Alumni from Leadership Hays classes are inviting other graduates to build upon the foundation of what they learned from the popular course by joining the Hays Area Konza Club.
Konza steering committee member Kris Fair said the new club plans to meet once a month.
“Our goal is to continue to learn the principles — or at least maintain — the principles you learn in Leadership Hays so you can go out in the real world and apply the lessons and be a better leader and teammate, ” Fair said.
Konza Club of Hays met for the first time last week. The next meeting is scheduled for March 11, and each get-together will focus on a different topic. Meetings might feature a movie that involves leadership skills or a speaker.
“As long at the content relates to leadership in some way,” Fair said. “We will discuss and maybe someone will have a good idea that can help them in a challenge they are facing at that time.”
Amanda Rohleder, also on the steering committee, said Konza Club will help Leadership Hays alumni maintain the skills they learned in the course such as energizing others and passing on leadership skills to others.
“You take the (Leadership Hays) course for a couple of months and then you don’t have a constant refresher,” she said. “Konza will help those of us who want a reminder and want to practice those skills as well as develop others. … It’s an opportunity to build on.”
Rohleder said alums from all Leadership Hays courses are invited to attend.
For more information, visit Hays Area Konza Club’s Facebook page.
LAWRENCE – A lively and timely discussion of water-related topics that affect Kansas, the Great Plains and the West is scheduled from 3 to 6 p.m. Friday at the Lied Center Pavilion at the University of Kansas.
“Water Issues in the West: Regional Perspectives on Interstate Law and Policy” is sponsored by the KU Water Research Planning Committee, a group of faculty and staff working to increase collaborative science and policy research on water. The program is free and open to the public, and an RSVP is requested by Wednesday by emailing [email protected].
Featured speakers will be Mike Hayden, former governor of Kansas and now executive director of the Missouri River Association of States and Tribes, and Burke Griggs, consulting professor for the Bill Lane Center for the American West at Stanford University.
“KU is in position to become nationally recognized in multidisciplinary research on the broad issues surrounding water,” said Jeffrey S. Vitter, provost and executive vice chancellor. “A workshop last fall identified more than 150 KU researchers with an interest and expertise in some facet of water. This spring, we continue to host a series of events designed to build a water research community at KU, which will benefit students at all levels and engage with both private and public partners.”
Brad Loveless, director of biology and conservation programs at Westar Energy and a member of the Kansas Water Authority, will serve as moderator for the program. A reception will follow.
The Hays Arts Council has issued a call for entries for the 45th annual Smoky Hill Art Exhibition.
The deadline for entries is March 7, and the juried exhibition will anchor the HAC’s 2014 spring art walk from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m. April 25.
A total of $2,500 in cash prizes will be awarded. The juror will be Sherry Leedy, director and curator of Sherry Leedy Contemporary Art in Kansas City. She holds an MFA degree from the University of Kansas and a BFA degree from the Kansas City Art Institute.
An entry form and complete rules is available HERE.
TOPEKA — A program that provided oral health care to kids in Head Start before being effectively terminated by KanCare is nearly set to resume, officials say.
Working as part of the Kansas Cavity-Free Kids program, dentist Joe Ferguson performs an on-site exam of a child’s teeth at Clay Center Head Start in 2008. Photo by KHI.
Before the launch of KanCare, Kansas Cavity Free Kids had for five years helped more than 7,000 children in 41 rural counties get regular cleanings, fluoride varnishes and sealants from dental hygienists in Head Start classrooms.
But the program was effectively shut down when day-to-day management of the state’s Medicaid program was turned over to three for-profit managed care companies on Jan. 1, 2013.
UnitedHealthcare, one of the three KanCare contractors, chose to not authorize payment for teeth cleanings performed at Head Start, a decision that effectively put the entire program on ice.
Timothy Spilker — president of United’s Kansas health plan — told KHI News Service that the company has been working for the last three months to resolve the problem and that work is nearly complete.
