By JOHN P. TRETBAR

Baker Hughes weekly US rotary rig count was down 11 rigs Friday, losing eight oil rigs and three exploring for natural gas. Canada checked in with 192 active rigs, up one. Kansas has once again dropped off the Baker Hughes list, but Independent Oil & Gas Service reports 13 active rigs in eastern Kansas, up one, and 26 west of Wichita, also up one. Barton County operators are moving in completion tools at two sites. In Ellis County drilling is underway at two leases, operators are moving in rotary drilling tools at one site, and they’re moving in completion tools at three more. They’re moving in completion tools at one site in Russell County and drilling is underway at one lease in Stafford County.

Operators filed 25 permits for drilling at new locations in Kansas last week, for a year-to-date total of 1,190 new permits. There were nine new permits filed in eastern Kansas and 16 west of Wichita, including one in Barton County, two in Ellis County, one in Russell County and one in Stafford County.

Independent Oil & Gas Service reported 36 new well completions across Kansas last week, 1,117 so far this year. Operators in eastern Kansas completed 27 wells last week. There were nine in the western half of the state, including one in Barton County and one in Ellis County.

The Kansas Geological Survey says the state’s oil industry produced another 2.99 million barrels of crude oil in July. For the first seven months of the year, Kansas has pumped 21.07 million barrels of crude. Ellis County led the way with 1.54 million barrels produced through July. Haskell County was next at 1.39 million. Barton County produced 998 thousand barrels plus. Rounding out the top five were Finney County at 953 thousand, and Rooks County at 936 thousand barrels. Russell County checked in with 935 thousand, and Stafford County notched 610 thousand barrels of crude production.

The Kansas Corporation Commission reports 121 new intent-to-drill notices filed across the state last month. That’s 1,298 so far this year. Operators filed two intents in Barton County, three in Ellis County, two in Russell County and three in Stafford County.

Barton County Sheriff Brian Bellendir says his team responded to a tip on Monday and discovered a large quantity of abandoned commercial explosives in a structure north of Great Bend along Route 281. Bellendir says the oilfield explosives included 40 shaped charges along with several hundred blasting caps and lots of detonation cord. ATF and the Wichita Police Department bomb squad responded and destroyed the explosives without injury or damage. The Sheriff says the explosives were left over from a defunct oilfield logging and perforating business whose owners passed away.

The Oklahoma House of Representatives approved measures to use money from the state’s rainy day fund to keep three health agencies open through April of next year. The House sent the bills to the Senate for debate and a vote. Thus far there has been no agreement between chambers on spending. The House approved a measure to increase the oil and gas gross production tax to 7 percent for some wells after defeating a proposal to impose that maximum rate on all wells. House Bill 1085 would bring in an estimated $50 million this year and $100 million next year by ending incentives on thousands of horizontal wells drilled before June 30, 2015. State lawmakers continue their special legislative session called by the Governor to address a $215 million budget shortfall.

A group of small oil and gas producers said it will forge ahead with an effort to put a state a question on the ballot next year that would set a permanent seven percent tax on all oil and gas wells, despite recent efforts in the Legislature to raise the gross production tax temporarily to 7 percent on some wells. According to the news Web site Oklahoma Watch, political insiders and advocacy groups say predict one of the most expensive campaigns in modern history for a state question. A coalition of small oil producers that favor the flat seven percent rate announced the effort last month. The Oklahoma Tax Commission predicts the change would bring in $288 million a year. In three separate polls, a majority of the voters in the state said they favor the tax increase.

U.S. crude exports and production reached record or near-record highs last week. The United States exported 2.13 million barrels a day of oil in the week through Oct. 27, the first time the nation has crossed the 2 million-barrels-per-day mark. Production reached 9.55 million barrels a day.

The Woodlands, Texas-based water-management company Layne Christensen is partnering with the state to drill more than 100 wells in West Texas to sell brackish, non-potable water to oil companies in the booming Permian Basin. According to the Houston Chronicle, Layne and the state General Land Office will split the revenues. The company’s CFO called the deal a “gold mine in the making,” for both the state and the company. The firm says producers in the two target counties need upwards of 500 million barrels of water a year for hydraulic fracturing.

Among the businesses traveling to China with President Trump next week are a commodities trader and a private equity firm hoping to partner with the Chinese oil firm Sinopec. Arc Light Capital Partners and Freepoint Commodities hope to build a pipeline from the Permian Basin of Texas to a new terminal on the Gulf Coast. Reuters reports that by loading so-called Very Large Crude Carriers, they hope to reduce a big chunk of logistics costs incurred for U.S. crude oil exports, making the oil more competitive in Asia.

The second in a 4-part series regarding the importance of reading to and with young children in support of a new literacy initiative the Dane G. Hansen Foundation in northwest Kansas.

