SHERMAN COUNTY — Three people were injured in an accident just before 3:30a.m. Sunday in Sherman County.
The Kansas Highway Patrol reported a 2015 Chevy Silverado driven by Nicole Weber, 27, Sebastian, Florida, was eastbound on Interstate 70 eight miles east of Goodland.
The pickup rear-ended a 2010 Dodge 350 driven by Jeremy Ty Severe, 48, Medford, Oklahoma, and continued to travel entering the south ditch and came to rest.
The Dodge continued eastbound crossing the median into the westbound lanes and came to rest in the north ditch.
Weber, Severe and a passenger in the Chevy David Michael Bragg, 26, Fellsmere, Florida, were transported to the hospital in Goodland, Bragg and Severe were not wearing seat belts, according to the KHP.
WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) has joined a bipartisan group of colleagues in calling on Amtrak to continue service to rural communities in Kansas and across the United States by investing in long-distance and state-supported routes, including the Southwest Chief.
“We are writing in strong support of Amtrak’s national network, including the long-distance and state-supported routes,” the senators wrote. “These routes serve small, midsize, and rural communities in our states and provide essential connections to jobs, tourism, and family that are critical to the people and places we represent. As you develop Amtrak’s plan for the long-term viability of the company, we urge you to recognize the critical importance of the entire national network, which includes the long-distance and state-supported routes. Once again, we seek your firm commitment that Amtrak will abide by its statutory purpose – maintaining a truly national network for our rail system.”
“Congress purposely created a national network of long-distance and state-supported train service throughout the nation, in recognition of the importance of a transportation system that reaches every community – regardless of how rural it may be,” the senators continued. “Amtrak is more than a collection of individual train routes; it is a web of essential connections that bind our country together and link rural communities with major markets and economic opportunities.”
The letter requests responses to questions about Amtrak’s budgeting process and their future plans regarding long-distance train routes and their interest in introducing new short distance routes. The letter also addresses the changes Amtrak made to long-distance routes last year, such as the removal of ticket agents at stations across the country, and asks when Amtrak plans to restore the services it previously provided passengers.
Sen. Moran has led a bipartisan push to make certain Amtrak maintains train services along the established, long-distance passenger rail route of the Southwest Chief, which runs daily between Chicago and Los Angeles, connecting towns and cities across the western United States and providing train and long-distance passenger service, particularly through rural areas.
The Southwest Chief stops in several Kansas communities, including Lawrence, Topeka, Newton, Hutchinson, Dodge City and Garden City.
The letter was also signed by Senators Tom Udall (D-N.M.), Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), Michael Bennet (D-Colo.), Pat Roberts (R-Kan.), Cory Gardner (R-Colo.), Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.), Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Jon Tester (D-Mont.) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.).
We are writing in strong support of Amtrak’s national network, including the long-distance and state-supported routes. These routes serve small, midsize, and rural communities in our states and provide essential connections to jobs, tourism, and family that are critical to the people and places we represent. As you develop Amtrak’s plan for the long-term viability of the company, we urge you to recognize the critical importance of the entire national network, which includes the long-distance and state-supported routes. Once again, we seek your firm commitment that Amtrak will abide by its statutory purpose – maintaining a truly national network for our rail system.
Amtrak’ recent appropriation clearly demonstrates Congress’ strong, bipartisan support for the network. In making this investment, Congress chose to ensure the continued viability of Amtrak’s entire system, including the National Network’s long-distance and state-supported routes. These funds should be used to operate the entire existing system and, where possible, expand the system to grow both revenue and ridership.
Congress purposely created a national network of long-distance and state-supported train service throughout the nation, in recognition of the importance of a transportation system that reaches every community – regardless of how rural it may be. Amtrak is more than a collection of individual train routes; it is a web of essential connections that bind our country together and link rural communities with major markets and economic opportunities. It provides residents of these communities with transportation options on which families, seniors, and businesses rely to access jobs, create economic opportunities, see our beautiful country, and visit family. The federal investment in Amtrak ensures the small, midsize, and rural communities served by Amtrak’s long-distance and state-supported routes continue to receive this essential service. The long-distance and state-supported routes of the national system are no less important than the Northeast Corridor (NEC), another critical aspect of Amtrak service.
The long distance and state supported trains generate more ridership than the NEC and similar levels of revenue. Many long-distance sleeper cars are regularly sold out. The entire national network helps cover Amtrak’s fixed corporate costs such as police, facilities and capital expenditures, particularly when the route shares trackage with the NEC. Continuing and expanding the entire national system of long-distance and state-supported routes is both good for Amtrak’s business, and our national economy.
We look forward to working with you and receiving assurances of your commitment to the national network. For these reasons, we request your response to the following questions by April 29, 2019.