“We’ve revised all of our payment policies and the codes will be consistent with what was covered prior to KanCare,” Spilker said. “All of that should be effective here in the next week or two — mid-March at the absolute latest.”
Kathy Hunt, the Head Start official who coordinated Kansas Cavity Free Kids, said that it would then take some time to get the program back on its feet.
“Once the fix is in place, we’ll talk to the Head Start programs that were involved and they can work on rebuilding the system that they weren’t able to continue,” Hunt said. “It will take time. It’s been a year and the folks they had in place, of course, moved on to other things.”
Even so, Hunt said the glitch in the program may prove to be a good thing in the long run.
“Not only are they putting in this fix, but they want to work with the Head Start Association in other avenues, too, like helping promote oral health for pregnant women and finding other ways that we can help each other out,” Hunt said. “In the long run, I think this might have been good. It may be the start of a partnership that might not have come about otherwise.”
TOPEKA — Fossils of the Tylosaurus and Pteranodon soon could resurface as dignitaries in classrooms across Kansas.
A legislative committee approved House Bill 2595 to declare these ancient creatures, who resided millions of years ago in what later became Kansas, the official state marine and flying fossils.
“It may seem like insignificant legislation and not worthy of the time in a day where there are many pressing issues, but the kids of Kansas deserve this,” said Steven Fisher, an 11-year member of the Manning Jayhawkers 4-H Club in Scott County.
Fisher, who endorsed nomination of the Tylosaurus and Pteranodon, has distinction of finding a Tylosaurus vertebrae in chalk beds of Scott County.
Other supporters of the bill included representatives of the University of Kansas Natural History Museum and the Fort Hays State University Sternberg Museum of Natural History. The Kansas Department of Wildlife, Parks and Tourism supported concept of the bill.
Each of these entities had a sense designation of official state fossils could promote tourism in Kansas. The bill isn’t expected to create any additional cost to the state.
“State symbols represent the magnificence of the great state in which we live and show other what we have to offer,” said Christopher Tymeson, chief legal counsel for the Department of Wildlife, Parks and Tourism. “This bill is a step to increasing visitation and awareness of Kansas.”
Forty U.S. states and Washington, D.C., have officially recognized fossils. Both the Tylosaurus and the Pteranodon are almost exclusively Kansas fossils as they were first most abundantly discovered here.
Fossilized skeletons of both creatures reside at the KU’s Natural History Museum and the FHSU’s Sternberg Museum of Natural History, as well as across the nation and globe.
“Here we get to see the actual skeletal remains,” said Rep. Tom Sloan, a Lawrence Republican and chairman of the House Vision 2020 Committee. “That makes it more of an attraction.”
“There are fossils in Harvard, Yale, England and other places that came from here,” Sloan said. “It’s where the best specimens are at. It will make people like paleontologists, archeologists and lovers of old stuff to come to Kansas to vacation.”
Other state symbols established in Kansas law include the Barred Tiger Salamander, state amphibian; Western Meadowlark, state bird; bluegill, state fish; Western Honey Bee, state insect; Plains Cottonwood, state tree; Ornate Box Turtle, state reptile; and American Bison, state mammal.
Fisher, the high school student, said creation of state fossils could teach children more about creatures of the past than what can be observed watching the movie “Jurassic Park.”
“As a 4-H geology project member and leader, I have had the opportunity to learn and teach other 4-Hers about the ancient seas and their inhabitants, but what about kids who aren’t in 4-H geology?” he said. “Only by the passage of this bill will many kids ever know who Kansas’ earliest inhabitants were or that they are sitting in the middle of an ancient ocean.”
Phillipsburg resident Frederick Lagergren passed away at his home on Saturday, Feb. 15, 2014, at the age of 95.
He was born Sept. 28, 1918 in Randall, KS, the son of William & Mary (Wellman) Lagergren. He worked for the USDA Soil Conservation Service for 35 years.
His wives, Beulah and Josephine, and a granddaughter, Amanda Munoz, preceded him in death.
