John Leslie Naff, 65, Humboldt, owner of Johns Work Shop in Humboldt, died Monday, June 6, 2016 at Via Christi, Wichita. John had been in failing health for a couple of years.
Private burial will take place at Mount Hope Cemetery in Humboldt.
Teams start season
Pixie League
A&W 9, Sonic 2
A two-out rally in the third inning propelled the A&W team to a win in its season opener.
Alana Mader, Marlee Westhoff, Abigail Jerome, Lynsie Fehr, Sophia Boyers and Madalynn Peterson had consecutive hits to break a 2-2 tie going into the inning and spark the 9-2 win.
Harper Desmarteau and Gretchen Boyers each scored two runs for A&W.
Koda Cole and Isabelle Berntsen each scored a run for Sonic.
Pigtail League
Erbert 4, Bake Day 4
Addie Fudge scored twice for Bake My Day as the team tied its opener with Erbert Electric.
Dailyn McGraw was the offensive standout for Erbert, scoring twice.
CLO 4, Erbert 3
Reese Curry scored the game-winning run for CLO. Kadin Smith, Shelby Shaughnessy and Jordyn Kaufman each had first-inning runs for the victors.
McGraw, Triniti Loveall and Jade Allen all scored for Erbert,
PeeWee League
ACC 6, ACE 0
Allen County Chiropractic had contributions up and down the lineup as Landon Weide, Jakoby Wilson, Will Talkington, Owen Bahnsen and Alex Smail were all able to cross the plate for runs in the win.
Isaac McCullough and Joshua Pritchard had hits for ACE Refrigeration.
Fast Lube 12, H&R 1
Jarrett Hermann, Eliot Stephenson and Korbin Cloud each scored three times for Fast Lube. Ben Kerr scored H&R Block’s run.
Bitty Ball
Twin Motors 6, Pharmacy 1
Twin Motors posted 5 runs in the final frame to pull away from Iola Pharmacy.
Noah Schowengerdt, Drake Weir, Brody Peters, JaKarre Green and Darrien Pulley all scored in the fourth for Twin Motors.
Wyatt Dickerson also scored for the winning side.
Jakoby Hill scored Iola Pharmacy’s run.
Sonic 6, DQ 5
Sonic was able to hold off a furious rally from Dairy Queen to win its opener.
Tripp Chapman, Wyat Bahnsen, Easton Weseloh, Nick Bauer and Lucas Maier all scored in the fourth frame to nearly complete the rally but Sonic was to hold on in the end and get the hard-fought win.
Henry White scored twice for Sonic and Colton Thompson Kolton Northcutt and Mason Peeper each crossed the plate to as well to earn the win.
Predictably, conservatives cast high court as villain against public education
Unwittingly, the Kansas Supreme Court came to the rescue of ultra-conservative legislators.
In no time flat, Gov. Sam Brownback and his cronies set the propaganda wheels in motion making the Supreme Court the enemy of public schools with their threat of closure unless they are better funded.
In a letter to his constituents, Rep. Ronald Ryckman, R-Olathe, and chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, accused the Supreme Court of holding students and teachers “hostage” in their quest for power.
Our Sen. Caryn Tyson, R-District 12, was no better.
“I will do everything possible to stop the courts from closing our schools,” she wrote in a June 3 email.
The hypocrisy is stifling.
Please remember, dear citizens of Kansas, it is because legislators have refused to uphold their constitutional duty to public schools that the Supreme Court Justices have ordered their closure.
The justices based their decision on the Kansas Constitution, which makes clear the current method of block funding is especially unfair to poorer school districts such as our USD 257 and fails to meet the constitution’s stipulation that Kansas schools provide an adequate and equitable education to all Kansas children.
EVER SINCE the Court’s May 27 decision, ultra-conservatives have been accusing the state supreme court of being power grabbers.
“We cannot sit idle as Kansas schoolchildren and teachers become collateral damage of the constitutional imbalance,” Ryckman writes.
Unbelievable.
All session long Ryckman has been more than willing to throw students and teachers under the bus in his efforts to downsize funding for public schools. And now he’s their savior?
It’s especially rich for Ryckman to say the court is upsetting the constitutional balance between the executive, legislative and judicial branches.
Ryckman has been a staunch supporter of Gov. Brownback, including his efforts to be granted power to appoint justices to the Supreme Court.
KANSAS VOTERS must hold their legislators’ feet to the fire.
If they tell you schools are receiving more money than ever, they are lying. Funding for educators’ pensions and that for special education are simply “pass-through” accounts that make the bottom line look healthier, but do not go to our public schools.
Our schools are dealing with much less money — millions for some districts — to the detriment of our students and educators, and really, the state as a whole.
