the Kansas Bureau of Investigation (KBI) issue a statewide Silver Alert for a missing Derby woman.
Photo courtesy KBI
According to the KBI, the whereabouts of Juanita L. Stecher, 74, are unknown, and the public’s assistance is requested to help locate her. Stecher is a white female with short, grey hair and blue eyes. She wears gold glasses.
Stecher was last seen near Central and Maize in Wichita at approximately 5 p.m. Friday, Feb. 22. She was in a Silver 2013 Chevy Equinox with disabled tag 67754. She called family indicating her car was stuck in the mud, and she was unsure of her location. She may have been near the Cheney area.
If you see Stecher or her vehicle, please immediately contact the Cheney Police Department at (316) 213-5831.
The Snow Emergency was lifted in Hays just before noon Sunday. Street plowing continues. (Photo courtesy HPD)
CITY OF HAYS
City Manager Toby Dougherty has ended the Winter Storm Traffic Emergency plan for the city of Hays.
People who live or work along emergency snow routes can now return to their normal routine of parking on the snow routes.
The city of Hays Public Works Department will continue with snow removal operations throughout the day. Tonight the crews will focus on removing snow from the downtown area.
While the worst of the winter storm is over, the Hays Police Department is asking that motorists limit their travel if at all possible. Those that must travel are advised to do so with caution, and are encouraged to give themselves extra time to reach their destination. Please remember to drive slow, pay attention to vehicles in front of you, and allow for extra stopping distance.
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Helen Ryde is a devout, gay United Methodist on a 600-mile personal prayer journey.
Helen Ryde-courtesy photo
Her trip across four states comes days before United Methodists from around the world consider if their denomination should allow same-sex weddings and LGBTQ clergy. Ryde’s traveling from her western North Carolina home to St. Louis, Missouri, where she’ll attend the UMC 2019 Special Session of the General Conference.
Last Tuesday, Ryde stood on the white-columned porch of East Knox County’s 160-year-old Pleasant Hill United Methodist Church to pray a short, impassioned prayer and leave a “letter of love.”
She’ll repeat that prayer and leave that letter at dozens of churches in North Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky and Illinois.
Her prayer to a “loving and gracious God” thanks each church for worshipers’ “life and witness.” It asks God to give every congregation “a holy boldness to stand up for and show your love to all who have been discarded to the margins of their community, whoever and wherever they may be.”
The prayer includes a sentence of inclusion, the focus of Ryde’s intercession and trip. It asks that lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer people at every church she visits “know how fearfully and wonderfully made they are, how beloved by God they are, and may they be surrounded in love and care and kindness.”
“That’s the piece I really hope people think about,” Ryde told USA TODAY Network Tennessee. “Who has been among them? Who is among them? How have they known they are loved and accepted and cared for, by God and by the congregation?”
Avoiding interstates to find churches
Ryde set her path to visit 66 UMC churches, plotting locations on a Google map to avoid interstates. But she may need to skip a few locations; she’d fallen behind her strict schedule by Tuesday.
In St. Louis, she isn’t a delegate at the Feb. 23-26 conference. She’ll be among those Methodists watching as 864 clerical and lay delegates consider the denomination’s stance on human sexuality. Delegates will consider proposals to strengthen the UMC current ban on same-sex marriage and gay clergy or to change the policy to be more inclusive of the LGBTQ community.
The plans come after years of debate among the second largest denomination in the United States. What happens could set denominational policy but fracture the church, causing congregations and individuals to leave.
John Wesley and a Prius
Ryde’s road trip companion is a tiny, game-size piece metal statue of UMC founder John Wesley. Wesley’s riding a horse. Ryde’s driving a Prius.
With Wesley in her pocket, Ryde travels a lot for her job. A United Methodist since 2005, she’s now the southeast region organizer for Reconciling Ministries Network. RMN is an unofficial caucus organization of Methodists who seek the church’s complete inclusion of LGBTQ individuals.