Amtrak customers have already experienced a deterioration in service as Amtrak pursues efficiencies. A recent report in Trains Magazine[1]indicated that Amtrak utilizes accounting mechanisms to inflate costs associated with the national network, by charging long-distance and state-supported routes for costs which may be more appropriately charged to the Northeast Corridor. We are concerned that Amtrak’s accounting is intentionally obscure and is causing a false inflation of costs of lines outside of the Northeast Corridor. Please provide the accounting methods used to determine the costs referenced.
Does Amtrak plan to truncate or otherwise alter any of the long-distance train routes? If yes, then:
Which routes are under consideration for alteration?
Would any of these routes be altered in such a way that they would fall under the definition of State Supported routes, requiring states to find local operating funds for existing service? What discussions has Amtrak had with states, if any, that lead it to believe states would be willing to assume this financial obligation?
Amtrak says it wants to introduce new short distance routes with daytime service and multiple frequencies. What specific routes is Amtrak considering? What discussions—if any—has Amtrak had with host railroads, stakeholders, or government officials regarding these additional frequencies?
Amtrak claims that public demand for its long-distance interstate service is declining. Yet the number of passengers using the total long-distance network in FY 2017—the last year without major service interruptions—was 10.6% higher than it was eight years earlier in FY 2010. It was also higher than in all but three of the last eight years. This growth occurred in spite of worsening on time performance, capacity reductions and other changes to service levels. On what basis does Amtrak claim that demand is declining for long-distance trains?
Amtrak has made a number of changes impacting long-distance routes in 2018 that may reduce revenues and services, such as the removal of ticket agents at a number of stations across the country. Why did Amtrak calculate ridership totals based on weekly boardings on routes that do not run daily? When will Amtrak restore or otherwise alter assistance it provides passengers at stations based on Congressional directives in the Fiscal Year 2019 Appropriations Act?
Amtrak has expressed concern at how the dispatching practices of some host railroads has led to deteriorating on-time performance (OTP). Does Amtrak have a strategy to improve OTP and better interface with the host railroads? Are there policies that would assist Amtrak in this endeavor?
Sleeper cars provide approximately 40-50% of the revenue on many long-distance trains. Please provide us with an update on the 25 sleeper cars that were scheduled to be delivered in 2015 and 2016. Please provide a timeline for completing this order and putting the new cars into service?
Our constituents – in both large and small communities rely on Amtrak service. We look forward to continue to work with you to preserve and expand the long-distance and state-supported routes, and to reviewing your response to our questions.
One of the greatest resources we have in this nation is access to a quality, public education. By teaching our children well, they can go out and improve the world, innovate, and do things differently than they’ve been done before.
That’s why it was disappointing to see the Legislature resist a new and innovative solution, instead gravitating toward the same style of school finance plan that has mired our state in litigation for over a decade.
The Gannon case began in 2010 after the Legislature was unable to keep its promises, failing to fund its school finance plan in the wake of the 2008 recession. Now, here we are again – on the verge of what financial experts predict is another impending recession – attempting to resolve the litigation with another unsustainable plan.
Kids First Plan
Recognizing that the plan proposed by the Governor and the Senate (Senate Bill 16) would repeat the mistakes of those who came before us, the House began conversations with school leaders and the Governor about how to build a sustainable plan – one that would fully fund our schools, not just for a year or two, but for the long haul.
That solution – known as the Kids First Plan – would have:
Followed the court’s directive to pay $126 million in inflation,
Recession-proofed the plan by escrowing $243 million so the state could meet its obligations to our schools in the event of an economic downturn.
Added an estimated $17 million for early childhood programs, recognizing that investments in early childhood education are one of the most effective ways we can close the achievement gap identified by the court.
Added $27 million to expand a children’s mental health pilot program that is seeing results in our schools by identifying young people in need and preventing teen suicide.
Unfortunately, a few days before the Legislature was set to adjourn, the Governor backed away from negotiations on the Kids First Plan and opted instead to push for SB 16, the plan that was ultimately passed by the Legislature. It was a plan that the majority of House Republicans could not support.
Senate Bill 16
Senate Bill 16 contains an often-overlooked provision that commits taxpayers to an automatic annual inflation increase – not just during the life of this plan, but for the rest of our lives and our children’s lives. That means an estimated $100 million more will come due every year – funds that will have to come from our highways, mental health, foster care, our colleges, our nursing homes and other essential services. These areas of the budget will be made to suffer even more because of SB 16.
Make no mistake: This plan is a promise the Governor and the Legislature cannot keep. According to the budget analysts, sustaining SB 16 relies on six assumptions:
The Supreme Court rules in favor of funding not based in their opinion.
Taxes are raised.
The food sales tax is not lowered.
Money continues to be swept from the highway fund.
The state does not make its KPERS payments, and
There is not a recession.
I’m not willing to take that gamble.
Legislators on both sides of the aisle care about public education, and are committed to ensuring that every kid has every opportunity to succeed. Our shared priority for funding our schools is evident in the fact that many of us – myself included – have voted for $3.13 Billion in new funding over the past two years. The vote on SB 16 was not about who loves schools and who doesn’t. It was about whether we want to make promises we can keep.