Survivors include his son, Ralph, of Wichita; daughters, Joan Bowman of Phillipsburg and Nancy Greuter of Wharton, NJ; six grandchildren, five great-grandchildren, and a sister, Rosella Damon of Mankato.
Funeral services will be held Wed., Feb. 19, at 10:30 a.m. in the Presbyterian Church, Phillipsburg, with Pastor Chris Davis officiating. A graveside service will follow at 2:00 p.m. in the Mt. Hope Cemetery, Mankato, KS, with military honors by the U.S. Coast Guard.
Visitation will be today from 5 – 9 p.m. and Tuesday from 9 a.m. – 9 p.m. at the Olliff-Boeve Memorial Chapel, Phillipsburg, with the family receiving friends Tues. evening from 7-8 p.m.
Memorial contributions may be given to the Westview Homes “bench fund,” the ALS Association, or Cystic Fibrosis Foundation.
Olliff-Boeve Memorial Chapel, Phillipsburg, is in charge of arrangements.
TOPEKA — Kansas Department for Children and Families Secretary Phyllis Gilmore on Thursday defended her agency against criticism that it is holding back federal grant dollars that could be used to help needy families.
Kansas Department for Children and Families Secretary Phyllis Gilmore
“I think saving for a rainy day is the prudent thing to do, but to me this looks and feels like a significant amount of money sitting on the sidelines, money that we could be using to address some critical needs,” said Rep. Melissa Rooker, a Fairway Republican, who said she was troubled by the idea of mothers of months-old infants going without quality childcare while one of the state’s lead welfare agencies held $48 million in reserve.
But Gilmore said the unspent money from the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families fund was good to have.
“It would be less than prudent for there not to be some carryover,” Gilmore said, testifying before the House Committee on Children and Seniors.
The fund currently has about $48 million in it.
More poor children, fewer benefits
Gilmore said she knew of no formula for calculating how much should be left unspent at the end of the fiscal year, but records showed that previous administrations typically ended up with between $30 million and $40 million a year in carrier over balances.
She said the agency was open to discussing how much should be left unspent in the coming fiscal year.
Gov. Sam Brownback has proposed – and legislators are considering – using some of the money to pay for after-school reading programs in southeast and southwest Kansas. The governor’s Reading Roadmap initiative is expected to cost about $9 million a year for three years.
But advocates for children and the poor have criticized DCF for holding the TANF money while the number of Kansas children living in poverty is increasing.
“No one is against there being a balance from one year to the next,” said Karen Wulfkuhle, executive director of United Community Services of Johnson County, in a later interview. “It just seems like there’s an opportunity here to invest some of these dollars in evidence-based programs that truly make a positive difference in people’s lives. But we don’t see much of that happening.”
Last year, the advocacy group Kansas Action for Children, released a report showing that the number of Kansas children living in poverty had increased from 21 percent in 2011 to 23 percent in 2012.
The increase, according to the report, coincided with DCF enacting policies that led to thousands of families being dropped from the state’s TANF rolls.
“What this means is that we have more people living in poverty but receiving fewer benefits,” said Christie Appelhanz, vice president for public affairs at KAC.
A bridge, not a garage
Gilmore did not dispute the statistics, but told committee members that DCF is committed to encouraging low-income parents to find jobs so they can work their way out of poverty.
The TANF program, she said, was meant to be a “bridge” out of poverty, not a “garage.”
Gilmore said DCF now expects mothers receiving TANF-funded public assistance to rejoin the workforce two months after giving birth. Previously, the policy allowed mothers to be at home for six months after a delivery.
“We felt that six months was more than any working person receives,” Gilmore said.
The policy change took effect in May 2013.
The agency has not kept track of how families affected by the policy change have fared as a result of it, Gilmore said.
But she said neither she nor Karen Beckerman, DCF’s director of strengthening families services, had received telephone calls from TANF mothers reporting difficulties.
“That’s not a surprise,” said Leadell Ediger, in a later telephone interview. “If you talked to these moms, they’d say, ‘What’s the use? There’s no one at DCF who’s going to help me.’ And that assumes that when they call DCF, they could actually talk to somebody.”