To teach and give children the tools to overcome the reading barrier is an awe-inspiring moment. For a child to sit with a grandparent or someone from an older generation and have that person deliver praise for their reading abilities, will help set that child on a path to a love learning.

Logan Elementary school in Logan, Kansas rolled out a summer reading program this past June. Thanks to a generous donation from the Dane G. Hansen foundation, we were able to purchase a wide variety of literary books for our students.

The books arrived after school had already dismissed for the summer, so we struggled a bit to get the word out to our families. We attempted to accomplish this by have our teachers reach out through their class lists and by the use of social media. Students were able to come to the school and view all of the books we had purchased. They were spread out across our auditorium’s stage. We provided them with a tote bag in which to store their books. Students were allowed to pick up to ten books to take home and enjoy. We had several students that made regular stops throughout the summer exchanging books.

We wanted to work with the surrounding community libraries and their summer reading programs. We hoped that our program would work in conjunction with theirs. To assist in this, Logan schools donated an older IPad to each of the three libraries in our surrounding communities. We provided training and software to the librarians. This enables our students to be able to attend the libraries and take Accelerated Reading tests over the books that they had read. Accelerated reading tests measures the student’s comprehension of the material contained in the book. We had several students show a dramatic increase in reading.

Several students were encouraged to work with our local nursing home and assisted living homes. These students would take books down and read to the residents. This is a continuation of our commitment to give back to our community from our elementary students.

The opportunity to engage students with books and to help foster a love for reading is a gift of a lifetime. When a child becomes aware of words on a page, and understands that they are not able to understand those words, they feel a sense of isolation from the book. It forces them to understand that they have a dependence on someone else to provide them the information contained within. It becomes a sense of being left out. When a child learns to read and begins to understand those words, they feel a sense of belonging to a group. It becomes one of our first self-aware barriers to growing up.

David Kirkendall is the Principal for Logan Schools.

Learn more about the importance of reading to your children at NWKansasReads.org.

After the Legislature increased the money spent on elementary and secondary education by $295 million this year and next, and raised Kansans’ income taxes by about $600 million, the thought was that this would be a relatively uneventful 2018 session, which starts in two months.

Well, that all went away last week.

Remember the Oct. 2 decision by the Kansas Supreme Court that the school finance bill is unconstitutional, apparently because it doesn’t send enough state money to school districts? The court didn’t say just how short it believed that $194 million this year and $100 million more in the next year is, but best guesses are at least $300 million more will be needed to satisfy the court.

And remember last week, when the state’s cadre of economic/financial/budget experts (the Consensus Revenue Estimating Group) predicted that the state would receive $230 million more than expected in tax revenues over the next two fiscal years? There is, of course, that unseen asterisk over that estimate; it’s just a guess and might be more or less than $230 million and we’re not going to know just how much money will be received until probably next June when lawmakers hope to be long gone from the Capitol and campaigning for election or re-election.

That relatively simple upcoming session has evaporated. Spend more money on schools — even the expected, but not yet banked new money — and it probably isn’t enough to meet the court’s still undefined expectations for providing a suitable education for the state’s children with equal tax effort by the state’s school districts.

How much more money is enough? Don’t know.

But the court made clear that more money is needed and failure to meet whatever amount the court finds adequate would make the black-robed clan “complicit” in an unconstitutional system. They’re apparently not going there.

So, what happens next session?

Well, it could be that the Legislature will rewrite the school finance formula to spread what it last year considered a pretty good boost in funding some different way. There are a few little touch-ups that helped get this year’s plan passed that could be removed, but those little provisions are part of what got the K-12 formula passed in the first place. Hmmm…

Or the Legislature could put whatever unexpected money the revenue estimators predict will flow to the state into schools, under some formula that the court likes. Maybe that’s enough, maybe not.

That means no new money for anything else, ranging from salaries for prison guards to new prisons to efforts to maintain the availability and quality of water, or health care for the poor or, well, whatever else you think is important.

And there’s the most controversial problem-solver, somehow redefining in the constitution the state’s obligation to finance schools and the court’s ability to determine whether enough is being spent on K-12 education from border to border.

That challenge to the Supreme Court’s authority to close schools by declaring the appropriation for K-12 unconstitutional is the big fight. Restricting the court’s authority to reject the Legislature’s school funding formula would require two-thirds votes in the House and Senate to forward a constitutional amendment to the voters who then would need to approve it. That’s a big job.

Remember the chants about the courts closing schools? They would get louder if a constitutional amendment to strip the court of its school-closing authority were put on the same election ballot on which Kansans elect statewide officials including the governor and members of the House of Representatives.

Or maybe, just maybe, someone figures out just how much schools spend on football and basketball and other non-classroom activities not strictly linked to reading and long division and suggests that the state not contribute to those activities.