As parents, we serve as role models for our kids. Repeating the mistakes of those who came before us is not the right example to set. As legislators, we have a responsibility to think beyond what is politically expedient in the short-term, and to be disciplined enough to form long-term, sustainable solutions that will carry our schools and our state forward. Senate Bill 16 is not the long-term, sustainable solution that our children and our teachers deserve. As Kansans, we can do better.
Bronc Rumford has become a pro at improvising over the years.
So the Fort Hays State University rodeo coach didn’t give it a second thought when he realized that Easter would fall on the same weekend as the FHSU Rodeo this year.
The rodeo is annually scheduled for the third weekend of April at Doug Philip Arena. To accommodate for the Easter holiday, the 2019 NIRA event will be shortened from three days to two.
“We’ve had rain, wind, snow and 26 degrees,” Rumford said. “One year we had to cancel Friday’s events because of rain and mud, but we were able to get it all in on Saturday and Sunday. We are used to making adjustments.”
Rumford stressed that all the traditional events will still be held at the 53rd annual rodeo, including crowning the Fort Hays State Rodeo Queen during Friday night’s performance.
“We will just have more kids in the two days of slack,” Rumford said of the overflow number of contestants in certain events. “We’re even going to still have Cowboy Church.”
The church service, ordinarily held on Sunday morning of the rodeo weekend, is scheduled for 5 p.m. Saturday this year. Public performances begin at 7 p.m. both Friday and Saturday.
Events for the nearly 500 competitors from 22 schools in the Central Plains Region are: bareback bronc riding, bull riding, calf roping, cowgirls barrel racing, cowgirls breakaway roping, saddle bronc riding, steer wrestling, team roping and tie-down roping.
CORRECTION: A news release distributed Friday contained incorrect information on student admission for the Fort Hays State University Rodeo the weekend of April 19 and April 20.
Admission this year is $5 for Fort Hays State students with Tiger ID, which is a change from past practice.
Public performances begin at 7 p.m. both Friday, April 19, and Saturday, April 20. The Cowboy Church service, ordinarily held on Sunday morning of the rodeo weekend, is scheduled for 5 p.m. Saturday this year to accommodate Easter celebrations.
Events for the nearly 500 competitors from 22 schools in the Central Plains Region are: bareback bronc riding, bull riding, calf roping, cowgirls barrel racing, cowgirls breakaway roping, saddle bronc riding, steer wrestling, team roping and tie-down roping.
Tickets can be purchased at the Student Service Center in FHSU’s Memorial Union; Orscheln Farm & Home, 2900 Broadway Ave.; and Vanderbilt’s, 2704 Vine. Advance ticket prices are $10 for adults and $5 for children. Prices at the gate will be $12 (adults) and $8 (children).
By RAENEE PATTERSON FHSU University Relations and Marketing
With the opportunity to write about the television show “Doctor Who” and tie it in with historical and political perspectives, one Fort Hays State University professor could not pass up this chance.
Long-time “Doctor Who” fan Dr. Eric Lueschner, chair of the Department of English, was published in the book “Doctor Who Twelfth Night: Adventures in Time and Space with Peter Capaldi.”
Peter Capaldi, a Scottish actor, was the 12th actor to play the title role, holding the role from 2014 to 2017.
“I saw a call-for-papers announcement and proposed the topic to the editor,” said Leuschner. “Although my usual scholarship is related to more traditional topics and more canonical authors, I couldn’t pass up this opportunity.”
Leuschner’s essay was titled “‘Chap with wings there, five rounds rapid’: UNIT and the Politics of Doctor Who,” and focuses on the fictional organization UNIT, which was established to investigate and protect the earth from alien threats and has appeared in the show periodically since 1968.
“Examining the depiction of UNIT from a historical perspective reveals how Doctor Who not only satirizes, but also reflects, the political choices faced today. How one defines ‘political’ and what elements of the text are analyzed, such as the changing depiction of UNIT, may reveal ways in which the Doctor Who does and continues to promote ideological and political work,” said Leuschner.
“In this book, the first to address the Capaldi era in depth, international experts on the show explore Capaldi’s portrayal of the Doctor, and Steven Moffat’s role as show writer and executive producer,” says the publisher’s blurb.
“By detailing how UNIT has changed over the years and interacts with the different personalities of the Doctor, I argue in the essay that we can see how the show comments on political issues such as increased militarism and global organization such as the United Nations,” said Leuschner.
The BBC science fiction television series first aired in 1963 and was on British television continuously for 26 years until 1989. It was then rebooted in 2005 with renewed world-wide popularity.
“I’m a long-time fan of the show, having started watching in the early 1980s, when I was in high school, and public television ran old episodes on weeknights,” he said.
This isn’t the first time Leuschner has used “Doctor Who” for academic purposes. Several years ago, an episode was used in one of his classes. “I think it would be fascinating to teach a “Doctor Who” course some time if there were student interest,” he said.
