The
IOLA REGISTER Thursday, June 27, 2013
Locally owned since 1867
SAFE BASE kids strike gold By STEVEN SCHWARTZ steven@iolaregister.com
A large taco meal, showers and a restful night’s sleep had the SAFE BASE students ready for a learning-filled day in the “City in the Clouds” Wednesday afternoon. The buses filed out of the Sugar Loafin’ Campground at 9:30 a.m., the schedule for the day included three Leadville landmarks.
The Healy House:
Register/Steven Schwartz
Students pan for minerals and gold outside the Matchless Mine.
A large Victorian home built in 1878, the Healy House is in downtown Leadville. Originally built by August Meyer, who opened the first smelter in the area, the house towers at three stories. Its elegant, decorated exterior evokes feelings of the West. Settlers mined in Leadville before there were trains or telephones. All of the supplies of the home were brought in by horse — though no expense was spared. The students toured through the various rooms of the old home, learning about living in high-fashion before the turn of the century. Gabby and Lila, tour guides for the groups, wore Victorianera dresses. The Healys moved into the home after Meyer, where it became a boarding house until the early 1930s. In the late 1800s, nearly 30,000
people lived in the town. Today, only about 3,500 are yearround residents. A small cabin stands next to the home. While it doesn’t look like much from outside, the interior is one of international elegance. James Dexter, a banker and investor, owned the cabin that was located downtown and then moved to the museum. The rich wood interior was almost completely imported from the Black Forest of Germany. Different students in the group had a chance to try on Victorian hats, as well as explore all high society had to offer in the mining boom of Colorado. Tabor Opera House:
Once near demolition, the Tabor Opera House is almost restored. The students walked into the large theater, in awe of the rising walls that lead to an old wooden stage with a backdrop of the town’s main streets. The theater was completed in 1879. Horace Tabor was a mining tycoon in the area, and wanted to build “a place of refinement” that stood apart from the bars and saloons the miners frequented. Bill Bland, president of the Tabor Opera House Preservation Foundation, said at the time the theSee SAFE BASE | Page A4
SWIM TEAM Iola Seahorses swim at Chanute See B1
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Senior attends Phantom Regiment By KAYLA BANZET kayla@iolaregister.com
Drum roll, please. Michael Wilson, an Iola High senior, attended Phantom Regiment, a drum major c a m p for high s ch o o l students. Wilson attended the camp in Rockfield, Ill., June Michael Wilson 7-9. Matt Kleopfer, Iola high and middle school band instructor, said the camp attracts the best students from around the nation. Drum majors from all over the country come to learn and perfect their art. The Regiment kept Wilson very busy throughout the day. “During the day they’d give us leadership stuff to work on,” Wilson said. “They taught us conducting methods and verbal commands.” For verbal command practice Wilson said the students had to get out of their comfort zone. “We would stand in front of a bunch of people and had to yell at them and tell See DRUM | Page A4
Fuel efficiency a bane for KDOT By BOB JOHNSON bob@iolaregister.com
CHANUTE — Mike King’s son traded a pickup truck that got about eight miles per gallon for a foreign-made hybrid car that averages 50 mpg of fuel. Therein, said King, secretary of the Kansas Department of Transportation, lies advantage for the motorist, but a funding problem for highway construction and maintenance in the state. About 50 percent of KDOT’s funding comes from a 24-centper-gallon tax on gasoline. “As efficiency of cars and trucks improves, our funding goes down,” King told a handful of public officials from towns along U.S. 169 during a Wednesday morning meeting in Chanute. Kansas also gets a portion of an 18-cent federal tax on motor fuels. Its only other taxsupported source of revenue is sales tax, which was eroded this year through legislative action. By law, the fuel tax has to fund improvement and preservation of highways, but the sales tax is fair game, King said. Legislators understand transportation is important to the state’s economic wellbeing, he said, but it isn’t a sacred cow. KDOT’s portion of the state’s overall budget of $14 billion is a “pretty small piece of the pie” compared to K-12 and higher education, which didn’t escape funding reductions. KDOT budgeted expenditures of about $1.8 billion this year. Meanwhile, King took advantage of depressed interest rates and saved $38 million
Register/Bob Johnson
Mike King, KDOT secretary, makes a point in Chanute Wednesday during a conversation with public officials who live along U.S. 169.
by refinancing a $150 million bond at 1.5 percent, a third of its original 4.5 percent rate. Also, when figuring the current fiscal year’s budget, King anticipated 3.5 percent inflation and reaped a benefit when it came in at next to zero. Two bonds will be refinanced in the fall, with the anticipation of more savings in interest costs. Altogether, KDOT’s debt is $1.7 billion, with debt service being 12 percent of its budget. “My preference is to pay as we go and not borrow so much,” King said He also noted that if inflation were to become more of an economic player, it would be good for KDOT. The department’s projects would cost more, but King thinks income from tax revenue increases, both fuel and sales, would be more than an offset. King isn’t a newcomer to the world of transportation. He earned a degree in construction management from John Brown University and was a third-generation contractor in his family before See KDOT| Page A4
Vol. 115, No. 172
MCT/Tish Wells
The Rev. Jill McCrowry joins demonstrators outside the U.S. Supreme Court on the day the Court struck down the Defense of Marriage Act Wednesday in Washington, D.C.
Court rules on gay marriage laws DOMA, Prop 8 struck down By MARK SHERMAN Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — In a major victory for gay rights, the Supreme Court on Wednesday struck down a provision of a federal law denying federal benefits to married gay couples and cleared the way for the resumption of same-sex marriage in California. The justices issued two 5-4 rulings in their final session of the term. One decision wiped away part of a federal anti-gay marriage law that has kept legally married same-sex couples from receiving tax, health and pension benefits. The other was a technical
ruling that said nothing at all about same-sex marriage, but left in place a trial court’s declaration that California’s Proposition 8 is unconstitutional. That outcome probably will allow state officials to order the resumption of same-sex weddings in the nation’s most populous state in about a month. In neither case did the court make a sweeping statement, either in favor of or against same-sex marriage. And in a sign that neither victory was complete for gay rights, the high court said nothing about the validity of gay marriage bans in California and roughly three dozen other states. A separate provision of the federal marriage law that allows a state to not recognize a same-sex union from elsewhere remains in place. President Barack Obama praised the court’s ruling on the federal marriage act, which he labeled “discrimi75 Cents
nation enshrined in law.” “It treated loving, committed gay and lesbian couples as a separate and lesser class of people,” Obama said in a statement. “The Supreme Court has righted that wrong, and our country is better off for it.” House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said he was disappointed in the outcome of the federal marriage case and hoped states continue to define marriage as the union of a man and a woman. The ruling in the California case was not along ideological lines. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the majority opinion, joined by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Elena Kagan and Antonin Scalia. “We have no authority to decide this case on the merits, and neither did the 9th Circuit,” Roberts said, referSee MARRIAGE | Page A4
Iola, KS