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Tuesday, December 1, 2015
30-year waitress hangs up her apron Open records advocates speak out By RICHARD LUKEN The Iola Register
LAWRENCE, Kan. (AP) — Public records advocates are pushing state legislators to bring the Kansas Open Records Act more in line with open record laws in other states. The Lawrence JournalWorld reports changes to the police records portion of the law are supported by Harold and Alberta Leach, the Kansas Press Association, the Kansas Association of Broadcasters and the Kansas Sunshine Coalition for Open Government. The Leaches feel authorities were secretive about the
Audrey Wagner figured she’d share some laughs, memories and more than a few tears with her customers Monday. She was right. “It’s been very emotional,” she said, midway through her final shift. “I’ve been crying off and on most of the day.” Wagner, a waitress at B&B Country Cafe, ended her 30year career Monday. Now that her home on North Jefferson Avenue has sold, Wagner, 75, is free to spend more time with family. She has daughters living in Independence and Las Vegas. “I’ll live back and forth between the two of them,” she said. “Now, I can visit family. I can see my sister in Topeka, and come back and visit my brother in Moran. “And then I’ll have to come
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Audrey Wagner shows a ceramic cat she gave her coworkers as a departing gift Monday after her last day before retirement. Wagner, 75, has been a waitress for 30 years. REGISTER/RICHARD
LUKEN
School concerts fill Bowlus calendar Holiday music takes center stage starting tonight at the Bowlus Fine Arts Center. In all, the Bowlus will host eight concerts over the next 15 days from either USD 257 schools or Allen Community College. Admission is free of charge to all. The events: — The Iola High School concert and jazz bands will perform tonight at 7 o’clock. — The high school and Iola Middle School choir and strings groups will per-
ONE INJURED Iolan Shirley Blomquist was injured in a three-vehicle accident at the intersection of Madison and State streets in Iola Monday. According to the Iola Police Department, Blomquist was northbound on State Street, when she apparently failed to stop at a red light. Her car was struck in the passenger side by a westbound vehicle pickup driven by Jerry Croton, Hutchinson. The collision then knocked Croton’s pickup into the side of a pickup driven by Caleib Belshe, Iola. Blomquist was transported to Allen County Regional Hospital. Croton and Belshe were uninjured, as was a passenger in Belshe’s vehicle.
form at 7 p.m. Thursday. — Allen Community College’s music department will present “Merry Tuba Christmas” at 3 p.m. Sunday. — Lincoln Elementary School’s winter program opens at 7 p.m. Dec. 8. — McKinley Elementary School’s winter program is at 7 p.m. Dec. 10. — Jefferson Elementary School’s winter program is at 7 p.m. Dec. 15. — The middle school band concert wraps up the scholastic music season at 7 p.m. Dec. 16.
Kansas colleges prepare for gun-toting students By DION LEFLER The Wichita Eagle
WICHITA, Kan. (TNS) — As Kansas moves toward a time when guns will be as welcome on university campuses as laptops, students are starting to take notice and talk about how they’ll handle that day when it comes. For many, it’s no big deal. For students who grew up in a largely rural state, surrounded by guns, having the student at the next desk carrying one in pocket or purse doesn’t feel particularly unfamiliar or uncomfortable. Others are predicting disaster when any student or employee over 21 can carry concealed on campus, without a permit or training in how and when to deploy a deadly weapon. The Students Advisory Committee, made up of student-body presidents from all state universities, has invited all students in the sys-
A committee made up of student body presidents from Kansas state universities has invited all students in the system to weigh in on a survey to gauge attitudes toward guns on campus. Results are expected sometime next month. MIKE HUTMACHER/ WICHITA EAGLE/TNS
tem to take a survey to gauge attitudes toward guns on campus. Results aren’t expected until sometime next month. But it has stirred a new interest among students who, until now, have been mostly
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silent on the subject. Interviews at the system’s three major campuses – University of Kansas, Kansas State and Wichita State – found a range of opinions. The biggest pushback against concealed carry so
far has been at KU, where vocal student activists have demanded a gun ban on campus as part of a list of demands for more diversity and “safe spaces” for students, especially minorities, to pursue their education. Students’ thoughts on guns appear to break down into three broad categories:
tion,” Gilpin said. “I think it’s time the good guys can defend themselves on campus.” “I’m pro-it,” said Robert Himelrick, a sophomore in mechanical engineering who commutes to Wichita State from Bel Aire. “I don’t like regulations. If somebody wants to do something, they can do it.”
• Hard-liners: The strongest supporters of concealed carry, they say carrying a gun at the university is their inviolable constitutional right. They often channel the National Rifle Association’s assertions that guns on campus will make everyone safer from the kinds of mass shootings seen at colleges in recent years, because there will be more people on hand to shoot back. That’s a view represented by Austin Gilpin, a Wichita State freshman from Pratt majoring in communications. “I’m very supportive of the (concealed carry) legisla-
• Doomsayers: These students are convinced that guns on campus will lead to more deadly violence and an escalation in danger to everybody. They echo the Brady Campaign Against Gun Violence and argue that more weapons on campus won’t have any effect on mass shooters, but could lead to deadly escalations of ordinary college conflicts. Testifying to that view is Madelyn Johnson, a psychology and Spanish major finishing her degree this year at Kansas State. She said she’ll
“Live dangerously and you live right.” — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, German poet 75 Cents
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