Wonder what’s coming at us from the next Kansas Legislature, when members of the House and Senate are going to be trying to think up things that will make us remember them fondly when it comes time to vote the following fall?

Well, the just-approved list of interim study committees which will meet this summer and fall may give us—and them—an idea of the support and the opposition to ideas that they’ll consider.

Interim committees, generally seven- to 11-member panels of representatives and senators, have dozens of topics to take a look at, and those committees make recommendations to the full Legislature for next session. There won’t be as many of those interim committees this year, to save money, but some of the issues that they’ll take a look at are intriguing. Oh, and some aren’t.

The concept: Those small panels look at ideas to see whether they should become bills for the upcoming session and to learn enough about the topics to make reasonable suggestions for those bills.

Wonder what they’ll look at? Here are some topics that have been assigned:

• Whether law enforcement officers should wear body cameras so we can learn how interactions between officers and the public go. Lots of national interest in cop-citizen interactions; we’ve all seen the photos on TV. The concept is relatively simple: If you believe you’ve been harassed or dealt with badly, well, there’s the film. And, if the complaint is unreasonable, well, there’s the film to show that the officer acted reasonably. Best result: Everyone is a little more polite because it’s on camera. The side issue: Will the state pay for those cameras?

• Another issue that may go lots of ways in those hearings is considering whether there are ways to supervise potentially dangerous people with drug or mental health problems short of putting them in jail. It’s a combination of both helping those people in the least restrictive setting possible and making sure that they aren’t a danger to society or themselves. There are budget implications here.

• Related…somewhat, though for a different set of Kansans, is looking at whether everyone who is now in prison for crimes really needs to be there, or whether there are ways to monitor their behavior and actions in a less restrictive, less costly manner. Ankle bracelets so we know where they are? Figuring out whether something less than iron bars will punish them and make sure they don’t hurt others? That one has a lot of ways to go. And, look for opposition to cutting imprisonment, especially from crime victims.

• On the general public safety side—and legislators like making us feel safer—there are several issues bubbling in the pot for interim study. They range from making sure that the state’s—and nation’s—power grids are safe and dependable to whether there are security problems in ensuring that power grid. School security becomes an issue, too, and what the state is doing to make sure that students are safe there.

• Other topics: Are there some loose ends to be buttoned down on the change of local government elections from the spring to the fall of odd-numbered years? So many ways that could go wrong, or that something has been forgotten. Better get all the details nailed down in the upcoming session rather than when voters are standing in line in November 2017 to vote on the city council and school board.

• And, there’s also a move among conservative legislators to make local units of government report publicly in budget documents the money spent on hiring lobbyists to represent them before the Legislature. The deal here: Legislators want their constituents to believe that they know those local issues and will take care of them…but experience shows that it never hurts to have a lobbyist watching out for an issue, and those lobbyists are generally cheaper than sending the police chief or the surveyor or the mayor to hang around the Statehouse to make sure that some bill doesn’t unintentionally wreck or make more expensive local programs. And. that can happen.

Might be an interesting fall; at least we’ll get an idea of what to look—and look out—for…

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 www.hawvernews.com.

Popular descriptive words and phrases come and go with generations. When I was a kid they were fairly mundane, like neat, cool or far-out.

Evidently ,one of the recently concocted phrases of today is “awesome possum!” The other day at work, I unlocked a door to let a girl get something she needed but was having trouble finding, and she declared my efforts “awesome possum” at least four times during the couple minutes it took.

I’m always looking and listening for experiences or utterances that might make for a good column, and what outdoor writer worth his or her deer jerky could resist doing something with the phrase “awesome possum.”

There is probably no other critter that garners as much disdain as the lowly Virginia Opossum. They have their place in nature like every other member of God’s creation, but much like the turkey vulture, it’s often tough to see.

