The Iola Register, June 10, 2020

Wednesday, June 10, 2020

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Kansans share COVID concerns

Iola A Indians drop pair at Pittsburg

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Kansans recognize LGBTQ flag creator

By SCOTT CANON and CELIA LLOPIS-JEPSEN Kansas News Service

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One extreme to another It wouldn’t be Kansas without wild weather swings every now and again.

A powerful cold front proved such a case.

The National Weather Service reported the temperature in Salina at 3 p.m. was at 93. Three hours to the west, in Goodland, the temperature was 47.

The cold front dropped temperatures considerably in Allen County as well, with lows in the 50s this morning.

Rebecca Johnson at her office in Fort Scott. REGISTER/TIM STAUFFER

No time for complacency

By TIM STAUFFER The Iola Register

Rebecca Johnson took the helm as director of the Southeast Kansas Multi-County Health Department in April of last year. She hasn’t had much time to sit back and reflect on the road traveled.

Nine months into her tenure, she, along with all of us, had her world turned upside

down with the COVID-19 pandemic. All of a sudden, nothing would ever really be the same.

Five months later, as the country opens back up and our daily lives resemble more and more how they used to be, her recommendations to the residents of southeast Kansas remain, in many ways, the same: “This virus hasn’t gone away. We

can’t emphasize enough that you need to take responsibility for yourself and your loved ones. I’m concerned, but I also have faith that our community will make good choices.”

The SEK Multi-County Health Department serves Allen, Anderson, Bourbon and Woodson counties. When See JOHNSON | Page A6

LAWRENCE — A full twothirds of Kansans say they don’t personally know someone who’s been infected with the coronavirus.

Yet an overwhelming number of respondents to a survey say the pandemic remade their lives, mostly for the worse.

They talk of worry, boredom. It has cost most of them money. In a time of one-way grocery aisles and when you need to wear a mask to go into a bank, they speak of a future that has hardly ever looked so gloomily foggy.

“It’s changed everyone’s lives,” said one respondent to a survey commissioned by See POLLS | Page A3

Senior centers, Meals on Wheels programs to resume

By TREVOR HOAG The Iola Register

The courthouse is now fully open once again, with public entry from any door, following a discussion by commissioners.

The decision comes as Gov. Laura Kelly’s “Ad Astra” reopening guidelines have entered Phase III, wherein the recommended limit for gath-

Feds seek $225M fine for robocalls

By TALI ARBEL The Associated Press

The U.S. communications regulator on Tuesday proposed a $225 million fine, its largest ever, against two health insurance telemarketers for spamming people with 1 billion robocalls using fake phone numbers.

The Federal Communications Commission said John Spiller and Jakob Mears made the calls through two businesses. State attorneys general of Arkansas, Indiana, Michigan, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio and Texas also sued the two men and their companies, Rising Eagle and JSquared Telecom, in federal court in Texas, where both men live, for See FINE | Page A6

Vol. 122, No. 157 Iola, KS 75 Cents

erings raises to 45 people.

One exception, however, to removing all limitations on courthouse access is the large meeting room in the basement, which is not yet available for gatherings beyond 15 people.

Commissioners also agreed that county-run senior centers could reopen for meals next Monday, June 15, and gave the go-ahead for regular

Meals on Wheels service to resume on that date as well.

Facilities will be carefully cleaned after meal services, and hand sanitizer and other hygienic products will be readily available.

The senior centers will aim to reopen completely by July 1, for card games and other social events and gatherings.

A new county building, the ambulance barn in Hum-

boldt, should also be opening very soon, with its grand opening perhaps forthcoming next week.

The main item in the new station still awaiting completion is installation of the circuit board and other electrical equipment.

Last week, the Kansas Department of Commerce announced that Allen County had received a Community

Development Block Grant (CDBG-CV) in the amount of $132,000.

The grant was successfully obtained by Thrive Allen County, and so Thrive CEO Lisse Regehr attended Tuesday’s meeting to provide a follow-up for commissioners.

The county has also put out bids to find a certified adminSee COUNTY | Page A6

Humboldt Council approves pool reopening

By RICHARD LUKEN The Iola Register

HUMBOLDT — Humboldt City Council members voted Monday to open the city’s municipal swimming pool June 29.

The opening comes with a couple of conditions, City Administrator Cole Herder explained.

First, he will continue to monitor the number of COVID-19 cases in Kansas and closer to home in Allen County. If those numbers spike, the opening plans could change.

Herder also noted he will reach out to parents of his incoming lifeguard staff to reiterate their children will be working in public amid an ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

The goal is to have the pool open with extra precautions being taken for safety, and extra sanitary cleaning ses-

Humboldt City Council members voted Monday to reopen the city’s municipal pool June 29. FILE PHOTO COURTESY OF BG CONSULTANTS

sions.