Nothing is getting simpler here, and the boosted revenue estimate isn’t going to solve this. We’ll see what the Legislature comes up with, won’t we…

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

While a farm or ranch can be the most wonderful place in the world to raise a family, it comes with its own special set of hazards that don’t exist anywhere else.

In 2015, 401 farmers and farm workers died from a work-related injury, resulting in a fatality rate of 19.2 deaths per 100,000 workers. Transportation incidents, which include tractor overturns, were the leading cause of death for these farmers and farm workers.

On average, 113 youth less than 20 years of age die annually from farm-related injuries in the United States. Most of these deaths occurring to youth 16-19 years of age.

Of the leading sources of fatal injuries to youth, 23 percent involved machinery (including tractors), 19 percent involved motor vehicles (including ATVs) and 16 percent were drowned.
Slowing this trend is a never-ending challenge. It is also an opportunity every day.

Children and families play, live and work on the farm. There’s no getting away from the machinery. This same machinery is always there and it doesn’t have a heart.

Farm machinery is made to cut, chop and grind and it won’t distinguish between crop tissue and human flesh. That’s why producers must use their heads, practice safety and stay out of harm’s way.

When it comes to the education process of farm safety, seek out programs offered by farm organizations like Kansas Farm Bureau. Commodity groups may offer safety instruction as well.

Men, women and children should attend such learning sessions whenever such opportunities exist. This should be a priority for all who operate tractors, combines, balers, augers and other machinery.

Kansas Farm Bureau’s safety education arsenal is filled with a series of displays that are graphic and show amputations caused by various types of farm machine.

The idea behind such safety demonstrations is to offer safety awareness before a farmer or rancher needs it.

Everyone becomes a safety advocate after an accident. Farmers and ranchers should think and practice safety every moment of every day.

Not enough time and haste are two of the main reasons farmers wind up in accidents. The reason most farm fatalities are male is because more men handle the equipment.

Farm safety is not always an easy message for farmers and ranchers to implement in the workplace. However, the point is to think and plan to stay healthy, active and safe in what can be a potentially hazardous environment.

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

Every day my newsfeed runs articles supporting rural communities. I also subscribe to Mike Rowe’s of Dirty Jobs fame posts where he reveals America’s need for skilled, hardworking employees. Mike explains such occupations pay well and require less education debt than do four-year degrees. For the good of individuals and the nation, he advocates interested Americans master a trade to earn a competitive salary.

Many of my former pupils chose this route and tell me they make far more money than I did as a teacher. As one who earned a living doing what I loved, I celebrate such accounts. One of my first students, who ironically isn’t that much younger than I, shares frequently that he loves his auto body career and how it enables him to provide well for his family. It’s not all gravy. He mentions ongoing expenses for equipment updates and physical wear and tear. Despite these challenges, his skilled training didn’t leave him deeply in debt and afforded a lucrative paycheck for fulfilling work.

I could tell more success stories, but space is limited. Instead, consider how long it takes to get a plumber, electrician, HVAC tech, carpenter, or carpet layer to provide non-emergency services. I waited a year for floor covering. I’ve waited weeks to hear a plumber’s knock at my door or get my car tuned-up. These folks are busy. They could work 24 hours a day and still have customers waiting.

So many of our students grow up on farms and ranches or in towns where residents value and model a strong work ethic. What changes we can make in local school systems to better prepare more young people for skilled trades?

A Japanese practice is worth considering and adapting. Their schools teach an appreciation for labor by rotating all students through jobs in the kitchen and cafeteria. Students learn about serving as well as cleaning after others. Youngsters assigned to janitorial duties practice facility maintenance. I imagine country school attendees recall performing such duties during their school years. It’s beneficial to understand how systems work and what it takes to maintain them.

As students, parents, and school officials consider possible curricular changes, I hope they focus on fundamentals that translate into critical thinking skills. Every worker/voter/citizen needs to analyze data well. Everyone should read expertly enough to question text. Math skills require more than drill. One of the best math and physics teachers in western Kansas also utilized his skills to roof houses and build upscale homes.

Humans require experimentation to discover interests and talents. Many young people don’t explore them until they graduate. Can educational systems jump start these investigations as early as grade school? Can kids practice critical academics with a hammer, surveying tool, or water purity sensor in hand?

Santa Fe Indian School would say yes. Instructors teach native students to perform scientific and mathematical calculations as participants survey boundaries and assess water quality. They use writing skills to produce professional reports and media releases.

Fortunately, rural schools are natural sites for practical education. Low student numbers guarantee involving every youngster in activities from growing and preserving food to publishing documents to performing maintenance tasks on facilities and vehicles to using CAD to design untold possibilities. Many districts have construction programs that produce tiny homes to full-size residences.

