Spring cleaning involves scrubbing and sweeping away wintry stains, cobwebs, and dust. Outside the house it means raking wilted plantings and scouring patios and decks. Those now clean, fresh surfaces provide an artist’s canvas, inviting expression that can involve simply rearranging possessions or painting, constructing, and welding efforts.

Inside the house, this might involve moving furniture or adding bright pillows and throws. Outside, the possibilities are endless. One so inclined might use pallets to construct upright gardens that grow along a fence or garage wall or outdoor forts and furniture. Those who love funky yard art might head for the scrap heap to find broken down metal pieces that lend themselves to new lives as flywheel-bodied birds and insects with plier head ornaments, harrow tailed beasts, or disc and rebar mammals.

Waste not, want not is the mantra for folks who recognize a dolphin, stallion, or buffalo sculpture in a pile of rusty nuts, bolts, and gears. You can’t help but admire these creative spirits for both their vision and their skillset. Holy cow, they visualize a final product and then weld it out of what others tossed in the trash pile.

Think about possibilities waiting to be born from scrap heaps in garages, barns, and at the junk dealer’s. Old tractor seats wait to find a new life as a critter or a crazy looking picnic stool. Gazillions of metal knobs, faucets, and handles oxidize in isolation until inventive sorts spy them and reimagine them as garden fountains, coat racks, or google eyes on a dragon.

One young welder I know sees possibility in just about anything. He can take garage sale or auction- found plumbing pipes and turn them into high-end embellishments. I particularly like the innovative lamps he makes. If he gets tired of his day job, he could make a living selling his one of a kind furnishings and light fixtures.

In addition to scoping out creative neighbors, a stop at area flea markets or the Kansas Store on I-70 offers potential buyers and craftspeople a chance to see welded art creatures first hand. As a result of such adventures, my brother’s backyard now sports a tractor-seat-bodied and tailed strutting turkey. Who knows what discarded parts form its wattle. A welded grasshopper made of once useless implement parts guards mom’s roses. A heavy bodied woodpecker constructed from old plates, gears, and wheels climbs her trellis. A roadrunner made of soldered spikes oversees her dining room. My own collection includes a heavy-duty rooster, long-legged heron with leaf rake tail, and rusty armadillo formed from bits of rebar.

My husband recently bought a welder so once I find a source for metal, our menagerie will expand. Unlike living pets, these repurposed ones don’t require food or cleaning up poop. Besides, flying pigs and unicorn frogs exist in this world.

As you spring clean and find odd piles of metal or wood, consider the possibilities. How can you recycle junk into yard art that entertains you and visitors who happen to spot your creations? It’s not like we don’t have a model for grassroots art in nearby Lucas, Kansas.

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.

Summertime and vacations are likely to include entertaining, travel and outdoor excursions. But before engaging in these and other recreational activities, make sure you evaluate your insurance risks and needs as summer approaches.

The following tips from the Kansas Insurance Department and the National Association of Insurance Commissioners can help.

Pools and Trampolines — and maybe swing sets

Before inviting friends and family over to enjoy any of your house’s outdoor amenities, know that any of them may increase your insurance risk. Consider purchasing an umbrella policy in addition to your homeowners insurance to increase your liability coverage for any use of those objects.

However, because pools, trampolines and swing sets pose potential dangers, some companies may not insure your property if you own them, or there may be policy exclusions for liability for related injuries. An insurance company may also deny coverage or cancel your policy if you do not follow the policy’s safety guidelines or fail to inform the company when you build a pool or purchase a trampoline.

Check with your insurance provider for rates, discounts and safety guidelines (such as installing a fence or locked gate). If you lease a property with a pool, discuss your insurance options with your agent or insurance company.

Boats

A boat insurance policy provides liability coverage if someone is injured on your boat. It also covers bodily injury inflicted on others and property damage to your boat. Read your policy carefully and speak to your agent.

The personal property coverage of your homeowners policy may cover a small boat for $1,500 or less in physical damage. However, coverage for your liability risk is limited.

Personal watercrafts, such as jet skis, often require a separate policy that may be offered by your homeowners insurer. Talk with your insurance agent and get quotes from other companies to understand your options.