“Safety is the utmost concern,” Herder said.

The June 29 opening date coincides with Iola’s plans for its pool.

Also on Monday, the Chanute City Commission voted to open its Maring Aquatic Center on July 4, reversing

an earlier decision to keep the facility closed for the year. The Chanute Tribune reported city officials plan to boost the hourly pay for lifeguards to attract applicants, one of the key hurdles to opening the water park.

IN RELATED news, Herd-

er said City Hall will reopen to the public on June 22. The city’s parks, park restrooms and community buildings also will reopen that day.

Again, Herder said COVID-19 infections could See HUMBOLDT | Page A3

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A2 Wednesday, June 10, 2020 Obituary

The Iola Register

Kansans recognize rainbow flag creator’s roots

Marjorie Stephens Marjorie Ann Stephens, age 77, of Kincaid, died Thursday, June 4, 2020, at Allen County Regional Hospital, Iola.

She was born Feb. 11, 1943, in Fort Scott, to Rollin G. and Barbara (Gillaspie) Moore.

She married Eugene Stephens on Feb. 25, 1962 in Kincaid.

Survivors include her husband, Eugene Stephens, of the home; children, Shannon Atkinson of Saginaw, Texas, Alan Stephens of Kincaid, Jean Sluder of Blue Mound, and Sherri Stephens of Kearney, Mo. Funeral services were Monday at the Kincaid-Selma United Methodist Church, Kincaid, with burial in the Lone Elm Cemetery.

Police report Driver arrested Iola police officers arrested Dawn Malloy, 50, Olathe, for suspicion of transporting an open container of alcohol Friday in the 1200 block of East Street.

Vehicles collide Lynne C. Sutherland, 67, was turning into a driveway Friday in the 500 block of East Madison Avenue when her vehicle collided

with an eastbound van driven by Jaclyn M. Conkling, 28.

Neither was injured.

Parked car hit An unknown motorist struck a car owned

by Angel D. Kilbury Saturday while Kilbury’s car was parked in the 100 block of White Boulevard.

The driver left without reporting the accident.

Is messy Georgia primary a November harbinger?

ATLANTA (AP) — The long-standing wrangle over voting rights and election security came to a head in Georgia, where a messy primary and partisan finger-pointing offered an unsettling preview of a November contest when battleground states could face potentially record turnout.

Many Democrats blamed the Republican secretary of state for hourslong lines, voting machine malfunctions, provisional ballot shortages and absentee ballots failing to arrive in time for Tuesday’s elections.

Democrat Joe Biden’s presidential campaign called it “completely unacceptable.�

Georgia Republicans deflected responsibility to metro Atlanta’s heavily minority and Democratic-controlled counties, while President Donald Trump’s top campaign attorney decried “the chaos in Georgia.�

It raised the specter of a worst-case November scenario: a decisive

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state, like Florida and its “hanging chads� and “butterfly ballots� in 2000, remaining in dispute long after polls close. Meanwhile, Trump, Biden and their supporters could offer competing claims of victory or question the election’s legitimacy, inflaming an already boiling electorate.

Adia Josephson, a 38-year-old black voter in the Brookhaven area just outside Atlanta, waited more than two hours to vote but wasn’t about to let the long lines stop her.

Problems with voting machines and long lines must be corrected before the next election, she said. “There’s no room for error,� she said. “There’s a lot to gain and a lot to lose.�

At Trump’s campaign headquarters, senior counsel Justin Clark blamed Georgia’s vote-by-mail push amid the COVID-19 pandemic, alluding to the president’s unfounded claims that absentee voting yields widespread fraud.

Correction The lunch price for Iola Middle School students will increase by 5 cents to $3. The price reported in Tuesday’s article quoted the old price.

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Published Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday & Thursday afternoons and Saturday mornings except New Year’s day, Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Thanksgiving and Christmas.

By C.J. JANOVY Kansas News Service

The iced tea is flowing, and the women of Parsons High School’s class of 1969 are on a roll.

A handful of them are circled up at a table in the increasingly crowded fellowship hall of St. John’s Episcopal Church, where yearbooks from 50 years ago are spread out at the front of the room and laughter from old stories grows louder amid the white cinder block walls and green-and-yellow linoleum-tiled floor. One of the women at the table has purple hair — not the subtle tint of elderly ladies’ salon rinses but the declarative violet in vogue among queer kids.

All of these women have clear recollections of a classmate who got the hell out of Kansas as soon as he could and went on to change the world.