The challenge requires systems to teach fundamental as well as trade specific skills. Individuals need a springboard to further academics or to occupational training. Schooling shouldn’t limit possibilities; it should expand them.

While big cities create magnet schools to provide such offerings to select students, rural communities can educate every child in such a way that honors knowledge, interests, work, and promises little towns have skilled laborers to make their world operate.

Native Kansan Karen Madorin is a local writer and retired teacher who loves sharing stories about places, people, critters, plants, food, and history of the High Plains.

Some years ago shortly after I’d first moved to Kansas I stored my boat for the winter in an airy old shed at my dad’s farm. To help keep it clean inside and to keep out the moisture, I wrapped it with a tarp. When I pulled it out the following spring, I found corn stalks, milo stalks, (some with heads still attached) and wads of various other crop residue stuffed into every imaginable nook and cranny inside the boat. Dad took one look at the mess and nonchalantly mused “Packrats huh.” I think I replied “Pack what?”

I don’t know about present day, but as a kid growing up in Ohio, we knew nothing of packrats. But in this part of the country, they seem to have been the bane of every farmer and rancher for generations. They build nests around the bases of trees and in old farm machinery in tree rows, and also under the hoods or inside of any vehicles they can get into. That in itself is bad enough, but they also have a love for electrical wiring and seem to feel it’s their life’s purpose to chew any and all they can reach, often causing hundreds of dollars worth of damage and requiring extensive repairs.

Also known as eastern wood rats, packrats get that nickname because of their habit of “collecting” interesting and often shiny objects and storing them in their nests. Some years ago Joyce and I stumbled upon a packrat “commune” a few miles away. There were dozens of nests four or five feet off the ground in scrubby thorn trees in the midst of a low swampy thicket. I picked up a good sturdy stick and began poking and tearing apart nests to see what I could find.

What looked like a slipshod, willy-nilly mess of bark and limbs on the outside became a snug almost cocoon-like nest lined with fur, grass and even tufts of wool on the inside. In the nests I found yellow plastic trash bag ties, pieces of a plastic 1 gallon anti-freeze container (which I spotted nearby,) freshly chewed sticks, fresh green plant leaves, a large bone of some description and what appeared to be coyote droppings, but no shiny trinkets of any sort. Evidently those particular pack rats were of a more frugal persuasion and no longer saw the value of wasting time collecting shiny baubles. Or maybe they just don’t want to lug them up the tree.

A couple weeks ago a local farmers whose land I trap for coyotes called me about exterminating some packrats that had become a problem. They had gotten into a small barn and built a nest under the hood of an old classic grain truck he still liked to use, causing it to catch fire in the driveway. The last straw was when they recently chewed wires under the hood of his semi tractor parked in the farmyard, making expensive repairs necessary.

I had never dealt with packrats, so I contacted two trapper friends who both do nuisance control trapping. The first friend runs a large pest control company with his family; his advice was to forget trapping them and use potent poison bait he recommended. The second friend, who has been my coyote trapping mentor whenever I need advice, told me that in his experience, poisoned bait just ends up carried back to packrat nests as nesting material, so he gave me suggestions for trapping them using sardines for bait.

He said packrats love sardines and find the shiny lid of the can attractive. I had the traps and not the poison, so I built small enclosures (cubbies) from empty one-gallon tin cans with the labels removed to make them shiny, and from short pieces of galvanized furnace pipe. I stapled small pieces of 2×4 in one end of each furnace pipe so the rats could only gain entry from one end and fastened a short piece of old vinyl flooring on the end of each to hold a weight. I smashed the tin cans partially shut and fastened a 2×4 down one side to keep the can from rolling around.

One small jaw trap was fastened to each cubby. In the small barn I placed 3 cubbies and baited them with sardines of different varieties and with peanut butter which I also read to be good packrat bait. There was a long notch cut out of the foundation in the back of the barn that was obviously letting the rats in, but I left it open to start. In another big shed I placed two more cubbies with the same baits and weighted them all down with bricks.

The next morning two possums awaited me in the barn and had pulled the traps and cubbies around, entangling them in stuff setting along the wall, but nothing was caught in the shed. I partially blocked the notch in the barn foundation to exclude any animal bigger than a rat, but caught nothing more all week. The owner called me and said he was ready to order some of the bait recommended by my other friend.
A tree row a couple hundred yards long runs just behind all his buildings, and like most tree rows is full of dandy places for packrat nests. I tore apart a couple the other day with a shovel but saw no rats.

So far the score is packrats 1, Steve 0. I hate to get skunked, but maybe the rats just grew tired of the accommodations there and moved on….nope, not likely! Continue to Explore Kansas Outdoors.

Steve Gilliland, Inman, can be contacted by email at [email protected].