Also, some boat policies allow for a “lay-up” period so that coverage can be suspended during the off-season. But, because losses such as theft, fire and vandalism can occur any time, it is good for your insurance agent to review coverages to see if they can be adjusted during the off-season. And, if there is a lien on the boat, a lender may require year-round coverage.

All-Terrain Vehicles (ATVs)

ATVs are not covered by standard automobile insurance policies, but your homeowners policy may partially cover liability. Ask your agent if you have sufficient coverage. Also, ask about age restrictions regarding who may operate the ATV, or if the policy covers friends and family.

Drones

Outdoor activities increasingly include drone flying for hobbies such as photography. Because of increased drone popularity throughout the United States, having liability insurance, in case of accidents, and damage insurance, for the machine, is recommended. Drone users should check with their insurance agents about whether their homeowners policies cover drone use or whether a separate policy is needed.

Traveling

Whether you are leaving home for a weekend getaway or a long road trip, be aware of what your homeowners or renters policy will cover while you are gone. Typically, your homeowners insurance will follow you, protecting you even while you are not at home.

In addition to your deductible, items will typically have a limit on items such as jewelry. If you are traveling with high-priced items, it is a good idea to get separate insurance coverage for these items. Check with your agent or company.

More Information

Contact the Kansas Insurance Department’s Consumer Assistance Division at 800-432-2484 for more information. You can also use the department’s Online Chat feature, located on the home page of our website, www.ksinsurance.org.

By BOB GARDNER
Executive Director of the National Federation of State High School Associations
and GARY MUSSELMAN
Executive Director of the Kansas State High School Activities Association

One of the responsibilities that parents take most seriously is protecting their children from injury, whether it is buckling seat belts in a car or wearing a helmet while riding a bike. And when their kids become teenagers and want to participate in sports or other activities, parents do everything they can to keep their sons and daughters from getting hurt.

But not all injuries are caused by a twist, fall, collision or accident. Many are caused when young athletes repeat the same athletic activity so often that muscles, ligaments, tendons and bones don’t have time to recover—especially among middle school and high school students. These injuries can end promising careers, cost families tens of thousands of dollars, squash dreams and literally change lives.

Examples include elbow and arm injuries to teenagers who play baseball or softball all year long, shoulder injuries to year-round swimmers, wrist and elbow injuries to gymnasts, and stress fractures to soccer players.

The culprit, most often, is what’s commonly known as “sport specialization,” the process of playing the same sport all year long with the goal of either gaining a competitive edge or earning a college scholarship. It involves intense, year-round training in a single sport.

Research shows that sports specialization is putting teenage athletes at risk. According to a study commissioned by the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS) and conducted by researchers from the University of Wisconsin, high school athletes who specialize in a single sport are 70 percent more likely to suffer an injury during their playing season than those who play multiple sports.

The American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons says much the same. It reports that “overuse injuries” (injuries caused when an athletic activity is repeated so often that parts of the body do not have enough time to heal) are responsible for nearly half of all sports injuries to middle school and high school students.

There is a solution. Young athletes should be encouraged to play multiple sports.

When student-athletes cross-train, they work different muscle groups and joints which, in fact, results in better overall conditioning. They also develop a new set of athletic skills like hand-eye coordination, balance, endurance, explosion and agility that are transferable to their primary sport. It’s no coincidence that 30 of the 32 first-round picks in the 2017 National Football League draft played multiple sports in high school.

Parents can play a key role in preventing these overuse injuries by encouraging their kids to play multiple sports rather than pushing them to specialize in one sport. They will have more fun, will be less likely to suffer burnout and will actually become better athletes. .

Twenty years ago, a study found that medical and health information available on the internet was unreliable and error-laden. Today, a new study by a University of Kansas professor shows that our current youth continue to face the same wasteland of internet quackery and remain just as vulnerable to misinformation as before.

In the June 1998 issue of Pediatrics, physicians McClung, Murray and Hietlinger investigated “The Internet as a Source for Current Patient Information.” They selected the topic of acute childhood diarrhea—a problem that can be fatal to young children—and searched the top 60 web sites.