Ediger is executive director of Child Care Aware of Kansas, a nonprofit agency based in Salina that works to improve the quality of child care programs.
TANF money is still available for the mothers to help them pay for child care so they can work, but Ediger said it can be difficult for mothers to find quality care for children younger than six months old, especially if the mothers are working evening or night shifts for low wages. Many child-care providers limit the number of TANF-financed children they will take because what the state pays is half or less the going market rate, she said.
Foster care update
Gilmore also updated the committee on the state’s foster care programs, noting that the number of children in the system “was not declining.”
In December, 5,912 foster children were in out-of-home placements, the most in state history.
Also in December, 1,010 foster children were available for adoption; also a record number.
Gilmore said DCF was having trouble hiring child protection workers in sparsely populated western Kansas.
The hiring effort also has been hampered by low salaries and what she called an image problem.
“It’s a myth that we’re not hiring social workers,” she said. “That’s not true.”
Representatives from Thomas More Prep-Marian High School have expressed their dissatisfaction with the turnaround built on Victory Road, said Superintendent Dean Katt at Tuesdays’ USD 489’s work session Tuesday.
Katt said the complaint comes from motorists who have noticed the turnaround does not have a big enough radius for large vehicles.
“A car can turn, a minivan is … questionable, and an SUV, none of those vehicles can turn,” said Katt.
Instead, Katt said, the drivers of the vehicles must make a three-point turn in order to exit the turnaround and drive back onto to Victory Road.
Katt said he has “started the conversation” with TMP and will be working through the redesign and see what can be done to make the turnaround functional for larger vehicles.
The turnaround was built by USD 489 as a temporary solution to joint use of Victory Road by TMP and O’Loughlin Elementary School.
Victory Road is owned by Capuchin Province of Mid-America and is used by hundreds of parents each day to drop off and pick up students at O’Loughlin.
TMP spokesman Jeff Brull said Thursday that he has not heard complaints about the turnaround from anyone at TMP.
“None whatsoever,” he said. “We have made a lot of changes so O’Loughlin could use the road during drop-off and pickup times exclusively.”
Brull said he has been happy with the cooperation between TMP and USD 489.
“In past years, I know there were some disagreements,” he said, but said now he considers the “cooperation to be phenomenal.”
“It is wonderful to see level headed people doing what is best for the kids,” he said, specifically pointing out USD 489’s help in allowing TMP basketball games to be played at Hays High School.
A problem arose last summer when administrators said the road was in need of repairs, leading to a closure of the road to USD 489 traffic. Administrators from TMP and USD 489 then began working on a long-term solution for road repairs.
The cement for the turnaround was poured a few weeks ago, and other repairs to the road are planned for the future.
According to district spokeswoman Elizabeth Jaeger, the district spent $9,470 on the turnaround.
Former Prairie View resident Goldie Barker, Hays, passed away Tuesday, Feb. 4, 2014, at Via Christi Village, Hays, at the age of 98.
She was born Feb. 10, 1915, in Prairie View to William Van Diest and Dora (Harbers) Van Diest. Her husband, Clarence Barker, preceded her in death.
She is survived by her sons, Bill of Hays, Steve of Kearney, Neb., and Dave of Ottawa; her sister, Wilma Holmes, of Columbia, Mo.; three grandchildren, one great-grandchild, five step-grandchildren and 12 step-great-grandchildren.
Funeral services will be held Saturday, Feb. 8, at 10:30 a.m. in the Prairie View Reformed Church, Prairie View. Burial will follow in the Prairie View Cemetery.
Visitation will be Friday from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. at the Olliff-Boeve Memorial Chapel in Phillipsburg.
Memorial contributions may be given to the Prairie View Reformed Church, Prairie View Senior Center or the Prairie View Library. Online condolences may be sent to www.olliffboeve.com.
Olliff-Boeve Memorial Chapel, Phillipsburg, is in charge of arrangements.
