By SARAH L. SHIPMAN
Kansas Department of Administration Acting Secretary

A former Kansas budget director recently took gross liberty with the truth, drew conclusions without adequate facts, and lobbed unfounded platitudes about the poor condition of state workers.

Actual numbers reveal that Governor Brownback’s administration has supported Kansas state employees by increasing pay, flexibility, and ensuring a stable retirement system.

RELATED: Duane Goossen’s INSIGHT KANSAS column.

In 2014, Governor Brownback proposed a 1.5 percent base pay increase for all classified employees under his leadership. Since 2011, 12,942 classified non-Regents employees and 11,015 unclassified non-Regents employees have received increases—hardly the stagnant wage climate portrayed by those with political vendettas.

Some of these well-deserved increases for state employees were made possible by a recent law granting state agencies the ability to convert positions from classified to unclassified. In turn, this change affords employees the opportunity to choose between remaining classified or voluntarily shifting to unclassified. This change gives agencies flexibility to best manage their human capital, while also giving employees a powerful voice in the process.

Honesty and dependability mark any honorable employer. The State of Kansas, being no exception to this rule, has taken dramatic steps to improve the health and longevity of the Kansas Public Employees Retirement System. In the past, pension contributions were kicked down the road, creating an unstable pension fund and a serious financial problem for the state, ultimately incurring a ranking in 2010 of second worst funded pension system in the nation. Governor Brownback believes that promises made to state employees should be kept, and recent actions have placed KPERS on track to be fully funded by 2033.

Buttressing KPERS helps secure the future of state employees, as well as hard-working Kansas teachers. Education funding represents a partnership between state and local government. State funding for education is at an all-time high. Teacher pay, determined at the local level, is also on the rise. According to the National Education Association, our teacher pay growth percentage is tied for 16th best in the nation over the past year, and 17th best over the last decade—both beating the national average.

Each day, state employees get up, go to work, and do the business of the state. They serve fellow residents and assist businesses and units of government, all the while trying to make Kansas the best place in the nation to raise a family and grow a small business. And for those efforts, Governor Brownback is eternally grateful.

Several years ago on one early spring morning, Nolan Fisher, then manager of Kanopolis State Park and I slipped into a blind overlooking a high spot in the middle of a sparse pasture where prairie chicken mating dances were about to take place known as a “lek.”

For the next couple hours, we were treated to a ritual everyone should see at least once in their lifetime. The males showed up a few at a time to dance, swagger and emit loud throaty mating calls known as “booms” which can be heard over a mile away on a calm morning.

Reminiscent of Native American dances around a roaring campfire, male prairie chickens repeat this bizarre but amazing ritual every spring in an effort to win the attention and affection of the local female prairie chickens.

Unless you’ve lived under a rock for the past few years, you have read and heard numerous times about the controversy surrounding lesser prairie chickens here in Kansas. Let me briefly unpack the chain of events and maybe help you better understand what all the fuss has been about.

In 2010, knowing something must be done about fast declining lesser prairie chicken populations, Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, New Mexico and Texas, the five states containing the majority of the lesser prairie chicken population partnered together with the National Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) to begin the Lesser Prairie Chicken Initiative (LPCI.)

The NRCS worked with farmers, ranchers and landowners to increase habitat through conservation efforts that would benefit both landowners and prairie chickens alike. With this initiative, participation was voluntary and kept the federal government out of the mix as well, leaving all control in the hands of each individual state.

However, in 2014, despite great strides made through the lesser Prairie Chicken Initiative, the US Fish and Wildlife Service stepped in anyway and listed the lesser prairie chicken as “threatened” under the Endangered Species Act. Even though a special ruling was passed promising the five states continued control over conservation efforts, the federal government was now involved and it was feared participation in all efforts could become mandatory.

Besides, the feds don’t have a stellar record concerning anything they’ve been involved in of late!

Since the “threatened” listing in 2014, much time, money and effort have been spent trying to get the feds to change their mind. Finally this week a federal judge reversed the ruling, saying the US Fish and Wildlife Service was wrong to list the chickens as “threatened,” removing the federal government from the project again.