Despite these web sites being run by medical professionals, university hospitals and health news services, 80 percent provided wrong or out-of-date information. Out of the top 300 search engine results, these 60 were selected from what appeared to be mainstream or medically credible sources. But only 12 of those 60 websites provided information that matched the medically-accurate diagnosis and prescription of the American Academy of Pediatrics for management of childhood diarrhea.

Subsequent research demonstrated that faulty websites pushing medical quackery cannot be distinguished by their .edu, .com, .org or .gov addresses either.

In a recent news release, research at K.U. shows that this situation has not improved. In “Just Google It: Observing Youth Searching for Health Information Online,” Susan Harvey, an Assistant Professor of Health, Sport & Exercise Sciences observed youths to determine how they search for and locate online health information.

Professor Harvey surveyed the students’ own perceptions of their ability to search for online information as well as their belief in their ability to judge the quality of the website. As you might expect, our new generation is quite confident about finding online information. Overconfident.

They also felt they could detect valid information and distinguish it from bogus sites. They couldn’t.
While her student subjects searched for information on the Internet, she used tracking software to record the sites they accessed. And they told Professor Harvey their thought processes while they searched.

In the news release, Harvey described how “Most of them didn’t scroll through the webpages at all, they just clicked on the first link.” She continued “And many of them found their information from sites that weren’t credible. When they did click on credible sites, like the National Institutes of Health, they clicked off of it very quickly.”

Harvey found that students averaged only about 20 seconds on the credible sites and attributed some of this to “…the unreliable sites were just more visually appealing for them.” However, she also blamed the accurate websites for writing the information at too high of a grade level for the students to understand, and recommends the quality sites lower their reading level.

Unfortunately, U.S. schools went through a five year “reform” of removing technical language from science books in the late 1990s. That disaster proved that technical language is necessary for comprehension of concepts. And reading levels, determined by letter and word counts, do not reflect students’ ability to read higher than their grade level when interested.

This new study repeats familiar recommendations for more teacher training in online literacy and in detection of unreliable sites. However, the infamous University of Connecticut “tree octopus” study long ago showed that there is no universal method for detecting bogus online information. And even worse, once students “learn” wrong information, they own it and will not change their minds.

Today, K-12 schools nationwide are throwing away carefully-reviewed, accurate textbooks and sending their students into the vast internet wasteland. Therefore it is not surprising that in the annual “Education Counts” just issued by Education Week, “79 percent of principals are ‘moderately’ or ‘extremely’ concerned about their students’ inability to gauge the reliability of online information.”

Simply, if there was a god-like method to separate good online information from bogus, we would all be using it.

John Richard Schrock is a professor at Emporia State University.

By RON WILSON
Huck Boyd National Institute for Rural Development

What are the odds? What are the chances that a tornado would hit the same Kansas town on the same exact day of the year – not once, not twice, but three years in a row? It sounds far-fetched, but it actually happened a century ago in rural Kansas.

Joel and Amanda Russell live at Codell, Kansas, the community that experienced this incredible fluke of weather. Joel’s great-grandmother is the late Celesta Glendening who lived through the tornado strikes on three successive years. Celesta and her husband George farmed and raised their family at Codell. She wrote about the tornadoes in a first-hand account which she shared with her descendants.

The first tornado hit Codell on May 20, 1916. “We called it a cyclone then,” Celesta wrote. Exactly one year later, on May 20, 1917, a tornado hit Codell again. Community residents started referring to May 20 as Cyclone Day.

“I remember someone saying that they were joking around, wondering if it would happen again,” Joel said. Unfortunately, it did, more seriously than before. The following is from Celesta’s written remembrances.

On May 20, 1918, her husband went to work in the cornfield. Celesta, who was pregnant, worked at home with their two young children, Max and Worden. When Celesta went out to bring in the cows for the evening, she noticed clouds gathering in the southwest. By suppertime, the clouds had darkened and billowed up higher. A storm was brewing.

It started to rain. The wind blew harder and harder. Celesta and George hurried to get the sleeping boys. Max was only 1-1/2 years old, and Celesta wrapped him in a quilt. The family had a storm shelter in a nearby cave, but it started hailing before they could get to the shelter so they returned to the kitchen.

