The
IOLA REGISTER
RACING: Humboldt crowns champs, See B1
Monday, July 1, 2013
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TRUE COLORS
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Abortion rule still stands By JOHN HANNA Associated Press
Photo by Harry Lee Jr.
Runners fill the sky with a cloud of powdered paint to cap Saturday’s Patriot’s Challenge/Color Splash at LaHarpe City Park. More photos from the festivities are on Page B1.
LaHarpe hosts first color run By RICHARD LUKEN richard@iolaregister.com
LAHARPE — A group of jovial runners added some color to LaHarpe’s environs Saturday morning.
Roughly 30 partook in LaHarpe PRIDE’s inaugural Patriot’s Challenge/Color Splash, ending the festivities with a blast of red, green, blue, yellow, orange and purple. The 5-kilometer run drew participants from as far away as Indiana, including the race winner. Nine-year-old Ben Fronk of New Carlisle, Ind., crossed the finish line about three seconds
in front of his father, Chris. The younger Fronk’s winning time of 25 minutes, 23 seconds was about a minute better than his best ever time previously, a Thanksgiving Day run last fall, Chris Fronk said. On the women’s side, Iolan Gena Clounch finished in 31:30. The two took home American flags that were flown over
the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. Included were certificates of authenticity signed by U.S. Sen. Jerry Moran. The times were mostly irrelevant because most of the runners were delayed — voluntarily — at coloring stations throughout the course. There, they were doused with healthy doses of powdered paint. See COLOR | Page A4
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — The chief federal judge in Kansas refused Sunday to temporarily block parts of a new state abortion law, including a requirement that providers’ websites link to a state site with information they dispute. But U.S. District Judge Kathryn Vratil’s ruling Sunday in a lawsuit filed by Planned Parenthood came after a state judge ruled Friday in a separate challenge that Kansas couldn’t enforce the website requirement for now. Vratil noted the previous ruling, in a case filed by two doctors, in concluding that Planned Parenthood would not suffer irreparable harm if she didn’t do the same. The rule was to take effect today. Under the law, a provider’s home page will have to provide a link to a Kansas Department of Health and Environment site on abortion and fetal development and contain a statement that the state’s information is “objective” and “scientifically accurate.” Abortion providers object because the state’s information says that a fetus can feel pain by the 20th week of pregnancy, while the American Congress of Obstetricians See ABORTION | Page A4
Arizona fire kills 19 crew YARNELL, Ariz. (AP) — An elite crew of firefighters trained to battle the nation’s fiercest wildfires was overtaken by an out-of-control blaze in Arizona, killing 19 members as they tried to protect themselves from the flames under fire-resistant shields. It was the most firefighters killed battling a wildfire in the U.S. in decades. The lightning-sparked fire, which spread to at least 2,000 acres amid triple-digit temperatures, also destroyed 200 homes and sent hundreds fleeing from Yarnell, a town of about 700 residents about 85 miles northwest of Phoenix. Residents huddled in shelters and bars, watching their homes burn on TV as flames lit up the night sky in the forest above the town. The disaster Sunday afternoon all but wiped out the 20-member Hotshot fire crew based in nearby Prescott, leaving the city’s fire department reeling. “We grieve for the family. We grieve for the department. We grieve for the city,” Prescott Fire Chief Dan Fraijo said at a news conference Sunday evening. “We’re devastated. We just lost 19 of the finest people you’ll ever meet.” The National Fire Protection Association website lists the last wildland fire to kill more firefighters as the 1933 Griffith Park fire of
Los Angeles, which killed 29. The most firefighters — 340 — were killed in the 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York, according to the website. Most people had evacuated from the town, and no injuries or other deaths were reported. Hotshot crews go through specialized training and are often deployed soon after a fire breaks out. Sometimes they hike for miles into the wilderness with chain saws and backpacks filled with heavy gear to build lines of protection between people and fires. They remove brush, trees and anything that might burn in the direction of homes and cities. This crew had worked other wildfires in recent weeks in New Mexico and Arizona.
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We grieve for the family. We grieve for the department. We grieve for the city. — Prescott Fire Chief Dan Fraiko
As a last-ditch effort at survival, Hotshot crew members are trained to dig into the ground and cover themselves with the tent-like shelter made of fire-resistant material, Fraijo said. The hope in that desperate situation is that the fire will burn over them and they will survive. “It’s an extreme measure that’s taken under the absolute worst conditions,” Fraijo said. See ARIZONA | Page A4
Vol. 115, No.174
SAFE BASE braves river, returns home By STEVEN SCHWARTZ steven@iolaregister.com
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By JACQUES BILLEAUD and JOHN MARSHALL Associated Press
CANON CITY, Colo. — SAFE BASE’s trip to the mountains finished off with a splash Friday afternoon for the 68 students. The group had embarked on a week-long excursion into the Rocky Mountains, which included Rocky Mountain National Park, Leadville and a slew of activities. During the week, students’ thoughts on what would be the best part of the trip seemed to lean toward the final day’s activity. “I think I’m looking forward to the rafting the most,” Kyler Coats had said Thursday evening. His classmates nodded
Register/Steven Schwartz
Top, a group of students raft down the Arkansas River. Above, from left, Gene Myrick, Christian Lloyd, Angela Henry and Mollie McBurney pose for a picture at the Manitou Springs cliff dwellings. in agreement, none of them had paddled through whitewater before. The group made one detour on their way south toward Canon City, stopping at Manitou Springs to examine the cliffside dwellings of the Anasazi tribe. 75 Cents
The large structures were etched into the sandstone cliffs, still standing intact after 150 years. The SAFE BASE groups had the opportunity to examine them firsthand, by walking in and around the See RIVER | Page A4
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