As the several year drought has somewhat loosened its grip on our region, lesser prairie chicken numbers have rebounded nicely, an estimated increase of 10,000 birds over a 2013 count. Our pastor is in the midst of a sermon series talking about relevant culture issues and last week’s topic looked at how our society now tends to worship creation rather than the Creator.

I agree wholly with trying to save the lesser prairie chickens, but it seems to me all the legislative time and money spent on doing so borders on worshiping creation. I wonder if we worshiped the Creator as we should, how many such problems would fix themselves…Just a thought.

Continue to Explore Kansas Outdoors!

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

“Aren’t you from Kansas?” was the question.

“Yep” was my answer.  As I traveled across China this summer, my visits at four universities were repeats and my hosts knew me well. So I asked, “Why do you ask?”

“Kansas is on all the news. There is lots of argument in your state government,” was the reply.

So at the next opportunity, I brought up the Yahoo or MSN or CNN news feeds. Chinese watch a lot of foreign news, especially to improve their English.

And there was Kansas. When I left Kansas at the end of the spring semester, the Legislature was into overtime trying to address the State Constitution-mandated balanced budget. Kansas was $450 million in the red. Here I was in China weeks later, and this debate was still dragging on.

Finally came the news report that the Kansas Governor went to the Legislature and begged for an increase in sales tax and finally got it, but not quite enough to cover the shortfall. Then in another action, the Legislature passes a bill that would de-fund the courts if the court rules against them.

Students and teachers in China know a lot more about our form of government than the average American knows about theirs. So I knew that at the next dinner, I would be faced with more questions. And I was.

“Aren’t your branches of government supposed to do different jobs?”

So I explained how our executive branch ran day-to-day affairs. The judicial branch judged cases based on the Constitution, laws and rights. And the legislative met for a short time to pass new laws. They already knew this.

“But if your Legislature controls the money, they can control the other two branches too, can’t they?”

“That happened at the national level, too,” injected another professor, adding “That’s why they shut down the national government two times.”

I try to explain: “It’s not supposed to work that way. But some legislators think we spend too much money and they do these things.” But I could tell that explanation didn’t make sense to my fellow professors.

Now, my dilemma is how to make the Chinese perspective understood to American readers.

Many European countries as well as Israel have more than two parties. Their elections rarely see any one party gain a majority. So the leading parties have to confer to put together a ruling coalition. At any time the coalition no longer agrees, they break up and this requires a new election be held. Americans tend to ridicule such a system as confusing and short term—our two-party system is obviously much better (or so we think).

My China colleagues view our two-party system with its gridlock and power-plays with the same disdain that Americans view the European multi-party systems.  And they certainly have these cases of dysfunction to prove their point.

That does not mean that their system is necessarily monolithic. Most Americans would be surprised to know that there are over a dozen other political parties in China besides the Communist Party.  However, their membership is very low. They mainly win positions in local and regional elections.     And debate does occur, not only in their National People’s Congress, but also in the bimonthly meetings of their subcommittee that writes laws for consideration at the next congress.

I have long since given up trying to explain the O.J. Simpson trial verdict in China. And this summer I gave up trying to explain Kansas politics to my China colleagues.

In an odd twist, the State of Washington has likewise had a spat between its Legislature and State Supreme Court. Their court ruled that Washington was not adequately funding schools. Sound familiar? Three weeks ago, the Washington State Supreme Court ordered their Legislature to pay a $100,000-a-day fine until they met their Constitutional obligation to adequately fund K–12 education before 2018.

Education is so valued in China that I know not to try to explain that situation either.

By RON WILSON
Huck Boyd National Institute for Rural Development

It is a classic American story: Country boy works hard on his music, goes to Nashville and finds success and love. We’ve seen that movie before. Today, we’ll learn about a different version of this story. Instead of a talented musician going from Kansas to Nashville, this musician made the journey from Nashville to Kansas.

Jim Farrell, sometimes called Tennessee Jim, is the man who made this reverse migration from Nashville. He literally grew up in the music business. Jim was born and raised in a musical family in Nashville. His father had a music ministry and sang in a barbershop quartet. His mother sang with a Nashville Symphony Chorale.