Celesta wrote: “There was a terrible noise beside the rain, hail, lightning and thunder….The roar we heard was a cyclone….I must have prayed…Thunder roared, lightning flashed, rain and hail beat against the windows with such force I knew they would break….Then I saw lightning between the ceiling and the wall, and I knew the house was tearing to pieces. We smelled wet plaster, heard nails pulling out of the wood and heard wood breaking.”

The next thing that happened was even worse. Celesta wrote: “Max was still wrapped in the quilt and I was still holding him tight, when all of a sudden he was gone….He was just torn out of my arms…In a flash of lightning, we saw Max sitting up just a few feet off the floor.”

In an instant, George grabbed Max and handed him to Celesta who held him close again. They huddled together till the storm passed.

When it was all over, they assessed the damage. George had bad cuts on his feet, Worden had a broken arm, and Celesta’s leg was badly cut. She would nearly lose her leg, but it was ultimately saved. Each family member sustained injuries except for one: Max, who had briefly been suspended in the air.

Similar experiences were shared by other residents of Codell. Three persons died, including Celesta’s brother’s wife and their son. Celesta wrote: “Many buildings were destroyed and most never rebuilt. Many scars still remain, parts of foundations, grim reminders to those who still remember.”

In times of crisis, rural communities tend to rally together. Help came to Codell from the nearby communities of Plainville, population 1,858, and Natoma, population 311 people. Now, that’s rural. The Red Cross provided funds. Family and friends made a difference by sharing clothing, bedding, food, and housing.

Celesta wrote: “I know I’ve forgotten a lot of things, but not the love shown to us in our time of need.” On Sept. 18, 1918, Celesta gave birth to a healthy baby daughter. No tornado has struck the community of Codell since.

What are the odds that a tornado would strike the same community on the same day, three years in a row? More importantly, how does a community respond to such a tragedy? We’ll learn more about that next week.

In 2012, Kansas lawmakers cut income taxes in a bigger, faster, more dramatic way than any other state had done. And revenue from tax collections dropped like a rock, causing Kansas to enter a multi-year period of serious financial trouble.

In 2016, Kansans voted for a new Legislature. One-third of Kansas House and Senate seats turned over, and a supermajority of the newly-minted Legislature, Republicans and Democrats alike, voted to reverse much of the 2012 tax cut in a stunning rebuke to a sitting governor. Income tax receipts then returned to more normal levels and Kansas began to emerge from crisis mode.

What’s next? Will we go forward, or will we go back? That’s the fundamental question at the heart of the upcoming election contests for the governor’s office and every Kansas House seat. (Kansas Senate seats are not up for election until 2020.) How Kansans decide those races will determine whether our state has hope to adequately fund education, maintain high-quality roads, and invest in the future.

The two leading Republican candidates for governor would take us back. Kris Kobach openly promotes a return to the Brownback tax cuts. Jeff Colyer is more circumspect, but of course as Brownback’s lieutenant governor, he was right there helping to create all the trouble in the first place.

Of 125 Kansas House members, 88 of them—49 Republicans and 39 Democrats—voted to override Sam Brownback’s veto and reverse the 2012 tax cuts, the key vote they must now defend when seeking reelection. Their opponents will derisively label that vote the largest tax increase in Kansas history, even though income tax rates remain lower today than in 2012. Already last fall, the Koch-funded Americans for Prosperity sent thousands and thousands of postcards into the districts of the legislators who supported the override, disparaging their vote. And Kansans will endure exponentially more political postcards between now and next November.

Successfully changing the Legislature and reversing the tax cuts took a major bipartisan effort, but if lawmakers lose their seats because they voted to override Brownback’s veto, the positive gains for education and fiscal sanity will be fleeting. A Brownback-style governor, paired with a tax-cutting House, could easily take Kansas right back to the grim period from which we’re now just beginning to emerge.

Not even one year ago, our state was still mired in a damaging budget crisis, without enough income to pay the bills. The override vote brought Kansas out of immediate crisis and gave hope for better times, but Kansas still has a long way to go to regain financial health. Hundreds of millions of dollars continue to drain out of the highway fund each year to pay for something other than highways. KPERS payments have been delayed. Nine rounds of budget cuts have left state agencies struggling to meet reasonable service levels. The state’s rainy day fund stands at zero.

