Barton County Commissioners will hold a special meeting on Monday, March 5 to determine whether the county will continue to require the owners of animals in county to have those animals vaccinated for rabies every year.
According to County Operations Director Phil Hathcock, a push to change the ordinance to every three years began a couple of months ago.
Phil Hathcock Audio
Commissioners want to hear once again from the public, local veterinarians, officials from KDHE and the general public before making any decisions on whether to change the current ordinance.
Phil Hathcock Audio
According to the Kansas State Veterinary Health Center website, puppies and kittens receive their core vaccines starting around 6-8 weeks of age and are boostered every 2-4 weeks until around 16-20 weeks of age. They are boostered again one year later and every 3 years thereafter.
DICKINSON COUNTY — Law enforcement authorities are investigating a shooting.
Dickinson County Sheriff Gareth Hoffman confirms his Department is investigating a Wednesday evening shooting from a motor vehicle into another motor vehicle. No one was injured.
Just before 9p.m. Wednesday, a vehicle northbound in the 3300 Block of Rain Road at a high rate of speed came up behind another vehicle and the moved into the passing lane, according to Dickinson County Sheriff Gareth Hoffman.
The vehicle traveled in the passing lane next to the other vehicle and then someone fired a single shotgun round through the driver’s side rear window of the slower car.
Hoffman said the victim was a western Geary County resident who was traveling through Dickinson County at the time of the incident. No motive is known at this time.
Newly installed Kansas Gov. Jeff Colyer described his state Wednesday as vibrant but with trouble spots, telling lawmakers he plans to charge ahead at its problems.
Colyer promised to reform the state’s struggling foster care system, improve its privatized Medicaid program, open government activities into clearer public view and help more Kansans find jobs.
Kansas Gov. Jeff Colyer delivers his State of the State speech in the Kansas House on Wednesday. He promised to find a long-term solution to the state’s school funding problems, but was vague about what he’d agree to with lawmakers. CELIA LLOPIS-JEPSEN / KANSAS NEWS SERVICE
The speech was effectively a State of the State speech by a former two-term lieutenant governor now one week into higher office and trying to distinguish himself from his unpopular running mate, former Gov. Sam Brownback. Brownback delivered a formal State of the State address last month.
Yet Colyer gave few specifics on the looming issue vexing legislators: how to find hundreds of millions of dollars potentially needed to bring the state in compliance with a court order to shore up its funding for local school districts.
“We must keep our schools open,” he said. Like Brownback, he called for doing so without a tax hike.
But Colyer didn’t repeat the proposed $600 million funding increase that featured in the former governor’s speech — and that drew a swift backlash from lawmakers who felt it was unattainable. Instead, he called for gradual increase.
Senate Majority Leader Jim Denning saw that as a signal Colyer is backing off of that number and letting lawmakers figure out what’s possible.
“That gives us all the assurance in the world that he trusts our work,” Denning said.
Colyer also said he wants lawmakers this year to bring him “a definitive solution that ends the school finance lawsuits for good.”
Some Republicans want to amend the state constitution to prevent courts from weighing in anymore on school funding. Colyer didn’t clarify whether that’s what he wanted.
Democratic Rep. Valdenia Winn said Colyer’s comments concerned her because the judiciary is part of Kansas’ system of checks and balances.
“He has a positive tone,” she said. “But tone is one thing — and equal opportunity before the law is another.”
Colyer has repeatedly promised to “change the tone in Topeka.” That theme featured in Wednesday’s speech, where he noted that in his first week in office, he met with Democratic leaders, signed an executive order requiring thousands of state workers to undergo annual training on preventing sexual harassment, and promised to push for government transparency.
“It’s time for the executive branch to do its part,” he said.
Colyer said he would cut costs for people who seek open records, improve online access to schedules and materials for public meetings, and push officials to use government instead of private email accounts.
On the state’s foster care system, which is struggling to offer refuge for children from troubled families, he pledged to hire more child welfare workers and investigators and add emergency placement options.
