The TMP-Marian Junior High Student Council, in conjunction with the Marine Crops Reserve, collected new toys to be distributed to children in the area. The hope is to make a child’s Christmas a little brighter and provide a gift for many children who would not get one otherwise. The students filled three boxes to the brim with toys.
The Marine Toys for Tots Program has been delivering a message of hope to less fortunate youngsters since 1947. In fact, 548 million toys have been distributed to date with 251 million children that have been supported. Toys for Tots began as a Los Angeles charitable effort in 1947. Major Bill Hendricks, USMCR, was inspired by his wife Diane when she tried to donate a homemade Raggedy Ann doll to a needy child, but couldn’t find any organization to do so. After seeing the need, Hendricks coordinated and collected some 5,000 toys for local children that year, from collection bins placed outside Warner Bros. movie theaters.
Their efforts were so successful that, in 1948, Toys for Tots was launched as a national campaign. Hendricks used his position as director of Public Relations for Warner Bros. Studios to enlist celebrity support, as well as, have Walt Disney Studios design the red toy train logo. A theme song for the program was written in 1956 and would be recorded by Nat King Cole, among many others.
Today, information bombards us like a meteor shower. It’s everywhere.
Each day our eyes see thousands of images on television, smart phones and screens. Our ears hear many thousand words. A few still read thousands of words on the printed page.
People text and talk. They Facebook and walk. They Twitter and Tweet. They blog and beep. They Bluetooth — didn’t know that was even a word until a decade ago. One thing I do know – Bluetooth should not be used as a verb.
Folks who can’t speak our own English language “good” are creating their own new language every day. Good, your choice of words, not mine. That’s a whole ‘nother story.
Doesn’t anyone listen or read anymore?
Wise men and women throughout history have told us we ought to be doing more of this. Listening to people, music and reading books. Give your eyes a rest from the video world.
I listen to music every day. The earliest music I remember hearing was probably the big-band sounds of Tommy Dorsey or Benny Goodman in the early 1950s on my mom and dad’s 78 record player.
And just so you don’t think, I’m anti-new technology, I started listening to my own iPod 18 years ago.
I’ve recorded more than 200 albums and CDs including Dylan, Led Zeppelin, Little Richard, Iris DeMent, Hank Williams, Handel, Mozart, Sinatra, Billie Holiday, Miles Davis, Duke Ellington, Robert Johnson, Willie Dixon – bluegrass, blues, classical, jazz rock – you name it, I listen to it on my small, wafer-thin, black music box.
Yep, eight GB of memory, 2,094 songs and 5.8 days of music and that’s not counting several hundred LPs (long-laying vinyl) and CDs at home. Analogue remains the best for sound quality, it has no equal. And I don’t do much live streaming. I’d rather select my own music favorites to listen to.
Reading is another passion. I can’t begin to think of how many books I’ve read during the last 60 years. I read every day and sometimes I have two or three books going at the same time.
One of my favorite authors, Leo Tolstoy (War and Peace and Anna Karenina), used to choose a theme and offer a wise thought for each day of the year. He coupled this with quotes from some of the greatest philosophers of all times.
Here are a few of the thoughts on which Tolstoy and others reflected. Most have to do with listening.
After a long conversation, stop and try to remember what you have just discussed. Don’t be surprised if many things, sometimes all things you discuss, are meaningless, empty and trivial.
A stupid person should keep silent. But if he knew this, he would not be a stupid person. —Saadi.
If you want to be a clever person, you must learn how to ask cleverly, how to listen attentively, how to respond quietly and how to stop talking when there is nothing more to say.
People whose only motivation is to say something original utter many stupid things. —Voltaire.
If you have time to think before you start talking, think.
Will what I have to say harm anyone? Is it necessary to speak?
Nothing can support idleness better than empty chatter. People would do better to keep silent rather than speak the boring, empty things they routinely say to entertain themselves.
First think, then speak. Stop when told, “enough.” —Saadi.
Those people speak most who do not have much to say.
People are taught to speak, but their major concern should be how to keep silent.
I have spent all my life amongst wise people, and I have found nothing better than silence in this world. If a word costs one coin, then silence costs two. —Talmud.
Keep silent. Rest your tongue more often than you do your hands. You will never regret that you have kept silent, but you will often regret that you spoke too much.
Do not say words you do not feel, lest your soul be blackened with darkness. —The Book of Divine Thoughts.
Silence is golden. Listen.
John Schlageck is a leading commentator on agriculture and rural Kansas.