The 2016 elections changed the direction of Kansas, but the 2018 election cycle will be just as important in determining whether we keep working toward healing, or re-open the wound.

What will it be, Kansans? Did we gather a lesson from our 5-year tax experiment?

Duane Goossen formerly served 12 years as Kansas Budget Director.

The most common fungicide used in fruit tree sprays is Captan. Unfortunately, this product is subject to alkaline hydrolysis.

This is a process whereby certain pesticides will break down when mixed with high pH water (the pH of the water used to spray various pesticides affects the stability of the solution and how long the pesticide will remain effective while in solution).

So let’s say you mix up your spray mixture by adding Captan to 5 gallons of water. If that water has a pH of 7.0, the Captan will break down so that only half of it will still be present in 8 hours.  However, if the water you use has a pH of 10.0, half the Captan will break down in 2 minutes. In short, the higher the pH, the faster it breaks down. 
   

Malathion used to be the most common insecticide used for fruit pest control by gardeners but is becoming more difficult to find.  It isn’t nearly as sensitive to alkaline hydrolysis as Captan but still will break down under high pH conditions.  Fortunately, it is stable at a pH between 5.0 and 7.0. Lambda-cyhalothrin, which is found in Bonide Fruit Tree & Plant Guard, is somewhat of a new product for fruit pest control. It too is stable between a pH of 5.0 to 7.0.
   

Note that alkaline hydrolysis does not affect all pesticides.  Captan is the exception, not the rule. For a listing of common pesticides and their susceptibility to alkaline hydrolysis, see
http://ecommons.library.cornell.edu/bitstream/1813/5149/1/FLS-118.pdf 
   

So, how do you bring down the pH of your spray water if it is high? Commercial farmers use buffering agents, but that may be difficult for homeowners to find. Food grade citric acid can help. If you have a pH of 8.0, add 2 ounces of this citric acid per 100 gallons of water (1 and 1/4 teaspoons per 10 gallons) to bring the pH down to about 5.5. 


On a similar note, a practice that will extend the effectiveness of fungicide as well as insecticide sprays when there is the threat of rain, is to add a spreader-sticker to your spray tank. Without a spreader-sticker, a rain would easily render any spay application useless, washing the materials right off. For this reason, spreader-sticker is used in commercial fruit tree sprays to improve the distribution and retention of fungicides and insecticides on fruit and leaves. 

However, using a spreader-sticker is not a cure all as a rain can reduce the length of time the chemicals are effective. Less than one inch of rain since the last spray will not significantly affect residues. But, one to two inches of rain will reduce the residue by one half. You will need to reduce the number of days until the next spray by one half. More than two inches of rain since the last spray will remove most of the spray residue. Re-spray as soon as possible. 


Rip Winkel is the Horticulture agent in the Cottonwood District (Barton and Ellis Counties) for K-State Research and Extension. You can contact him by e-mail at [email protected] or calling either 785-682-9430, or 620-793-1910.

Kansas State University researchers need your help to complete research on wheat management strategies. K-State Research and Extension (KSRE) has joined the Kansas Wheat Commission to learn from wheat producers around Kansas.

The survey is one of two initiatives aimed at identifying management practices leading to increased grain yields and improved quality in Kansas wheat production.

“We want to learn what is working and what is not in farmer controlled fields across different parts of the state,” said Romulo Lollato, KSRE wheat and forages specialist. “Results from this research will guide Kansas wheat producers in determining the best agronomic practices for their commercial fields.”

Researchers with the project include Lollato and Brent Jaenisch, graduate student in the winter wheat production program at K-State. They are currently collecting data from the past two growing seasons (2015-16 and 2016-17). This data will be used to develop information for Kansas wheat growers on yield increasing management practices, identify how these practices can be optimized for farm productivity and to discern best management practices for commercial fields for yield and quality.

Information to be collected includes field location, soil type/texture, wheat variety, seeding rate, tillage practice, previous crop rotation, crop yield, inputs applied, seed treatment, adoption of precision agriculture, pesticide application and other yield influencing factors. Lollato estimates that with this information readily available entering one field into the survey should take around 10-15 minutes.

