CHICAGO – The Chicago Bears officially announced the signing of undrafted free agent and former Fort Hays State football standout Doyin Jibowu. He is one of 22 undrafted free agent signings the Bears announced late on Thursday night (May 2).
Jibowu, a two-time All-America selection by the Don Hansen Football Committee, finished his senior year of 2018 with 57 tackles, including 6 for loss, 2 interceptions, 1 sack, and 11 pass breakups. He wrapped his impressive four-year career at FHSU with 276 tackles, 27.5 tackles for loss, 5.0 sacks, 9 interceptions, and 26 pass breakups. Jibowu was a three-time All-MIAA First Team selection at defensive back and received Academic All-America honors from CoSIDA in his time at FHSU. Jibowu helped FHSU to back-to-back MIAA Championships and NCAA Playoff appearances in 2017 and 2018 and a pair of bowl game appearances in 2015 and 2016.
Fort Hays State has now had a player signed by an NFL team two consecutive years. Last year, Nathan Shepherd was the 72nd pick overall in the NFL Draft, chosen in the third round by the New York Jets. Shepherd played in all 16 games and made five starts in his rookie year with the Jets, recording 15 tackles.
Mark TallmanBy MARK TALLMAN Kansas Association of School Boards
A new report from the Economic Policy Institute shows that average weekly salaries for teachers are nearly 20 percent lower than pay for similarly educated employees in other fields, and the gap has been growing for decades. The teacher pay penalty in Kansas is slightly worse than the national average. Adding non-wage benefits like insurance and retirement plans reduces but does not eliminate the growing gap.
Kansas education leaders have been raising concerns over a growing teacher shortage for several years, as fewer students enter teacher training programs and others leave the profession. This report suggests a major reason is that teacher pay has not only fallen behind inflation, but behind other professionals as well. Here are some of the key findings of the report.
Teacher salaries are increasingly lagging behind other professions requiring college degrees.
Average weekly wages for teachers have long been lower than average wages for non-teacher college graduates, but from the late 1970’s to the mid-1990’s, pay increased at about the same rate for both groups.
Since 1996, however, teacher pay nationally, when adjusted for inflation, has actually fallen about $20 per week, while non-teacher pay has increased by $323 per week.
The pay gap between teachers and other college graduates has widened, especially for male teachers.
This teacher pay gap or penalty is now 21.4 percent for all employees and has widened from 6.3 percent in 1996. Because professions dominated by men have traditionally earned more than teaching, which has been traditionally dominated by women, the pay gap for men is greater – 31.5 percent, compared to 15.1 percent for women. Prior to the mid-1990’s, female teachers actually earned more on average than female non-teachers with comparable education.
The report blames the widening pay gap on state tax and funding cuts.
The report says state tax cuts were a major contributor to the widening pay gap, at least since the Great Recession of 2008. In fact, the “teacher penalty” decreased slightly around 2010 as private sector wages fell, but it grew more rapidly as the economy recovered. The authors say: “It is noteworthy that the wage penalty shrank in the early portion of the Great Recession, as private-sector wages fared worse than those in the public sector, reflecting the greater short-run stability of teacher wages due to long-term contracts. This trend was more than reversed in the recovery beyond 2010 as state and local spending cuts sapped teacher wage growth while private-sector wage growth accelerated.”
In Kansas, average teacher salaries lagged behind inflation every year from 2009 to 2017, which includes the period of state income tax cuts passed in 2012 and largely repealed in 2017. Kansas teacher salaries also lagged behind the U.S. average for teachers and other private sector employees. (See previous post.) Following the repeal of Kansas tax cuts and in response to the Kansas Supreme Court’s Gannon school finance decisions, the Legislature boosted K-12 funding in 2018 and 2019, and teacher salaries rose faster than inflation for the first time in a decade. (See previous post.) This trend is expected to continue as additional state funding is phased in.
Whether because of, or in spite of, state income tax cuts, Kansas personal income growth has been among the lowest in the nation since 2013. This has also limited the state’s ability to increase school districts’ funding, which largely determines teacher pay.
The pay gap is reduced, but not eliminated, by better non-wage benefits for teachers.
Teachers receive higher benefits in the form of insurance and retirement plans than non-teachers. For non-teachers, non-wage benefits are over 20 percent of total compensation; for teachers the percentage is nearly 30 percent. The authors found this “benefits advantage” was 8.4 percent for public school teachers in 2018, which reduced the 21.4 percent wage penalty to a 13.1 percent deficit in total compensation.