“I grew up with harmony,” Jim said. “We would be singing in the car when we went on family trips, and Dad would point at (my sister and I) and tell us to switch parts,” Jim said. This musical training came in handy. By the age of 14, he was playing and singing with adult musical groups.

“My teacher was in a southern gospel group and they needed a bass player so I joined in,” Jim said. He also took up the keyboard, guitar, bass and percussion. Soon he was doing sessions and backing artists who performed on the Grand Ole Opry.

When Jim was 15, he befriended a new kid who had moved to town. It turned out that the new kid was the son of a music publisher named Ben Hall who had traveled with Elvis Presley and gone on to become one of Nashville’s most renowned recording engineers and independent music publishers. Ben Hall recorded such musical icons as Buddy Holly, Roy Orbison, and Alabama. Jim started working with Ben and would work with him on and off for the next 20 years.

Jim earned a full scholarship in music at David Lipscomb College in Nashville, and was one of the first students in recording industry management at Middle Tennessee State University. Later he excelled in video production at Davidson School of Business.

Jim became an excellent recording session musician, producer, and music publisher. He also helped Ben Hall build two different recording studios. Ben taught him how to hear and adjust acoustics, know sound frequencies, identify hit songs, and co-write music.

Jim became interested in old-time cowboy songs such as classic westerns from the Sons of the Pioneers, as he had heard his father sing. “I was mesmerized by the intricate harmonies,” Jim said.

In the mid-1990s, Jim met a cowboy singer in Nashville named Stu Stuart. The two got together with another man and formed a western singing group of their own but when the third man died of cancer, the group couldn’t continue. Stu Stuart decided he needed to move back to be closer to his aging mother who lived in Kansas, and he recruited Jim Farrell to come join him in Wichita. They formed a group now known as the Diamond W Wranglers.

Jim recorded the group’s CDs. The singing group developed an avid fan base which followed them on musical tours to such faraway locations as Carnegie Hall and the Great Wall of China. Jim also met and married Martha, whose First Generation video production business has been previously profiled here.

In 2008, Jim opened a recording studio of his own which he is now remodeling and expanding. The studio is in the rural community of Towanda, population 1,319 people. Now that’s rural.

Clients such as Rex Allen Jr. and Roy Rogers Jr. have traveled hundreds of miles to record with Jim. His work has earned many honors, including Western Producer of the Year. Martha has now relocated First Generation Video to the facility at Towanda, meaning that audio and video services are available under one roof.

For more information, go to www.fgvideo.com or www.jimfstudios.com.

It’s like the classic American story of the gifted musician who goes to Nashville, but in this case, the musician came from Nashville to rural Kansas. We thank Stu Stuart and commend Jim and Martha Farrell for making a difference with their creative talents. Nashville’s loss was Kansas’s gain.

Home canning is making a big come back, and here’s your chance to be a part of this movement.

Three multi-county evening canning workshops, offered by K-State Research and Extension, will help you learn the latest guidelines for preserving safe and delicious food. One workshop will be held monthly in September, October and November- attend one, two or all three of the hands-on classes.

Each session will be held from 5:30-9:00 pm at the Palco Community Center in Palco, Kansas. Registration fees are required to cover expenses for each workshop. Each class starts with a light meal and participants will take home a product at the conclusion of the evening.

Instructors are a team of three Extension Family and Consumer Sciences Agents: Linda Beech, Ellis County; Karen Shepard, Graham County; and Anna Schremmer, Phillips-Rooks District.

The fall workshops will address a variety of canning products and techniques. Join other home canners from three counties to learn about:

September 15: Canning Pie Fillings – Turn seasonal fruit into delicious homemade pie filling using the boiling water bath canner and take home a jar of pie filling at the end of class. Cost for this workshop is $15.

October 13: Canning Meat – Learn the principles to successfully can meat, poultry and wild game in a pressure canner. Sample canned meat for your supper, and take home a jar of your own. The registration fee is $15 per person.

