There has been a lot of talk recently about the use of the Ogallala Aquifer for irrigation in western Kansas and how long the water will last.

Since large scale irrigation development, over 50 years ago, more water has been taken out of the aquifer than has been replaced by recharge.  This has resulted in significant declines in the water table over most of western Kansas. Many irrigation wells have been shut down and plugged because the water is no longer there to pump.

The economy in in western Kansas depends of the water that is pumped from the Ogallala aquifer.  Currently irrigated crops provide the majority of the grain and forage for ethanol plants and livestock operations including feedlots, dairies and hog operations.  Without this sufficient and reliable grain and forage source these industries will move to areas that do.  Other industries that are tied to them, like meat packing and dairy product processing plants, will follow.  These industries provide a good majority of the jobs in the area.

Recently local, state and federal governments’ have encouraged producers to adopt new irrigation technologies, such as subsurface drip irrigation, that significantly reduces the amount of irrigation water to grow the crop.  Researchers are exploring new crop rotations where less water use crops, like grain sorghum, is part of the rotation.  Adopting these new technologies cropping systems has made a difference.  But one thing hasn’t been discussed much is how improving soil health could help us grow crops with much less water.

More water would be available to our crops if we could increase infiltration rates, reduce evaporation loss from the soil surface and increase the water holding capacity of the soil. This can be accomplished with the following practices:

• Keep the soil surface covered with crop residue or crop canopy as much as possible throughout the year.  This allows what rain and irrigation water that falls on the soil surface to infiltrate the soil more easily and decreases water evaporation from the soil surface immensely.  This also helps suppress weeds that could be using water needed for the crop.
• Increase organic matter in the soil.  Organic matter acts like a sponge and holds soil water and other nutrients and increase the water holding capacity of the soil.  This can be accomplish by leaving as much residue cover and decaying roots in the field as you can. Increasing organic matter is a slow process, especially in our arid environment but over time it can be accomplished and make a difference.
• Reduce tillage to maintain good soil aggregate stability.  This will provide more macro pores from decaying roots, earthworms and other soil creatures which will allow water to more easily enter the soil and help increase water holding capacity.

New irrigation technologies will help save water and may go long way to aquifer stability.  But improving our soil resource to capture and store rain and irrigation water more efficiently also needs to part of the discussion if we want any chance of achieving sustainability of our vital water resource and the region’s economy.

For more information about this or other soil health practices you can contact me at [email protected] or any local NRCS office.

Interesting deal, that newly introduced but long-awaited proposal to let voters consider an amendment to the state constitution that would strip the Kansas Supreme Court of the authority to determine whether the state’s spending on public schools is “adequate” or “equitable.”

It’s a direct assault on the court’s determination last October that the school finance bill passed by the Legislature last year is unconstitutional, providing nether adequate support for public education nor even that it equitably distributes that money to the state’s 286 public school districts.

The resolution—which would have to pass the 40-member Senate and 125-member House with 27 Senate votes and 84 House votes—could wind up on a ballot for us voters to decide.

The choices are in themselves puzzling. Voters elect the Legislature, which then comes up with a formula for distributing state aid to public schools with the target being providing equal opportunity for the state’s schoolchildren from border to border.

That means that the Legislature essentially says how much of your income and sales tax (and a dab of state-ordered property tax) goes to those schools to produce the smart kids who are the lifeline of the state.

The Supreme Court last year decided that the Legislature got it wrong. There wasn’t enough money appropriated to meet that goal. But many in the Legislature believe the court got it wrong and those justices don’t have any business making that decision, because it is the Legislature’s job.

So, is that critical decision on whether the state is spending enough of your money just up to the Legislature, or should those folks in the black robes have the authority (as they do now) to weigh in?

It all, or mostly, comes down to one of those Legislature-Court battles. Oh, and remember, while nobody likes paying taxes, those same nobodys also want their children and grandchildren to grow up smart, get good jobs and not live in the basement.

Problem is deciding just what is adequate for funding schools.

For most many legislators, what is adequate depends on who is paying. And, remember that there are probably many voters out there who will look first at their tax bill and then the cost of educating our children.

You want to be elected or re-elected to the Legislature? You never go wrong by holding flat, or maybe cutting, taxes.

You want to be elected or re-elected to the Legislature? You probably come out ahead by providing a strong education for those children and grandchildren.

