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The Weekender Saturday, August 19, 2017
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A coming home story
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With the world as their oyster, the Coffields chose to make Iola their home
By JOSEPH WILSON The Associated Press
By SUSAN LYNN The Iola Register
Professional ball players talk about “feelin’ the love” of fans, coaches and teammates in their decision to commit to a certain team. Iola’s Ryan Coffield can relate. In weighing a decision to return home to practice dentistry, Coffield was wooed, courted and pursued over the course of six years. Coffield’s parents, Glen and Mary, dropped hints. Dr. Vernon Lee made calls. David Toland of Thrive Allen County put a bug in his ear. First in one, then the other. That all helped, for sure. “It made me feel wanted,” he said of the courtship. But it was girlfriend and fellow Iolan Ceri Loflin that pulled the lever. “Ceri had a lot to do with it,” he admitted to breaking the spell of Devils Lake, N.D., where Ryan worked as a dentist on a nearby reservation. The Lakota name for Devils
14 dead after terror attacks in Catalonia
Lake is Ble Waka Sica — Lake of the Spirits. A map of the lake district — “150,000 acres of water,” notes Ryan — is mounted on their living room wall. Once their friendship turned into more, the desire to be together was strong enough to break the lakes’ hold, plus “those 12-hour drives,” from Kansas to North Dakota, “began to take a toll,” he said. In 2011, Ryan moved back to Iola to join Lee in his dental practice, purchasing it in 2013. By then Ceri was in graduate school in Kansas City. The two were married in
Ryan and Ceri Coffield, above, with Marin 2015. “I thought we should live in the same corner of the state, the same zip code, for a year before I proposed,” he said. For Ceri, the move back
home was always in the back of her mind. In fact, she was the one who kept dropping hints at Greenbush Learning Center in GiSee IOLA | Page A4
BARCELONA, Spain (AP) — Spanish police intensified a manhunt Friday for suspects behind two deadly vehicle attacks on civilians, shooting and Mariano Rajoy killing five people wearing fake bomb belts who attacked a seaside resort and arresting four others believed linked to the carnage wrought on a Barcelona promenade. Spanish authorities said the back-to-back vehicle attacks Thursday afternoon and early Friday morning — as well as a deadly explosion earlier this week in a house elsewhere in Catalonia — were related and the work of a large terrorist group. The Islamic State group quickly claimed responsibility for Europe’s latest bout of extremist violence, which left 13 dead and 100 wounded after a van roared down Barcelona’s historic Las Ramblas promenade on Thursday. Hours later, a blue Audi plowed into people See TERROR | Page A6
Humboldt volunteers at the ready By BOB JOHNSON The Iola Register
The 98th Annual Allen County Kansas Farm Bureau Awards banquet convened Thursday night. From left, organizers Debbie Bearden, Darin Tidd, Steve Frank and Alisha Mueller. REGISTER/
CHRISTIAN GIN
Farm Bureau Awards celebrates global ag
By CHRISTIAN GIN The Iola Register
More than 70 attended the 98th Annual Allen County Kansas Farm Bureau meeting at Iola High School on Thursday night. Attendees were treated with a special presentation from Iola High School graduate Chase Regehr, who spoke about his time in Taiwan. Several farmers were also recognized for their achievements with
Vol. 119, No. 206 Iola, KS 75 Cents
awards later in the evening. The local Farm Bureau helped fund Regehr’s trip last December. Regehr, who will be a freshman at Kansas State University, said his trip was eye-opening. He explored different parts of Taiwan, experiencing different methods of teaching and cooking, to seeing the street food scene and nightlife, as well as a different blend of people. See FARM | Page A3
HUMBOLDT — Minutemen were farmers and merchants and school teachers who answered the Revolution’s call — in a minute’s time — whenever a colonial response to British troops was required. Humboldt today has its own version, its volunteer firefighters. They may not respond in a minute’s time, but pretty darn close. “I’ll hear a truck siren before the (storm) sirens’ three minutes is up,” said City Administrator Cole Herder. “I think there are probably a lot of full-time departments that don’t respond as quickly as our volunteers.” The firefighters are alerted in two ways, via pocket-size pagers and the constant blast of storm sirens strategically placed about town. “I don’t know how they do it,” Herder continued. “It amazes me they can drop whatever they’re doing or get out of bed in the middle of the night and be at the fire station as quickly as they do.” Humboldt volunteers pride themselves on such
Humboldt rural firefighters have this new $307,000 truck awaiting opportunities to show its stuff. REGISTER/BOB JOHNSON punctuality, said Sean McReynolds, the town’s dentist and a volunteer since 1991 and the department’s chief since November 2015. A high point for the local department, in all ways but name a combined rural-city effort, was recent arrival of a brand-spanking new truck for the rural side. Over several years tax levies in Logan and Humboldt townships and Rural District District No. 4 raised enough money to purchase the pumper from the Toyne factory in Breda, Iowa. Cost was $307,000. Volunteers, 19 strong, gathered Wednesday evening
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to transfer equipment from a 20-year-old unit to the new one, and, wouldn’t you know it, minutes into the process sirens sounded and a speaker in the fire barn directed rural troops to southeast of town. Six firemen grabbed coats, helmets and self-contained breathing apparatus and were on their way, with the ambulance stationed in Humboldt at their heels. HUMBOLDT is authorized to have as many as 22 volunteers, and McReynolds keeps a list of local folks inSee HUMBOLDT | Page A6