One of the nicknames given the late country singer George Jones was “the possum,” and he did kinda’ look like one. Trappers hate to find possums in their traps; rather than killing them, my brother and I used to grab the possums by their tale and fling them as far as we could, or simply hold them at arm’s length and punt them over the nearest fence. I guess we figured that, like a boy named Sue, if they had survived to that point, they deserved to live another day. Surprisingly, possum fur is very soft. Much of our possum fur goes to felt plants, where it is shaved, dyed and pressed together to make felt. The green felt covering many pool tables is made from possum fur.

The Virginia Opossum is North America’s only marsupial, meaning that like kangaroos, they raise and carry their young in a “marsupian” or pouch. Baby possums exit their mothers pouch at two to three months old, then ride around on her back for another couple months. Possums are generally placid and usually just hiss and show you a mouth full of pointed little teeth. They are not good at defending themselves, and if threatened can fall into a sort of involuntary shock-like state, known as “playing possum.” Just for the record, thinking back on all the encounters I’ve had with possums, I have never witnessed this.

Possums are omnivorous, meaning they will eat almost anything from insects, rodents and fruit, to carrion, and seem especially fond of dog food left in Rovers bowl overnight. They can adapt to living nearly anywhere they find food, water and shelter, and are perfectly at home in trees. Their bare, boney prehensile tail helps them climb, but they cannot hang from their tail as some traditional stories and drawings suggest.

Going through life as a possum would be a truly humbling experience, maybe an experience we should all have to endure sometime for an hour or so just to put things in perspective…(alright, that made a whole lot more sense when it was just a thought rattling around in my head.) Anyway love em’ or hate em’, possums are survivors, so here’s hoping you have an “awesome possum” day, and Continue to Explore Kansas Outdoors.

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

By beef eaters for beef eaters. That sounds like my kind of project, and it is a fitting description for a growing company that is producing and marketing top quality beefsteaks.

Lyle Billips and Jeff Hardiek are co-founders of a company known as America’s Best Steaks. Lyle, or Butch as he is known, is a farmer, rancher and stockman in northwest Kansas. His family farms east of Hill City, where they raise corn, beans, wheat and milo and have a cow-calf herd and a commercial Angus feedlot.

As quality-conscious beef producers, Butch and his partners were frustrated when consumers said they can’t find good beef anyplace.

In 2003, Butch and Jeff were talking about this very problem. “We got tired of people saying that beef wasn’t good anymore,” Butch said. “I said, `No, it’s not that. It’s just that the beef isn’t handled right.’”

Butch and Lyle set out to identify a process that produced high-quality, good-tasting beef like the kind they had known growing up. “This became a challenge which morphed into a hobby which morphed into a business,” Jeff said.

Butch bought a cooler, put it in his garage and started experimenting with the process of processing and taste testing beef. Once they got the process perfected to their satisfaction, they launched a business to market their high quality beef products. The name of the business reflected their goal: America’s Best Steaks.

The key to the process is six weeks of dry aging. Temperature, humidity, air circulation, and moisture levels must be just right. As the company website says, “Dry aging may not be the easiest way to age beef, but it is the best.”

The goal is to produce the most naturally tender, juicy, and flavorful beefsteak possible on a consistent basis and at a reasonable price. It begins with the proper mix of genetics, nutrition, health and overall management of the beef animals, followed by the proper care and handling of the harvested beef product. As the company’s website states, their process “tenderizes the beef, minimizes the shrink at cooking and intensifies the flavor to a buttery-nutty taste, adding definite value to an unforgettable dining experience.”

The company established a website and started marketing the product. Word of mouth became their best advertising. Once people tried the product, they came back for more.

As the company grew, there was a need for more room to operate. One building which was immediately available was the former grade school building in the nearby community of Bogue. “I went to Bogue Grade School and my sister was in the last class to go to Bogue before it closed and consolidated,” Butch said. They bought the old school building and furnished it with new equipment. Instead of helping young minds to grow, now the building is helping a new product to grow.

Bogue is a truly rural community with a population of 174 people. Now, that’s rural. Yet from this facility, beef products have gone to all 50 states.

The steaks can be ordered at Trios Tap House in Hays and Six Mile Chop House in Lawrence, but they are primarily sold online. A number of companies purchase packages of America’s Best Steaks as Christmas gifts for their customers.