That’s the issue: Who decides, and whether the deciders are generally pandering to voters, as lawmakers do, or to the court, which is not elected, just retained if the justices do a good job. Nobody runs for a seat on the Supreme Court.

There are probably campaign experts out there who can determine who will vote for the amendment, if they get a chance. While taking power from the court sounds good to some conservatives, having somebody with authority to hold the leash on the Legislature sounds good, too.

While the amount of your tax money spent on all schools is a vital issue, if the court is blocked from hearing school finance issues, what if that protected, unrestricted spending authority of the Legislature sprawls to favor big districts at the expense of small districts? Or, wherever else a Legislature decides to take it?

Interesting debate ahead…catch phrases, pandering, fear of the courts.

See how this works out…

Syndicated by Hawver News Company LLC of Topeka; Martin Hawver is publisher of Hawver’s Capitol Report—to learn more about this nonpartisan statewide political news service, visit the website at www.hawvernews.com

Just a few days ago, the smell and sight of spring burning in this region of Kansas evoked this childhood memory….

It started with a spark on a rail that jumped into the dry summer prairie and ignited. Within seconds the southerly wind whipped the fire across the pasture toward our small, rural school.

The culprit was an old black steam engine from the Union Pacific railway that lurched and pulled boxcars filled with wheat across the flat short-grass prairie. It was one of those giant puffing behemoths complete with pistons and huge driving wheels.

The year was 1959. The place – Seguin, Kan., population 47 counting three dogs and two cats.

I attended grade school in that two-room structure and while I enjoyed class as much as any of my schoolmates, these prairie fires were legendary. Such an event provided us the opportunity to miss class, abandon our schoolhouse and watch the approaching fire under God’s grandest cathedral – the big-sky country of northwestern Kansas.

Inside our school, Sister Helena Marie lined us up to march onto the road and away from the fire. Outside, we could hear the crackling fire as it licked up the tinderbox-dry grass. The flames raced along the ground a good foot tall. The smoke trailed into the blue sky and looked like it might block out the sun.

As the hypnotic orange flames raced toward our school, we all wondered about how close the fire might come, would it burn our school down and where would we go then?

For our dads, fighting these fires was something completely different. Such fires threatened to burn a neighbor’s home to the ground, destroy a farmstead or even take a life.

Our small rural community did not have a fire department, fire truck or any other firefighting equipment. When prairie fires occurred, my dad and his farmer neighbors jumped off their tractors and into their pickups and headed for the smoke. One of them always had a water tank in the back; others brought gunny sacks that they soaked with water. Then they ran out onto the prairie to fight the fire.

This wasn’t the first time dad and his farmer neighbors wielded their makeshift fighting tools. When immigrants settled this land, steam engines, dry buffalo grass and strong winds often provided the possibility of such prairie fires. These western Kansas farmers had plenty of experience fighting the flames.

None of my friends or I had a watch at the time, but I figure it took our dads close to an hour to finally beat every last flame into submission.

As they walked back to their pickups, their gait was slow. Soot covered their faces, hands and clothing. They all wore smiles.

They’d stopped the fire. This battle went to the farmers.

We all cheered and like newborn spring calves, threatened to run to our parents. Sister Helena Marie would not hear of it.

“Back into the school house,” she ordered.

As I recall this event occurred during midafternoon, and until the brass school bell rang dismissing us for the day, I spent the rest of that day fighting the fire in my mind. Most of my classmates did the same.

After we bounded down the steps and hit the ground outside the school, Albert Rall, my brother, Steve, and I ran to the edge of the burned prairie southwest of the school building.

Here we surveyed the pasture stretching nearly a half-mile in front of us. As we walked our shoes turned black as burnt grass crunched under our feet. A couple of the posts that supported the barbed wire fence bordering the school property were charred and cracked.

Our nostrils filled with the smoky particles covering the blackened landscape. The three of us walked back toward the schoolhouse. Once we came to the edge of the fire burn, we all three stepped off the distance from there to school.

The distance was approximately 40 yards or about 55 steps for a10-year-old. The fire had come so close this time. If our dads had arrived a few minutes later, our school might have burnt to the ground.

We all breathed a sigh of relief. We were thankful, but no one said a word.

Laughing, we raced around the school and bolted back up the stairs to our desks. Once seated, each of us took out our books and started writing inside the front covers, “In case of fire, throw this in.”