MANHATTAN — The Arkansas River Compact Administration (ARCA) annual meeting will be held on Friday, Dec. 7, 2018, at 9:00 a.m. CST at the Clarion Inn, 1911 E Kansas Ave. in Garden City. The meeting agenda is posted on ARCA’s website at www.co-ks-arkansasrivercompactadmin.org.
ARCA administers provisions of the Kansas–Colorado Arkansas River Compact, including operations of the John Martin Reservoir. Topics to be covered at the annual meeting include a review of John Martin Reservoir operations, compliance update, committee reports, and updates from state and federal agencies. ARCA will consider the continued use of a new source water to replace evaporation and potentially fill the John Martin Reservoir recreation account. A specific project that will be reviewed is the inspection of the stilling basin below John Martin Reservoir that is being done during the non-irrigation season.
ARCA’s Engineering, Operations, and Administrative and Legal committees will meet on Thursday, Dec. 6, 2018, starting at 1:00 p.m. CST, also at the Clarion Inn.
The annual meeting and committee meetings are open to the public. Individuals who require special accommodation should notify Stephanie Gonzales at 719-734-5367 at least three days prior to the meeting.
The Kansas-Colorado Arkansas River Compact was negotiated in 1948 between Kansas and Colorado with participation by the federal government. Its stated purposes are to settle existing disputes and remove causes of future controversy between Colorado and Kansas regarding Arkansas River water and to equitably divide and apportion the water between Colorado and Kansas, including benefits arising from John Martin Reservoir.
WASHINGTON — The casket carrying the remains of George H.W. Bush is at the U.S. Capitol as the nation says its formal farewell to the 41st president.
Kansas Governor Jeff Colyer attended Monday’s ceremony in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda.
Although it is a time of mourning for our nation, and a sad time for me personally, I am honored to be here at the viewing for my former boss and friend, @GeorgeHWBush#kslegpic.twitter.com/2uc7oP4u5k
Bush will lie in state in the Rotunda through Wednesday. He died Friday at his home in Houston. He was 94. An invitation-only funeral service is set for Wednesday at Washington National Cathedral.
Lillie Madge Westfall, 81, passed away December 2, 2018, at Hays Medical Center, Hays. She was born July 21, 1937 at West Plains, Missouri to Harry Albert and Lillie Annabelle (Woods) Ferguson. She married Billy Laverne Westfall, April 5, 1958, at Kinsley. He died August 21, 2013.
Living in Great Bend since 1957, coming from Kinsley, Kansas, Madge was a member of Grace Community Church. She worked as a paralegal for the Barton County Attorney’s Office and later McPherson Law Office.
Survivors include, one son, Eric Westfall and wife Wendy of Cañon City, Colorado; one daughter, Ellen Richmeier of Great Bend; five grandchildren, Sarah Kaiser, Emily Kaiser, Allysa Tack, Rachel Richmeier and Jessica Richmeier; eleven great-grandchildren, Kasey, Faith, Keegan, Aubrey, Cooper, Blake, Emma, Nathan, Nova, Maya, and Ali; and one brother, Jack Ferguson of Oklahoma. She was preceded in death by her husband, Bill Westfall; two brothers, Bob and Earl Ferguson; and three sisters, Inis Lamons, Eileen Reichert and Martha Schneider.
Visitation will be held from 9:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m., Friday, December 7, 2018, at Bryant Funeral Home. Funeral Service will be held at 10:00 a.m., Saturday, December 8, 2018, with Pastor Jay Beuoy presiding. Interment will be in the Great Bend Cemetery North. Memorials are suggested to Grace Community Church or the Great Bend Public Library, in care of Bryant Funeral Home.
Kansas City(AP) – President Donald Trump is set to visit Kansas City for a conference on crime.
According to the White House, Trump will speak Friday at the 2018 Project Safe Neighborhoods National Conference in Kansas City.
Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker is among U.S. Department of Justice leaders slated to speak at the conference. The White House says the event is expected to draw hundreds of law enforcement officials, prosecutors and others focused on cutting back on crime.
The George W. Bush-era Project Safe Neighborhoods faded during former President Barack Obama’s administration. Former U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions revived it last year.
Through the initiative, federal prosecutors have worked with local law enforcement agencies to target offenders in cases involving guns, drugs and gangs.
Today A slight chance of snow showers before noon, then a slight chance of flurries between noon and 1pm. Cloudy, then gradually becoming mostly sunny, with a high near 36. Light west southwest wind becoming west 5 to 9 mph in the morning. Chance of precipitation is 20%.