She says this circuit-riding route is a personal one.
“I wanted to ground my trip in something that meant something,” Ryde said. “I wanted it to be a meaningful journey. One of the things that sets United Methodists apart is that it’s a connectional, not a congregational, church. So I thought a way to celebrate and remember that would be to stop at all these churches and leave my letter and pray the prayer.
“For me, it was about reminding myself of the importance of this connection and the importance of us being able to continue to influence folks to move in a more inclusive direction.”
While she visited Tuesday with friends at Knoxville’s Church Street UMC, Ryde doesn’t expect to see many people on her route. At most, she’s a stranger looking to give a prayer and leave a letter. Securing that envelope can be challenging; not every building’s got a mailbox. At Pleasant Hill, she stuck the letter between the church’s two double front doors.
She hopes churches will share her message. “I hope they will know they are connected to people who want to stay connected as United Methodists and who also desperately want a church that is inclusive, welcoming, celebrating and affirming of LGBTQ people.”
A deeply divided denomination
In St. Louis, delegates are to debate keeping or removing language in the church law book called the United Methodist Book of Discipline. The current language prohibits same-sex marriage and says self-avowed practicing homosexuals” cannot be ministers. The book states the practice of homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching.
Among the delegates are 12 ministers and lay representatives from the Holston Conference. The conference includes 872 congregations in East Tennessee, Southwest Virginia and north Georgia.
The general conference is the top policy-making body for United Methodists, which includes more than 12.6 million members worldwide. The long-running debate over human sexuality and Biblical interpretation has deeply divided many Methodists. Both conservative, traditionalist groups like the Wesleyan Covenant Association and the progressive RMN have taken stances. Both groups have representatives in the Holston Conference.
Remaining a Methodist
Ryde joined the UMC as an adult. She grew up in evangelical nondenominational churches in England. From age 19 to 32, she tried to “pray away the gay” with efforts that included therapy, counseling and exorcism.
“It doesn’t work,” she says. “I always said I never fell out with God about it. I like to say when you come out and decide to be who you are, you don’t have to move to America. But I did.”
She joined the UMC after moving to Massachusetts and finding she “really missed being in a worshipping community.”
Whatever happens at the general conference, Ryde will remain a Methodist. “I feel that until God tells me something different…I feel as though this is what I’m supposed to be doing.”
The Kansas Zeta chapter of Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity at Fort Hays State University recently won four awards for excellent alumni engagement and undergraduate student mentorship. The awards were presented at the Carlson Leadership Academy held in Dallas.
Dr. Joey Linn, vice president for student affairs, was presented the University Partner of the Year Award.
Dr. Taylor Kriley, director of inclusion and diversity excellence, won the Outstanding New Volunteer Award.
The undergraduate Sigma Phi Epsilon chapter was recognized with the Excelsior Award.
The local Sigma Phi Epsilon alumni volunteer corporation earned the Alumni and Volunteer Corporation Operational Excellence Award.
“These awards recognize the outstanding ways in which Sigma Phi Epsilon alumni and volunteers are mentoring undergraduate students. These individuals represent the best of Sigma Phi Epsilon and Fort Hays State University,” said Dr. Vincent Bowhay, alumni volunteer corporation president.
Sigma Phi Epsilon was founded Nov. 1, 1901 at the University of Richmond in Virginia and has since initiated over 325,000. The Kansas Zeta chapter at Fort Hays State was established in 1958 and re-established in 2012.
Twice, Rep. Jarrod Ousley introduced bills that would create a watchdog over the Kansas agency in charge of looking after children from troubled families.
Rep. Jarrod Ousley, a Merriam Democrat, at a meeting of the Child Welfare System Task Force. Ousley has twice introduced a bill to establish independent oversight of the state child welfare agency, but is now pushing it to next year. FILE PHOTO / KANSAS NEWS SERVICE
Ousley says he’s dropping the idea of a state child advocate. For now.