Gilbert Baker, born in Chanute, on June 2, 1951, designed the rainbow flag, now flown all over the world to signify support for LGBTQ equality and pride. “He always was into the arts,� one of Baker’s classmates remembers. “He was a personality unto himself,� says another. “He was always at our lunch table. He really did feel comfortable with us, and we felt comfortable with him.� “He loved to act, and help us do the plays.�

They remember a dark-haired boy with thick Buddy Holly glasses. “You know, he would be the kind to wear a scarf or shawl, whatever you’d call it.� “A snappy dresser.� “This may not be etiquette, but in ‘69, we didn’t know what gay was. So Gilbert was just different,� says Debbie Sailsbury Burke. “People would make fun of him because he was different, but he set the stage way before it was ever a norm.�

One time, he asked Patty Eakins Edgington on a date. “I’d evidently broken up with a boyfriend.

I don’t know what I’d done, I was 16 or 17, who knows. And I don’t know why he said — that’s just Gilbert — he said, ‘Let’s go to the drive-in.’ So we went to the drive-in movie and it was a quote, date, but I kind of knew it wasn’t really a date.�

Everyone agrees: “Just a friend — just a friend.� “The next day,� Edgington continues, “I got yellow roses delivered to my house: ‘Thank you for a great time.’ He was just a nice guy.�

In the decades since they graduated, people began to realize what Baker had done after leaving Kansas. Eventually Facebook came along. “I shot a request to him and he accepted,�

Edgington says. “I posted some stuff over the years because I fiddled around in art, and he’d

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Rainbow flag creator Gilbert Baker was born in Chanute, and went on to change the way the whole world looked. The photo above was taken in Ireland in 2011. comment.�

At some point there was talk of inviting Baker back for one of the reunions, but that brought up other memories. “At our lunch table, the guys, the jocks, would come by with their trays and they would slap him in the back of the head,�

Burke says. “I mean some of them were cruel to him. I always felt sorry for him.�

They point across the room to Sandy Salyer, who remembers Baker doing cartwheels. Salyer says she read an interview where Baker talked about being bullied as a kid. “When I heard that it broke my heart,� she says. “We were just innocent and didn’t understand what a gay person was. He was a free spirit, loving life.� A lot of people didn’t know where he went after high school, but he seemed destined for greatness. “I’m just so proud of what he did and the movement he was part of,� Sayler says. And she begins to tear up. “I’m really sorry people treated him that way.� “Take me away!�

Kansas has a rough time staking much of a claim to Gilbert Baker.

By the time of his death, at age 65 on March 31, 2017, his personality and his work were too big even for San Francisco.

He’d made his home in New York City. “The rainbow flag has become a universal symbol for inclusion, peace and love,� the New York Times noted in his obituary. “It has been waved by gay rights supporters in China fighting for equality. It has been hung from apartment balconies as a sign of solidarity. After the United States Supreme Court legalized gay marriage in 2015, more than 26 million people on Facebook changed their profile photos to include the flag.�

In his autobiography “Rainbow Warrior: My Life in Color,� published posthumously in 2019, Baker devotes a grand total of eight pages to his Kansas upbringing.

He titled that chapter “Dreaming of a Life Over the Rainbow.� “I was born gay and I always knew it,� Baker writes, before detailing the pain of that knowledge in 1950s Kansas.

As a child in his room, Baker pulled sheets off of his bed to fashion

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outfits for a kindergartner’s imaginary drag routine, dancing to songs on the radio until he heard someone coming and scrambled to put the sheets back on the bed.

Later, when his parents discovered him twirling in his aunt’s old prom dress, his father spanked him. Sundays at the Methodist church were no comfort. “In my soul, questions burned: Did God make me gay and love me, or was I going to hell for a sin?� He considered killing himself.

Still, his work was inspired and ultimately shaped by a quintessentially Kansas event: President Dwight D. Eisenhower running for re-election, which Baker’s mother let him watch on TV. “I was mesmerized by the hoopla of bunting and balloons and thrilled by the pageantry,� he writes. “I especially loved the parade of state delegates, each group carrying signs and banners created in crepe paper. There were crazy hats and pretty girls in washes of stars and stripes, the national anthem and the Pledge of Allegiance. I was especially moved by the sight of the American flag.�

Armed with crayons, young Baker became obsessed with drawing what he’d seen. But “it was not considered normal to imagine greatness and beauty,� he writes. “Being an artist was bad in the same way that homosexuality was bad.�

Baker’s family moved to Wichita for his father’s law practice. By the time he was 9, he was in such distress that he went to the library to try to figure out what was wrong with him; in a book about Freud and abnormal psychology, a description of “delusions of grandeur� seemed to explain his feelings. Fearing his parents would send him to a mental institution, Baker, like so many other Midwestern kids of his time, tortured himself with efforts to be something he was not.

He grew obsessed with death. “Only one thing seemed certain about my life in Kansas: I would either be blown up by a nuclear bomb or die from boredom.�

Peak mid-century TV provided a bit of salvation: Phyllis Diller on

Today

79

“The Tonight Show�; the political, passionate and kooky Barbra Streisand; the long-haired Beatles and the Rolling Stones. “Old people said they looked like girls, so they were definitely pushing a button on the taboo of homosexuality,� he writes.

