The Kansas Supreme Court has ruled that exotic dancers are eligible for unemployment insurance.

The court’s ruling Friday affirmed a Shawnee County District Court decision in a case that stemmed from a 2005 unemployment claim filed by a Club Orleans dancer.

The Topeka Capital-Journal reports that the Topeka club’s owner, Milano’s Inc., had argued that dancers are independent contractors. The argument was the dancers make their income off tips as opposed to being paid by the club.

Court papers showed Milano’s stopped paying its dancers a nominal weekly wage shortly after buying Club Orleans in 2002.

But the court found the club exercised control over the dancers that constituted an employer-employee relationship. Those controls included rules regarding contact between dancers and customers and fines for violations of those rules.

Kansas First Lady Mary Brownback announced Friday the start of the Kansas Book Festival Writing Contest. The contest runs through April 30, 2013.

Winners will be contacted by July 31 and announced at the 2013 Kansas Book Festival on September 7 at the Kansas State Capitol. Payless ShoeSource is sponsoring the writing contest for the second year.

The contest is open to students in grades 3-12 in the state of Kansas.

The theme for this year’s contest is “Kansas Isn’t Flat, It’s…”.

The theme asks students to use their creative minds to set straight the common myth about Kansas.

For more information about this contest or the Kansas Book Festival, visit kansasbookfestival.com

The Kansas Historical Society announced that 300,000 images of its collections are now uploaded to Kansas Memory, the Historical Society’s online archives of photographs, letters, government records, and objects.

Image number 300,000 is a letter dated February 19, 1915, from Arthur Abram Hughart, superintendent of the Coffeyville school district, to Pittsburg newspaper editor Frederick W. Brinkerhoff.

In the letter, Hughart thanks Brinkerhoff for his support and hospitality when he visited Pittsburg. He mentions William A. Brandenburg, the longest serving president of Pittsburg State University.

Kansas Memory, at kansasmemory.org, is the largest online collection of primary sources documenting Kansas history. Visitors can explore photographs, letters, diaries, government records, maps, artifacts, and other historic items.

The Kansas Historical Society is a state agency that operates the Kansas Museum of History, State Archives, Kansas State Capitol Tour Center, and 16 state historic sites across Kansas.

An historic Pittsburg theater will hold its first public event in nearly 30 years in April.

The 90-year-old Colonial Fox Theatre will be the site of a live antique auction on April 27.

People who are working to restore the theater say they hope the auction is the first of a wide range of events at the theater.

The Joplin Globe reports the theater was one of several buildings that anchored Pittsburg’s downtown entertainment and nightlife district in the past.

But it closed to the public in 1985 and fell into disrepair.

A group of volunteers began working to restore the theater in 2006, and by 2008 it was placed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Kansans set a one-month record in January for the number of new concealed-carry handgun permit applications, the Attorney General’s office announced Friday.

“It’s a good problem to have,” says USD 388 Superintendent Bob Young.  Ellis is one of the few northwest Kansas communities that is growing, and it’s putting a strain on the school system.

“Enrollment at the grade school is up 15% to 20% the past three years,” he says, “and the ‘new’ high school building is 35 years old.”

A community committee of 30 Ellis residents began looking at the school district’s needs about a year ago.  In December school board members approved putting a $10 million bond issue to the voters.

A special election will be held June 4.

If voters approve the $10 million bond, the money will pay off HVAC improvements made four years ago, and also be used for renovations and new construction. At the top of the list are the sports facilities on the west side of town and a proposed addition to the Ellis High School.  Junior high students would then be moved to the high school, opening up more room at the grade school for the expanding student enrollment.

See more on Eagle Local News and the Eagle Community TV Forum.

Influenza continues to be a widespread problem across the state of Kansas.

State officials are urging Kansans to take precautions to avoid getting and spreading the flu.

The message is especially important for older adults who are at greater risk of suffering potentially life-threatening complications associated with the flu.

Secretaries for both the Kansas Department for Health and Environment and the Kansas Department for Aging and Disability Services encourage older adults to get the influenza vaccine, if they haven’t already, and seek treatment when they experience early signs of flu.

Currently, 5% of Kansans are showing flu-like symptoms, according to KDHE.

“Flu season has arrived earlier and impacted more people than in recent years,” KDADS Sec. Shawn Sullivan said.

In Kansas, so far this flu season (from October 2012-current), approximately 640 people have died because of flu and/or pneumonia-related complications.

Some vaccine providers may have exhausted their vaccine supplies, while others may have remaining supplies of vaccine.  For a list of providers still reporting supplies in your area, visit https://flushot.healthmap.org/

“Nobody but God could put us together like that.”

That’s the belief of two men, Gil Alexander, a kidney transplant recipient who lives in Nicodemus, and his donor, who lives a thousand miles away.

Rob Robinson of Eupona, Mississippi, is a turkey hunter and has been hunting for several years on Alexander’s farm land north of town.

“I’ve had kidney disease for about 20 years,” says Alexander.  “I had to go on dialysis about a year and a half ago.  It’s pretty restrictive.”

Robinson has a friend who lives in Olathe and had been hunting on Alexander’s property for about 40 years.

“I came out from Mississippi to western Kansas with him that first year,” says Robinson, “and Gil and I have become good friends.  I know what it’s like to be on a farm, working on equipment.  Gil was stuck on that machine every day and I just wanted to help him out.”

So, Robinson signed up for the kidney donor program at K-U Medical Center.

“Next thing I hear, Rob’s a match and agrees to be a kidney donor for me,” says Alexander.  “He was worried about me,” laughs Robinson.  “Gil came to see me in my hospital bed before I could even get out of it.”

Gil Alexander’s kidney transplant was November 26 in Kansas City.  He and his donor, Rob Robinson, were together again just 10 days later, December 8, at the Nicodemus Holiday Open House.

Both men say the transplant experience has strengthened their spirituality and their friendship.

A bill that seeks to regulate strip clubs and other adult businesses in Kansas has resurfaced in the Kansas House.

The measure would regulate where adult businesses can be located, and ban lap dances and dancing onstage in various levels of undress.

A hearing on the measure is planned for Feb. 14 in the House Federal and State Affairs Committee.

But Rep. Arlen Siegfreid, an Olathe Republican, says he’s unsure how eager lawmakers will be to vote on it and it’s unclear if the committee will work on the bill this year.

When the bill was considered in Kansas in 2010 and 2011, it passed the House but died in the Senate.