The book was released in the United Kingdom in October of 2018, and in the United States in January of 2019. It is now available for purchase on Amazon.
This book appeals to a variety of people, from fans to scholars, who are looking to learn more about how “Doctor Who” portrayed and understood society.
The Poor People’s Campaign made a stop in Hays last Sunday advocating for rights for the disabled, affordable health care and an end to the war economy.
Nathan Elwood, Fort Hays State University librarian and Poor People’s Campaign volunteer, introduced speakers who were local residents and from the national movement.
“We are here to talk about poverty. We are here to talk about economic and social injustice,” he said.
“These aren’t easy comfortable topics to talk about. In fact, from a young age we are taught not talk about these things. We are told it is impolite to talk about money. We are told if we are struggling, we should grin and bare it. We are told not to burden others, but avoiding discussions of the problems we face as a community won’t make those problems go away.”
In Hays, 19.5 percent of residents live below the poverty line, which is higher than the 13 percent national average. Indicators predict the poverty rate will continue to rise despite low unemployment in the area, Elwood said.
Claire Chadwick, a campaign volunteer, is a pastor with a master’s degree, but she is a low-wage worker. She has been poor all of her life. Her father was homeless for a time and they lost their home in the mortgage crisis.
“The reason that I got involved with the Poor People’s Campaign is because it taught me that losing our house in the mortgage crisis — that being a low-wage worker even with a master’s degree — that it wasn’t something that I was doing wrong.
“There isn’t something inherently the matter with me. It is not a character flaw. It is not an accident, but it is a part of a larger system.”
Work can be way out of poverty for disabled
Ellis County resident Lou Ann Kibbee said society needs to give disabled citizens more incentives and support to work.
Ellis County resident Lou Ann Kibbee was disabled 42 years ago. She now works as an advocate for the disabled at the local, state and national levels. She is currently employed at the Skilled Resource Center.
For the first 16 years after her injury, Kibbee received a variety of assistance from government agencies, including Medicare, Medicaid, HUD and Social Security Disability.
“I learned early on that society did not expect me to become employed, because I have a disability” she said.
She was discouraged repeatedly from seeking employment, even by government workers who warned her she would lose her benefits if she got a job. Yet, her disability check was only $570 per month.
Her medical care was not equal to that of private insurance, and although most people on disability also receive food assistance, it is not enough to eat healthy, she said.
Yet, she compared leaving disability for a job to jumping out of a plane without a parachute.
“But I did go to work, because I knew that was my only possibility of getting out of poverty,” she said. “I knew that I needed a pretty good paying job to support myself and a college education to do that and compete with other applicants.”
Today, it takes Kibbee and her husband’s combined income to pay her extensive medical expenses. She pays $14,000 per year alone for attendant care services.
Not surprisingly, as of 2017 only 46 percent of disabled Kansans of working age were employed.
“We try to continue to educate people with disabilities about going to work, but there needs to be more incentives, so that they can afford to make that move,” Kibbee said. “Employers in communities need to be educated more about the capacity of people with disabilities to become employed in integrated competitive employment.”
Thousands of people with disabilities are in nursing homes or institutions waiting for in-home services, because in Kansas in-home services are optional.
“It should be a civil right for anyone with a disability to live in their homes and communities just like anyone else,” she said. “When we live in the community, we are able to earn and spend money, get educated, have families, pay taxes and contribute to our communities.”
Skyrocketing medical expenses
Laura Allen, whose son had to have a heart transplant, said the boy’s medication cost $10,000 for a single month.
Laura Allen, First Call for Help client services specialist, talked about her personal experiences struggling to pay for medication for her son. Allen is a single parent of three children. Two years ago, her son had to have a heart transplant because of a congenital heart defect.
After his last round of rejection, he came home on two kinds of insulin. The bill for less than one month of insulin was $6,500. His anti-rejection medication was another $4,000.
Vera Elwood, a FHSU master’s student, said she and parents planned from the time she was 12 years old and was diagnosed with diabetes to provide for her insulin when she graduated college. The fear was that she would be without health care until she could find a job.
When the Affordable Care Act passed, which allowed young adults to stay on their parents’ health insurance until they are 26, Vera’s whole family cried together. Today, Elwood is covered under her husband’s health insurance. However, she said affordable health care and insulin is still a matter of life or death for her.
“All of these changes that are coming up — getting rid of pre-existing conditions, getting rid of mandatory health care, not expanding Medicaid — these things have real, real impact on 12 year olds who are planning to not die when they graduate college,” Vera said.
Allen added doctors told her if her insurance would not cover the cost of her son’s anti-rejection medication, the doctors were unwilling to do the transplant.
“Because it was a wasted organ without the money and medications to go along with the transplant,” she said.
Working and uninsured
People gathered at the Hays Public Library Sunday to hear speakers from the Poor People’s Campaign.