Baker took up the trumpet, and music became his teenage means of survival — “the way I could compensate socially for being so effeminate and being known as the class queer.� Nobody wanted to play Sousa marches, so Baker pressured music teachers to include arrangements of Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass and Blood, Sweat & Tears. “My efforts succeeded,� he writes, “and I even became popular with my classmates because of it.�

But fights with his parents intensified, and he grew riveted to news from the 1968 Democratic National Convention.

The streets of Chicago were exploding, “but the only thing taking over the streets in Kansas was tumbleweed.�

By the time he was 19, he knew it was time to leave. “So, unlike Dorothy, when the tornado came I ran right for it, saying, ‘Take me away!’� “We just act like it’s normal�

About 35 miles south of Baker’s birthplace in Chanute, in the far southeast corner of the state, Parsons is home to around 10,000 people. Its well-kept Main Street and the presence of Labette Community College make it feel almost like a city to the kids from nearby towns of just a few hundred.

It’s the kind of place where people remember ZaSu Pitts, an actress who started out in silent films and worked up through 1963’s “It’s A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.� Pitts has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and a bronze star in front of the Parsons movie theater. It’s also the birthplace of a jazz trumpeter named Buck Clayton, who played with Count Basie, Benny Goodman and Billie Holliday and has been honored with a local jazz festival. Cherryvale, 20some miles away, has bragging rights to two people: Vivian Vance from “I Love Lucy,� and Frank E. Bellamy, a high school student who wrote the Pledge of Allegiance. “We jump on every little tiny thing we can to get people to our towns,� says Scotty Zollars, the library director at Labette Community College. “But why has there never been any mention of Gilbert, who had much wider representation than that?�

It would be easy to conSee LGBTQ | Page A5

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The Iola Register

Wednesday, June 10, 2020

Humboldt: Pool set to reopen June 29 Continued from A1

change those plans.

His fear is reopening public facilities could cause a spike in Humboldt, which has largely avoided the pandemic.

“There’s probably not a single formula we’ll follow,” Herder said, “but we’ll watch

the trends and watch the Kansas Department of Health and Environment and the governor’s office for updates.”

IN OTHER business, Council members voted to start condemnation procedures for a dilapidated house at 404 S. Seventh St.

Herder noted the Council has twice given the owners time extensions to improve the property and remove it from the city’s nuisance list.

On both occasions, few if any improvements were made.

Council members also received a clean audit from Neil Phillips

of the accounting firm of Jared, Gilmore and Phillips for last year’s budget.

“Our funds are in much better shape than they’ve been in the past,” Herder said, which has allowed the city to proceed with a number of infrastructure improvements.

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KU offers buyouts LAWRENCE, Kan. (AP) — The University of Kansas will offer voluntary buyout packages to some faculty members as it grapples with financial losses from the coronavirus pandemic.

Chancellor Douglas Girod has said the uni-

versity faces a budget shortfall of at least $120 million in the fiscal year that begins July 1 due to virus-related shutdowns, the Lawrence Journal-World reported.

Eligible employees must be age 62 or older and meet other requirements.

Polls: Kansans share anxiety about health, economic impact Continued from A1

public media project America Amplified for the Kansas News Service. “It’s been hard staying away from everyone I know and love.”

Still, that respondent reflected another common view of the poll — that the pain of stay-at-home orders felt worthwhile.

Kansans essentially said the damage to commerce and community makes sense as a way to keep a lethal virus from killing more people. They give state and local government higher marks than Washington, but that’s a common finding in polls.

If anything, most people said the federal response to a pandemic that’s killed 100,000plus Americans came too late.

“Attacking the virus from the moment we were aware would have saved countless lives,” one respondent said. Another said officials should not have “play(ed) it off as a hoax.”

A sizable minority, nearly a fourth, said too much emphasis has been put on combating the virus. After all, unemployment claims in Kansas have never come so suddenly, or in such volume. (The survey was conducted from May 28 to June 4, before reports that the national jobless rate defied economists’ projections and improved, if not as much as initially thought, in May.) “I wanted” the state, said one respondent, “to let us get things open sooner.”

[The poll was commissioned by public media project America Amplified for the Kansas News Service.

It was conducted by Hertz Research. The results are based on 616 responses to an online survey. While the demographics of the respondents generally reflect those of Kansas as a whole — by income, age, sex, geography, political affiliation and race — the results have been statistically weighted to match the state’s population even more accurately. The poll’s margin of error is plus or minus 4%.

See the results of all the questions and the pollster’s analysis embedded at the bottom of this article.]

Notably, white people appear far less worried about the pandemic. Only 32% of white respondents said they were very concerned, compared to 55% of people of color. Findings throughout the pandemic have noted that people of color — they generally have less access to health care and face other factors that put their health in jeopardy — have been far more

57% fret about how long the virus will alter their lives.