November 17: Jams & Jellies for Holiday Gifts – Make easy and delicious sweet spreads your friends and family will love and take home a jar to share- or enjoy yourself. The cost for this class is $10.

Each workshop is limited to a minimum of 10 and a maximum of 15 participants, so early registration is encouraged. Space is filled on a first come-first served basis. Registration is complete when fees are paid.

For more information or to register, Ellis County residents should contact the Ellis County Extension Office, 601 Main Street in Hays, 785-628-9430. Others should contact their local County Extension Office.

Linda K. Beech is Ellis County Extension Agent for Family and Consumer Sciences.

MAYCOMB, Ala. — Twenty-six-year-old Jean Louise Finch — “Scout” — returns home from New York City to visit her aging father, Atticus.

Set against the backdrop of the civil rights tensions and political turmoil that were transforming the South, Jean Louise’s homecoming turns bittersweet when she learns disturbing truths about her close-knit family, the town and the people dearest to her. Memories from her childhood flood back, and her values and assumptions are thrown into doubt.

‘Watchman’ is not the classic that ‘Mockingbird’ is. It’s not as polished, not as humorous — simply not as good. However, both books are products of their time, and both are valuable for that very reason.

As a child in ‘Mockingbird,’ Scout put Atticus up on a pedestal. We, the readers, received a skewed-to-perfection image of the man, which is exactly what a child such as Scout would have of her father.

Then Scout grows up. In Watchman, she comes home and realizes Atticus is not the man she remembers — just as we the readers see a more complete picture of him.

Readers are outraged because Atticus is different — no, he’s simply human. He’s not a paragon of virtue — none of our parents are, even though we may see them that way through young eyes. Many of us read Mockingbird as young people; many of us are reading Watchman as adults. As an adult, Jean-Louise wishes her father could still be the perfect model of righteousness, the same thing Mockingbird was to readers. And we, as readers, wish that Watchman could be that as well, rather than the tarnished relic of a hero that Atticus becomes.

“A Walk in the Woods” is quite the quiet, quixotic quandary. Difficult alliterations aside, I was pleasantly surprised. I hadn’t heard anything about this movie prior to its release and was immensely thankful that I wasn’t obligated to see “The Transporter Refueled.” That would have been truly unfortunate.

“A Walk in the Woods” is some odd amalgamation of the Reese Witherspoon hiking movie “Wild” and the old guys rediscovering their youth biker flick, “Wild Hogs.” In making that comparison, I’m compelled to inform readers that “A Walk in the Woods” is less well-made, and less poetic than “Wild” and somewhat less comedic than “Wild Hogs” but it is far more adventure-comedy than either of them. It very much cuts its own path.

The esteemed Robert Redford and the less-esteemed-but-infinitely-more-gravelly-voiced Nick Nolte embark on the titular walk down the Appalachian Trail and both wholesome and not-so-wholesome laughs ensue, not to mention a healthy dose of Robert Redford-esque teachable moments and life lessons. I’ve not seen all of Robert Redford’s movies, but my favorite is easily 2001’s “The Last Castle,” where Redford plays an Army General incarcerated in a military prison who rises to the defense of the inmates against a corrupt Warden, played by the late James Gandolfini. Redford’s characters in “The Last Castle” and “A Walk in the Woods” are very similar, almost too similar, but since it’s a great, easily watchable characterization, it’s easy to let it slide.

Be warned, this isn’t a family-friendly movie like “Wild Hogs.” Nolte plays his down-on-his-luck character to great, and vulgar, effect. There are more than a few great moments in “A Walk in the Woods,” but for language reasons alone, this one isn’t for the kiddos.

Luckily, and somewhat inexplicably, my favorite film of the year thus far, Pixar’s “Inside Out,” is back in theatres and is playing in Hays as of this writing. Adults, go see “A Walk in the Woods,” it’s well worth your time, but more importantly, everyone needs to grab anyone they know and rush to see “Inside Out.” It’s Pixar’s crowning achievement and will be remembered as an indescribably well-made and fearless look into what it means to be human.