Twenty-four-year old college student Heather Letourneau is an attendant care worker in Hays. She has no health insurance. It is not provided by her job regardless of the number of hours she works.
“From the outside looking in, it appears that I should have no trouble paying for health care because I make well above minimum wage. When I was working 40 hours a week, I was only getting $1,200 a month, which paid my bills. It did not pay for groceries or gas,” she said.
She noted she cut out all non-necessities and still struggles to pay her expenses.
Letourneau advocated for higher wages and Medicaid expansion to help her and other attendant care worker who do not have insurance.
Veteran against the war economy
Christopher Overfelt served in the Topeka Air National Guard for nine years as an aircraft mechanic and now advocates for a reform of U.S foreign policy and a reduction in military spending.
Christopher Overfelt served in the Topeka Air National Guard for nine years as an aircraft mechanic. During that time, he deployed to Iraq and Turkey.
Overfelt, who is member of Veterans for Peace in Kansas City, spoke about how the U.S. military policy harms poor people in the U.S. and around the world.
“In 2009, I deployed to Turkey and Qatar, and participated in the destruction of two sovereign nations — Iraq and Afghanistan. In Qatar I repaired and maintained the aircraft that refueled the bombers on their way to sew death and destruction in Iraq,” he said.
“Neither of these countries will likely recover from that devastation in my lifetime,” he said. “Nothing I can do will make up for the hundreds of thousands of Afghan and Iraqi men, women and children killed in these wars.”
He said he had no idea when he joined the military that the Department of Defense has never completed an internal audit of its spending despite it being mandated by law.
“It doesn’t know how much money it is spending and how it is spending it,” he said. “It is a black hole for money.”
A 2016 inspector general report indicated the Pentagon could not account for how it spent $6.5 trillion during the last two decades, Overfelt said.
The $600 billion the Pentagon receives does not include additional funding for classified operations by the CIA and NSA. However, Overfelt said insiders estimate this secret budget pushes military spending over $1 trillion per year — a third of the U.S. budget.
“It is no secret there is always enough money for a bigger military and more jails, but never enough for education and the poor,” he said. “Instead of this money going to health care and education for our citizens who so desperately need it, it goes to padding the pockets of weapons manufacturers on Wall Street.”
Overfelt said most of the military funding does not go to fight wars, but to secure American capital across the world.
“Around the world the State Department supports corrupt governments to ensure our access to their resources,” he said. “We take their resources and bring them into our country, and then we build walls to ensure they cannot come here and participate in the wealth we have taken from them.”
Overfelt offered a three-pronged approach to demilitarization including slashing the military budget and reinvesting in health care and other programs, ending the war on drugs, and stopping the war on immigrants.
“The war on immigrants has nothing to do about crime or safety,” he said, “but is purely about ensuring cheap laborers around the world cannot leave the systems they are trapped in. The money flows across international borders, but the workers can’t follow the money.”
Dr. Roger Marshall, R-Great Bend, is the First District Kansas Congressman.
Friends,
I have long said, in order to fix our broken health care system, we must focus on solutions that prioritize transparency, innovation, and consumerism.
This week I introduced H.R. 2183, The State Flexibility and Patient Choice Act of 2019, this legislation aims to give more power to states so that they have the freedom to develop programs and policies that will focus on cost and patient choice.
As a physician who helped run a hospital for many years, I saw first-hand the hassle that people went through to get the care they needed and the added stress that hospitals and doctors were under doing hours of paperwork for a single patient.
I believe that each state has unique needs and demands and shouldn’t be forced to fit a one-size-fits-all model. This bill lets Kansans make health care decisions for Kansans by eliminating arbitrary guard rails but still mandates that each state possess a plan that will not increase the federal deficit and provide coverage to the same number of citizens in order to get a waiver. This bill also Continues to protect those with pre-existing conditions.
My goal is to help get more people covered and drive down the cost for patients in the process.
ENOUGH!
So far this year I’ve done nearly 20 town halls. At every stop Kansans have told me, ENOUGH of this. Kansans have had it with the Mueller Investigation. I hear you message loud and clear- people are sick of the Russia-mania, Trump tax return pursuit, and all of the Mueller back and forth. I stand with you, I have had enough of it too.
We could accomplish way more if members would focus on actual solutions and solving real problems rather the fantasies. I am embarrassed at how little this Congress has achieved. This week I addressed the House floor to say -ENOUGH- to my colleagues, some I believe need a reminder that we are here to fix problems not create them.
Minister Xu
Talking Trade with China
On Wednesday, I had a productive meeting with Minister Xu of the Chinese embassy. We discussed the US-China relationship and recent progress made by the Trump Administration towards securing a trade deal.
Over the past two years I’ve supported the Trump administration’s efforts to solidify a free and reciprocal trade agreement with China. My conversation with Minister Xu was centered around the high quality beef, grain, and other agriculture exports that hard working Kansans produce every day. Minister Xu expressed her belief that our trade agreement can be a win-win deal for both countries, and to this I absolutely agree.