The project also includes an initiative to gather data from small research plots on intensive wheat management. Researchers will gather data, testing different levels of management strategies in several modern wheat varieties. These field experiments will be in a minimum of three sites in the central and western corridor of the state. The experiment will collect data from six ranges of management intensities, from low input/common practice to improved fertility with intensive fungicide and micronutrient applications.

The survey phase of the experiment will be a collaborative effort between the principal investigators, area agronomists and county and district extension agents to collect on-farm data directly from wheat producers.

“We are aiming to use regionally-collected, producer generated data to improve our current management recommendations for wheat production,” said Lollato. “We need data from different regions, large and small scale producers and different management practices to provide the best recommendations that we can.”

This project is funded through the Kansas Wheat Commission as part of its mission to increase the productivity and profitability of the Kansas winter wheat farmer. The survey can be completed online, in person, or over the phone. Your identity will be confidential and no personally identifiable information will be associated with your responses. Data will only be presented as aggregated and never on a field by field basis.

For more information, or to submit your data, visit http://kswheat.com/researchsurvey, or call Brent Jaenisch at 320-226-7449 to submit data over the phone.

Alicia Boor is an Agriculture and Natural Resources agent in the Cottonwood District (which includes Barton and Ellis counties) for K-State Research and Extension. You can contact her by e-mail at [email protected] or calling 620-793-1910.

It was 11 years ago this week that the devastating tornado demolished 95 percent of Greensburg, Kansas on May 4, 2007. At least 60 people were injured and 11 were killed in the EF5 storm.

I hope that nothing the magnitude of the Greensburg tornado ever strikes your family. Disasters can be devastating, not only to property, but also to family emotions. Being prepared in advance will help your family survive the disaster, ease the emotional impact and improve your ability to recover and rebuild your lives.

Experts say you should plan for “when” an emergency happens, rather than “if.” In severe weather season, it’s important to be prepared. Now is the time to assemble a disaster supply kit to help your family survive a storm or other emergency. The latest advice says to be sure your kit includes helmets and shoes.

When the EF5 tornado struck Joplin, Missouri in May 2011, one of the things that came to the attention of emergency management professionals was the number of head injuries. Consequently, the latest recommendation is to add a bicycle helmet or similar protective head gear for each member of the family to your disaster supplies.

Putting on a helmet during a tornado can reduce the risk of head injury from flying debris or falling structures.
Having shoes with your emergency supplies is another important recommendation. Shoes will protect your feet from the large amount of dangerous debris and broken glass following a storm. I’ve kept shoes for all members of my family with my disaster supplies ever since my Extension colleague in Kiowa County shared that she had to crawl out of her demolished home barefooted after the Greensburg tornado.

Your family disaster supply kit should also include items to keep your family safe and healthy for two to three days. Assemble these items in a durable plastic tote, a heavy duffel bag or other weather-proof container and keep it in your “safe area”– the place where your family will go to weather a storm.

Start with necessities such as water, canned food and medications for at least three days. The recommendation is one gallon of water per person per day. Include formula and diapers if you have an infant, and pet food, a pet carrier and extra water for pets.

Add items for first aid, safety and communication such as a flashlight with extra batteries, a first aid kit and a battery-operated or hand-crank radio. If you’re a cell phone user, put in a portable charger or an extra car charger for recharging your phone. Include a small whistle which you can blow to signal for help.

Other useful supplies might include a small fire extinguisher, wrench or pliers to turn off utilities, mess kits or disposable tableware and a change of clothing for each family member. In the event of a disaster, you may not have immediate access to your bank account, so a roll of quarters and a small amount of cash or travelers checks would be a useful addition as well.

Natural disasters in the news have emphasized the importance of emergency preparedness. Taking time now to assemble your disaster supplies may help to ensure that your family can survive a disaster and recover more quickly afterward.

For more information, see the steps for building a basic disaster kit at www.ready.gov.

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

Easter was special. Not since my sons’ experienced Easter has it been as special. This Easter was the first Easter for my grandson, Alex. Alex is just over six months old, with blue eyes and of course, he’s perfect.