The authors say while the benefits advantage is important to note, wages have a more immediate impact on individuals. “While the total compensation penalty rounds out our understanding of how teachers are faring compared with other professionals, the growing wage penalty is still important and critical to keep in mind given the different natures of wages and benefits—only wages can be spent or saved!”
Again, the Kansas experience reflects the national trends noted by the report. For example, school Kansas school districts increased spending on salaries for all employees by 38.3 percent from 2004 to 2018, but employment benefits increased by 170.3 percent.
In particular, Kansas Public Employee Retirement System contributions for school districts increased from $110.9 million to $375 million or 238 percent. Increased KPERS funding has been largely driven by the efforts to make up for past underfunding, not new benefits. These funds will eventually help pay for retirement benefits for school district employees but are also dollars not available for current teacher salaries.
Mark Tallman is the Associate Executive Director for Advocacy for the Kansas Association of School Boards.
State-of-the-art supply chain and logistics best-practices can trace their origins to the Spanish monarchy that established dominance in the Caribbean and South America in the 16th and 17th centuries, according to a new book chapter written by Dr. Robert Lloyd, assistant professor of management at Fort Hays State University.
Lloyd argues that the Spanish supply chain was truly revolutionary because of the distance, scope, and risks – piracy among the biggest – associated with transporting gold and silver from their New World vice-royalties.
“The Romans used well established trade routes into a relatively known world, Marco Polo’s route to Asia was exploratory in nature, and historical military conquests had a clear origin to front lines,” said Lloyd.
But, he said, “The Spaniards were the first to maintain consistent quantities over a sustained period of time (centuries) in an environment where the risks were unknown and extreme.”
Collecting, processing, protecting, and transporting these riches from the Caribbean to Spain was a tremendous undertaking and required the Spaniards to adopt new practices in supply chain management and to employ innovative logistical techniques.
According to Lloyd’s research, the Spanish successfully imported more than 89 million pesos of American origin between 1503 and 1660, all of which required innovations in transportation and supply.
Despite incessant depredations by pirates and political foes, Caribbean hurricanes, exhaustive conditions, and the risks inherent in any mining operation, the Spaniards were unrelenting as they sent fleet after fleet of war galleons to retrieve their precious metals.
“This project is the culmination of a life-long fascination I’ve had with pirates and Spanish imperialism,” said Lloyd. His captivation began while playing video games as a young boy and having to memorize the Caribbean political maps of the Golden Age of pirates, and only grew as he began travelling to the old Spanish forts.
“The first time I walked the ramparts and saw the fortifications that guarded the harbors in Havana, Porto Bello, and Cartagena, I could imagine the salvo of cannon fire that came from common pirates and famous privateers alike,” he said.
This personal fascination led him to investigate how the topic could be researched in his academic discipline of business management. He began construction of a manuscript in fall 2017 in collaboration with Dr. Wayne Aho, a colleague from Western Carolina University, Cullowhee.
His work on Spanish supply chain origins was accepted in the prestigious reference guide “The Palgrave Handbook of Management History,” described as the “the most comprehensive exploration of management history in the market, a definitive source and reference tool for academics, researchers, and graduate students working in the field of management history.”
The book is set to publish in early 2020. The book can be found at https://bit.ly/2vzrFOp.
Fort Hays State University’s Sigma Tau Delta-International English Honor Society-Rho Psi Chapter received two prestigious awards at the recent Sigma Tau Delta International Convention in St. Louis.
FHSU earned an Outstanding Chapter Award and a second-place finish for Outstanding Literary Arts Journal for its campus publication, “Lines from the Middle of Nowhere.”
The Outstanding Chapter Award is designed to recognize local chapters that have exhibited outstanding motivation, creativity and service in the preceding year. Winnings include a check for up to $500 and a plaque. A travel grant of $350 may also be awarded for sending at least one student representative to the annual convention and bringing a chapter exhibit.
FHSU’s chapter is composed of 23 active members who participate in many campus activities throughout the academic year. Ten inducted members, one professor and an alumna member went to the convention. Seven students presented their work and two members proposed roundtables that were accepted.
“These awards would not have been possible without the hard work and dedication of the Rho Psi members and their sponsor, Dr. Lexey Bartlett,” said Judy Sansom, president of the FHSU Chapter.
“Our literary arts journal, ‘Lines from the Middle of Nowhere,’ is a student publication that accepts submissions from online and on-campus FHSU students,” said Sansom. “Without talented students, we would not have a successful journal.”
“Lines” highlights the talents of FHSU students and accepts work submitted by any member of FHSU, including virtual students. The work is then selected by a student-led editorial board composed of Sigma Tau Delta members. This year’s journal displays 15 poems, three short stories and 10 pieces of visual art by majors across the campus.