Looking ahead, I’m hopeful and optimistic that any long-term deal reached with China will include an increase in agriculture purchases. Free trade and access to foreign export markets are vital to our Kansas producers and manufacturers.
It has been made very clear to China that the days of the United States ignoring issues within our trade agreements are over. Congress and this Administration are working around the clock to address the shortcomings in our trade agreements and create better and more efficient deals so that our farmers and ranchers no longer get the short end of the stick.
Susan Schlichting and Jacob Schmeidler, Hays, (at left) pose with Congressman Marshall outside his capitol office. (Photo courtesy Susan Schlichting)
4-H Helping Our Young Leaders Since 1903
I had the great pleasure to sit down with Jacob Schmeidler from Hays, Erin Rose May from Oberlin, Rachel Yenni from Lindsborg, Adelaide Easter from Salina, and Camden Bull from Wichita. We were also joined by Susan Schlichting from Hays, Kansas, who volunteered to chaperone their trip to D.C. for the National 4-H Conference this week.
In our meeting, we talked about the 4-H program and the great work that 4-H does for our young men and women. 4-H was started in 1903 and now has nearly 75,000 members across the state of Kansas. Following our discussion, the 4-Hers joined our team for a night tour of the Capitol.
I was impressed; each of them shared with me their current studies, their goals, and how 4-H has helped them develop life skills and become influential leaders. From examining mental health to promoting entrepreneurship, and ways to end bullying each student presented forward-thinking solutions to improve their communities. This program does an incredible job of developing students leadership and professional skills.
I am excited to see you all succeed and follow your success, and thank you, Susan, for supporting our future leaders!
NASA Selects WSU Professor
In case you missed it, the first ever image of a black hole’s event horizon was released earlier this week. In the wake of this monumental achievement I want to take a moment to congratulate those who accomplished this achievement, and also talk about some of the great space-related work being done in Kansas.
As many of you know I am a member of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee, which has oversight of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Recently, NASA selected Nickolas Solomey of Wichita State University to receive funding for his project to develop a solar neutrino spacecraft detector. The project seeks to build a device that will be able to detect neutrinos in our Sun’s orbit, and eventually this technology will be included on a spaceflight probe. It’s a great opportunity for Wichita State, and this sort of innovation keeps America at the forefront of air and space technology. You can read more about his project here.
Kansas Beer Wholesalers Association
Ice Cold Delicious Beer
The Kansas Beer Wholesalers Association came through the office on Tuesday to give us an update on the work they’re doing not only in my district but across the state. With Congress moving closer toward an infrastructure package, we talked about the importance of road and bridge maintenance not only in their line of work, but also as we work to get other Kansas commodities to market. Our Kansas beer distributors help ensure that products make it from the manufacturer to the retailer, and ultimately (ice cold) into the hands of Royals or Chiefs fans across Kansas for enjoyment during a big game!
Updates from Kansas Housing Authority
Last fall I visited the Salina Housing Authority, there I met with Executive Director Tina Bartlett. Tina and I discussed challenges facing the housing authority and gave me a tour of a couple of their housing properties. It was great to get out and see how the housing authority operates and see firsthand some of the challenges they’re working to address.
Following up on our last visit they dropped by the office this week to give us an update. We had a great conversation about public housing, housing choice vouchers, and community development. Housing is an important part of community and economic development, especially in Kansas. Whether it’s thinking through how to attract new businesses or ways that small towns across my district can maintain safe, reliable and affordable housing is a key part of those conversations. I appreciate the hard work these various housing authorities and others like them are doing across the Big First.
Pharmacists Support Trump’s Plan to Eliminate Unfair Kickbacks
Kansans Pharmacists flew in this past week to discuss the Prescription Drug Price Transparency Act and the Trump Administration’s proposal to get rid of unfair kickbacks to PBMs that harm Medicare beneficiaries, the Medicare Trust, and pharmacists!
Across Kansas, there are 506 chain drug stores and 253 independent community pharmacists and 99 of those local pharmacies are across the Big First. The increase of DIR fees over the last several years has raised out-of-pocket costs for our seniors and put our pharmacies at financial risk, often operating in negative margins. Far too regularly pharmacy benefit managers or PBMs collect DIR fees from pharmacies months and months after the claim. It’s completely unpredictable and unfair… while the benefit all goes to the pocket of the PBM.
The National Community Pharmacist Association and Kansas Pharmacists Association are completely supportive of the Trump’s Administration proposal to stop this from happening. The Trump Administration plan guarantees predictability by standardizing the process and end the disparity between pharmacists, patients and PBMs. It is estimated the beneficiaries could save anywhere from $7 to $9 billion over the span of ten years. Additionally, the government could save $17 billion.
ALSO A HUGE SHOUT OUT TO fellow Kansan Brian Caswell, R.Ph., of Baxter Springs was elected to be the next President of the National Community Pharmacists Association!