When they filled in blanks on the survey, respondents talked about elderly relatives they couldn’t visit. About the uncertainty of their business. About the tedium. One respondent said, “I feel cooped up and sad.”

Those dreary responses — there were exceptions, particularly people grateful for more time with their families — defined the results.

“The stress levels seem amazing high,” said Martin Hamburger, a Democratic political consultant who has run campaigns in Kansas for decades.

Consider all those people who’ve lost a job, a business, who’ve been furloughed or seen their pay cut.

“A lot of those people are down to no money coming in all of a sudden,” Hamburger said.

“That’s a pretty serious thing.”

Stress levels appear to run highest among the young and those living in densely populated situations — renters and urban residents.

Democrats also were more likely than Republicans to say the pandemic made them very stressed.

Stressed and uncertain

Red and blue

PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY CELIA LLOPIS-JEPSEN/KANSAS NEWS SERVICE/KCUR.ORG

likely to catch COVID-19 and to die from it.

Race matters

More than threefourths of respondents of color said that the pandemic felt stressful or very stressful, compared to barely half of the white people in the survey.

People of color were significantly more likely to say they’ve lost a job, been furloughed, seen their work hours cut or lost health care benefits.

And while only about 21% of white people personally know someone who got the coronavirus, about 35% of people of color know someone who’s become sick from the virus.

“It’s quite a bit different for African Americans,” said Natalie Pennie, a black woman from Topeka who spoke with the Kansas News Service after taking the survey.

She got laid off from a part-time job and found herself struggling to pay her bills.

“The price of food is outrageous,” she said, forcing her to choose between the grocery bill and a pending car insurance premium. “With your income being more limited now, you’ve got to make a decision on what’s more important.”

Yet she also talked about the collective need to balance the economic impact of stay-at-home orders against keeping

the virus from spreading.

“I’d rather have my life and be broke,” she said, “than take a chance and go out there and get sick and then die.”

Public health vs the economy

In fact, Kansans in the survey generally maintained serious worries about the pandemic, even though the poll came after nearly all of the statewide restrictions have been lifted.

That’s another way Kansas reflects the national mood.

“People still think the health risks are more important to address than opening the economy,” said Karlyn Bowman, a polling expert at the conservative American Enterprise Institute.

“They’re deeply concerned about the ​economy.”

She said national polls reveal a similar sense of angst about both an economic recession and a fatal disease.

“People really, really are concerned about what this all means, what it’s going to be for them and their families and whether there’ll ever be a vaccine,” Bowman said. “There is an enormous amount of anxiety right now.”

Among the concerns: 65% worry about getting infected, or a relative or friend getting sick; 63% worry about the economic impact of the virus;

Kansans in the survey see a future far different from the recent past.

Nearly three-fourths said more people will work from home. Almost two-thirds said people will be reluctant to attend sporting events, go to concerts or meet in large crowds. About half expect we’ll go out to eat less.

“It’s already starting to do damage to the economy and what we think of as normal American life,” Jon Russell said in an interview after taking the survey. He’s 24 and says the pandemic is partly responsible for him being out of work.

Other respondents said, basically, this too shall pass. Some complained of what they see as an overreaction to the virus, a response that’s made a mess of a previously robust economy.

But more often, they spoke despairingly. One respondent talked of being “in a world of disbelief.” Another said, “It’s been very isolating and depressing at times.”

A number of issues split along party lines.

Most glaringly, it’s clear that Republicans put far more faith in what President Donald Trump says about the pandemic (56% have a great or good deal of faith in what he says) than Democrats (16%).

“Trump is doing a fantastic job,” Mark Swisher said in an interview after taking the survey. He also gave Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly high marks. “It’s not her fault if the virus rolls up.”

He’s a Republican who lives in a nursing home in Onaga, Kansas. He thinks the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention could have been better prepared for the pandemic.

Now he hopes progress is made to fight the disease.

“The world has forever changed,” Swisher said. “I hope it’s within six months that they have a vaccine.”

Quarantines have raised the possibility of complicating the August primary and November general election. An overwhelming number of Democrats, 79%, said voting by mail is secure and should be encouraged.

Just 38% of Republicans agreed.

Protests over the death of George Floyd in the custody of Minneapolis police escalated only after the survey had begun. In response to open-ended questions, a handful of respondents volunteered that those protests might spread the virus.

Yet people maintain their faith in scientists to lead them through a public health crisis.

Kathleen Hall Jamieson, a communications professor at the Annenberg Public Policy Center, said that people have long tended to trust scientists over politicians.

That confidence in real expertise, she said, shows up in the sacrifices they were willing to make.

