When asked what issues are heavily faced in communities the size of Great Bend, Republican Kansas Governor hopeful Ken Selzer feels state property tax rates should not be raised. Stopping in Great Bend last week while continuing his campaign, Selzer noted there is no reason state government should increase property taxes considering the economy at the current moment.
Ken Selzer Audio
Ken Selzer grew up in Goessel, Kansas, received his degree in accounting from Kansas State University, and started working as a Certified Public Accountant in Kansas City afterwards. As a businessman with over 30 years of experience and the current Kansas Insurance Commissioner, Selzer is leaning heavily on his business background as he campaigns to become the next Kansas Governor in this year’s election.
Touching on the ongoing school financing issue in Kansas, Selzer would like to see more accountability from schools to make sure funding is getting spent wisely.
Ken Selzer Audio
Selzer is included in a large list of Republican candidates for the 2018 election that includes: current Governor Jeff Colyer, Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, and former Senator Jim Barnett.
The last three years, the Hoisington EMS crew has held an open house. Hoisington EMS Director Scott Fleming says another open house is scheduled for Thursday, May 24 from 5 to 8 p.m. to celebrate National EMS Week.
Fleming says the event will give citizens a chance to meet the EMS providers and law enforcement and receive tours.
Scott Fleming Audio
The family is invited for hamburgers and hot dogs while supplies last and free baseline vital sign screenings.
Hoisington EMS is one of three volunteer EMS staffs in Barton County along with Ellinwood and Claflin.
Scott Fleming Audio
The open house will be held at the EMS Barn located at 202 East Broadway.
The Great Bend Recreation Commission will be hosting a one-day STEM Fundamentals With LEGO® Workshop that will give children a chance to explore engineering principles using LEGO®. This camp is open to children ages 6 – 12 years old and will be held on Saturday, June 2nd, from 10:00 am to 1:00 pm at the Great Bend Recreation Commission in the Burnside Room located at 1214 Stone Street. The entry fee is $35.00 and is due by Friday, May 25th.
Participants will apply real world concepts in physics, engineering, and architecture through engineer-designed projects. Students will be given many challenging and fun projects to design and build as never before in a supportive environment. Pizza, fruit and beverages will be provided for lunch. This workshop will just give you an example of all the fun activities children ages 5 through 12 will experience in the STEM Challenge camps that run July 16th through 19th.
Staff from Play-Well TEKnologies will be on hand to run these camps. To learn more about these camps, check out the web page at www.play-well.org. Students will not take home any LEGO® during these programs. All materials used are the property of Play-Well TEKnologies and are not for sale or distribution.
Enroll at the Great Bend Recreation Commission office located at 1214 Stone Street or call 793-3755 ext. 3 for more information.
It’s a project that began in 2015 and now we’re just a few weeks away from the grand opening of the new expanded Grizzly Bear exhibit at the Great Bend Brit Spaugh Zoo. That grand opening be will part of the June Jaunt festivities in Great Bend on June 2 as the public will have their first opportunity to view the grizzly bears in their new environment.
The new look includes a new pond with running water, training wall, zip line, permanent climbing tree, and shade structures.
Zoo Curator Sara Hamlin is happy to see the completion of the project that has presented some challenges.
Sara Hamlin Audio
Hamlin says the three young bears along with the senior member of the clan Max have had a chance to test drive their new surroundings, and as you can imagine, they have liked the change.
Sara Hamlin Audio
The Zoo will open at 9:30 a.m. on Saturday, June 2 and the first 150 kids in the gate will receive a free stuffed animal.
There will also be a ribbon cutting for the exhibit at 10 a.m. on Thursday, May 31 and members of the Great Bend Zoological Society will get a sneak peek at the new enclosure on Friday, June 1.
On Tuesday, May 22 at about 1:30 p.m. the Barton County Sheriff’s Office executed a search warrant in the 1100 block of Pyle Street in the City of Great Bend. Sheriff’s office detectives had obtained a search warrant to look for controlled substances.
Once deputies gained entry to the house and it was secured, detectives located a quantity of cocaine, prescription drugs, marijuana as well as various drug paraphernalia.
Arrested at the scene was Kashe Roda, age 29 of Great Bend. Roda was arrested for possession of cocaine with intent to distribute, unauthorized sale of prescription drugs, possession of marijuana and possession of drug paraphernalia.
Roda is being held in the Barton County Jail in lieu of a $100,000 bond.
BOOKED: Mario Gonzales-Galindo of Great Bend on Great Bend Municipal Court warrant for failure to appear, bond set at $250 C/S.
BOOKED: Sasha Kirksey of Wichita for Barton County District Court warrant for failure to appear, no bond.
BOOKED: Kimberly Trimmer of Ellinwood on EMC case for serve sentence.
BOOKED: Kashe Roda of Great Bend on BTDC case for distribution of cocaine, unlawful sell of prescription drugs, possession of marijuana, and possession of paraphernalia, bond set at $100,000 C/S.
BOOKED: Bailey Jones of Great Bend on GBMC case for battery DV, bond set at $1,000 C/S.
BOOKED: Tristan Shaver of Larned on BTDC warrant for failure to appear, no bond.
RELEASED: Saline Moore on BCDC warrant with a $10,000 OR bond.
RELEASED: Mario Gonzales-Galindo of Great Bend posted a $250 cash bond on GBMC case for failure to appear.
RELEASED: Ashley Feil of Great Bend on BCDC warrant for possession of drug paraphernalia, possession of marijuana, and criminal use of a firearm after posting $10,000 bond through Ace Bail Bonding.
RELEASED: Bailey Jones of Great Bend on GBMC case for battery DV with $1,000 bond posted through Ace Bail Bonding.