Honoring a Fierce Nutrition Advocate and Friend
This week, The Global Child Nutrition Foundation awarded U.S. Congressman Jim McGovern the 2019 Gene White Lifetime Achievement Award for Child Nutrition. This award recognized Rep. McGovern extraordinary contributions in helping to end hunger and improve nutrition around the globe.
Congressman Jim McGovern
In particular, the foundation highlighted his work with Senator Bob Dole on the McGovern-Dole International Food for Education and Child Nutrition Program. The McGovern-Dole, introduced in 2002, supports education, child development and nutritious meals in low-income, food-deficit countries around the world.
Almost 20 years ago, McGovern and Dole called upon our farmers to help improve conditions in more than 20 low-income countries. Today farmers continue to answer their call to help children far and wide receive nutritious meals.
The program provides U.S. agricultural commodities and financial assistance to support, feed, and educate millions of children across the world. As a Physician and now a leader of the Food is Medicine Caucus in Congress, I have always been impressed by the great bipartisan forward-thinking solutions that McGovern has proposed to address hunger.
I was glad to attend the award ceremony this week, honoring my friend, Jim McGovern.
Dr. Roger Marshall, R-Great Bend, is the Kansas First District Congressman.
In this 21st century, bucolic means slow-moving bits. The put-put of rural internet in a streaming, downloading, real-time, zoom-zoom era is leaving businesses in remote parts of the state at a decided disadvantage.
Cattle sales offer a troubling example. Ranchers trying to offload their livestock online from parts of western Kansas report that auctions just don’t work when you can’t easily upload pictures and videos and the bidding get lost in buffers.
Crawling internet speeds in rural Kansas make trying to sell cattle online exasperating.
Instead of uploading photos and videos of cattle for sale from home, farmer and cattleman Jay Young drives to his parents’ house or into the town of Tribune in far west Kansas where internet speeds are faster.
Young has a broadband connection and says he’s able to create a cattle listing from home, but the slow internet brings on additional work.
“I just can’t post the videos to that listing,” he said. “So, what I’ll do is I’ll email them or I’ll go into town and, and put the photos on there.”
In Kansas, rural internet speeds and spotty mobile phone service generate barriers for business owners like Young, hamstringing their efforts to make a living in an increasingly online world.
A recent study by Amazon and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce analyzed how faster internet and better mobile phone reception could help small rural businesses across the country. In Kansas, slow internet and mobile phone services negatively impacts 66% of rural small businesses.
In April, the Kansas governor’s office released a preliminary broadband map showing the availability of fiber-optic networks, cable and DSL connections in the state. Faster internet speeds are concentrated around the bigger towns and cities, while smaller towns between more populated cities appear to have little or no broadband available.
Sometimes workarounds, like driving to a public Wi-Fi connection, offer an option for taking care of business online. But that can take time and, in some cases, cost business owners money.
Susan Ness and her husband recently went online in their west-central Kansas town of Jetmore to enter some water usage reports required by the state.
“It took us two nights,” she told the Statewide Broadband Expansion Planning Task Force, “to put in all the information.”
The alternative to filling out the information online, Ness said, was submitting a paper form that costs $250.
As online Kansas cattle sales attract more out-of-state buyers, pokey internet connections at auctions can affect how quickly bids are captured and delay the most updated bidding prices.
Steve Stratford is a cattle breeder at Stratford Angus in Pratt in southwest Kansas. He said that during his company’s annual production sale, when a few hundred cattle are on the block, people can bid in person or online.
But Stratford said the internet connection has been an issue the last three out of five years that online bidding has been an option.
“The (internet) capability at the sale barn couldn’t handle it,” he said. “The internet provider went down during a sale.”
Depending on the year, Stratford said he sells between 10 and 20 percent of his cattle online.
Jay Young and his father, Jerry Young, own and operate Young Red Angus. They raise cattle and sell around 100 head every year. Young said says most of his advertising is done online.
“I try to market them online to widen and broaden my buyers,” Jay Young said
Young also bids for cattle online, but he has to consider what his bidding options are ahead of time.
“If I know that there’s a sale going on, that I know I want to be able to bid online for, I will not be at my house,” he said. “I will make sure I go somewhere with better connections.”
If Young can’t attend a sale and can’t bid online, he’ll ask someone he knows at the sale to place a bid for him.
Depending on where he is, Young’s mobile phone connectivity can do what his internet connection can’t. But there are days that mobile phone signal is weak.
In Edgerton, a town just out outside of Kansas City, Melanie Gieringer has unreliable mobile phone reception.
Geiringer and her husband, Frank, own Gieringer’s Orchard, and have seasonal hours when visitors can pick and buy berries and peaches. Two years ago, they upgraded their dial-up internet to satellite, and now they have broadband. But Geringer says it could be faster.
“They work for a little bit and then you get dropped calls all the time,” she said.