“They were giving up the ability to interact with people who were their friends and their other members of their family and their children and grandchildren, or their grandparents,” she said. “It would make no sense to say that you think it was a worthwhile trade-off if you didn’t believe the science.”

America Amplified is a public media initiative funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting that uses community engagement to inform and stregthen local, regional and national journalism.

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A4

Opinion The Iola Register

Wednesday, June 10, 2020

~ Journalism that makes a difference

Kansas State’s Myers calls out Donald Trump We stand with Richard Myers, the president of Kansas State University. He is exactly right in saying that it was “not right,” the way the Trump Administration has responded to protests.

In particular, President Myers said he was saddened by the handling of the peaceful protest around Lafayette Square in Washington, D.C. on Monday evening. In that case, federal agents broke up a protest by force, using tear gas, to clear the way for President Donald Trump to walk to a church for a photo op with a Bible.

President Myers is formerly of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the nation’s top military officers. He has refrained from much comment on national security issues or national politics since leaving that post, where he served for President George W. Bush.

He said his first reaction to the incident “was absolute sadness that people are not allowed to protest, and as I understand it, that was a peaceful protest that was disturbed by force,” he said on CNN. “That’s not right, that should not happen in America, and so I was sad. I mean, we should all shed tears over that particular act.”

Right on.

Protesters around the country are basically demanding

equal justice under the law, a fundamental right in America. They have the right to protest, and their cause is clearly just.

President Trump has seized on the looting and rioting that has come along with some of the protests, puffing up his chest on Twitter to issue warnings like “when the looting starts, the shooting starts.” He wants to send in the military; we learned this week that one unit from Fort Riley is on alert to deploy, probably to Minneapolis, if the governor there requests it. Thank goodness thus far he hasn’t.

President Trump’s basic tactic is essentially to divide, rather than unite; to condemn, rather than to understand.

That approach may, in fact, benefit him politically — although we will only know the upshot of all this in November.

But to use force to clear a peaceful protest so that he could stand in front of a church holding a Bible?

Breaking up a Constitutionally-protected right to assemble by government force, so as to pose for a photo?

We’re glad President Myers called it out. Because in America, that should be unthinkable.

— The Manhattan Mercury

Animal rights activists feel kinship to uproar

By INGRID E. NEWKIRK People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals

I was in Washington, D.C., when 14th Street burned following the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968. Like many of us, I went on to witness more riots and rampages when other outrages against black men and women sparked that desperate need to take to the streets to say, “Listen to us! Stop this!” Now it’s happening again. On June 1, I watched as, only blocks from my office, rubber bullets and tear gas were used against peaceful protesters trying to exercise their First Amendment rights by holding signs and chanting outside the White House.

A few days later, I found myself marching yet again.

Perhaps other quietly executed presidential acts should come as no surprise when, instead of condemning the police officer who knelt on George Floyd’s neck until he died — calling for his mother and pleading that he couldn’t breathe — and instead of expressing empathy for those seeking an end to racial injustice, the president condemned the protesters and called out the military. I say that because, last month, the president legalized acts of violence against others who have committed the “crime” of not only failing to be born white but also failing to be born human.

The Trump administration not only reversed police reform advanced by President Barack Obama, but has rolled back that president’s protection of federal lands and wildlife. A new ruling allows hunters in Alaska — mostly privileged white men like Donald Trump’s trophy-hunting sons, who kill for the sheer pleasure of it — to lure black bears, including mothers

and their cubs, out of their dens with artificial light; to use bait to attract black and brown bears; to hunt wolves and coyotes during the denning season; and to shoot caribou while they’re swimming or from motorboats.

One injustice cannot be allowed to fly under the radar while another, often more personal injustice, remains to be urgently corrected. If you are my age, you may remember the Life magazine picture of young white men and women who were boarding buses to go to Southern states to help black people there register to vote. They were being screamed at, called “white N-words,” and told to go fix poverty among “their own kind” in Appalachia. It made me wonder what my own kind was, exactly. Where were the lines drawn?

I BELIEVE that injustice is one big rotten mass, and just as Floyd showed us that he loved his mother, and just as my mother loved me, if we really look, we can see what President Trump cannot: that a mother bear loves her babies, too. She will guard them with her life. But now she will lose that life — and in her own home, a place no longer sacred but instead “fair game” to anyone who values putting animals’ heads on the wall over sparing their lives.

Those of us who champion animal rights believe with all our hearts in civil rights because, to us, it is one big struggle against all the ugly “-isms,” all hate, all bias, all injustice. We united for civil rights in the ’60s, and now everyone with an open heart must unite again to fight continuing injustice. At this moment in time, the focus must be on demanding an end to racism — we get that — but, in due time, we must work together to end all oppression.