As members of the Community Vision Team and the Our Schools, Our Future Committee, many of us have written letters about particular aspects of this proposal, but we wanted to give a few final thoughts on the proposed school bond before the people Hays vote on Tuesday to highlight the process and a few of the key features of this bond proposal.

Every project had to meet certain criteria for us to include it in this proposal. First, it needed to solve a pressing educational challenge facing the district. Second, the work done in the project needed to outlive the term of the bond. Finally, it needed to make sense financially – both in the short term and in the long term.

Elementary schools became our priority early in the process as they presented the biggest challenges. Each elementary school is currently overcrowded, and the heating/cooling, plumbing, and electrical systems in several schools are failing or reaching the end of their useful life. We looked at simply repairing the deferred maintenance items, but it was clear that we’d be spending millions on repairs that wouldn’t touch the real problems at these facilities.

Not only are classrooms small or insufficient, but spaces like the cafeterias at each school are woefully too small for the number of kids using the space each day. Ultimately, the cheapest solution was to replace rather than repair some of these facilities. We didn’t propose new elementary schools because we had the itch to build something new. We proposed new elementary schools because it was cheaper in the short term and smarter in the long term to replace rather than repair Lincoln and Washington, and replacing Wilson was the only way to ensure that the work done at that location would outlast the term of the bond.

Whether we decided to renovate or replace, Wilson needed to be expanded. However, judging by the building assessment, it was doubtful that the existing structure would be viable in 30 years, and we didn’t want to propose projects that were likely to need significant attention before the bond was paid off. Adding about $5 million to the total bond allowed us to replace Wilson and ensured that we wouldn’t have to return to projects at the same school for many years after it was paid off.

Not every project required massive renovation or a new facility, either. Given the need to expand elementary school space and the relatively good condition of O’Loughlin, we looked at expanding there, but the lot at O’Loughlin was much too small. However, for less than $3 million, the building can be updated and divided to house several smaller programs that currently lack viable space, making repurposing O’Loughlin an excellent, affordable solution for what could have been an expensive problem.
Hays High School presented us with a major challenge in that many of its systems were past their life expectancy and showing their age. By addressing classroom renovations at the same time as the infrastructure upgrades, we were able to save a lot of money as opposed to doing them as separate projects. With the expanded and updated classroom space, Hays High will be viable for the foreseeable future. All of this will be accomplished for less than a third of what a new high school would have cost and not much more than what we would have spent on only addressing the maintenance issues.

The most common hesitation that we’ve heard about this bond is that we chose to propose a single bond rather than several smaller bonds on a rolling basis. We explored various options for implementing a multiple-bond solution. However, accounting for both interest and increasing construction costs, it would end up costing in the range of $40-50 million more to do the exact same work if we approached it this way. Ultimately, splitting up a project like this doesn’t make financial sense. Since we committed to producing a proposal that was fiscally responsible, we chose the path that would cost taxpayers the least – the $78.5 million proposal that is on the ballot.

As with any project of this scale, there is so much more we could write. We’ve spent the better part of a year working on this proposal, and each time we revisit a particular feature of the bond we’re more convinced that it is the right plan and will have a tremendously positive impact on the city of Hays. However, that decision is now up to the voters of Hays. Pass or fail, our team’s work with this bond proposal ends on Tuesday. It’s been a long, involved process to develop, propose, and promote this bond, but we hope that the community of Hays will see the benefit in it and support it.

Respectfully submitted by: Chris Dinkel, Jennifer Teget, Wendy Armbruster, Ervis Dinkel, Mike Morley, Brad Schumacher, Valerie Wente, Jacob Wood, Alaina Cunningham, Amy Wasinger, Mike Walker, Jackie Sakil and Greg Kerr – Members of the Community Vision Team and/or the Our Schools, Our Future Committee.

As the election date nears, I would like to thank everyone that has supported and helped with my campaign. I urge all citizens to vote this coming Tuesday, November 7. Public participation on the local level is where the community can have a definite impact.

Over the last several months, I had the opportunity to discuss local issues with several members of the community. For those that I met, they know that I’m a talker and a bit of a story teller. I hope those stories help me relate as a person, citizen…not a politician. Hopefully, this article reaches those that I didn’t meet in person and also gives insight on “the man” behind the bureaucracy.

Taxes are always a concern on any level and an inevitable part of our democracy. I believe in fiscal responsibility. Maintaining a working budget without increasing the tax burden on its citizens must always be a priority. I grew up in an “oilfield” household. There has always been the good years and the bad years. During a bad year, my dad arrived home from work to find my mom distraught. She explained that she needed new clothes for work but wasn’t sure they could afford it. He handed her a check and said “we’ll always find a way for the things we need.” I use that same logic with my personal finances and I think it can be applied and relevant to our local budget. Do we “need” it or “want” it? The community can always find a way for the needs but we can’t always sacrifice for the wants. “Wants” can happen but they need to be carefully budgeted, prepared, and saved for.