That spotty mobile service prevented the Gieringers from using their phones as mobile checkout devices. Because of the faster internet connection, they can use iPads for the job.
Although a fiber optic connection eventually became an option for Gieringer, that isn’t the case for Young, who lives in Greeley County. With a little over 1,200, people, it’s the state’s least populated county.
Young said says because he lives about 20 miles outside of the nearest town, faster broadband is not available.
“It’s just the power of the signal that they have there at that point north and just can’t continue to go that far out,” he said.
Through our Kansas Matters initiative, one reader asked a question that relates to this story: “What is being done to bring better, faster internet service to rural areas? Even in Douglas County, my internet is extremely slow. I own a business and I’d like to work from home, but I can’t do that.”
Corinne Boyer is a reporter based in Garden City for High Plains Public Radio and the Kansas News Service, a collaboration of KCUR, Kansas Public Radio, KMUW and HPPR covering health, education and politics. Follow her @Corinne_Boyer.
Roger McEowen, Kansas Farm Bureau professor of law and taxation at the Washburn School of Law, talks to cattlemen Friday in Stockton.
Cattlemen affected by the bankruptcy of the Plainville Livestock Commission should receive most of their money back, but it could be months more before they see any of their money.
In early February, the Plainville Livestock Commission issued checks to more than 40 producers for sale of their cattle.
On Feb. 12, Almena Bank froze two of Plainville Livestock Commission’s bank accounts. When the bank froze the accounts, tens of thousands of dollars worth of checks owner Tyler Gillum had written to area ranchers who had recently sold cattle at the Plainville Livestock Commission bounced.
On March 1, the Plainville Livestock Commission filed for bankruptcy.
The Rooks-Phillips County Extension hosted Roger McEowen, Kansas Farm Bureau professor of law and taxation at the Washburn School of Law, Friday in Stockton to talk about the process of recovering funds for cattlemen after the bankruptcy of a livestock market agent.
The cattlemen’s money is protected under the Packers and Stockyards Act.
The market agency is supposed to hold funds from the sale of cattle in a custodial account until all the sellers are paid. Someone allegedly transferred the money in the custodial account into the Plainville Livestock Commission’s general operating account, according to court records.
At that time, the bank holding the funds, Almena Bank, froze the Livestock Commission’s accounts.
McEowen said in a bankruptcy filing the unpaid cattlemen’s claims take priority over other creditors in accordance with the Packers and Stockyards Act.
There are deadlines to file claims under the Packers and Stockyards Act. Cattlemen can bring a reparation proceeding within 90 days of the sale. They need to file the proceedings with Secretary of Agriculture through the Grain Inspection Packers and Stockyards Administration, which is within the USDA’s Ag Marketing Service. There are specific forms available through the GIPSA to file the action.
“This is a process that is going to take months,” he said.
GIPSA does not have enforcement authority. If GIPSA finds a cattleman is owed money, the cattleman has to have the payment enforced by federal court or a district court that has jurisdiction within a year.
“The point is, if you understand the process, you are going to understand how long this is going to take to shake out,” McEowen said. “The cattlemen will get paid, maybe not 100 percent of their claim. They will be paid something, but it is not going to be tonight. It is not going to be tomorrow or next week. It is going to take some time.”
The impact on the community is going to be great. For every dollar that the cattlemen are owed in this case, that equals $3 to $4 that is not available to be cycled through the local economy, he said.
In this case, it equals millions of dollars.
“We don’t want the cattlemen to fail. They are going to get paid. We want them to get back on their feet at some point in time,” McEowen said. “Probably the majority of the funds they are owed they will recover, but what is going to happen in the meantime?”
He encouraged the cattlemen to evaluate their own personal situation, for the cattlemen to work together and the community to support the cattlemen who have been affected.
“The domino effect on this is the potential really bad situation,” he said. “That needs to be avoided so we don’t have a whole community that really suffers because of this.”
The U.S. bankruptcy court in Wichita on Thursday, indicated the cattlemen do have a priority to funds being held by the bank. Judge Roger Nugent ordered the money that is being held at Almena Bank continue to be held there in a segregated account, but he said he needed more time to consider the case.
The bankruptcy case has been continued to 10:30 a.m. May 9.
In the meantime, attorney’s have broad subpoena power under the Packers and Stockyards Act to do a legal “fishing expedition.” The investigation of the finances of Plainville Livestock Commission could draw the case out, McOwen said.
Working to fill industry needs, NCK Tech is offering a scholarship program to help meet these demands. Currently there is space available in a limited number of programs on both the Beloit and Hays Campus.
The Career Success Scholarship is established to encourage students to apply early and ensure a spot in these programs, meanwhile helping meet the need of business and industry.
Offered only during the month of April, certain qualifications will be required. Students must complete a campus tour and the admissions process between April 1 and April 30, 2019.
This scholarship opportunity is only for new students applying during this time.
To qualify, applicants must participate in a campus tour and be accepted into one of the identified programs (listed below) for Fall 2019.