Rory Wakemup holds an American flag at the “The Path Forward” meeting at Powderhorn Park, a meeting between the Minneapolis City Council and community members on Sunday, June 7, in Minneapolis, Minn. (Jerry Holt/Minneapolis Star Tribune/TNS)

The way back: A healing strategy America burning. The other street and she thinks you’re sees it awakening. And nei- trying to snatch her purse.” ther can see, for an instant, “Misery is when the taxi what the other sees. cab won’t stop for your mothIt’s not over yet, this Liberals committed, first er and she says a bad word.” strange, sad, but perhaps ul“Misery is when you see timately teaching moment and last, to free speech and in our country’s history. And free thought scarcely exist that it takes the whole Namaybe it will not end in a any more. They have been tional Guard to get you into neat and tidy way. But when displaced by the left and the the new integrated school.” woke, people sometimes terThis was the last project next comes, what will it be? rifyingly committed to certi- Langston Hughes worked on Can we heal? If so, how?

James Mattis, the retired tude. They are the reigning before he died.

The good thing, maybe the Marine general and former bully boys of this moment, though the bigots of the right best thing, that has come out secretary of defense, says will always be with us. of this current moment in we can. He points out that A m e r i c a n our history is most of the protests have conservatism that a whole lot been peaceful and simply libertarof Americans calling the country to be all and still We need an ocean are more fully that it has long aspired to be. ianism He calls most of the protests exist as intel- tide of empathy in the awakening to “healthy,” and notes that lectual move- U.S. right now. ... And the reality of but black children they are constitutionally ments, dialogue. ...

And most as political — and the realprotected. m o v e m e n t s ity of some of important, we need to Barack Obama sees hope, too. He sees a new genera- they have been practice humility. ... We those children by when they betion of civil rights leaders — eclipsed r e a c t i o n a r y aren’t going to ‘solve’ come young fresh voices, new energy. our problems ...

But we impulses and men and their Neither man, I think, is forces. parents have to can learn, improve and blind to all that is wrong The only way have “the talk” with this moment — George progress. with them and Floyd’s death; the cops in- to revive Amercoach them jured at the hands of cops ican political and about how to haters last week; the looters; thought to build consensus around survive a traffic stop. the instigators of violence.

Traffic stops are also terriBut they see something certain goals — let us say rebuilding the nation’s infying for many cops. good in the midst of all this, frastructure or the manufacWe need an ocean tide of and I take heart at their optimism. Still, I think we need a turing base of the American empathy in the United States heartland — is to talk. Not right now, and maybe that’s healing strategy. what those peaceful and First, we need practical shout or demonize, but talk.

The third thing we need constitutionally protected steps, like banning chokewill grow out of dialogue — a demonstrations were about holds and requiring constant national upsurge in empathy .

— a modest swell to begin. training and retraining for Can I feel Finally, and most importpolice offiyour pain? No, ant, we need to practice hucers.

Most but I can identi- mility — practice it even if good police First, we need prac- fy with it. we don’t feel it. Fake it until chiefs want tical steps, like banWe know that we actually do internalize it: the latter and some individuThink about what we don’t ning chokeholds and will tell you als, peoples and understand and what we can the former requiring training and is unneces- retraining for police races suffer far never fully understand. Not more than oth- feel too boastful about the sary.

This ers. But the ca- empathy we do uncover and can be done officers. pacity for empa- engender. We aren’t going to individually thy is rooted in “solve” our problems, includin cities and the universality ing bigotry and police viostates. With of human experience, begin- lence, this year, or any year. a push by that new generation of leadership, it can be ning, and ending, in suffer- But we can learn, improve ing. All human beings know and progress. achieved.

We can only do that, Second, we need dialogue. suffering.

If I go to the Holocaust though, with a sense of our Some will see this as corny Museum in Washington, I personal and political and or a sort of 1960s idea. They cannot possibly feel or unsystemic limitations and by are wrong. Old people, young derstand all that a Jewish practicing mutual respect people, black people and white people need to talk. person can. But I can feel and and listening to each other.

I don’t have the right to laBlue lives and black lives understand.

A friend gave me a re- bel you or tell you I know need to interact, not just on the streets but in living markable little book called what is in your heart. Joe rooms and churches and syn- “Black Misery” by Langston Biden hasn’t got the right agogues. I am talking about Hughes, the great African to tell a black man he “ain’t formal dialogues, yes, like American poet of the last black.” And Donald Trump we created artificially in century. The book is a se- should have left the Bible at the 1960s and 1970s, because ries of drawings by an artist home and gone into St John’s Americans have stopped named Arouni and they are Church across the street talking to each other and lis- of African American chil- from the White House and dren who tell their stories of knelt in silence — praying tening to each other.

What has happened is that “misery” through Hughes’ for a harvest of charity in we are a 44%/44% country bleak captions and apho- this country we all love. of blue versus red, in which risms.