No doubt, these words remain today, directly under the already penned musing, “In God we trust. In school we rust.”

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

We spent all of last week on the Senate floor. Here are a few of the bills that may be of interest to everyone.

Nurse Licensure Compact: HB 2496 creates the Nurse Licensure Compact. The Compact allows RNs and LPNs to have one multi-state license, with the privilege to practice in the home state of Kansas in other Compact states physically, electronically and/or telephonically.

Appropriation Revisions: Substitute SB269 creates appropriation revisions for FY 2018 and FY 2019 for various state agencies. In FY 2018, Sub SB269 recommends expenditures of $16.3 billion, including $6.7 billion from the State General Fund. The recommendation is an all funds reduction of $3.0 million and a State General Fund increase of $1.6 million from the Governor’s Recommendation of FY 2018. Some key components for the FY 2018 appropriation revisions are:

Add $1.5 million, all from the State General Fund to fully fund the Technical Education Incentive for the Department of Education.

For FY 2019, Sub. SB 269 recommends expenditures of $16.8 billion, including $6.8 billion from the State General Fund. The recommendation is a reduction of $79.2 million, including $80.7 million from the State General Fund, from the Governor’s Recommendation for FT 2019. The bill also reduces State General Fund revenue by $11.7 million for FY 2019. Some key components of the FY 2019 appropriation revisions:

• Add $22.1 million, including $10.0 million from the State General Fund, for an increase in nursing facility reimbursements rates.
• Add $4.7 million, including $2.1 million, from the State General Fund, to provide a salary adjustment to all employees who did not receive a salary adjustment as part of the 2017 Legislative Pay Plan.
• Add $5.5 million, including $3.3 million from the State General Fund, to increase payments for foster care kinship placements from an average of $3 per day to an average of $10 per day for the Department of Children and Families.

Statewide Broadband Expansion Planning Tax Force: Senate Substitute for HB 2701 creates a broadband expansion planning task force. The purpose of the task force is to develop a group to evaluate and expand broadband throughout Kansas.

Amend Certain Sales Taxation for Motor Vehicles: SB 367 amends current sales tax law that includes the value of a rebate from a manufacturer of a new vehicle to the potential buyer. Current law includes this amount to calculate sales tax liability. SB 367 requires the rebate to be paid directly to the retailer.

Qualifications for Candidates Seeking Certain Statewide Offices: HB 2539 would amend qualifications for certain state offices. This legislation would clarify and require these positions to be a “qualified elector.” A qualified elector must be at lease 30 years old when becoming a candidate and must be licensed to practice law in Kansas for the office of the attorney general. The House’s original age requirement for the office of governor and lieutenant governor was 18 before the Senate changed it to 30. The final age requirement will be settled in conference.

State Fair Capital Improvements Fund: SB 415 creates a diversion of state sales tax receipts so that collections by the Kansas State Fair and retailers on the fairground would be deposited into the State Fair Capital Improvements Fund, effective July 1, 2018. Current law allocates 83.8% of collections go to the State General Fund and 16.2% go to the State Highway Fund. This bill would repeal an existing statutory transfer from the State General Fund to the State Fair Capital Improvements Fund.

Sales Tax Authority for Thomas County: HB 2492 increases the maximum local sales tax rate that can be imposed by Thomas County from 1.5% to 1.75%, provided all taxes levied in excess of 1% remain earmarked for financing a courthouse jail, law enforcement center, or other county administrative facility. An election would be required for an increase in the current Thomas County sales tax, which is 1.5%.

Removing Alcohol as a Special Fuel: HB2488 would remove the word “alcohol” from the definition of “special fuels” under the motor-fuel tax law. The bill clarifies how fuels are taxed.

Increased Penalties For Fake Police Calls: HB2581 increases the criminal penalties for the crime of giving a false alarm in certain circumstances. The practice which is known as “swatting.” is when a person makes a call to the police with a false story of an ongoing crime in attempt to draw police officers to a particular address. Any false call for emergency help would be at least a misdemeanor, becoming a felony if the person uses a fake identity or electronically masks their identity. HB2581 would make fake calls that result in death a felony comparable to second-degree murder.