He promised to fight sexual harassment and investigate and handle allegations promptly and appropriately.
“Harassment in any form, at any time, in any place,” he said, “will not be tolerated in my administration.”
A recent Kansas Human Rights Commission investigation found a state contractor likely fired a woman as retaliation for her reporting a high-ranking Brownback administration official’s habitual sexual harassment.
Lawmakers stood to applaud Gov. Jeff Colyer when he described Kansas as a pro-life state. CREDIT CELIA LLOPIS-JEPSEN / KANSAS NEWS SERVICE
He vowed to continue Brownback’s efforts to curtail abortion and questioned court decisions that protect a women’s right to end a pregnancy.
Any argument that state and federal constitutions include a right to abortion “is violence against basic facts,” he said. “We are a pro-life state.”
Colyer cited the state’s low jobless rate, less than 4 percent, but said too many jobs go unfilled.
He promised to launch a “My (Re) Employment” program to help job hunters polish their resumes and find high-demand fields, and to continue investing in career and technical education.
Colyer inherited a tough budget situation.
One Kansas administration after the next has underfunded the state’s pension system and diverted funds from highway infrastructure. And state revenue woes in recent years — widely blamed on Brownback’s signature 2012 tax cuts — cut into higher education and other government functions.
Colyer called for ending the the practice of borrowing from the state’s highway fund to pay for other state government services.
On the day of his speech, the Kansas Department of Commerce announced a dealthat would bring the headquarters of hospital chain HCA Midwest Health to Overland Park from Kansas City, Mo. The state said it wasn’t making the government incentives in the deal public because the contract hadn’t been finalized.
Colyer, who works for an HCA hospital as a physician, said he was not involved in putting together the package.
“I was unaware of it,” he said. “I became aware of it when I became governor.”
Celia Llopis-Jepsen is a reporter for the Kansas News Service, You can reach her on Twitter @Celia_LJ.
RILEY COUNTY — Law enforcement authorities are investigating two men from Alabama on drug allegations.
Just before 6p.m. Wednesday, police arrested Stephon Hussey, 33, of Huntsville, Alabama and Virgil Koppenheffer Jr., 37, of Moulton, Alabama in the 1000 block of El Paso Lane in Manhattan
Hussey is being held on a $7,000 Bond for alleged possession of methamphetamine, possession of drug paraphernalia and possession of marijuana. Koppenheffer Jr. is being held on a $6,000 Bond for alleged of possession of methamphetamine and possession of drug paraphernalia.
In March of 2017, Koppenheffer was the driver of a vehicle involved in a fatal crash in Wabaunsee County.
The Kansas Highway Patrol reported a 2013 Toyota Prius driven by Madison C. Connally, 23, Ellsworth, was eastbound on Interstate 70 two miles east of Paxico.
The vehicle hit a 1999 Chevy Cavalier driven by Koppenheffer that had run out of fuel and was stopped partially in the left lane of the Interstate with one occupant outside attempting to push the vehicle out of the roadway.
A passenger in the Chevy Tammy J. Patterson, 41, Junction City, was pronounced dead at the scene.
Connally, Koppenheffer, a passenger in the Chevy Keturah P. Anderson, 32, Moulton, AL, and Michael W. Smothers, 40, Junction City, a passenger in the Chevy but outside attempting to push it out of the roadway were transported to Stormont Vail in Topeka.
Martha Stephens – Schriock, 99, died February 6, 2018, at Leisure Homestead, St. John, Kansas. She was born September 22, 1918, on the family farm, in Bazine, Kansas, the daughter of John and Kathrine (Helmuth) Feck.
On May 20, 1945, she married Sgt. Courtland Harris Stephens, in Alexander, Kansas. He preceded her in death on December 18, 1975. She then married Leland Schriock on August 6, 1983, in Hoisington, Kansas, he preceded her in death on October 6, 1986.