In 2015, Butch and Jeff learned about an initiative called L-A-B for Launch A Business. The Center for Entrepreneurship in the K-State College of Business, with support from Kansas State Bank and others, was offering this opportunity to support entrepreneurs with creative ideas or new businesses. It involved training with KSU faculty and networking and mentoring with business leaders.

“We didn’t really have the time to do it, but decided we’d try it,” Butch said. “It was well worth it, we’re darn glad we did.” This initiative has helped them develop their future strategic business, based on their high quality product.

By beef eaters for beef eaters. It’s a fitting slogan for America’s Best Steaks. We salute Butch Billips and Jeff Hardiek for making a difference by adding value to their beef production. They will have a big “stake” in future business.

No, it’s probably not often that state employees or food prep workers at public school districts in Kansas pay much attention to Greece, except maybe wondering whether they’ll ever be able to afford a vacation to the historic European nation.

Well, that’s changing…at least for the next month…while the economic problems of Greece have a pretty direct effect on the solidity of those employees’ pensions.

What do Greece’s economic troubles have to do with Kansas pensioners? It’s what happens to that over-borrowed economy, and international bond traders’ views on whether Greece is going to go broke, and by implication, make it impossible for Greece to repay its borrowings from the European Economic Union.

Stay with us here…because if the European Union isn’t going to be repaid for its lending to Greece, the value of EU bonds will drop…and the world’s bond traders won’t be eager to buy those bonds.

That means that United States bonds will be less risky investments for bond traders, who avoid risk, and U.S. bonds will sell at lower interest rates because those risk-avoidance bond buyers will settle for a little less interest return on their investments if they are rock-solid.

That’s how bonds work, and the more unsettled the Greek economy—and by implication, the European Economic Union which is the major lender to the Greek government—the better chance that U.S. bonds will carry lower interest rates because of their near-guaranteed ability to pay off those bonds.

Whew…enough of that international stuff.

But where it hits home with that state employee or food service worker is that the lower the interest rates that U.S. bond buyers will settle for in return for safety that they will get their money back, the better chance Kansas has in the next few weeks of issuing $1 billion in bonds for the Kansas Public Employee Retirement System.

Finally, the Kansas link.

Those bonds will give KPERS money to invest to produce earnings that will help pay for the state employee and school district employees’ pensions.

But…only if the interest rate paid to buyers of those bonds plus some administration and issuance fees total less than 5 percent of the bonds’ value.

That’s the hard line. If the state can get those bonds sold in the next month, and the interest and fees and such are less than 5 percent of that billion dollars, we sell the bonds and start investing the proceeds at hopefully more than 5 percent, and start making money with which to pay those pensions.

Above 5 percent? No sale. That means KPERS continues to inch along, with less money than actuaries believe is necessary to guarantee those pension payments, and that means that the state is going to have to either cut pension benefits—not really possible, a freeze is more likely—or start kicking in more money to the pension system from general tax revenues.

Now, watching KPERS become more fiscally solid is of course a good thing, but lawmakers and the governor would prefer that be done by KPERS investing that $1 billion, and making enough money to take care of itself and build reserves without more taxpayer dollars, which if you’ve been paying attention are a little tight right now…

Nobody, of course, wants Greece to go broke.

But, we have about a month to try to get those KPERS pension bonds issued, and…well…a little more hassle over Greek and European economics probably helps chances for Kansas pensioners.

Who’d have thought those far-away economic problems would be a key to Kansas pensions? We’ll see how that works out…

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 www.hawvernews.com.

All across our country Americans are checking their automobiles, installing GPSs, studying road maps, printing off directions from MapQuest and adding another item to their “to do” lists in preparation for long-awaited summer vacations.

Anticipation will soar and expectations will rise as husband and wife teams take to the American highways and byways in search of rest, peace and tranquility. Children will ensure this dream remains only partially fulfilled with road questions like: “I’m hungry, I want a hamburger and fries.” “Mommy, Billy is teasing me.” “Are we there yet?” and “I don’t want to go on vacation, I want to go back home.”