Unfair Trade and Consumer Protection: HB 2580 eliminates consumer reporting agencies’ authority to charge certain fees related to consumer report security freezes. HB2580 amends current law to allow a consumer to place a security freeze on the consumer’s consumer report by written request, sent by certified mail or regular mail, through a secure website if made available by a consumer reporting agency, or by telephone, if the consumer reporting agency does not have an available secure website.

One thing I hated about leaving childhood behind was outgrowing the Easter morning search for hidden eggs. Until I discovered shed hunting, the adult equivalent of a child’s Easter egg hunt, I didn’t know a grownup could have so much fun finding dropped antlers hidden by tall grass. My husband introduced me to this spring ritual soon after we met. Discovering that first antler thrilled me the same way finding treasured Easter eggs had.

Any Easter Bunny worth his salt knows how to hide an egg so that finding it is nearly a miracle. Well-camouflaged eggs require a hunter’s eye to zero in on miniscule differences between the hiding place and the colored cackle berry. Mother Nature and male deer combine to practice the Bunny’s trickery on a less sophisticated level when it comes to hiding this bony headgear. By late winter, grasses lose their green and most of their winter russet and gold to turn a tawny color. That tall, sere grass perfectly camouflages these bone-colored antlers, hiding them so effectively a person can step on it before recognizing its presence.

Bucks that don’t become menu selections during hunting season lose their antlers somewhere between January and March. The buck drops one antler at a time, or sometimes both beams shed at the same time. As a result, experienced searchers know look for a second prize in the near vicinity of the first.

Once an antler drops, the fun begins. The best part about this seasonal activity is it isn’t over in one morning. Throughout the shedding season, different deer may lose an antler near the place where one was previously found, often times a bedding area. Shed hunters can return to a site several times and find treasure. We once visited a location near Casper, Wyoming, where herds went year after year to drop their racks. We found fresh antlers as well as weathered, rodent-gnawed beams at this site.

Just as some Easter egg hunters are luckier than others are at finding eggs, some antler stalkers discover more treasure than others. One reason has to do with how often these folks search, but some people have the eye. Over the years, I have found a few antlers while my husband has found many. We know a few individuals who find record numbers every single year. They’ve devised a system that works for them.

I always hoped to find enough of these natural treasures to build an arch similar to the one built of elk antlers in the Town Square in Jackson Hole. Without a lot more work than my spouse and I put into this, that isn’t going to happen. However, I wouldn’t mind taking a lesson from friends who turn their finds into lamps, playing pieces for checkerboards, buttons, drawer and knife handles, and wine racks. Regardless of whether I become an artisan or not, I love recalling that childhood thrill of searching for and finding a well-hidden object, whether it’s an egg or an antler.

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.

If you routinely read my ramblings, you know it’s no secret that Joyce and I both like turkey vultures; maybe that’s a testament to our personalities, I don’t know. A few years back, we learned of an old tumble-down building in the middle of a field not far away that had been a vulture nesting site for years. That summer we followed that vulture mother and her 2 chicks until the chicks fledged. We have lots of good vulture pictures in our archives. I’ve done more than one column on turkey vultures, about how amazing birds they really are if you can past the thought of their dietary preference, which makes them so valuable in our ecosystem as God’s clean-up crew.

Vultures are migratory, heading for Central and South America each fall and returning to our area from mid-March to early April, depending on the weather. This year we’ve been seeing 1 or 2 at a time now for a couple weeks. Favorite roosting places for turkey vultures are the old water towers that some small towns still have. In McPherson, KS a spring or summer evening will often find many roosting on the handrail of the old water tower. In Marion, KS a couple hundred routinely spend days soaring over the town and roosting on the water tower hand rail at night. The ultimate tribute to turkey vultures can be found in the northeastern Ohio town of Hinckley.

A legend dating back to the turn of the century has it that the famous “Buzzards of Hinckley Ridge” arrive in the town of Hinckley Ohio every March 15th like clockwork. In the northeast corner of Medina County, just south of Cleveland are a series of cliffs and caverns known locally as old Whipp’s Ledges that are a popular roosting and nesting area for turkey vultures. So popular was the legend that in 1957 the first Sunday after March 15th was dubbed Buzzard Sunday and a festival was planned around the event that still takes place today.

