Sports: Mustangs split with Wellsville See B1
THE IOLA REGISTER Locally owned since 1867
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Wednesday, May 4, 2016
BOWLUS
Leaders to discuss center’s future By BOB JOHNSON The Iola Register
In a roll Third-grader Trevor Weide of Lincoln Elementary School races through an obstacle course tube, consisting of a rolled-up wrestling mat Tuesday during Kansas Kids’ Fitness Day on Tuesday at Allen Community College. The obstacle course was set up in ACC’s student activities building. REGISTER/JON DYKSTRA
Repres e n t a t iv e s of Allen County, Iola, USD 257 and the Bowlus Fine Arts Center will meet next week to look for common ground in funding of Bowlus’ operation and activities. “I think it’s a great idea,” said Tony Leavitt, at Tuesday’s meeting of the Allen County Commission. Leavitt serves as chairman of the Board of Education. “We need to come together and work this thing out.” A parade of Bowlus supporters testified to its worth as a community institution Monday evening when board members announced they would ask the District Court to revisit the Bowlus will and other particulars to deterSee BOWLUS | Page A8
Trump rolls; Cruz ousTED
Rep. Kent Thompson
Thompson files to keep House seat Kent Thompson filed for re-election Tuesday to the Ninth District seat in the Kansas House of Representatives. A lifetime resident of Allen County, he is a Republican and lives in rural LaHarpe. Thompson was appointed to the House seat in Sept. 30, 2013, to fill a vacancy created by the death of Ed Bideau, Chanute. He was elected to a full two-year term in 2014. Thompson said he is proud for: — Voting against the sales tax increase; — Voting against the block grant system for public schools; — Fighting attempts to increase taxes on ag land and See THOMPSON | Page A2
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Donald Trump, the GOP presidential nomination virtually in hand, is signaling a new phase of his outsider campaign, searching for a running mate who could help him govern and reaching out to one-time competitors in an effort to heal the fractured Republican Party. On that, though, there are exceptions. “I am confident I can unite much of ” the GOP Trump said today on NBC’s “Today Show, as several prominent Republicans said they’d prefer Democrat Hillary Clinton over the New York billionaire. In a shot at his critics, Trump added: “Those people can go away and maybe come back in eight years after we served two terms. Honestly,
Garden park plans sprout By BOB JOHNSON The Iola Register
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump addresses the media and a few supporters in New York after winning the Indiana primary Tuesday. LOS ANGELES TIMES/ CAROLYN COLE/TNS
there are some people I really don’t want.” His comments on several networks came a few hours after Trump, once dismissed as a fringe contender, became all-but cer-
tainly the leader of the Republican Party into the fall campaign against Clinton. The former secretary of state suffered a defeat See TRUMP | Page A8
Alana Kinzle brought a detailed plan to Allen County commissioners Tuesday morning for a garden park that would enhance the Veterans Wall on the south courthouse lawn, complete with benches and “eventually a fountain.” Kinzle brought up the idea two weeks ago, to which commissioners were receptive. Details are yet to be defined, including who might build the simple but attractive garden, how water could be brought to it and how longterm maintenance would be See GARDEN | Page A8
Moody’s downgrades state’s credit rating By JOHN HANNA The Associated Press
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — An international rating agency revised its credit outlook for Kansas to negative on Tuesday and criticized the two biggest financial moves the state expects to use to keep its budget balanced through June 2017. The announcement by Moody’s Investors Services
Quote of the day Vol. 118, No. 132
came a day after the Re publicandominated Le gislature approved a plan that dumps most of the budget-balancing work on GOP Gov. Sam Brownback. The plan is designed to eliminate projected shortfalls totaling more than $290 million in the current state budget and the one for
the next fiscal year beginning July 1. The plan assumes Brownback follows through on previously announced plans to delay 25 major highway construction projects so that he can divert $185 million in road funds to general government programs. It also allows him to delay nearly $96 million in contributions to public employee pensions due this spring, possibly until July 2018.
“I’d rather attempt to do something great and fail, than to attempt to do nothing and succeed.” — Robert H. Schuller 75 Cents
Moody’s affirmed the state’s Aa2 rating for issuing bonds, but its change in the credit outlook to negative from stable suggests a downgrade is possible. Another agency, S&P Global Ratings, put Kansas on a “credit watch” last month. The state has struggled to balance its budget since Republican legislators slashed personal income taxes in See MOODY’S | Page A2
Hi: 70 Lo: 51 Iola, KS