Mike Briney and Wanda Karlin of Sunflower Bank present a check for $3,369.85 to the Hays USD 489 school board Monday night. The funds came from the bank’s ABC Rewards program. The money will be used to support projects for district students and staff that are funded by the USD 489 Foundation for Educational Excellence.
For the first time, Hays will have a citywide garage sale. Laurie Mortinger and others have come together to set a date for May 31 and June 1 for the inaugural citywide event.
“We’ve never had a citywide garage sale. People are always saying we need to do one because all these other towns have them,” said Mortinger, co-director of the Community Assistance Center in Hays. “I decided we need to pick a date and start doing it annually. It’ll start bringing people to town and it’ll be fun.”
The garage sale is open to anyone and everyone who wants to be a part of the event. Individuals can have their sales in their garages, yards or combine them at public buildings or parks. Businesses are also encouraged to participate in the sale.
HaysMed, part of The University of Kansas Health System, will host a Stroke Symposium on Friday, May 31, 2019. The program is jointly provided by HaysMed, The University of Kansas Medical Center Continuing Education and Professional Development and the Area Health Education Center West.The program will be held at HaysMed in the Hadley Conference Rooms.
Registration and breakfast for the program begins at 8:30 am. The program runs from 9:00 am – 3:30 pm.This program is designed to improve the strategies for secondary stroke prevention, stroke assessment, acute stroke intervention and regional stroke care.
Speakers for the program include Craig Shipley, APRN, FNP-BC, Aparna Pendurthi, MD, Alan Reeves, MD and Janice Sandt, RN all with The University of Kansas Health System.
The program is designed for Physicians, PAs, APRN’s, Registered Nurses, Licensed Practical Nurses, Social Workers, PTS, OTS and other interested Healthcare Professionals.
All participants requesting continuing education credit must complete validation of attendance and evaluation forms online for each session attended.The link, instructions and deadlines for completion will be emailed to registered participants.
Physician: This activity has been planned and implemented in accordance with the Essential Areas and policies of the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education through the joint providership of The University of Kansas Medical Center Office of Continuing Medical Education and HaysMed, part of The University of Kansas Health System.The University of Kansas medical Center Office of Continuing Medical Education is accredited by the ACCME to provide continuing medical education for physicians.
The KU Medical Center Office of Continuing Medical Education designates this live activity for a maximum of 5.0 AMA PRA Category 1 CreditsTMPhysicians should claim only the credit commensurate with the extent of the participation in this activity.
CNE: Hays Medical Center is approved as a provider of continued nursing education by the Kansas State Board of Nursing.The course offering is approved for 6.0 contact hours applicable for RN, or LPN re-licensure.Kansas State Board of Nursing Approved Provider Number:LT0021-1138.
Respiratory Therapy
The Hays Medical Center Respiratory Care Continuing Education Evaluator, on behalf of the Kansas State Board of Healing Arts, has approved this program for 5.0 CRCE hours.Providership No. 004.
PT/OT
Paperwork will be provided to submit to KOTA and KPTA for credits.
ASRT
An application has been submitted to ASRT. Approval is pending.
EMS
Application has been submitted to EMS.Approval is pending.
The fee for the program is $60 for non HaysMed providers and $30 for CAH employees.There is no registration fee for HaysMed, Pawnee Valley Campus, St. Rose Medical Pavilion, Great Bend Campus Associates and Bistate consortium members.You can register online:www.haysmed.com/education and click on professional education or by calling 785-623-5500.You may pay online with a valid credit card or may choose to be invoiced.
Jeff Kahrs is regional director for the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services.
By JEFF KAHRS U.S. Department of Health & Human Services
Pockets of our country are experiencing a significant uptick in the number of measles cases.
Measles is not a harmless childhood illness. It is actually a highly contagious, dangerous disease that can even be deadly. But measles is also easily preventable with a vaccine.
There’s a lot of misinformation swirling around, so let me provide the facts: vaccines save lives. Vaccines protect our children from debilitating and deadly disease, and they promote the overall health of our communities. Vaccines are safe and highly effective. Large studies undertaken over the years have confirmed their safety again and again.
Vaccines do not cause autism and do not contain toxic chemicals. Any serious side effects from vaccines are exceedingly rare, and the protection from disease that vaccines provide far outweighs any potential risks.
If you’re a parent, talk to your child’s doctor to make sure your child is up to date on all of his or her scheduled vaccinations. This is especially important if you have an infant, because vaccinating your baby on the recommended immunization schedule provides protection against 14 serious childhood illnesses.