Along with the legend of the vulture’s timed arrival is the story of how that came to be. The story says that when that area was first settled, farmers began losing livestock left-and-right to bears and wolves that were native to the area. Finally the farmers had enough and one fall, a huge mass hunt was organized resembling the coyote drives once popular here in Kansas where hundreds of hunters form a circle surrounding an entire section or township and slowly walk toward each other, tightening the circle.

As the circle tightened, wolves, bears, deer and most wildlife in the area were driven toward the center of the circle, where they were shot. The story goes on to say that after everything was skinned and butchered and all useable meat and hides were taken, the dozens or perhaps hundreds of resulting carcasses were left there for the winter. In the spring, returning turkey vultures were drawn to the scent and sight of the thawing carcasses, and once there to feed, the numerous natural nesting sites among the cliffs and caverns kept them there for the summer and to this day keep them coming back each year.

Sharon Hosko, Manager of Brecksville Nature Center in Cleveland’s metro area, and official “Buzzard Spotter” for Cleveland Metroparks, told me she saw 19 turkey vultures this year on March 15 when the vultures were “officially” welcomed back to Cleveland Metroparks. On Buzzard Sunday the 18th, 41 birds were spotted by her and 28 were seen at the second official spotting station at Hinckley proper. She has helped with the event since 1997 and the most buzzards she has seen in one day were 72 as they arrived on Buzzard Sunday in March of 2011. She estimates possibly 100 vultures remain to call the Hinckley area home for the summer each year.

Turkey vultures are amazing birds, and I often wonder what it would be like to glide and soar above the earth like they can. Everyone likes a good legend, and who knows what about Hinckley’s past that drew the buzzards there in the first place is true, and how much is just legend. One thing for sure is that vultures do arrive in Hinckley Ohio every March 15, and that they continue to arrive every year on Buzzard Sunday also. As an ex-Buckeye myself, I hope to take Joyce there some year to enjoy the spectacle, even if it means Enjoying Kansas Outdoors from afar.

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

Let’s face it; families are busy. When you factor in the number of kids times the number of activities and add in some other unplanned event, preparing a balanced/nutritious meal can feel like a tough assignment. You’ve heard me say it many times that the healthiest place to eat is at home, where the person who is cooking can modify the ingredients in a recipe for their families’ taste, and nutrients. One way to ease the hectic schedule is to prepare a double recipe of your families’ favorite and then get creative with the leftovers.

If you would like help with making over your leftovers, mark your calendars for Wednesday, April 11th, and join Jamie Rathbun at noon at the Great Bend Activity Center, 2715 18th Street. Jamie is a busy career mom who comes home to a husband and four hungry kids every evening. Jamies’ program, “Makng Over Your Leftovers” will include her tried and true recipes with tips on making the leftovers taste even better than the first time around.

Please give our office a quick call if you plan to join us on the 11th. That way we will have plenty of handouts prepared. Our office # is: (620)793-1910 or you may e-mail me at: [email protected]

Reminder About Upcoming Programs
The Healthy Cooking Styles program will be presented twice in the next week. I’ll be at the Extension Meeting room in Hays on April 3rd, at noon, and at the Catholic Church in Wilson on April 9th beginning at 6:00 p.m. My presentations will focus on five healthier ways to prepare vegetables and samples will be shared at the conclusion of each program. Call either of our offices if you plan to attend.

And finally, we are excited to be hosting a ½ Pep Rally for the Walk KS program in Hays on Friday April 13th. Join us at the Big Creek Crossing Mall at noon, for a short program and lunch. If you are on a Walk KS team, lunch is on us; for others it is $5.00. Call our Hays office to sign up for this fun event.
As you can see, there are lots of great learning opportunities coming up in the Cottonwood Extension District. We look forward to seeing you!

Donna Krug is the Family & Consumer Science Agent and District Director for the Cottonwood Extension District – Great Bend Office. You may reach her at: (620)793-1910 or [email protected]

By RON WILSON
Huck Boyd National Institute for Rural Development

Fun and fitness. Those two elements go together at the Council Grove Life Center, where the goal is to make rural life fun, entertaining, and long-lasting.

Deidre Knight is executive director of the Council Grove Life Center, a community fitness center in Council Grove. Deidre grew up in Salina and studied Family Studies and Human Services at K-State. She also met her husband, who grew up on a farm near the rural community of Alta Vista, population 444 people. Now, that’s rural.

Deidre and her husband moved to Kansas City after graduation. They eventually moved back to Council Grove where she became the director of the Council Grove Life Center.