5 of 6 stars

A successful farmer said it best about his obligation to provide the public with an understanding of his profession.

“It’s my story and I gotta’ tell it, he said. No one knows more about what I do on my farm than me.”

This western Kansas producer believes if the people who buy his products have a better appreciation of the food he grows, his business future will remain bright while he continues to provide the high quality, low-cost food we Americans enjoy.

How do farmers help consumers understand their profession and where their food comes from?

It begins with the commitment to tell your side of the story whenever and wherever you can. Whether farmers talk to grade-schoolers, members of service clubs or state legislators, they should practice the art of relationship building between rural and urban, between agricultural producers and consumers of agricultural products.

Today, most consumers are at least two, three or four generations removed from the farm. But just about everyone has a lawn, garden, flowers, plants or shrubbery. These same consumers enjoy, and still cherish their ties to a father, grandfather or great grandfather who tilled the soil.

It’s easy to find a common denominator with your urban cousins. You can begin by noting that the fertilizer used to grow gardens or lawn is no different from what you use – as a farmer – to put on your wheat, corn or milo.

The rose dust, herbicide or insecticide used to control scab, dandelions or mosquitoes is similar to the plant protection chemicals you use to prevent damage and disease on your crops.

Sometimes the common ground revolves around nutrition. A good analogy could be the parallel between a person’s need for healthy food and a cow’s need for a well-balanced diet.

Other subjects you might want to discuss include food safety, animal care, access, availability and conservation of water, groundwater contamination and even health-care affordability.

Take the groundwater contamination issue for example. Begin by telling them your shared concerns about chemical run-off into lakes and streams. As a farmer, you cannot afford to overuse expensive products.

You can also explain to them that minimum and no-till farming practices help keep the herbicides and insecticides in the field where they control weeds and pests.

Let them know that you, more than anyone else, are concerned about the land where you and your family live and work.

Public understanding of how today’s farmer runs his/her operation is only half the challenge. Perhaps equally important is the need to be sensitive to the concerns of the community where you live.

Remember that most people, who call for regulations and new laws live in towns and cities not on farms. It is the public who will suffer if these laws have a negative effect on this nation’s food producers and our food system.

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

The room was packed at Leavenworth’s Riverfront Community Center last week for a town hall meeting on a proposal by President Barack Obama to move maybe 100 or so prisoners at the Guantanamo Bay prison to the hometown high-security prison.

All but a handful were absolutely against having those foreign prisoners anywhere near their homes, businesses and families. And, you gotta think that if some of those Gitmo detainees—most not charged with any formal crimes against the United States but who are likely at least terrorists—are moved to Leavenworth, well, they might have their families and friends join them. That can’t really happen at the Gitmo facility in Cuba, but, well, things are different here.

Even those who question why the U.S. is holding prisoners at the military prison at Gitmo didn’t say aloud they’d like to see them moved to Leavenworth.

While the issue of the prisoners is a real one for the folks living and working and raising their families in Leavenworth, some Statehouse-watchers were wondering what’s in the controversy for Gov. Sam Brownback.

Obviously, it’s anti-Obama, and presidents have broad power when they, like governors, are in their last term in office.

The anti-Gitmo prisoner transfer clan is large and for good reasons. But this was an event organized by Brownback, who is in the first year of his last four-year term as governor in a state with economic/budget/education problems staring it in the face.

The event would have been seen as just an outright political maneuver by Brownback last year, in the campaign months before his reelection.

This year? It’s probably—and again, nobody’s talking out loud about it—a way to put the governor in the lead of a parade with broad Kansas voter support, even if there ultimately isn’t a lot that the state can do to prevent the movement of those prisoners to a federal prison on federal property operated by soldiers who are federal employees.

Brownback is serious about keeping those detainees out of his state because of the security problems they and their friends could cause. But the issue also is one that can pump the power of a state political leader to draw support on other issues, or at least it is a reasonable and powerful distraction from state government issues.

The governor has one more biennial budget to propose and champion, but at this point, well, his political horsepower is down a bit just because of that end-of-power issue arising in 2018 when a new governor is elected.