For measles, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that children get two doses of the MMR vaccine, starting with the first dose at 12 to 15 months of age, and the second dose at 4 through 6 years of age.
If you’re an adult, check with your doctor about whether you’re up to date on your vaccines, too.
We all want our children to grow up in a world that is free from preventable diseases. The single most important thing each of us can do to achieve that goal is to get fully vaccinated – for ourselves, our families, and our communities.
You can find out more about the measles vaccine and other vaccines at Vaccines.gov.
Jeff Kahrs is regional director for the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services.
Mostly sunny, with a high near 78. South southwest wind 6 to 13 mph.
Tonight
A 20 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 55. South southeast wind 7 to 11 mph becoming east northeast after midnight.
Monday
A 30 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms, mainly after 5pm. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 69. Northeast wind 8 to 13 mph.
Monday Night
Showers and thunderstorms likely, mainly after 7pm. Cloudy, with a low around 49. Northeast wind 10 to 13 mph. Chance of precipitation is 70%. New rainfall amounts between a quarter and half of an inch possible.
Tuesday
Showers and thunderstorms likely, mainly before 1pm. Cloudy, with a high near 63. Northeast wind 11 to 13 mph. Chance of precipitation is 60%. New rainfall amounts between a tenth and quarter of an inch, except higher amounts possible in thunderstorms.
Tuesday Night
Showers and thunderstorms likely. Cloudy, with a low around 53. Chance of precipitation is 70%. New rainfall amounts between a quarter and half of an inch possible.
Wednesday
Showers and thunderstorms likely, mainly after 1pm. Cloudy, with a high near 68. Chance of precipitation is 70%. New rainfall amounts between a quarter and half of an inch possible.
Wednesday Night
Showers and thunderstorms likely, mainly before 1am. Cloudy, with a low around 42. Breezy. Chance of precipitation is 60%. New rainfall amounts between a tenth and quarter of an inch, except higher amounts possible in thunderstorms.
Dr. Roger Marshall, R-Great Bend, is the First District Kansas Congressman.
Friends,
This week people across the country gathered with their friends, families, and churches to celebrate the National Day of Prayer, we also remembered the six million lives lost under the Nazi regime, for Holocaust Remembrance week. Every work week that we’re in D.C., I attend a bipartisan weekly prayer group with other members. In those meetings we give thanks to the Lord and pray that he continues to protect and guide us and this great nation. We must continue above all else to pray and to love each other, always standing firm against hated and antisemitism in all forms and never forget what evil this type of destruction caused during the darkest days of our world’s history.
We also received a great pro-life ruling from the Trump Administration this week. The HHS ruled that no physician or nurse should be forced to perform an abortion. This is great news, and I am thankful that the Trump Administration is standing up for the pro-life community’s religious liberties.
Holocaust Remembrance
This week we Honor the 6 million Jewish men, women, and children who were violently murdered by the Nazi regime for their religious beliefs. We remembered the victims that lost their lives to this evil regime with a bipartisan candle lighting ceremony in the Capitol, and we celebrated with survivors that beat the unthinkable odds and stood before us and shared their stories.
As the most well-documented genocide in human history, the evil and unimaginable torture throughout the Holocaust will forever haunt us. We must never tolerate or overlook antisemitism in any form.
In 2017, I had an emotional experience at the Holocaust Museum in Israel with my wife. There we heard from other survivors and walked through the hall of names honoring the six million victims of the Holocaust.
The Holocaust showed that a society that tolerates antisemitism is susceptible to other forms of racism, hatred, and oppression. We must make it abundantly clear to those with this deep hatred in their heart, that this country has zero tolerance for this type of evil.
This week I addressed the House floor to tell the story of a Kansas survivor of the Holocaust.
National Day of Prayer
This week millions of Americans gathered and celebrated the National Day of Prayer. This year’s theme, based upon the words of Jesus in John 13:34, “Love one another. Just as I have loved you.” As we are met with challenges, we must continue to seek his guidance and wisdom through prayer and always above else, love one another.
Every week I sit down with other members of our bipartisan prayer group and we pray together for his continued direction and wisdom when serving this country. As we are met with challenges, we must continue to seek guidance through prayer.
Community Bankers in DC
We had a full house on Tuesday when the Kansas Community Bankers came through the office! We talked about the importance of community banks across Kansas, and how they’re working to protect consumer data privacy and ensure access to capital for our farmers, ranchers, and main street businesses. As a former community bank board member myself, I understand the importance of these institutions to our small communities, and appreciate the work they’re doing to help rural America thrive!