Tonight Mostly clear, with a low around 20. West wind around 7 mph.
Wednesday Increasing clouds, with a high near 47. West southwest wind 6 to 13 mph becoming south in the afternoon.
Wednesday Night Mostly cloudy, with a low around 23. South southeast wind 7 to 15 mph becoming north in the evening.
Thursday Mostly cloudy, with a high near 30. North wind 8 to 14 mph.
Thursday Night Mostly cloudy, with a low around 16.
Friday Partly sunny, with a high near 29.
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas will swear in its first two openly LGBT state lawmakers next month and the new Democratic governor promises to end a ban on discrimination over sexual orientation or gender identity in state hiring and employment decisions once she takes office.
Kansas state Rep.-elect Susan Ruiz, D-Shawnee, left, and Kansas state Rep. Brandon Woodard, right, D-Lenexa attending orientation at the Kansas Statehouse Monday. Ruiz and Woodard are the state’s first two openly LGBT legislators-photo courtesy Rep. elect Rui Xu (Center)
Yet other goals for LGBT-rights activists, such as expanding the state’s anti-discrimination law covering landlords and private employers, might not be much closer to fruition — despite a historic national wave of victories by LGBT candidates and Gov.-elect Laura Kelly’s promise to break with Republican predecessors on policy.
The GOP still has large majorities in the Legislature, and it will be a little more conservative after this year’s elections. While Kelly’s election likely prevents new laws that LGBT-rights advocates oppose, they probably will struggle to undo policies enacted in recent years when Republicans held the governor’s office.
“It’s not the governor who decides if we get hearings or if bills come out of committee,” said Tom Witt, the executive director of Equality Kansas, the state’s most influential LGBT-rights organization. “That’s going to make it a little more challenging.”
Kelly takes office in January, along with the state’s first LGBT lawmakers, Democratic state Reps. Susan Ruiz and Brandon Woodard. They were elected in Kansas City-area suburbs, which also elected Democrat Sharice Davids , an LGBT and Native American lawyer, to Congress.
Kelly has promised to issue an executive order — possibly on Jan. 14, her first day in office — to end anti-LGBT discrimination in state hiring and employment decisions.
“Gov.-elect Kelly wants to send a message to people across this state, and across the country, that Kansas is an open, welcoming place that does not tolerate discrimination of any kind,” spokeswoman Ashley All said.
But the partisan breakdown in the Legislature did not change, and among Republicans, conservatives gained at least half a dozen House seats at moderates’ expense and elected a new, more conservative majority leader Monday. In the Senate, a moderate senator resigned after being elected state insurance commissioner, and her replacement is all but certain to be more conservative.
“Kansas is still Kansas, and I think most Kansans understand the nature of the family,” said Chuck Weber, executive director of the Kansas Catholic Conference, a former state representative from Wichita.
Kansas voters added a ban on same-sex marriage to the state’s constitution in 2005, with 70 percent approval. It has not been enforced since the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in 2015 legalizing gay marriage nationwide.
In 2007, then-Democratic Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, a friend and political ally of Kelly, issued an executive order banning anti-LGBT discrimination in state employment. But conservative Republican Gov. Sam Brownback rescinded it in 2015, arguing that such a policy should be set by legislators — who clearly weren’t going to do it.
Brownback resigned in January to become U.S. ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom. New GOP Gov. Jeff Colyer said his administration would not tolerate discrimination but did not reinstate the formal protections in Sebelius’ order.
Colyer signed a measure in May providing legal protections to adoption agencies that cite faith-based reasons for refusing to place children in homes that violate their religious beliefs. The legislative debate centered on agencies that won’t place children in LGBT homes. Supporters saw it as religious liberties measure, but Kelly has called it an “adoption discrimination law.”
Reflecting social conservatives’ influence, the Kansas Republican Party’s election platform, adopted in June, called for an amendment to the U.S constitution barring same-sex marriage, drafted so “judges and legislatures cannot make other arrangements equivalent to it.”
“The benefits and privileges of marriage exist only between one man and one woman,” the platform said.
Kansas has been a reliably red state in presidential elections for the past 50 years and until Kelly’s and David’s victories this year, the GOP had won every statewide and congressional race starting in 2010.
Yet GOP conservatives and moderates have feuded enough over the decades to give Democrats opportunities, and Kelly’s victory continued a half-century tradition of alternating control of the governor’s office. Groups such as the Family Policy Alliance of Kansas are preparing for political battles over what they view as attempts to limit religious liberties of social conservatives.