Alex lives in Wichita. It had been a few weeks since we had seen him last, and he arrived in Hays the Saturday night of Easter weekend. Oh, what changes! Before, we would scoop him up and show him the world, going from place to place, and occasionally catching his eye and talking to him. I was not sure for a long time how much he could really see given his young age and immature eyes.

Easter it was different. Now, he is crawling, going on his own from place to place. Picking him up, I discovered his head on a swivel, taking in the world and rarely looking at me. He would squirm to get down to do his own independent exploring. I noticed that my son, Dan, and my daughter-in-law, Caley, frequently dropped to the floor to play with Alex.

So, I did as well. I got down on the floor, and crawled and explored with Alex. Suddenly, we were really connecting. He would crawl, find something, and turn to look at me as if to ask, “Do you see this?” He would crawl around, making eye contact and verbalizing things I could not understand. He would crawl up to my face, look me in the eye, and reach out and touch me.

I realized that I was really getting to know Alex. We were really sharing. We were really communicating, together, grandfather and grandchild. We explored together. We played together. We were on the same course. I could tell his mind was eager to grow, assimilate, and learn. It is amazing how fast a child like Alex can learn.

The other day I had an interesting meeting with a new family in my office. I sat there with the husband and wife. The meeting had gone quite long, but there were lots of moving parts: a lot of assets, health issues, family situations, and some worries. It took over an hour for me to just get a good feel for my clients, their family, and where they wanted to go. The next hour was spent with us working out a plan with them.
At the end of the meeting, I apologized for taking so long. The wife said something interesting to me. She had said that they had visited with a couple of other attorneys, and that the meeting was the first time “that someone talked at our level.”

It was not me talking down to her. It was she, her husband, and I at a level where we all needed to be to communicate effectively. I needed to understand their concerns, goals, and aspirations, but to do so I needed to “get on the floor.” Plus, I needed to be sure our conversation and plan really addressed their concerns one by one, on a level that we both understood and could communicate.

I always appreciate it when a meeting ends with a warm handshake or a hug (this was a hug meeting). We were truly communicating.

I have been at those appointments with say, a doctor, and before I could get out a few words, my problem was diagnosed, I was told what to do, I was given some pills, and I left wondering if he really knew all the facts, and whether his diagnosis would be different if he had only known more.

Please, when you are faced with life’s speed bumps or barriers, or major decisions, be sure to get eye to eye with the person from whom you are seeking guidance. I am always afraid that unless I get eye to eye, I am going to miss something terribly important.

Sunday evening we bid farewell to Alex, Dan, and Caley. My knees and back were kind of sore, but I know that Alex got to know me, and I him. I also discovered I could still crawl and survive!

Randy Clinkscales of Clinkscales Elder Law Practice, PA, Hays, Kansas, is an elder care attorney, practicing in western Kansas. To contact him, please send an email to [email protected]. Disclaimer: The information in the column is for general information purposes and does not constitute legal advice. Each case is different and outcomes depend on the fact of each case and the then applicable law. For specific questions, you should contact a qualified attorney.

The legislature reconvened on Thursday, April 26th for the start of Veto Session. The Senate voted on eight Conference Committee Reports and two bills. The Senate will continue to work until Sine Die on Friday, May 4th.

SB 427 would amend the Kansas Expanded Lottery Act and the Kansas Parimutuel Racing Act concerning racetrack gaming facilities and lottery gaming facilities. This bill sounds like it would permit horse and dog racing at the Kansas racing facilities. This is not the debate. Horse and dog racing is currently permitted under Kansas’s law. The racetracks also currently are or can be permitted to have slot machines. When the lottery act was passed years ago the racetrack agreed to pay the State and are required to pay back to the State 40% of their earnings on slot machines. SB427 would change the pay back rate to the State and would require race tracks with slot machines to pay back about 22% of their earnings to the State, the same as State owned casinos are paying. Here is where the real problem surfaces. The State has charged the operators of the State owned casinos a privilege fee to operate state casinos and they have contracts that would be violated if the State changes the payback rates for racetracks.