“There were two men who wanted to play racquetball,” Deidre said. There were no racquetball courts that they could use in Council Grove, so they started thinking about building some. The idea soon grew into the more holistic approach of a comprehensive fitness center for the community. “There was a real need to have a place for indoor activities during the winter,” Deidre said.

CGLC Inc. was organized as a non-profit, tax exempt corporation to operate the fitness center. Local foundations stepped up to provide private funding to build the center, along with several local individuals and businesses plus two large gifts from anonymous donors.

Council Grove happens to have multiple foundations based in the community. The Bill Young Trust donated land. Financial support came from the Arthur M. Hylton and Ethel L. Hylton Trust, Oscar and Ina Nystrom, the John E. Trembly Foundation, and more.

“We are terribly spoiled but incredibly grateful to have these foundations in the community,” Deidre said. Monthly, semi-annual and annual memberships provide ongoing support for the center. “No tax dollars were spent on the construction of the CGLC and no taxes will be levied for its operation,” Deidre said.

In 2005, the 10,000-square-foot center was constructed in Council Grove. The facility includes an indoor swimming pool, a full-sized gym, cardio area with strength machines, free weights, mirrored fitness studio, and – oh yeah – a racquetball court. In addition, a day care center operates next door.

“Our programs range from Silver Sneakers for retirees to something called Insanity,” Deidre said. In addition to the weekend hours, the facility is open each weekday from 4:30 in the morning till 10 at night. That seems like a lot of hours, and it seems to start very early, but this accommodates the schedule of their members. “Thirty percent of our daily attendance comes in that 4 to 5 a.m. hour, so people can get in a workout and then take care of the kids or get to work,” Deidre said.

Beside individual workouts, there are a number of classes with trainers. For example, there are three types of yoga plus classes with names like Aqua Burn, Silver Splash, Water Flow, Pickleball, Circuit, Water Works, and the aforementioned Insanity. (I think Water Flow sounds a whole lot easier than Insanity.)

There are also programs such as hoops club, youth basketball clinics, a men’s basketball league, coed volleyball, and more. The center partners with the local hospital to make the pool available for those who need water-based rehabilitation after surgery, for example. In the summer, the center does programs for the kids in the summer food service program and then hosts an end-of-summer party.

The facility is also available for rent for private parties. There is even a community coffee room where people can congregate after workouts, for example.

“It’s important to have amenities for the community and to attract people,” Deidre said. “We promote connectivity and the rural lifestyle.” The center has more than 1,100 members and some 22,000 visits each year.

For more information, see www.cglifecenter.com.

Is fitness fun? At the Council Grove Life Center, Deidre Knight and her staff are striving to make it so. We salute Deidre Knight and all those involved with the Council Grove Life Center for making a difference by providing this wonderful facility. By helping people in this rural region have fun, they are definitely a good fit.

Fear of anything foreign has again appeared in education. A Senator from Florida is railing against the Confucius Institutes. And the president of the conservative National Association of Scholars (NAS), fired his broadside “China’s Pernicious Presence on American Campuses” in the February 26 issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education. The NAS charge is that these Institutes “…operate under a veil of secrecy in which they engage in dubious activities.”

So just what do Confucius Institutes do? With over 100 Confucius Institutes in the United States and over 400 more spread throughout the world, their aim is “…to promote Chinese language and culture, support local Chinese language teaching internationally, and facilitate cultural exchanges.” Coordinated by the Office of Chinese Language Council International of their Ministry of Education, the most noticed value they provide is coordinating teachers for Chinese language classes. Their Confucius Classroom program partners with American high schools to provide Chinese teachers.

But the NAS suggests U.S. schools should be forced to lose “…the equivalent U.S. funding, especially in Title VI programs, which provide foreign-language and area-studies education.” Unfortunately, Title VI programs have no capacity to provide that education. Without the coordination of the Confucius Institutes to provide instructors for courses in Chinese language and culture in America, there would be little such education.

China also faced a shortage of teachers when Deng Xiao-ping established English rather than Russian as the official second-language-to-learn in China. To teach Chinese students English, China has recruited many American college students over these last decades to bolster their English teaching to a level where there are now more Chinese who have learned English than there are Americans. If we all learned Chinese, we could not match them!

