ST. PAUL — Marmaton Valley Junior High’s A Team took home second place Monday at a volleyball tournament in St. Paul.
The Wildcats downed Thayer 25-19, 25-11 and Altoona-Midway 25-14, 25-8 before losing in the championship match to Oswego 25-22, 25-15.
“We ran into a really good Oswego team tonight and felt like we could hand them their first loss,” Wildcat head coach Brenda MiIls said. “They came back on us that first set and kept things rolling from there. The girls played very well tonight, though.”
Trinitee Gutierrez was good on all 43 service attempts, winning 33 service points. Kyla Drake delivered 15 service points and had four kills. Nalea Alexander had 11 service points. Misty Storrer knockedin five kills.
Marmaton Valley wraps up its season at home Thursday against Crest.
Red Devil soccer teams struggle
DALLAS — Allen Community College’s soccer teams wrapped up their Texas road trip on a rough note.
The Allen men lost a close match to Tyler (Texas) Community College 2-1.
Jordan Drake played in goal and made 12 saves for the Red Devils. Brett Rex scored the team’s only goal, from an assist by Johnny Acker.
On Friday, the ACC women fell to Western Texas 2-0. Keelie Arbuckle played in goal and made eight saves.
The men, meanwhile, lost to Richland College 4-1. Drake made nine saves in goal. Jhovanty Baltazar scored the Red Devil goal.
Allen’s soccer teams travel to Overland Park Wednesday to take on Johnson County Community College before returning home Sunday to take on Dodge City Community College. Sunday is the final home game of the season for the men (4-8 overall and 2-5 in Jayhawk Eastern Conference play).
The women (1-13, 1-7) will wrap up their home schedule Oct. 18 against Garden City Community College.
Fillies tennis
The Iola High Fillies tennis season came to an end Saturday at the Kansas Class 4A Regional Tournament. The 2012 girls tennis team members at IHS are, front from left, Bobbi Sinclair, head coach Jenn Bycroft and Abbey St. Clair; and second row from left, Alexis Hobbs, Shelby Reno, Megan Smith and Katana Smith.
IMS meeting is Monday
Iola Middle School seventh- and eighth-graders interested in participating in either wrestling or girls basketball and their parents are encouraged to attend a meeting at 6 p.m. Monday at the IMS music room.
The meeting will coincide with the middle school’s parent-teacher conferences, which begin Monday evening.
As an aside, IMS plans to “paint the school pink” Thursday for its home football game Thursday against Coffeyville.
Students, teachers and administrators will wear pink garb during the day, while fans are encouraged to wear pink in the stands as a symbol of breast cancer awareness.
The middle school band will play during Thursday’s football game as well.
Wildcat, SCC volleyball squads compete
UNIONTOWN — Marmaton Valley High’s volleyball squad went 3-2 on the day Saturday at a tournament hosted by Uniontown.
The Wildcats thumped Pleasanton in the opener, 25-12, 25-14, lost to their hosts from Uniontown 25-12, 25-16 and downed Olathe Metro 25-17, 26-24.
A pair of nail-biters capped the day for Marmaton Valley.
The Wildcats won in three sets against Riverton 21-25, 25-18 and 25-23, then lost a heart-breaker to Yates Center 25-23, 12-25, 27-25.
Meanwhile, Southern Coffey County went 2-2 on the day. The Lady Titans lost to Yates Center 25-18, 26-24, defeated Crest 25-8, 25-11; lost to Frontenac 25-23, 25-11; and ended the day by downing Northeast High of Arma 25-15, 25-18.
A number of familiar faces led the Wildcat offense.
Kaitlin Ensminger scored a team-high eight points against the Blu-Jays, followed by Kacie Shadden with seven points and four kills, Emily Boyd with seven points, Emily Meiwes with three blocks and four kills and Kailey Boyd with five kills.
In the loss to Uniontown, Kailey Boyd and Meiwes registered eight and five kills, respectively.
Kaysha Elmenhorst was tops against Olathe Metro with nine points. Kailey Boyd followed with six points and eight kills.
Kailey Boyd and Elmenhorst shared high-scoring honors in the win over Riverton with nine points each. Kailey Boyd also had nine kills. Ensminger delivered six kills.
Elmenhorst and Emily Boyd both registered eight points in the Yates Center loss. Kailey Boyd and Ensminger had 12 and five kills, respectively.
“WE HAD A slow start against Yates Center in the first match,” Southern Coffey County head coach Jeff True said, “but after that we settled in and played much better the rest of the day. Carley Nelson stepped into the starting setter position and did a nice job for us all day long.”
Sarah Webb had 39 kills to lead the Lady Titans .Breanna Isch had 12 blocks. Carley Nelson had 25 set assists.
“Our serve percentage (95 percent) was good,” True said.
Dorothy Lekwa
Dorothy H. Lekwa, 89, of Moran, passed away Saturday, Oct. 6, 2012, at Moran Manor.
She was born Aug. 1, 1923 south of Chapin, Iowa, the daughter of C.K. & Lela (Deam) Crawford.
Dorothy attended a country school north of Sheffield, Iowa, and graduated from Hansell High School, Hansell, Iowa, in 1940.
Dorothy worked for the FBI in Washington D.C. 1942-1944 in fingerprint classification and met J. Edgar Hoover, the director at the time. She later worked at First National Bank in Hampton, Iowa.
She married Wilfrid L. LaPorte in Rockville, Md. on Feb. 12, 1944. This union was blessed with two children, her daughter, Donna and son, William.
Dorothy married Robert M. Lekwa in November of 1966. Together they worked his Star Mail Route, which she continued after his passing in 1979.