Affordable housing and land prices have been a complicated topic of our community for a while. When I was looking for my home, I made the “I should be able to get more for my money, they want how much for that, etc…statements.” The property owners have a right to do what they want with their own property. So, what can we do? There are systems, although not perfect, to aid in the purchase of property. We can do a better job of educating the community on financing options, revitalization programs, buyer grants, and build from there.

The want for affordable housing leads to my next point, economic growth but more specifically job growth. Hays needs to recruit new businesses to the community, identify local businesses that are ideal for growth, attract small business owners and entrepreneurs. Stop using water and unemployment as excuses and start focusing on what we can do. Growth will not be possible if we can’t offer competitive wages, retain our local graduates, and attract new families from rural communities. There have been too many missed opportunities, failed attempts, and excuses. We are a results-driven society. If you can’t get the job done, we will find someone who can.

Why vote for me? What makes myself special? Hays, in my opinion, is a working class community. We are technicians, laborers, teachers, nurses, retailers, etc… I work 2 jobs. My wife works. Our kids aren’t perfect and can be a pain in the rear. Our house gets messy. The yard isn’t always perfectly trimmed. The point is that I’m not that special and I take pride in being a blue collar working class American. My family is blessed with a roof over our heads, clothes on our bodies, and food on our plates. We are fortunate compared to some. Many families are having a hard time providing for themselves. There are certain individuals that look out for big business, the college, hospital, local organizations, and so on. Who is watching out for the people that fix our roads, stitch our wounds, teach our kids, protect our community, unplug our sinks…?

There is no hidden agenda with me. I will stand firm for the citizens of Hays and will not be intimidated by self serving individuals. Vote for me, and the community will be heard.

John Mayers, candidate for Hays City Commission

Friend,

Thursday, the House Committee on Ways and Means released the Tax Cuts & Jobs Act. This bill will deliver major reforms to our nation’s tax code, including lower rates, dramatic simplification of the tax code, doubling of the standard deduction, expanding the child tax credit, allowing businesses to immediately write off the full cost of new equipment and provisions to keep American jobs here at home.

Our hardworking American taxpayers and local businesses deserve tax relief, and this is a huge step in that direction. The American family of four making the national median income of $59,000 will receive a $1,182 tax cut. More than 80% of families in the Big First use the standard deduction. Doubling the standard deduction while allowing those same families to file their taxes on a postcard will make it so Kansans can spend that time and money as they see fit.

When the framework for tax reform was announced two months ago, the House promised to lower rates, simplify the code and let hardworking taxpayers keep more of their money. It is clear upon first review that the Ways and Means Committee has kept its word. Chairman Brady deserves congratulations for getting us to this point, and I look forward to the Committee’s discussion, markup and having the bill on the floor of the House this year.

While the process of perfecting this bill begins I encourage everyone to visit fairandsimple.gop for more information about the framework, read the full bill here, or a detailed summary here.

As always, if you have any questions, concerns or know of ways my office can be of assistance, don’t hesitate to contact us.

In the House

Putting Agro-Defense Research in the Spotlight

This week, the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology held a hearing titled Putting Food on the Table – A Review of the Importance of Agriculture Research, which focused on the “scope, importance, value and impact of federal agriculture research.” Much of the meeting focused on the National Bio and Agro-defense Facility (NBAF) being built in Manhattan, Kan., and related research endeavors.

One witness included Dr. Stephen Higgs, associate vice president for research and director, Biosecurity Research Institute, Kansas State University. Higgs highlighted the research, researcher training and the work they’re doing to ensure NBAF will be utilized to its fullest capacity.

The research completed at NBAF will be invaluable to our nation’s agriculture and defense industries. It is vital NBAF receives the support needed to be utilized to its fullest extent. This hearing touched on the resources and coordination needed to do that, and I am grateful to the committee for taking it up.

You can see the hearing HERE.

Legislation to help our Farmers and Ranchers

This week, Sen. Moran and I introduced legislation to improve and reform livestock disaster programs Kansas farmers and ranchers rely on in times of natural disaster. The legislation includes four bills to make changes to the United States Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Farm Service Agency’s (FSA) Livestock Indemnity Program (LIP) and Emergency Conservation Program (ECP) based on Kansas farmers’ and ranchers’ feedback following southwest Kansas wildfires earlier this year, the Anderson Creek fire and other recent natural disasters.

After several visits to survey the fire damage in southwest Kansas, I came away inspired by the resilience of the folks who were impacted. I also left frustrated by the way red tape and outdated regulations can interfere with a recovery. Through the experience of two wildfires in two years, we have found several areas where adjustments to programs would improve their delivery. These four bills represent a much-needed step toward making disaster programs more responsive to producers.

We Still Like Ike!