The Kansas Attorney General, Derek Schmidt, issued an opinion that indicated passage of an expanded gaming bill could lead to a financial liability for the State. If found in breach of contract, the State could be required to return $61 million in privilege fees to the casinos along with 10% interest from date of payment, which would approximate $130 million today. In addition there could be other possible economic damages related to breach of contract. Some proponents of SB427 do not believe the State will be sued or the damages will be over $100 million. They will also say, if they sue, the racetrack owner will payback the damages with their winnings and will put up a letter of credit. The problem with this scenario is they want to use 11% of the 22% payback to the state for their payback and the State would be paying the damages over $100 million. You may wonder why this vote was as close as it was with the Attorney Generals opinion that the State will lose the lawsuit. Many who supported SB427 live in the areas where the racetracks are located and or where many of the house and dog breeders operate.

Ever since my first day in 2011 this has been a hot issue and I believe it will be again in the future. Many of us who agree with the Attorney General’s opinion will try to work with both sides to hopefully work out a solution that will avoid breaching our contracts.

Several of the conference committee reports of particular interest to our area were SB307, the amusement ride bill. This bill was passed out of the Senate 37-1 and will go to the governor for his signature. Another bill was SB331, which would establish Little Jerusalem as a State park in southern Logan County. When we look at the vote of SB331 you might wonder why 12 voted against the legislation. Well it has nothing to do with Little Jerusalem. Part of this bill also designated the Flint Hills Trail State park located in Miami, Franklin, Osage, Lyon, Morris and Dickinson counties because there was a controversy on changes to the Flint Hills Trail State Park.

This will be the last week of this year’s session and will be a very busy week finishing up the budget and school funding, along with a number of conference committee reports to agree or disagree on.

The Treasurer’s office has announced that there is $350 Million in unclaimed property. Please check kansascash.com to see if you have any unclaimed property in the state of Kansas.

It is my honor and pleasure to represent the 40th Senate District. Please contact me at (785) 296-7399 or [email protected] with your suggestions or concerns.

Many products get publicity and special recognition during the year. But in Kansas, if any product deserves its own month, it’s beef. That’s why Kansas Governor Jeff Colyer has declared May as Beef Month in the state. This declaration makes this the 34th consecutive year beef has received this honor.

According to , the value of beef to the economy and social fabric of the state is remarkable. With more than 6.3 million cattle on ranches and in feedyards in the state, Kansas ranks third in the country. That’s more than twice the state’s human population. Kansas cattle producers are proud of the nutritious, delicious beef they help bring to tables in this state, across the country and around the world.

Kansas has about 46 million acres of farm ground. Not all of this land can be used to grow crops, however. Grazing cattle is an ideal technique for efficiently utilizing grasses and plants growing on over 15.5 million acres of Kansas pasture and rangeland. These acres would be wasted if not for ruminants like cattle that can turn these resources into essential protein and nutrients for humans.

Kansas also ranked second in fed cattle marketed, with 4.94 million in 2017. Beef cattle and calves represented 50.8% of the 2016 Kansas agricultural cash receipts.

The effect of the beef industry on employment is significant as well. According to the American Meat Institute, Kansas companies that produce, process, distribute and sell meat and poultry products employ as many as 19,798 people, while generating an additional 50,852 jobs in supplier and associated industries. These include jobs in companies supplying goods and services to manufacturers, distributors and retailers, as well as those depending on sales to workers in the meat industry.

The product they help bring to market is one that contributes substantially to the human diet. Beef provides 10 essential nutrients, including zinc, iron, protein and B vitamins. It does all this for only 150 calories per 3-ounce serving. In fact, a serving of beef provides the same amount of protein as three servings (1 ½ cups) of cooked black beans – which have 341 calories.

Kansas ranchers and feeders are committed to producing beef responsibly and sustainably, Thielen says. But beef production refined over many generations is only part of the story. Producers also keep consumer needs and wants top of mind.

While all aspects of beef raising and processing are important, producing beef that is delicious, safe, wholesome and nutritious is ‘job one’ for our industry. After all, producers of beef are also consumers of the beef they produce. They’re proud of their role in this terrific food that so many people enjoy.

Kevin Thielen is executive director of the Kansas Beef Council.