Eric Teetsel, the alliance’s president and a Brownback son-in-law, said Kansas politics “is complicated, and it’s local.”
“This idea that American society or Kansas is just this awfully bigoted, anti-gay culture is belied by what we see around us,” he said. “You can be elected to public office in Kansas as a member of the LGBT community and no one bats an eye at it.”
Ruiz and Woodard ran on platforms that included support for LGBT rights but emphasized issues such as voting rights, education funding, expanding the state’s Medicaid health coverage to more families and lowering the state’s sales tax on groceries.
Ruiz said when she campaigned door-to-door, her sexual orientation “never came up” and voters did not appear to care. She said she doubts that attitude would have been as widespread a decade ago.
Woodard won in a district that had been held by conservative Republicans who’d backed religious objections measures, like the adoption law, and Equality Kansas described his GOP predecessors as strongly anti-LGBT.
But with the state as a whole, he said, “We don’t know how much it has shifted.”
Ruiz and Woodard also expect that it will be harder for colleagues to pass anti-LGBT measures.
“They will see our faces,” Ruiz said. “They will hear us speak.”
Annise Parker, a former Houston mayor, now president and CEO of the Victory Fund, which helps elect LGBT candidates, said this year’s election represented a milestone in Kansas, “but it doesn’t mean sweeping changes.”
“Putting openly LGBT legislators in place changes the debate, changes the dialogue. It actually makes for a healthier dialogue,” Parker said. “But it doesn’t change things overnight.”
MANHATTAN — A public hearing will be conducted at 10:00 a.m. on Tuesday, Dec. 11, 2018, to consider the adoption of proposed regulations within the Animal Facilities Inspection Program. The hearing will be held in room 124 on the first floor of the Kansas Department of Agriculture, 1320 Research Park Dr. in Manhattan.
Due to the passage of HB 2477 by the 2018 Kansas Legislature, KDA’s AFI program is proposing amendments to K.A.R. 9-18-6, 9-18-9, and 9-18-28. The primary changes made to the Pet Animal Act by HB 2477 include increasing the fee caps for licensed facilities, adding fees for no-contact inspections and follow-up inspections due to failed inspections (re-inspection fees), removing the ability to provide notice prior to inspections, and removing the fees for the licensure of pet animal foster homes. In addition to these changes, the AFI program has also proposed amendments that more clearly outline the routine inspection policy.
The regulations can be found at the KDA website, agriculture.ks.gov/ProposedRegs. Written comments can be submitted prior to the hearing at that webpage as well.
All interested persons may attend the hearing and will be given the opportunity to express comments orally on the adoptions of the proposed regulations during the hearing. In order to give all parties an opportunity to present their views, it may be necessary to request that each participant limit any oral presentation to five minutes. Persons who require special accommodations must make their needs known at least five days prior to the hearing. For more information, including special accommodations or a copy of the regulations, please contact Ronda Hutton, 785-564-6715.
SEDGWICK COUNTY — Law enforcement authorities are investigating a teenager for alleged animal cruelty.
Just after 7:30a.m. Sunday police responded to 3300 Block of North Wild Rose in Wichita, according to officer Charley Davidson.
Cole Carter -photo Sedgwick Co.
A suspect later identified as 19-year-old Cole Carter had reportedly slammed a small white dog onto the ground.
Witnesses also described the suspect in connection with a grey Ford Edge. Officers located the vehicle driven by Carter. Two 16-year-old girls were passengers in the vehicle, according to Davidson. Officers also found a small white dog in the vicinity that had died.
Police took Carter into custody without incident and found him to also be in possession of a concealed handgun, according to Davidson. He is being held in the Sedgwick County Jail for animal cruelty and carrying a concealed weapon.
LAWRENCE, Kan. (AP) — A 26-year-old Missouri woman accused of driving her car into the Kansas River has pleaded not guilty in her daughter’s drowning.
Scharron Dingledine-photo Douglas CountyDingledine’s vehicle pulled from the river on August 3 -image courtesy KCTV
Scharron Dingledine, of Columbia, Missouri, pleaded not guilty Monday to first-degree murder and attempted first-degree murder.
Dingledine is accused of driving into the river near downtown Lawrence on Aug. 3 in an effort to kill her children and herself.
Rescuers pulled Dingledine and her 1-year-old son, Elijah Lake, from the water soon but were not able to save her 5-year-old daughter, Amiyah Bradley. The child’s body was recovered from the river the next day.
Dingledine was found competent in August to stand trial.