PITTSBURGH, Pa. — The family of a Natoma woman is suing UPMC Presbyterian and two other medical staffing companies because, the family claims, they failed to notify law enforcement or health authorities when they found an employee stealing narcotics and injecting himself with them.
Eleanor Y. Murphy, 89, Natoma, died at Hays Medical Center on Nov. 6, 2012, according to the complaint, which said she contracted hepatitis C after being treated by David Kwiatkowski, who worked at HaysMed when she was hospitalized there in June and July 2010.
According to the complaint, a UPMC employee saw Kwiatkowski in May 2008 enter an operating room at UPMC and hide a syringe in his pants. The hospital discovered a short time later that fentanyl, a painkiller, was missing. When Kwiatkowski was confronted, hospital personnel found three empty fentanyl syringes on him.
Kwiatkowski no longer was allowed to work at the hospital, the lawsuit said, but UPMC took no action to report Kwiatkowski’s behavior to law enforcement or medical licensing facilities.
Because of that, the complaint continued, he was permitted to continue working at a number of hospitals across the country for four more years.
The lawsuit, which includes claims for negligence and seeks punitive damages, also names as defendants Maxim Healthcare Services Inc. and Medical Solutions LLC, which placed employees in health care jobs.
Kwiatkowski pleaded guilty in August in New Hampshire to 16 federal counts and was sentenced to 39 years in prison. Prosecutors said he was responsible for infecting at least 45 hospital patients with hepatitis C by contaminating their syringes.
Shae Veach, HaysMed vice president of regional operations and marketing, said Tuesday he wasn’t aware of the lawsuit, and said the hospital’s focus during the two-year ordeal has been patient education.
“We haven’t had any patients come in and be tested for a number of months,” he said. “Our focus has been and continues to be on our patients and the community of western Kansas. … Delivering a high quality of care, a great deal of education and seeking the right level of understanding” when it comes to hepatitis C.
The Kansas Department of Health and Environment played the lead role in testing hundreds of patients who were possibly in contact with Kwiatkowski during his time in Hays. KDHE spokeswoman Miranda Steele said the department considers the incident “at this point, an investigation that is complete.”
D. Charles Hunt, Kansas state epidemiologist, told Hays Post that 396 HaysMed patients were tested after the Kwiatkowski case became public in early July 2012. By October 2012, nearly all patients potentially affected had been tested.
Six patients were found to be genetically linked to the strain Kwiatkowski carried. Hunt said he could not comment on patient outcomes.
Information reprinted with permission from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Hays Post contributed to this story.
It’s National Catholic Schools Appreciation Week and, according to Thomas More Prep-Marian Principal Kathy Taylor, the week will be a busy one for Catholic schools in Ellis County.
For the first time the week has a national theme — “Catholic Schools: Communities of Faith, Knowledge and Service.” Each day of the week will honor that theme. For instance, Monday’s theme, “Appreciating our Local Community,” is about service to the community.
According to the National Catholic Educational Association’s website, having a national theme for the week is a new initiative.
“The 2014 theme was developed in response to member requests for a theme and logo that would last more than a year, the new theme will be used for at least three years,” the organization said.
Taylor said the week culminates with an all-county Catholic school Mass at 10 a.m. Friday at Immaculate Heart of Mary. Students from TMP, Holy Family Elementary and St. Mary’s School in Ellis will attend the Mass presided by Bishop Edward Weisenberger.
Taylor said Mass is usually the students favorite part of the week.
“It is just amazing to see the church just packed to the limit,” she said.
The Hays Police Department will conduct training from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Jan. 30. A portion of the training will be in the 400 block of East Sixth.
Police officers will be training with special tactical equipment. The HPD said in a news release the realistic training is being done with great care and safety.
Residents might see law enforcement officers move through the area, and the HPD said there is no need to be alarmed, and there is no danger to the community.
Anyone with questions or concerns can contact the on-site supervisor (designated by a reflective green vest) or Chief Don Scheibler at (785) 625-1030.
By KARI BLURTON
