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Football: Mustangs receive Viking burial See B1
The Weekender Saturday, October 5, 2013
Iola High’s Adam Kauth and Shannon Vogel were crowned fall homecoming king and queen Friday night at Riverside Park. REGISTER/RICHARD LUKEN
Sharon and Larry Utley have had separate careers, but will be together more now that they’re retired. REGISTER/KAYLA BANZET
Utleys diving into retirement together By BOB JOHNSON bob@iolaregister.com
After a lifetime of separate careers, Sharon and Larry Utley are looking forward to spending their retirement together. Sharon will work her last day as Allen County treasurer Monday. Larry, who started Utley’s Iola Auto Body, 324 N. State St., in 1974, is retired — well, better make that sort of. “I still work part time and probably will for a while,” he said. That’s understandable. His partner for years in the auto shop has been their son, Curt.
HOMECOMING 2013
Murder suspect still at large Two killed in Eureka, one hurt A search continued Friday for a suspect in a double murder at Eureka Wednesday night. A woman also was wounded and was reported Friday as being in stable condition in a Wichita hospital. The suspect is Kevin Robert Welch, 35. None of the victims has been identified. The deceased are a 54-year-old man and
52-year-old woman. The woman hospitalized is 26, and re p o r t e d ly was the daughter of the murder Kevin R. Welsh victims. Welch, a white male, is described as being 6 feet tall and
weighing about 185 pounds. The suspect left the scene in a vehicle belonging to one of the victims that later was found in eastern Greenwood County. Welch, considered armed and dangerous, is from Toronto in western Woodson County. His home was searched Thursday. Allen County Sheriff Bryan Murphy joined in the search for Welch early Thurs-
A HAYRACK ride back in 1962 put on by Winona Maley (now English) got the two LaHarpe High kids together. Soon after they were engaged. He graduated in 1963, she in 1964. A few weeks later they were hitched. They remember their honeymoon well. “We didn’t have any money and got married on July 3, so we could have the weekend,”
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to go to Fort Scott, Sharon said. The fort and National Cemetery were highlights. Larry, 69, was born and raised to early teens on a farm outside Pipestone, Minn. His family moved to a farm near LaHarpe when he was a high school freshman. “I was a city girl,” said Sharon, 66, having grown up in LaHarpe. He started work for Lang Motor Company in 1962, the year before he graduated, and later worked with Jay Patterson, body man at Dick White Motor Co., Verle Hoffman at State Street Motors, Fritz Auto Supply, and Dale Wichman Ford, before starting his own shop. Sharon got her first exposure to county government as motor vehicle deputy in the county treasurer’s office, 19651969. She then took time off to raise their family, but often found herself plying her clerical skills at the auto shop. After three years with Allen County Farm Bureau, she reSee UTLEYS | Page A4
Myths, fact and fiction of the Affordable Care Act Kansas expert offers insight into Obamacare, and what to expect By BOB JOHNSON and SUSAN LYNN Register reporters
The Affordable Care Act is designed to address problems in the health care system and, believe it or not, “not make life more difficult,” said Sheldon Weisgrau who addressed three separate audiences in Iola throughout Thursday. Weisgrau said most people’s information of the ACA “has been filtered through politics,” which is not the most accurate. Weisgrau is director of the non-partisan Health Reform Resource Project, Topeka. The need for reform is simple, Weisgrau said, because “we do not have the best health care system in the world,” with access, quality and cost being the reasons. He noted 45 million Americans under age 65 are without health insurance, including 250,000 in Kansas, or 14 per-
cent of that demographic. In Texas, sometimes held up as a model for Kansas governance, 25 percent of those under 65 are without health insurance, the equivalent of the entire population of Kansas. Also, many people are underinsured. “The No. 1 reason for personal bankruptcy in the United States is medical debt, and those are people who have insurance, just not adequate insurance,” Weisgrau said. “For the past 25-30 years health care costs have exploded and as a result health insurance rates. This is not a symptom of ‘Obamacare,’ but of a long trend.” THE HIGH COST of health care has exacerbated the way health insurance has been sold, and a facet the ACA intends to address. Before, the health care law, insurers did not sell insurance to people with certain
Quote of the day Vol. 115, No. 241
Sheldon Weisgrau addresses a group at the Townhouse assembly room Thursday afternoon. He also spoke at Iola Rotary Club and again in the evening, addressing concerns and providing information regarding the Affordable Care Act. REGISTER/BOB JOHNSON pre-existing conditions, such as cancer, heart disease and diabetes. They also “carved out parts of the body” if a person had had certain problems, such as with kidney stones.
“They’d devise a policy that omitted coverage of the entire urinary tract,” the area where kidney stones develop. In the evening session Weisgrau took the opportunity to
“You can only predict things after they happen.”
— Eugene Ionesco, Romanian playwright 75 Cents
highlight the sometimes disingenuous practices of the insurance industry. “True story: A woman’s See ACA | Page A7
Hi: 65 Lo: 43 Iola, KS