Instead, the Merriam Democrat wants to give the new Democratic administration a shot at reforming the Department for Children and Families before bringing in an outside office to look over its shoulder.
The office would have the power to review investigations and decisions made by the DCF, but it would be housed in the Department of Administration. That separation is key for child welfare advocates, who want to ensure DCF can’t retaliate against an advocate who turns up mistakes or wrongdoing.
The bill didn’t even make it to a floor vote last year. After reintroducing the idea this year, Ousley this week yanked it. Instead, he’ll revisit the proposal next year. The lawmaker said he wants to give Gov. Laura Kelly’s administration a year to get a handle on child welfare issues.
Ousley’s child advocate bill was sunk last year, in part, by DCF’s objection. He’s hoping to earn the support of the new governor and new head of DCF by giving them some time before setting up an outside advocate’s office.
“I’d rather delay the year,” he said, “get it right, and get it moving forward without any obstruction than to risk getting nothing at all.”
Kelly made child welfare a central tenet of her campaign. She’s said fixing and increasing funding for DCF is a high priority for her first year in office.
Ousley said DCF doesn’t plan to oppose the bill, but that the governor wanted time to get settled and attack pressing child welfare problems first.
Kelly spokeswoman Ashley All didn’t say whether the governor favors setting up an advocate’s office, but did say the administration is prioritizing other issues, like adding social workers and funding foster care prevention.
“We must first stabilize this agency and the child welfare system before we can make other significant changes,” she said in an email.
But others are concerned about the harm that can be done in another year without that kind of oversight.
Judy Walsh strongly supports the bill, which she says could have helped protect her grandson, Adrian Jones. The boy died as a result of abuse in 2015 despite multiple reports to the state abuse hotline and several DCF investigations.
She said she’s been frustrated with the slow pace of change in the three years since Adrian’s death. She worries pushing this bill back a year is a sign that Kansas is losing momentum on policy changes in child welfare.
“I just worry that there’s going to be more children falling through the cracks,” Walsh said.
The cost to kids of waiting a year is Ousley’s biggest concern in pushing the bill to 2020.
“A year in a child’s life is a very long time,” he said.
Missourians worried their abuse reports weren’t adequately investigated by the Department of Social Services, foster parents who think their knowledge is being ignored by their caseworker, or aunts questioning why their nephew was placed in a foster home when they had offered their open bed can call or email the office to have their concerns reviewed.
The Missouri Office of the Child Advocate exceeds goals in getting in touch with complainants and completing its investigations in a timely manner. In 2017, it contacted complainants within three business days 94 percent of the time. It wrapped up investigations within 45 business days 87 percent of the time.
In Kansas, where DCF has missed federal standards for timely handling of its cases, having an office without the baggage of a poor track record could be a boon for public trust.
“It’s an extra check and balance on the system that anybody, anybody can access,” said Lori Ross, president of the child welfare advocacy organization FosterAdopt Connect.
Ross said having an office that allows people to feel heard would also help Kansas with one of its particular challenges in foster care — retaining foster parents.
“That very basic level of, ‘Hey, I hear you have a concern, and it’s valid enough that I’m going to look into it and get back to you,’” said Ross, “that in itself is retention.”
FORD COUNTY— Two people died in an accident just after 5:30p.m. Saturday in Ford County.
The Kansas Highway Patrol reported a 2002 Subaru Impreza driven by Luis Diego Galvan-Gomez, 21, Dodge City, was eastbound on U.S. 50 two miles east of Wright.
The driver lost control of the vehicle. It traveled left of center. A 2003 Peterbilt semi driven by Ronnie R. Lindsely, 68, Bath, Illinois, struck the Subaru.
Galvan-Gomez and a passenger Maritza Isabel Zamora, 21, Dodge City, were transported to Western Plains Medical where they died.
The crash on U50 east of Ford County rd 119 is now a double fatal. U50 is still closed. Stay out of area. Be safe.