But the NAS president also proposes that the folks working for the Confucius Institutes be required to register as foreign agents. Those planeloads of teachers we sent to China did not face any such requirements. But that influx of U.S. personnel teaching in K-12 and tertiary schools across China most certainly brought in the cultural and political attitudes of our language. You can call it our “soft power.” In learning English, Chinese students also learned of our individualism and emphasis on “rights” over responsibility.

And yes, learning the Chinese language in America also presents a different view of the world. Family names in Chinese are given first and prioritize family importance. Their word for respect is embedded in their word for teachers and the elderly. There is a major emphasis on responsibility to others and on group loyalty. They value living in harmony. They take the long view, working and sacrificing for distant gain. To learn another language is to understand another way of thinking. To understand is very important, but it does not command belief.

In addition, there are over 300,000 students from China currently studying in the U.S. with six out of seven now returning to China with an in-depth understanding of America. China understands us.

But despite those English teachers we sent, our flow of American students who study in China remains trivial. Americans’ superficial understanding is of a 1950s China that no longer exists. If all of the students studying Chinese in the U.S. became teachers of Chinese, and all of their students did as well, etc., it would still take us decades build up an understanding of modern China.

In the Cold War era, Soviet schools taught the merits of Marxism and what was wrong with capitalism, while we taught the merits of Adam Smith and what was wrong with Marxism. Our opponent’s efforts were always “propaganda.” But ours never were? There is an intellectual fairness in studying from those who live in a different culture and speak a different language.

Today, only the elderly and the historians recall the American intolerance during our McCarthy era inquisition, where it became legitimate to destroy livelihoods and command allegiance. Such intolerance to other languages, cultures and ideas is often the first drumbeat towards war.

John Richard Schrock is a professor at Emporia State University.

There is a sickly feeling that comes over you when you go to open an important file and the computer says “File Not Found.”

“It was just there yesterday!” You yell frantically to the machine, but that cold metal box has no empathy for your loss.

“Ah ha,” you think as you reach for your flash drive that has a copy of that precious file. Now, I will explain to you how you can have this copy so you to will not have to experience that sickly, sinking feeling.

They only safe you can ensure you keep your data is to make multiple copies across multiple devices. You want to have your most important files in at least two different spots, maybe one on your computer and another on a flash drive or even another computer. If you make multiple copies and just keep them on the same device, then you aren’t really covered if there is a hardware failure.

Let’s say we need to back up our Word document file “Ancestry.docx.” There are myriad ways to go about this, and I will walk you through two of the simplest — the first being just making regular manual copies of the file to another device. For a second device to store the document, you can use a flash drive, external hard drive or even another computer.

In my humble opinion, the easiest way to back up a document would to just be to email it to myself after every time I update it. This keeps it on the server that hosts my email and, therefore, I can get on any computer at any time and access that email.

Our second manual option for one of the external media devices is to plug that device in to your computer. Once there, you should get a popup asking if you want to view the files on that media device — select yes.

You can then see everything on that device, right-click on “Ancestry.docx” in your Documents folder and select “copy.” Go back to that external media device, right-click anywhere inside of that folder and select “paste.” Voila! Backup completed and “Ancestry.docx” is saved again!

We have a second option to back up our important file, but this time we can set it to go automatically! We can use a backup program to automatically backup our files to external media whenever we want to schedule it. This process is a little more complicated and, if it is something you are interested in, give us a call at Eagle Technology Solutions and any of our qualified technicians can help you out.

Call or email at 785.628.1330 or [email protected].

Not many Kansans wake up in the morning worrying about the financial health of the state highway fund. Understandably so. But hit a big pothole on the way to work or drive a narrow, roughed up, congested roadway, and highway conditions immediately become a concern. Trouble is, by then it’s too late. Crummy roads mean the state’s highway fund failed much earlier.

Noticeable problems can take some years to appear after road maintenance levels are lowered, bridge repairs delayed, and upgrade projects cancelled. That’s why swiping money out of the highway fund can be so enticing for lawmakers. There’s instant gratification when the transferred dollars pay for some other high-profile need, and no immediate consequence for diverting the funds away from highways. The crisis comes later.

Kansas faced a crisis of deteriorating roads back in the 1980’s, but Gov. Mike Hayden and legislators dealt directly with it, enacting a 10-year plan to modernize and improve Kansas highways. Two more long-term plans followed that first one, ultimately making the Kansas road system one of the best in the nation, a point of Kansas pride, and a feature that has attracted people and business to our state.