It was an honor to be among the guests to attend the groundbreaking of a memorial to one of the proudest parts of Kansas history, the Dwight D Eisenhower memorial (shown right). We now can begin the countdown till Ike’s memorial, on Independence Avenue, will make its mark on the landscape. We were joined by members of three generations of the Eisenhower family, as well as many distinguished guests of the Kansas delegation. A true moment of Kansas pride!

If all goes to plan, we envision the dedication of the Dwight D. Eisenhower memorial taking place on the 75th Anniversary of VE Day, May 8th, 2020.

 

By RON WILSON
Huck Boyd National Institute for Rural Development

Sarasota, Florida. Here in a gourmet food shop is a video showing the planting of popcorn in a field half a continent away. This results from the outreach by an innovative young Kansas family that is producing popcorn and shipping it around the nation and beyond.

Nate and Stacey Freitag are the founders of Free Day Popcorn Company in Belleville, Kansas. Nate grew up on the family farm northwest of Belleville near the Nebraska line. He went to college in Pennsylvania where he met his wife Stacey. They married and started a family. Nate taught high school and Stacey worked in marketing. In 2013, they moved to the Midwest and settled in Belleville. Nate is now an online instructor with Insight School of Kansas and helps his dad on the farm.

“Dad’s grown popcorn for over 20 years for various processors,” Nate said. When he and Stacey tried popping the popcorn themselves, they realized it was delicious. “As someone who grew up on microwave popcorn, I thought this fresh popcorn was amazing,” Stacey said.

In 2015, they launched their own company to market this popcorn directly. They called it Free Day Popcorn Company. This comes from the roots of the family name. Nate’s ancestors came from Germany five generations ago and homesteaded here. The family name is now pronounced Freitag, which comes from the German Frei-tag meaning free day. Free Day Popcorn was born.

Today, Free Day Popcorn has two parts to the business. One is retailing gift containers and unpopped ears through its online store or in local grocery stores, and the second is selling wholesale in bulk to independent movie theatres, gourmet popcorn shops, schools, and others. For direct purchases, customers can buy yellow or white corn in mason jars, clamp jars, bags or more. A big seller is popcorn on the ear.

“People can stick the whole ear in the microwave and let it pop,” Stacey said. “It’s fun to watch. That’s how a lot of people first hear about us.” Of course, buyers can get popcorn kernels and pop them in the microwave or on the stovetop also. Bulk products are shipped in 35 or 50 pound bags.

“We’re really proud of selling a high quality product,” Nate said. Free Day Popcorn emphasizes freshness. Some commercial vendors may store popcorn for 18 months before selling. The Freitags try to sell only popcorn from the current season.

“Fresher popcorn tastes better,” Nate said. “Because we are not blending with previous years, it pops more consistently and there’s less waste.”

This business also provides a personal connection with the grower. “People seem to care more these days about where their food comes from,” Nate said.

Nate has done Facebook Live sessions where he interacts with people while demonstrating how corn is planted or harvested. “There are people who don’t even know that corn grows on an ear,” Stacey said.

Nate recalls loading a pallet of popcorn in wintry conditions in January. Three days later, they got a picture of it being unloaded in Florida amid palm trees and sunshine! That same Florida customer was so interested in a video of Nate planting corn that she ran the video on a continuous loop inside her store. “Nate’s teaching background comes in handy so he’s really good at explaining what’s going on,” Stacey said.

This is a multigenerational family effort. “We couldn’t do this without my dad and his knowledge and support,” Nate said. Nate and Stacey also have three young girls. The popcorn is grown on the family farm near Byron, Nebraska, north of the rural town of Republic, Kansas, population 116 people. Now, that’s rural.

Free Day Popcorn has sold online from coast to coast and border to border, to 48 of the 50 states and four foreign countries as far away as Spain. For more information, see www.freedaypopcorn.com.

It’s time to leave Sarasota, Florida where we found a video of Nate planting popcorn. We salute Nate and Stacey Freitag for making a difference with entrepreneurship in agriculture. I’m glad to see this business pop up.

Ron Wilson is director of the Huck Boyd National Institute for Rural Development at Kansas State University.

This coming Tuesday on the ballot I will be voting for Lance Bickle. Lance is a man of character, honor and integrity.

In his time on the board, he has proven himself to be a man that listens to the public, who looks out for the staff, students and teachers but also the very people that put him in office, the local taxpayers.

As a fellow small business owner, I know Lance has the results to carefully comb through budgets, look deeper at the financial issues, cut wasteful spending, increase efficiencies and craft long-term plans. In the time Lance has been on the school board, he has saved us hundreds of thousands of our taxpayer dollars in transportation, cut wasteful projects and programs, and decreased insurance costs.