Dorothy loved the Lord, her family, friends and neighbors and loved to fish. In later years, she moved to Moran to be near her son Bill, who looked after her needs.
She was active in Moran Christian Church, Open Circle Club, American Legion and various activities including Moran Day Ceremonies.
She was preceded in death by her husbands Wilfrid in 1966 and Robert in 1979; brothers, Merwyn Crawford and Douglas Crawford.
Survivors include William and wife Kim, of Moran, daughter Donna Phariss of Clear Lake, Iowa; grandsons, Jotham and Ellie LaPorte of Ringgold, Ga., David Phariss of Clear Lake, Thaddeaus and Jessica LaPorte, of Burden, Z. Chase and Clarissa LaPorte, Ogden, Kan.; sister, Eunice Jacobson; brother-in-law, James Jacobson of Waverly, Iowa, and two great-grandchildren.
Memorial services will be at 11 a.m. Friday at Church of Christ in Hampton, Iowa. Visitation is Wednesday at Feuerborn Family Funeral Service Chapel in Moran from 6 to 8 p.m. Memorial contributions may be made to Cookson Hills Christian Ministry.
Condolences to the family can be sent at www.feuerbornfuneral.com
Letter to the editor — October 8, 2012
Dear editor,
I see nothing wrong about the attention that breast cancer gets this month, but there are more kinds that need attention as well. One is Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. My mom died from it and now I have another family member who is fighting it.
Sincerely,
Joyce Peck
LaHarpe, Kan.
The states can’t absorb more of Medicaid burden
All told, the 50 states and the cities within them have unfunded pension obligations of about $1.4 trillion.
This is not news. Kansas, for instance, hasn’t set aside enough money to fund KPERS — the Kansas Public Employees Retirement System — adequately in any budget year for the last decade. Not only have states and cities underfunded their programs, they have made extravagant promises of future benefits to government workers that they can’t keep.
In Rhode Island, an Associated Press account relates, 58 percent of teachers and 48 percent of state retirees receive more in their pensions than they were paid in their final years of work, a patently ridiculous situation.
California Gov. Jerry Brown last month approved higher retirement ages and contribution rates for state workers and put a cap of $132,000 on annual pension payouts — which indicates that some state retirees were getting more. The California State Retirement System is underfunded by $165 billion.
Of necessity, other states are putting off bankruptcy by slashing benefits.
This sorry fiscal state of affairs in state and local government needs reviewing as the presidential campaign moves toward election day. One of the planks in the Republican platform is to limit the federal government’s funding obligation under the Medicaid program by paying states a set amount rather than agreeing to cover 90 percent of the state’s Medicaid bill, as is required under the Affordable Health Care Act.
If medical costs continue to rise as they have every year since records were kept, Medicaid costs will rise, meaning that a fixed grant from Washington will require states to increase their Medicaid appropriations or reduce the care given to the low-income people that program covers.
Expansion of Medicaid to cover a wider swath of the low-income population is a key feature of the Affordable Health Care Act — Obamacare. It is through this provision the law will sharply reduce the number of uninsured American families and individuals. But, as the pension picture so clearly demonstrates, the states don’t have the money to carry more than 10 percent of the additional cost.
If the money isn’t there from either Washington or the states, then millions of Americans will continue to go without good medical care.
Before Nov. 6, President Barack Obama should make clear to the voters how his health care law will provide for those Americans now without coverage — and Mitt Romney should lay out in simple declarative sentences how he would deal with that imperative need.
Both should begin by admitting that tossing the ball to the states is not the answer.
— Emerson Lynn, jr.
Church holds purity retreat for teen girls
Peer pressure is one of the biggest battles teens face during high school. With that, comes an increased pressure to have premarital sex.
First Christian Church will address the issue during a teen retreat, targeting young girls and their parents.
“It will be a purity and modesty retreat,” church secretary and choir director Renee McGullion said. “Teaching teen girls about staying pure in an impure culture.”
Author Erin Davis will be the guest speaker at the retreat. Davis writes books for young women on the importance of making “wise choices,” she said.
“We live in a culture that is sex-saturated and it makes it hard for young girls to make the choice to wait until marriage or to be open and receptive to doing the right thing,” Davis said.
During a teen’s struggle, Davis says the most important thing to do is turn to a strong support system, such as family, friends and the faith community.
The retreat will be from 6 to 10 p.m. Friday and from 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. on Saturday, with a special session for parents at 12:30 p.m. on Saturday.
Davis speaks with the parents because “even if they (your children) roll their eyes at you when you are talking to them, your voice is the loudest your child will hear,” Davis said.
For more information contact McGullion at (620) 365-3436.
SEK women were ‘Amazon Army’
“March of the Amazon Army,” a Kansas Humanities Council program, will be presented at the Iola Public Library at 7 p.m. Tuesday as part of the current “Iola Reads” project.
In 1921, thousands of wives, daughters, mothers, sisters and sweethearts of striking coal miners in Southeast Kansas marched in protest against unfair labor practices in the local coal mines. The women’s march made headlines across the nation, and the New York Times christened them the “Amazon Army.”
The women, mostly immigrants from southeast Europe, were effective and halted work in the mines for three days. This program explores the history behind this unusual event.
“March of the Amazon Army” is brought by the Kansas Humanities Council. The presenter is Linda O’Nelio Knoll, an educator and historian who has worked in a variety of heritage preservation settings. Her play “Army of the Amazons” has been performed for numerous audiences. She also assisted with the development of the Miners Memorial in Pittsburg.