But now the Kansas road system is truly threatened. Sam Brownback’s 2012 income tax cuts choked revenue to the general fund, leaving Kansas without enough money to pay for education and other services. The highway fund became a convenient source of cash. Even though lawmakers reversed most of the income tax cuts last year, they did not stop the highway fund transfers. During Brownback’s time in office, more than $2 billion was siphoned off, and transfers continue unabated.

Highway fund dollars are not free money. Every dollar taken means a dollar less for maintenance or construction. The consequences for our roads have already shown up and will only grow if our leaders do not intervene.

Lawmakers have tried to blunt the effect of transfers by allowing the highway fund to borrow more and more money. The highway fund currently has $2 billion in outstanding debt and pays $200 million a year in debt service. And a portion of that debt has ‘interest only’ payments in the first years, with the principal payments still to come.

Neither deeper debt nor cutting maintenance provide a viable recipe for the future. So, what to do? The best answer is to immediately stop transferring money. Lawmakers could also raise the gas tax which goes directly to the highway fund, or charge tolls in more places. Of course, all those solutions are politically difficult, especially with the general fund still recovering from the damage of the Brownback tax cuts. But inaction–failing to protect the state’s long-term investment in roads–is worse.

School finance currently dominates the 2018 legislative session, but the highway fund lurks right under the surface. The temptation will be to wait for road conditions to really slip before doing anything, but Kansans will be much better served if lawmakers fix the highway fund now, before everyone notices the depth of the potholes.

Duane Goossen formerly served 12 years as Kansas Budget Director.

By GUY WINDHOLZ

Looking up in the dictionary, MILESTONES are defined as benchmarks and achievements and LEGACIES are the attributes of special people and the gifts they leave to those that follow. Given that combination, a small photo of Calvin could be pasted within the dictionary next to those terms.

It was standing room only in the living room at the home of Calvin E. Harbin, in a pre-celebration of his 102nd birthday for Monday. His son, Ed, and two daughters, Mary and Ruth, were joined by most of his 7 grandchildren and 10 great-grand children. Missing would be Dorothy, the love of his life for 66 years and married to in 1947 while he was in special military service for his country on seven foreign tours of duty overseas during the war. He rose rapidly in rank to the point of being a Colonel before retiring and going into the Education Field.

There is not enough space on this page to detail all those accomplishments but necessary to highlight what he and others have done to benefit the Seniors of Ellis County and which has been spread to all other parts of the state and nation.

Cal would always point out the credit to those around him that were instrumental in and on the projects he was involved in and specific to the area of Seniors. Having worked under the President of Fort Hays State College at the time of Dr. John Gustad , he became Chairman of the Division of Education 1970-1972 and Dean of Faculty of Education 1972 – 1977.

It was at this time that a new-found focus of attention was started in help for the elderly citizens of that generation and now benefiting those of our generation. This would take him to Washington D.C. in lobby for and to the attention that should be given to this population. Calvin credits the support of Senator Bob Dole and Congressman Keith Sebelius for the start of federal appropriations of funding for Senior Citizen projects. He quotes the words of Sen Dole that, “This is a good program and it will live forever.”

On the local front he name-drops his partners in this endeavor to include the other founders of the Hays Senior Center as Leora B. Stroup and Dr. William D. Moreland. With a memory as sharp as a whip, other hard working contributors included Rev . William Miller, Alice Munsch, Dr. Harry Watts an even the Courthouse jail cook, Dorothy Curl and legal guidance freely given by Hays attorney Robert Glassman.

The first Hays Senior Meal Site came from these efforts and a truly great program with headquarters at Fort Hays for a variety of counties known as the Senior Companion Program that provides for visitations by other citizens to those that are home-bound.

Many a patron of the Senior Center would not have this knowledge were it not for Board member and secretary now going on a dozen years, Millie Karlin. She kicked started a birthday card shower and a bundle of them were delivered to Calvin on Monday.

Among the treasurers of the people in Ellis County that can be found and to have had the pleasure to visit with, Calvin Harbin is an uncovered a “gem” among us.

Those wishing to send birthday greetings to Calvin can address them to 301 E. 19th, Hays, Ks 67601