Although there are Republicans in the Legislature who aren’t Brownback fans, there aren’t any who want to say anything out loud about the Gitmo move issue, and though it isn’t a state legislative issue, it is one that will surely make its way onto palm cards at next year’s Statehouse elections.

Moderate Republicans who generally wouldn’t stand next to Brownback for a photo might be moved to stand beside him to “protect Leavenworth and Kansas” on the Gitmo issue. Or, at least they wouldn’t want Brownback to call aloud for a group photo of Gitmo transfer opponents, and then have to figure a way to disappear.

That’s the politics of this deal, and it remains to be seen how cannily the governor will be able to use this powerful issue to broaden his influence on other issues within the state: Say, school finance, tax policy, judicial reorganizations and the slow elimination of Civil Service job protections for state workers.

If there’s a political parade to lead in Kansas, Brownback has found a dandy that might spread to other issues and bolster the GOP’s grip on the Statehouse.

The issue can be presented in many ways and is powerful, and well, politics is about issues and power, and how they intertwine and can be combined for maximum effect.

Syndicated by Hawver News Co. 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.

Secretary of State Kris Kobach has proposed two rule changes to the “SAFE” act, the 2011 law passed at Kobach’s urging which requires voters to show proof of citizenship in order to register, and photo ID in order to vote.

One uncontroversial change would stipulate that a Kansas voter would not need to show said proof a second time when moving to, and re-registering in another county within the state.

This is fine, but the problem lies in the second proposal.

Kobach is proposing to remove Kansas’ “suspense voters” from the rolls after 90 days. Now over 30,000 and climbing, suspense voters are the ones who registered to vote but did not show proof of citizenship. They now remain in limbo, neither registered nor unregistered, until they provide said proof, usually in the form of a birth certificate.

For people born out of state or without birth certificates, this can be an onerous, time-consuming, and expensive task: so much so that courts in both Texas and Wisconsin have ruled it a poll tax, which is prohibited by the U.S. Constitution and many state ones as well. Removing suspense voters from the registration rolls after only 90 days is a bad idea, even possibly illegal.

First of all, in Arizona v. Inter Tribal Council (2013) the U.S. Supreme Court held that voters do not need to show proof of citizenship in order to register and vote in federal elections. For a state to require otherwise would violate the National Voter Registration Act of 1993, popularly known as “motor voter.” If voters who registered on the federal form are eliminated from the rolls in Kansas, they will would be stripped of their lawful right to vote in federal elections, putting Kansas in violation of both the law and the Court ruling.

Second, a substantial number of suspense voters do complete their registrations. My own data analysis with colleagues indicates that approximately 16% of them completed their registration within an eight-month period: nearly three times the time given to them to complete their registrations under this proposed rule change.

My colleagues and I cross-checked a complete list 23,691 suspense voters from October, 2014 with a list of all fully registered Kansas voters from June 2015. We found that 3,705 suspense voters had completed their registrations over the eight month period, nearly three times as long as the period specified in this proposed rule change. However, most of those voters who eventually completed did not vote in the November, 2014 general election — one month after our first list was drawn — so we have reason to believe that many did not complete their registrations right away.

Finally, this proposed rule change is a “bait and switch,” misleading would-be voters about closing dates prior to an election in which they wish to vote. Kansans are typically allowed to register up to 21 days before an upcoming election in which they wish to vote. As per the “SAFE” Act, suspense voters are allowed to show proof of citizenship and complete their registrations up until the day of the election.

Suspense voters may seek to complete their registrations as a major election approaches, and this rule change would deny them the right to do that unless they re-registered 21 days before the election, when they had been led to believe they had until the day of the election to complete their registrations.

One last thing: the numbers in play here greatly dwarf the number of voters actually accused of voter fraud. A 2011 report from the Secretary of State’s own office suggested only 221 cases of possible but unverified voter fraud between 1997 and 2010—a 13 year period. That comes out to 0.007 — seven tenths of 1 percent — of the number currently on the suspense list, now facing removal from the voting rolls due to this proposed rule change.

Michael Smith is a professor at Emporia State University.