Meeting with the Ambassador to Paraguay
This week I met with the new Ambassador from Paraguay, Mauel María Cáceres, to discuss the long-standing friendship between Paraguay and Kansas. In 1968, Kansas-Paraguay Partners Inc. (KPP) and the Comité Paraguay Kansas (CPK) developed hundreds of community-based partnership projects in both Kansas and Paraguay as part of the Partners of the Americas program. Since its creation nearly 2,000 Paraguayan’s have attended Kansas Universities as a result of the exchange. Today our partnership continues and the relationship remains as strong as ever.
The educational exchange seeks to benefit both sides of the partnership through learning opportunities covering agriculture, education, the cultural arts, health, international trade, natural resources, citizen participation, emergency preparedness, and much more.
In our meeting, we discussed the exchange between Paraguay and Kansas, and the bond we have through this program. We have a lot in common with Paraguay, they too rely heavily on their farmers, agribusiness, and selling of commodities through international trade. Also much like Kansans, the majority of Paraguayans are Christian and care deeply about god, family, and their country.
I was glad to meet with the Ambassador and look forward to building upon the Kansas-Paraguay relationship in the future!
Agriculture Subcommittee Hearing
The US dairy industry has faced a multi-year period of low margins and challenging market conditions. To address these issues the Livestock and Foreign Agriculture subcommittee, on which I proudly serve, held a hearing this week to hear directly from dairy farmers and experts from different regions on ways Congress can help address these issues. We discussed the ongoing labor shortage on farms, the importance of passage of USMCA and other trade deals, and the role that dairy cooperatives owned by family farmers play in assisting dairy producers back home.
Cooperatives, like Dairy Farmers of America (DFA), guarantee producers have a place to sell their milk, even if it means taking it at a loss. They also provide many other services for their members that producers rely on for making the right decisions on their farms. DFA recently relocated its headquarters from Missouri to Kansas and has a large milk powder processing plant located in Garden City. The plant is owned by twelve of its member farms in Southwest Kansas and is helping to support the industry’s continued growth in the region, as well as meet rising demand for U.S. dairy both domestically and globally.
Grain Inspection and Weighing Agency
Earlier this week I had the opportunity to meet with and address the American Association of Grain Inspection & Weighing Agencies. AAGIWA represents the state and private partners, authorized by the Federal Grain Inspection Service, to provide official inspection and weighing services to the grain industry on their behalf.
We discussed the importance of pending trade deals, farm bill implementation, foreign aid, and the need to repair and modernize our country’s aging infrastructure system. There were several Kansans in the group representing the Kansas Grain Inspection Service, which is responsible for providing official grain inspection services for all of Kansas, Colorado, western Nebraska and eastern Wyoming. KGIS maintains offices in Colby, Concordia, Dodge City, Garden City, Salina, Sidney, Kansas City, Wichita, and Topeka where they are responsible for grading samples representing roughly 500,000,000 bushels of wheat (57%), sorghum (19%), corn (15%), soybeans (7%), and other grains (2%) annually.
We are blessed to have farmers who produce the safest, most plentiful, and highest quality grains in the world. The work being done by AAGIWA and KGIS allow the fruits of that labor to get to market safely and efficiently. I look forward to continuing to support this important work and appreciate them inviting me to speak!
Electric Cooperatives
Many representatives from electric cooperatives across the district were in town this week to discuss issues impacting their industry. From the importance of upgrading and maintaining infrastructure to innovations helping our co-ops deliver energy more cleanly and efficiently to consumers, these companies understand the unique challenges facing rural America and are working hard to keep their members at the forefront of the conversation.
Dr. Roger Marshall, R-Great Bend, is the First District Kansas Congressman.
Join the Fort Hays State University community at 3 p.m. on Monday, May 6, on the main floor of Forsyth Library to celebrate the first award winner of the Lynn Haggard Undergraduate Library Research Award.
This $500 cash award will recognize a Fort Hays State undergraduate student for research that incorporates the use of Forsyth Library resources and demonstrates exemplary information literacy and research skills. The award is based on the student’s ability to find, evaluate and use library resources effectively in research and creative projects.
“The Lynn Haggard Undergraduate Library Research Award honors Lynn Haggard, retired Forsyth Librarian, and the 18 years of passionate service to the FHSU community and highlights the role of libraries as partners in student learning,” said Deborah Ludwig, dean of Forsyth Library.
Speakers at the event will include Ludwig, Nathan Elwood, librarian at Forsyth Library, Thomas Lippert, instructor of management, Haggard, and the award winner.
The Hays Area Chamber of Commerce will also be present to perform a ribbon cutting.
The public is welcome to attend. Refreshments will follow the program.
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