Tell your legislators to stop the blame game and do what they were elected to do — take Kansas forward.
— Susan Lynn
Marie Mercuro
Marie Miriam Mercuro, 75, of Iola, died Tuesday, May 31, 2016, at Allen County Regional Hospital. No public services are planned. Go to www.iolafuneral.com to leave a condolence online.
Tracy Rawlings
Tracy Eleanor Sloan Rawlings, 93, Iola, died Thursday, June 2, 2016, at Allen County Regional Hospital.
Tracy was born Oct. 4, 1922, in Elsmore, the daughter of James Austin and Nora Ellen (Rhodes) Sloan. She grew up south of Moran. On Oct. 4, 1939, she married Roy Rawlings and they made their home in Moran. They were married over 60 years when he preceded her in death Jan. 12, 2000.
Tracy worked as a seamstress at H.L. Miller & Son in Iola. She loved fishing and camping with her family.
She is survived by three of her children, Judy Goff, Bonne Terre, Mo., Nick Rawlings and wife Gloria, Pleasanton, and Barbara Kuykendall, Moran; 11 grandchildren, 26 great-grandchildren and nine great-great-grandchildren. She was preceded in death by her husband and two of her children, Peggy Stewart and Jerry Rawlings.
The family will have a private service at a later date. Feuerborn Family Funeral Service of Iola assisted the family. To leave a condolence online, go to www.iolafuneral.com.
Joanne Valentine
Leta “Joanne” Valentine, 82, Eureka, passed away Sunday, June 5, 2016, at the Via Christi St. Francis hospital in Wichita, surrounded by her loving family.
She was born Dec. 12, 1933, in Neosho Falls, and was raised on a farm with three sisters near Iola. She was the daughter of the late George and Alma Fox.
Joanne attended a country school called Rock Creek in her early years and then attended high school in Iola, graduating in 1952. After graduation, she worked in Topeka for Southwestern Bell Telephone. Later, she worked for Iola Bank & Trust and First National Bank in Wichita. In 1956, she began working for Citizens National Banks (now known as Emprise Bank) in Eureka and continued working there as a bank teller for 42 years until she retired in 1998.
Joanne married her high school sweetheart, Raymond Valentine on Sept. 21, 1952 in Iola. They were very happily married for 61 years. Joanne is a member of the Christian and Congregational Church and was the acting treasurer for the Greenwood County Hospital Auxiliary. Joanne enjoyed her family and she loved attending her grandchildren’s various school activities and sporting events. She also enjoyed bowling, traveling, caring for her family and volunteering in the community for many different events and organizations.
She is survived by her four children, Steve Valentine, Eureka, Mark (Janet) Valentine, Eureka, Pam (Rick) Bean, Topeka, and Scott Valentine, El Dorado; 10 grandchildren, Lucas (Amber) Valentine, Nicholas (Misti) Valentine, Sunny (Derek) Griswold. Kalyn Valentine, Tyler Bean, Jana (James) Barnaby, Toree Bean, Emily Valentine, Shelby Valentine and Zoee Valentine, nine great-grandchildren, three stepgreat-grandchildren and many other loving nieces, nephews and relatives. Surviving sisters are Gerry Bain, Iola, and Patty Conine, Olathe.
She was preceded in death by her parents, her sister, Wanda Judah, daughter-in-law Kimberly Valentine and her grandson Anthony Valentine.
Funeral services will be at 2 p.m. Thursday at the Christian and Congregational Church in Eureka, with Pastor Howard Bever officiating. Burial will follow in the Greenwood Cemetery, Eureka.
Memorial donations may be made to the Christian and Congregational Church or the Greenwood County Hospital Auxiliary and left in care of the Koup Family Funeral Home at P.O. Box 595, Eureka, KS 67045 who is in charge of the service arrangements.
Family Fun Night set
The Allen County Multi-Agency Team (ACMAT) will have a number of games and other activities set up Thursday for Family Fun Night on the courthouse square.
The activities coincide with the weekly Allen County Farmers Market.
The activities kick off at 5:30 with inflatable attractions, face painting, snow cones and other fun and games.
Bike helmets also will be given away, and a dunk tank will be set up.
Organizers also plan a drawing for a free bicycle.
Family Fun Night is held each summer during June because it’s National Safety Month, organizers noted.
Wicoff makes Iola FFA history; tapped as state VP
MANHATTAN — Clara Wicoff from the Iola High School FFA chapter was elected to serve as the 2016–17 State FFA Vice President at the 88th Kansas FFA Convention Friday.
Wicoff, who earned her high school diploma May 22, was among 17 candidates running for a state office position to represent more than 9,000 Kansas FFA members.