A resident of Hoisington since 1958, coming from Duncan, Oklahoma, she was a longtime member of First United Methodist Church, a member of the V.F.W Auxiliary #7428 and the Heritage Club, all of Hoisington.
Martha had a love for cooking, and had worked in many restaurants, all the way up until the age of 85.
Survivors include; four children, Courtney Fulton of Topeka, Mary Bieberle of St. John, Steven Stephens and wife Debbie of Hoisington, and Dana Nelson and husband Doug of St. George; many nieces and nephews; and 12 grandchildren, 14 great grandchildren, and one great great grandchild.
She was preceded in death by both husbands, three sisters, Lydia Foos, Florence Strecker, and Alvina Bahm, sons-in-law, Ronald J. Fulton and Keith Bieberle, and 10 half siblings.
Funeral service will be 10 a.m., Monday, February 12, 2018, at First United Methodist Church, Hoisington, with Reverend Dr. Reuben Lang ‘at presiding. Burial will follow in Hoisington Cemetery. Friends may call 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday and Saturday, and 1 p.m. to 6 p.m. Sunday, with family to receive friends from 2 to 4 p.m., at the funeral home.
Memorials may be made to Leisure Homestead in care of Nicholson-Ricke Funeral Home, PO Box 146, Hoisington, KS 67544.
The Great Bend Recreation Commission has a few openings left for its Babysitting 101 Training set for Thursday, February 15, from 1:00 – 5:00 p.m. at the Great Bend Recreation Center located at 1214 Stone St.
This course gives participants the knowledge, skills and confidence to care for toddlers through school aged children. Topics include safety issues, preventing injuries and illness, basic child care and age appropriate activities to do with children. Each student will receive a wealth of information.
Pre-registrations required by Friday, February 9. The entry fee is $10. Children must be 11 by the class date. The instructor for this class is Berny Unruh, Cottonwood Extension District, 4-H & Youth Development Agent.
To register, stop by the Recreation Commission office at 1214 Stone St. For more information, call the Recreation Commission office at 793-3755 ext. 2 or e-mail us at recreation@gbrec.net.
There is no denying that there is a lot of illness going around.
“We are monitoring the level of sickness in the schools and are doing everything we can to control it,” said Khris Thexton, USD 428 superintendent.
He said custodians have stepped up cleaning and disinfecting classrooms, which has likely helped keep a relatively low absence rate of 13 percent.
In order to keep those numbers as low as possible, he reminds parents to keep their children home until they are fever free for 24 hours without the use of fever-reducing medication. If an antibiotic is prescribed, the child may return to school once they have been on the medication for 24 hours. Additionally, if a child is diagnosed with influenza, he or she is required to remain home from school for five days after diagnosis. Once five days has passed and the student has been fever free for 24 hours, he or she may return to school.
Custodians are continuing to use an electrostatic sprayer to use school wide or in specific classrooms that uses a hospital-grade disinfectant. The equipment was purchased last year.
“We are doing everything we can to keep students and staff healthy and in school,” Thexton said. “This is one more tool we can give our custodians to reduce the transmission of illness.”
The manufacturers of the equipment claim that the spray is effective on a broad spectrum of viruses and bacteria including MRSA and H1N1. The disinfectant used breaks down to simple salt and
produces no harmful by-products. It also claims that it provides 99.999 percent sanitation on food-contact surfaces with no rinse required.
“The sprayer is easy to use,” said Dirk Davis, custodians and maintenance director. “It only takes about five minutes to clean a classroom or three hours to do a whole school.”
Electrostatic disinfection adds an electric charge inside the liquid droplets as they are sprayed. This makes the droplet electrically stronger and allows it to envelop the area being sprayed to more
effectively kill germs.
“There is no hazard to human health and the information provided says it works on broad spectrum of illnesses,” he said.
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Barton County Commissioners will hold a special meeting on Monday, March 5 to determine whether the county will continue to require the owners of animals in county to have those animals vaccinated for rabies every year.
Dateline: Hoisington, Kansas
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