Regardless of such comments, mom and dad will remain true to their plans and push ahead. After all, the money spent for the family vacation usually represents cash left over after paying for the family’s food, clothing and other necessities.

Oftentimes money to pay for vacations goes on plastic and is paid for later with interest. Parents will think to themselves, “We worked hard for this time off. We deserve it and we’re going to enjoy it.”

Americans remain the luckiest, most pampered people in the world. Try to imagine what it would be like if we had to be self-sufficient.

What would happen to leisure time if others did not produce the many things families need?

Although we all work throughout the year, we should not forget those people who also work hard and help us free up time so we can vacation with loved ones. One such group is the Kansas farmer.

Farmers and ranchers help meet our food, fuel and fiber needs. These needs are met without worry of availability.

The next time you walk into your local supermarket, remember milk comes from carefully cared for dairy cows on someone’s farm. Remember the butcher performs a service in cutting and packaging the hamburger, chops and steak you and your family eat. Don’t forget the Kansas farmer and rancher cares for and produces pork and beef. Styrofoam cartons only hold the eggs which are laid by hens on the farm.

No other nation of people on this planet enjoys the amount of free time we do. No other country can claim that so few people feed so many.

Today, less than 2 percent of our nation’s population are farmers. They are capable of supplying the other 98 percent with most of the products we eat, wear and use to fuel our vehicles.

As you plot your vacation course this summer, and as you motor through the state’s highways, remember to notice the fields of corn, soybeans, milo, alfalfa and recently harvested wheat. Take a look at the cattle, hogs and sheep grazing in the many pastures.

Don’t forget Kansas farmers and ranchers help fulfill our food, fuel and fiber needs. These professionals also care for the livestock and crops you see as you drive by. They do so with care and compassion.

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

“Minions” is a spinoff prequel based on side characters from the “Despicable Me” franchise. That sentence, in and of itself, is tiresome. It’s not enough that Hollywood decides to make the same movie over and over again. In the case of “Minions,” the filmmakers decided to make a feature-length movie based solely around comic relief characters that – wait for it – don’t speak a discernible language.

I haven’t seen “Despicable Me” or its sequel, but like just about every other person in this country, I know who the Minions are. My YouTube play history would reveal that I’ve watched the “Minions” trailer on more than one occasion – a couple of minutes of gibberish-laden insanity is good for the soul, and it’s just funny to see a little yellow pill monster with heterochromia iridum (two differently colored eyes) do a mic drop. However, any more than five consecutive minutes of this nonsense is just too much. I’m all for stupid funny, when its done right, and I’m a big believer in the idea that a moment enjoyed is not a moment wasted. That said, I don’t see the sustained enjoyment in “Minions.”

From a filmmaking perspective, “Minions” is pretty, but it’s badly disjointed, poorly written and a staggering example at just how predictable movies have become which is amusing when I didn’t know what the hell was going on for most of the film.

[Slight “spoilers” ahead] There’s a moment where one of the main characters apparently isn’t going to make it which is followed by the long, mournful pause. I’ve seen a lot of movies, I knew full well what was going to happen. The other adults in the theatre knew what was going to happen. Amusingly, even the seven-year-old who sat behind me knew what was going to happen – I heard her whisper to her dad, “He’s not really dead. He’s going to come back.” She didn’t say it in a hopeful or tearful manner. She said it confidently – the way a seven-year-old will tell you the new fact they learned about dinosaurs or the way a toddler will tell you they successfully went poop. That little microcosm of the predictability of film was very interesting to me. Who do filmmakers think they’re fooling? They’re certainly not fooling the adults, and apparently even the kids have that trick on lockdown. Maybe when the success rate for a particular joke or dramatic turn reaches absolute zero, maybe then it’s time for a change?

All said, don’t bother with “Minions.” It’s inane, insane and has a distinct lack of brain-stimulating anything. My suggestion is to watch the “Minions” trailer or go find a Minions compilation video. Even better, go see “Inside Out,” it’s absolutely everything “Minions” is not and is still easily my favorite film of 2015.

3 of 6 stars