All of this while maintaining and improving student scores, programs and learning opportunities. Lance is loyal to the people he serves, has no conflicts of interests, stands his ground and heads into important decisions prepared and confident. This Tuesday, if you’re in favor of an elected official with proven results, vote Bickle.

James Leiker

The community of Hays is well known for its love of the fine arts. As such, it has always supported the Hays High music and theater departments, which are at present growing and thriving.

What a wonderful addition to our community a High School auditorium would be. It would provide a space for Hays High music and theatre groups to perform on their own campus, instead of transporting thousands of dollars’ worth of equipment and instruments back and forth to 12th St. Auditorium or Beach/Schmidt PAC, often incurring damage along the way. It would provide a beautiful place for the Middle School, Elementary Schools, and other community groups to perform. Currently they must perform in gyms, the unsafe, technically very outdated 12th St. Auditorium, or Beach/Schmidt which costs thousands of dollars a year to rent and is very busy, making it difficult to schedule school events there.

A high school auditorium would provide much needed space when Hays High hosts its frequent multi school festivals. Hays High is the only Western Athletic Conference school that does not have its own auditorium. With enrollment projected to rise, Hays High will soon become a 5A school again, and as such, will be one of just a handful, if not the only, 5A school in the state that does not have an auditorium. This does not reflect to other communities the thriving arts scene we actually have in Hays. The arts are an important factor in drawing new people to our community.

Also, very importantly, the auditorium will be very versatile. It can be divided up physically into smaller rooms for lectures, classes and other events and would be used consistently, not just for performances.

The upcoming bond issue would ensure a wonderful, useful new auditorium for our community.

Joan Crull, Johnny Matlock, Matt Rome, Renetta Dawson, Nathan Mark, Gloria Blackwell, JoLeen Cunningham, Bill Gasper, Codi Fenwick

Kansans lament that Kansas is not growing. Its population is aging faster than the nation as a whole. Young people are migrating elsewhere in numbers that threaten the sustainability of the Sunflower State. At the macro-level that’s all true, but I have anecdotal material that might improve our outlooks.

During my time in higher education, I have met several extremely good students who have graduated and taken roles in the politics and public policy sectors. I want to let Kansans know that help is not just on the way, it’s already here.

These young people and their peers from the state’s other colleges and universities are already fine leaders. They have stepped up, even as we learn how extensively the public sector has been purposely hollowed out since the recession. So here’s my list of some the best and brightest young Kansans it has been my privilege to teach and advise.

The Bolt brothers from Chanute each earned Bachelor’s in Public Administration degrees here. Both have gone on to Wichita State for graduate work. Taylor, our 2013 graduate, works in the region as an economist for a federal agency. Evan (2015) is now finishing his masters at the top of his class with excellent prospects to be hired here in Kansas.

Laura Burton BA Political Communications (2005) became communications officer first for YWCA, then for a Topeka hospice program, started a graphics firm, and serves the community on the editorial board of the capital city’s daily newspaper.

Lindsey Douglas (2004) earned a BPA and then earned a Master’s in Environmental Law. She returned to Kansas and worked in state government in a legislative liaison role. She then was hired by KU in government relations. Now she’s a senior regional public affairs director for Union Pacific with primary responsibility for Kansas, Missouri and northeast Nebraska.

Shelbie Konkel (2014) and Ashley Hutchinson (2005) have accomplished achievements and advancements for their respective political parties. Shelbie directs special projects for the state Democratic Party. She’s currently thinking about law school. Regardless of that decision, she has and will continue to disprove the belief that Democrats are not developing any bench strength for the future. Ashley went from state legislative intern to interning in Senator Roberts’ office. Back in Kansas she took increasingly responsible jobs with the Republican Party, married, started a family and presently directs an economic development corporation serving Cloud County and Concordia. With roots in farming and party politics, I expect her to be a significant voice for the Big First and perhaps Kansas as a whole.

Anthony Swartzendruber (2004) earned our BPA degree then won a graduate appointment to Wichita State after which he took the job of Finance Director for Harvey County and is now, in his mid-30s, County Administrator there.

Finally, Angel Romero (2010) is one of the most decent, good-hearted young men I know. Then he earned a law degree and chose to serve his community. Today, he serves as a vice-president for United Way, but his big job is working to integrate the “under 40 set” into the commerce and culture of Topeka.

What impressive talents with positive and intelligent views regarding the future of Kansas! We need to give these people room to make a difference. It’s amusing to consider teen-agers running for governor, but it’s more realistic to admire and encourage these 30-somethings and their peers. Let them contribute and the future of Kansas can be bright. Cut them off, crowd them out, ignore their ideas, use up their energy unproductively and they will take their talents and enthusiasm elsewhere. These young adults and many more like them can blaze Kansas’s path to greatness.

Dr. Mark Peterson teaches political science at the college level in Topeka.