PARK CITY – The Hays High wrestling team had a pair of individuals earn medals at the 5A state championship at Hartman Area Saturday.
Freshmen Gavin Meyers, in his first appearance at the state tournament, was the highest finisher for the Indians placing 4th at 182 pounds.
On day one Meyers got a first-round win over Blake Smith of Topeka-Seaman with a pin in the first-round.
He earned his second straight fall in the quarter finals, this time in the first-period over DeSoto’s Luke Barger.
In the semi-finals Meyers lost a 4-3 decision to Cayden Atkins of Goddard.
On Saturday Meyers bounced back with his third win of the tournament, a fall in the second round over Lynauz Cox of Maize-South.
Then in the third-place match Meyers lost a 9-3 decision to Landon Frantz of McPherson.
Logan Schulte was the other medal winner for the Indians finished sixth at 285 pounds.
Schulte opened the tournament with a fall over Joseph Castle of KC Turner but lost by a fall to Peyton Reeves of St. Thomas Aquinas.
On the consolation side of the bracket Schulte won by a 5-1 decision over Caylen Lowery of Wichita-Heights and then he won by second period fall over Terrell Morris of Arkansas City to reach the consolation semifinals. In that round Schulte dropped a 5-2 decision to Jake Quiggle of Maize.
Then Schulte lost by forfeit to Braiden McKee of Lansing in the fifth and sixth place match to finish sixth.
Chase Voth lost his first-round match before winning two consolation round matches but lost in the third consolation round to finished 2-2 at state.
Creighton Meyers, Cole Schroeder and Gavin Nutting each earned a first-round win but went 0-2 after that to finished 1-2 for the tournament.
EL PASO, Texas (AP) — The Latest on Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan’s visit to the Southwest border (all times local):
6:50 p.m.
Top defense officials have toured sections of the U.S.-Mexico border to see how the military could reinforce efforts to block drug smuggling and other illegal activity. The Pentagon is weighing the diversion of billions of dollars for President Donald Trump’s border wall.
Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan, accompanied by the Joint Chiefs chairman, Gen. Joseph Dunford, was visiting a border site near El Paso, Texas Saturday, called Monument Site 3 where a stretch of 18-foot border wall stands atop a huge landfill.
Today, Gen. Dunford & I engaged with @CBP officials along our southern border to see firsthand the ongoing activities in support of @DHSgovpic.twitter.com/cLoFErssMr
Shanahan and Dunford got an up-close look at U.S. Border Patrol vehicles used for surveillance. The Department of Homeland Security has requested Pentagon help in operating about 150 of the vehicle-mounted surveillance cameras, which can see as far as eight miles away.
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11:16 a.m.
The Pentagon’s acting chief is visiting the U.S.-Mexico border in Texas as he considers how to use emergency powers invoked by President Donald Trump to help build a border wall.
Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan arrived Saturday in El Paso with Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Shanahan plans to get a firsthand view of areas along the border, west of El Paso, where military troops are assisting U.S. Customs and Border Protection with barrier replacement work. The sites are along known drug smuggling corridors.
It’s Shanahan’s first visit to the border since taking over at the Pentagon on Jan. 1 after Jim Mattis resigned as defense secretary in protest of Trump’s policies.
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Nearly 600 Kansas inmates have tested positive for hepatitis C, but corrections officials are focusing on treating only the most advanced cases because they don’t have the money to treat them all.
Women’s prison in Topeka-photo courtesy Kan. Dept. of Corrections
Corrections Interim Secretary Roger Werholtz said that the department wants to ensure that all infected inmates get treated before their release.
“We don’t want them carrying the disease out of the facility,” Werholtz said.
But due to budget constraints and the high cost of treatment — a 12-week course costs about $15,000 per inmate — the state will focus on the most serious cases first. Werholtz said 43 inmates are considered a high priority for treatment.
The Kansas Department of Corrections estimates that treating all 591 inmates would cost roughly $9 million, and a state contract with Corizon Correctional Healthcare sets aside only $1.5 million per year for treatment.