She is the first IHS student to be voted into FFA’s state office.
As vice president, Wicoff will serve on a team of six officers who will travel across the state sharing their passion for agriculture, leadership and service. Kansas FFA officers present workshops and conferences across the state and challenge FFA members to serve their communities and the agriculture industry.
Other members of the Kansas FFA officer team: President Elizabeth Meyer, Marion-Florence FFA; Secretary Grace Luebcke, Marysville FFA; Treasurer Katelyn Bohnenblust, Clay Center FFA; Reporter Jacob Grinstead, Buhler FFA; and Sentinel Trenton Smedley, Cherryvale FFA.
A four-year FFA member, Wicoff has served as chapter president and Southeast District president. Her supervised agricultural experience program (SAE) is in grain crop production and fiber oil crop production. She plans to attend Kansas State University and her long-term career goal is to pursue a career as a patent lawyer and eventually work for the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.
Clara is the daughter of Joel and Lisa Wicoff. Her advisor is Charles Kerr.
Letter to the editor — June 6, 2016
Dear editor,
Bernie Sanders has been talking about income equality all during this campaign year. He is right of course, there has always been income inequality but since the 1980s it has gotten worse. When 62 people own more wealth than 3.5 billion people it has swung too far. At the start of this decade, 388 billionaires owned as much wealth as half the world. And in 2016 it will be 62. In other words, in the last five years since the world recession, the very richest have grown inexorably wealthier. And that’s not because the global economy is booming, as every worker on pay freeze knows. It’s because we are living in a period of trickle-up economics, in which the working middle class have handed over money to those at the very top. The ’80s was the decade of trickle-down economics, with Reagan cutting taxes for the richest and promising that everyone else from Topeka to Portland, Maine, would soon feel the benefits. Reagan took 2.7 trillion from Social Security to make up for what he took from lost tax revenue. (Think highway funds.) The past half-decade has been about trickle-up economics, in which the powerful central banks have launched policies that have been about boosting the fortunes of the richest so they would create jobs. The disbursement of thousands of billions in quantitative easing was meant to raise asset prices of all the assets. Putting wealth from the middle class in the hands of the wealthy. It looks to me like QE: was the biggest redistribution of wealth from the middle class and the poor to the rich ever. If you follow this logic you can see what Brownback calls trickle-down is really trickle-up for his best friend in Wichita. How many jobs has Koch created?
Massive inequality has allowed the 1 percent to buy political influence as never before in history. Indeed, the super rich now practically write their own tax laws — Cato Institute, Heritage Foundation, ALEC, Kansas Policy Institute — all backed heavily by the Koch brothers. They buy their own politicians as with the shadow-bankers who funded the conservative election campaign or the billionaire Koch brothers using their fortune to tip the U.S. presidential contest, as well as Kansas state elections, as we have seen with Americans for Prosperity and Freedom Works.
Kansas has the most-disliked governor in the United States. That should tell you Kansans don’t like what’s going on in Topeka. Trickle-up economics has only been helping the rich Kansans and hurting the middle class. Come election time, things are going to change. Brownback has to be stopped and the only way to do that at this point is to change elected officials. If we see mailers from America for Prosperity or Freedom Works supporting them, you will know they are with Brownback, Merrick and Wagle. This is not the Republican Party I joined 50 years ago and with the poll numbers showing Brownback’s popularity, I am not the only one who feels this way.
David Comstock,
Colony, Kan.
Virginia Weatherman
Virginia Helen Hale Weatherman, 91, Colony, passed away Saturday, June 4, 2016, at Allen County Regional Hospital.
Virginia was born June 2, 1925, in Los Angeles, the daughter of Jacob Elijah and Ada Bell (Moore) Hale. She grew up in Turner, and graduated from Turner High School in 1943. On Jan. 9, 1944, Virginia married Robert P. Weatherman and moved to rural Colony to begin her life as a housewife. She enjoyed sewing, quilting, baking, working in the yard and the Royals. She also loved to shop and travel, and was a charter member of the Jolly Dozen Club in Colony.
Virginia was preceded in death by husband Robert; daughter Kay Weatherman Lehnst; her parents and five siblings. She is survived by son Steven Weatherman and wife Kendra, Colony; daughter Linda Hess, Marion; four grandchildren, seven great-grandchildren, three great-great-grandchildren; one sister-in-law; and nieces, nephews, and friends.
The family will receive friends from 1 to 2 p.m., Wednesday at the Feuerborn Family Funeral Service in Colony before leaving for the Colony Cemetery for graveside services. Memorials are suggested to Colony Lions Club or Colony Methodist Church and may be left with the funeral home. Online condolences for the family may be left at www.feuerbornfuneral.com.