A short stretch of East Barton County Road that extends east from Highway 56 to Hirsch St. on the East side Ellinwood will get a hot mix overlay this fall. Barton County Engineer Barry McManaman explained the project to Commissioners Monday saying that the county received only one bid for the work that that will total just shy of $289,000.
Barry McManaman Audio
Since the county only received one bid for the work, Commissioners were curious if McManaman felt Venture submitted a fair bid for the project. But McManaman, who reviewed bids like these while working for K-Dot before becoming County Engineer, felt the bid price was right in line where he expected it to be.
Barry McManaman Audio
Work is expected to begin this fall on the busy stretch of roadway that provides a short cut for motorists from Highway 56 to the Northern part of Ellinwood. It connects to NE 110 Avenue which runs north out of Ellinwood and eventually connects to Highway 156 near Camp Aldrich.
Just because someone is retired, it doesn’t mean that they stop being a productive part of the community in which they live.
Trella Berscheidt Audio
That’s Trella Berscheidt, one of Barton County’s appointees to the Southwest Kansas Area on Aging, who requested Monday that Commissioners consider passing a proclamation designating May 2018 as “Older Americans Month”.
The theme for this year is “Engage at Every Age,” and emphasizes that one is never too old to take part in activities that can enrich one’s physical, mental and emotional well being. It also celebrates the many ways in which older adults are making a difference in communities across Barton County, the state and the nation.
Linda Beech – Cottonwood District Extension Agent, Family and Consumer Sciences
written by: Linda Beech – Cottonwood District Extension Agent, Family and Consumer Sciences
They say time flies when you’re having fun. That certainly seems to be the case as I reflect on these past 6 ½ years as your Extension Agent for family and consumer sciences. I have thoroughly enjoyed my time in Ellis County and the Hays community– and for the past year as part of the Cottonwood Extension District– but the time has come to say farewell. I will be retiring on May 31 after 39 years as a K-State Research and Extension agent in four counties in northwest and southwest Kansas.
As I sit in my office for the last full week and reflect on all I’ve done over the years, it’s the people and events of Extension work that come to mind. It’s all of YOU who have captured a place in my heart.
Thank you for allowing me to become involved with you and your lives. I hope that your interaction with K-State Research and Extension and the Cottonwood Extension District has made some small difference for you– made things easier, less confusing, more empowering. I thought for my final column I’d share some of my favorite phone calls, office visits and situations of these past years as an Extension agent and tell you about my retirement project for the future.
The first special situation that comes to mind is the call from a local mother who wanted to know if she could mail a bowl of potato salad to her daughter across the country. It seems the daughter was expecting a baby and craving her mother’s potato salad– and despite having Mom’s recipe, nothing she made tasted quite the same. We finally nixed the potato salad shipment due to the food safety concerns with a perishable food and a pregnant woman, but it was an interesting discussion and one that helped me see again the strength of family bonds.
Then there was the lady who called for instructions on how to can bear meat. It was the height of the Y2K scare and she said she planned to sustain her family on canned bear meat from her husband’s fall hunting trip. No, the family had never eaten canned bear meat before, and yes, I was able to provide the canning instructions, but I never heard whether the hunting expedition and the canning session were successful. Thankfully for all of us, the century rolled over without incident.
I also remember the first day at one of my county fairs. An irritated mom demanded that her son’s arts & crafts entry be judged by a different judge. It seems she didn’t like the red ribbon the entry had received. I gently tried to explain that we hire the judges for their expertise and while we may not always agree with the outcome, that day it was the judge’s opinion which counted. About five days later the same Mom came to my office to apologize. She said there had been a death in the family and she was not at her best at fair time. Over the years I’ve learned that none of us are at our best at fair time– and given about five days, most people and situations regain a more balanced perspective.
My time as an Extension agent has been full of interesting and wonderful experiences– from taking a leave of absence from my first county to travel to the Philippines as a 4-H exchange delegate, to judging countless foods exhibits and cooking contests, to watching technology change from manual typewriters and duplicating machines to wi-fi and the internet cloud, to teaching more Extension educational programs than I can ever count, including a nutrition class presented through three different language interpreters in the same room at the same time one day in Garden City.
In order to give back for a career I’ve loved, I have compiled a “best of the best” collection which includes 90 recipes and 80 news columns from 39 years in Extension. It is available in downloadable PDF Portfolio format for a free-will donation to the Kansas 4-H Foundation at www.kansas4hfoundation.org/beechrecipes. All proceeds will benefit the Kansas 4-H Foundation and the four counties where I worked (Hodgeman, Stevens, Finney, and Ellis.) I receive nothing but satisfaction from this project- 100% of the proceeds will support Extension and 4-H programs in Kansas.
I’ve loved getting to know all the individuals and families involved in Extension programs across Kansas, and I thank everyone for the friendship and support you’ve given to me and my family over the years. Good luck and many blessings to all of you! Thanks, and farewell!
It’s a project that began in 2015 and now we’re just a few weeks away from the grand opening of the new expanded Grizzly Bear exhibit at the Great Bend Brit Spaugh Zoo. That grand opening be will part of the June Jaunt festivities in Great Bend on June 2 as the public will have their first opportunity to view the grizzly bears in their new environment.
A short stretch of East Barton County Road that extends east from Highway 56 to Hirsch St. on the East side Ellinwood will get a hot mix overlay this fall. Barton County Engineer Barry McManaman explained the project to Commissioners Monday saying that the county received only one bid for the work that that will total just shy of $289,000.
That’s Trella Berscheidt, one of Barton County’s appointees to the Southwest Kansas Area on Aging, who requested Monday that Commissioners consider passing a proclamation designating May 2018 as “Older Americans Month”.