Hepatitis C is a viral infection that attacks the liver and can turn into a chronic disease. It’s spread when the blood of an infected person enters the body of an uninfected person, such as the sharing of needles, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Several states, including Missouri, Colorado and Illinois, have faced lawsuits over allegations of poor or lacking treatment for inmates with hepatitis C.
Werholtz said lawmakers have voiced concerns about the lack of funding for treatment.
“It seems to me the sooner we get on this and get it corrected, the less going forward it’s going to cost,” said Republican Sen. Rick Billinger. “I think going forward, it would save us a lot of money.”
Since the Department of Corrections started testing inmates in October, 25 inmates have completed treatment and 35 are currently undergoing treatment. The agency aims to have 100 inmates to have finished treatment by the end of June.
Rufus Paul Haas, 95, died February 20, 2019, at AdventHealth, Apopka, Florida. He was born January 10, 1924, in Hoisington, Kansas, the son of Daniel and Louise (Lehning) Haas.
He was baptized and confirmed in the Evangelical and Reformed Church, rural Hoisington. Rufus was a current member of the United Emmanuel Lutheran Church in Milberger, Kansas.
Besides his farming, he worked at several jobs including the oil field, seeding roads, operating the road grader, construction, and running the family dairy. He also served on the township board, school board, and the church board.
On July 26, 1945, he was united in marriage to Alvina Boger in Hoisington, Kansas. She preceded him in death on January 26, 2012. To this union two children were born, Larry and Sharon.
He is survived by: son, Larry Haas and wife Lois of Phillipsburg; daughter, Sharon Kampe and husband Lanny of Apopka, Florida; three grandchildren, Michelle Haas-Heinrich and husband Duane of Wichita, Kimberly Kampe of Apopka, Florida, and Bradley Haas of Wichita; and two great grandchildren, Mackenzie Haas and Greyson Haas-Heinrich.
He was preceded in death by his parents, wife, brother, William Haas, sister, Lucille Shaffer, twin grandsons, Trevor and Travis Haas, and granddaughter, Trisha Haas.
Friends may call 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. Tuesday with family to receive friends from 6 to 8 p.m at the funeral home.
Funeral service will be 2:00 p.m., Wednesday, February 27, 2018, at Nicholson-Ricke Funeral Home Chapel, with Rhonda Templing, PMA presiding. Family would like to invite friends to join them for a meal prior to the service, at noon at the Emmanual Lutheran Church in Hoisington.
Burial will be in Hoisington Cemetery, following the service.
Memorials may be made to Kans for Kids or United Emmanuel Lutheran Church, in care of Nicholson-Ricke Funeral Home, PO Box 146, Hoisington, KS 67544.
Phillipsburg resident Della F. Still passed away Thursday, February 21, 2019 at her home at the age of 79.
Della was born October 3, 1939 in Lexington, NE the daughter of Delbert M. & Roberta F. (Duffy) Wilson.
She was united in marriage to Billy F. Still on January 12, 1958 at Kirwin, Kansas. He preceded her in death on December 27, 2013.
Survivors include her son Brent and wife, Vesta Jo of Phillipsburg; daughter, Sheri Corrick and husband, David of Wichita, KS; sister, Darlene Gerstner of Quinter, KS; brothers, James Wilson of Elkhorn, NE and Larry Wilson of Kansas City, KS; and two grandchildren, William and Kate Still.
Funeral services will be held at 2:00 p.m. Wednesday, February 27, 2019 in the Olliff-Boeve Memorial Chapel, 1115 2nd Street, Phillipsburg, KS 67661. Burial will follow in the Fairview Cemetery, Phillipsburg.
Mrs. Still will lie in state from noon to 9 p.m. Monday and 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Tuesday with the family receiving friends from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. that evening at the funeral chapel.
Memorial contributions may be made to the Phillips County Hospital.
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