About the writer: Keith C. “Misery,” says a little boy, each side or team has beBurris is executive editor of “is when you start to help come incapable of seeing the the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. an old white lady across the other’s reality. One side sees

By KEITH C. BURRIS Pittsburg Post-Gazette

iolaregister.com

The Iola Register

Wednesday, June 10, 2020

LGBTQ: SEK communities celebrate Gilbert Baker Continued from A2

sider that a rhetorical question with the obvious answer that a stereotypically conservative place like small-town Kansas wants no part of celebrating gay culture.

But the real answer is more complicated.

Even Zollars, a gay man in his late 50s who has lived around Parsons for almost his entire life, had never heard of Gilbert Baker until 2017. And that’s not because Zollars has stayed in the closet.

“I don’t hide it. Everybody at work knows, my boss knows. My fiancé and I go to college events, we go to Mass together, we’ve had no repercussions at all,” Zollars says. “We just act like it’s normal. And there’s other couples in town who are the same way. My impression is that people in southeast Kansas, they really don’t care as long as you don’t shove it in their face.”

Flying rainbow flags does, of course, put something in people’s faces. But that only partly explains the lack of recognition for Baker’s legacy.

It’s also as if Baker, by leaving so early and so thoroughly, helped erase his own legacy in Kansas.

Another reason Zollars had never heard of Gilbert Baker until 2017 was that no one had made any serious effort to honor him until Aaron Casserly Stewart was elected to the city commission. Stewart was an anomaly in Parsons for two reasons.

“As a gay, black man, to be honest, I didn’t think I was going to be elected,” Stewart says.

But he was newly back to town for family reasons, and ran for office to honor his father. “He was the city building inspector, so anything that was built in the town he had to sign off on it. A lot of people knew him.”

Stewart doesn’t think the fact that he’s gay had much to do with his election. “I beat out an incumbent who had been on the council for a while. I think people wanted a change.”

During his own high

Aaron Casserly Stewart grew up in Parsons, but left at age 17 after being outed in 1983. When he returned in his 40s, he was elected to the city council, where he began efforts to recognize Gilbert Baker.

school years, a couple of generations after Baker’s, Stewart had been the president of the student council, popular enough to be president of all the southeast Kansas student councils. But some kids found his diary, in which Stewart had been trying to deal with his sexuality. They took it to a party and read it out loud.

“Being outed, at 17 in rural Kansas in 1983, was more than I could deal with, so I left,” he says. Stewart finished his senior year in Lawrence and, like Baker, then joined the military and left the state.

Stewart ended up in Minneapolis, where, possessed of a soulful baritone, he got a gig singing with the Sounds of Blackness, a threetime-Grammy-winning group whose members ran in the same circles as Janet Jackson and the esteemed producers Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis. From there he moved to Los Angeles, where he worked as a personal assistant for the keyboardist Morris Hayes, who’d been in Prince’s New Power Generation.

By the time he came back to Parsons, Stewart had been gone for 22 years. Now in his late 40s, he didn’t need anyone’s validation. Dealing with people’s conservative views was hard, but Stewart was also surprised to find a lot of support.

“Because my husband is British, and we’re an interracial, inter-generational couple,” he explains, “there was a bit of, how do I say, just, interest in that because we were kind of a novelty.”

Recognizing an opportunity to which the rest of the town was apparently oblivious, Stewart got in touch with Baker.

“He had not been back to Parsons since he left, so I invited him back,” Stewart says.

He also called some of Baker’s old classmates, and they talked about having a day in his honor, with Stewart giving him a key to the city and the college hosting a Gilbert Baker Film Festival.

Over the course of almost a year, Stewart had phone conversations updating Baker on the various plans.

“He was really reluctant to come back because of the experience growing up in small town Kansas,” Stewart says.

But both men seemed struck by the fact that no one had ever asked Baker to come back.

Finally, Stewart says, “he decided to come.”

A month before his celebrated return, Baker died.

The film festival went

David Pawlus, owner of the Kitchen Pass restaurant in downtown Parsons, put up two Pride flags in June 2019. He doesn’t consider himself an activist. However, Pawlus says, “A lot of people thanked me. A good friend called and said, ‘Thank you, I don’t know if you know, but my son is gay.’ That kind of hit me, made me realize that was the right thing to do. It made me feel good.” on as planned. Zollars screened the hits “Milk” and “Pride” as well as “Out Here in Kansas,” a short documentary about a gay football star from Andover, and he gave an award for one of the student submissions. Hardly anyone came — maybe 15 or 20 people including staff at the college. “It was not a good showing,” Zollars says, “but we did it.”

In the year that followed, Stewart immigrated to England where he and his husband were married. But he stayed in touch with a few people back in Parsons, and in 2019, he reached out to one of the city commissioners and asked if they’d fly a rainbow flag at City Hall during June.

“I didn’t get a response,” he says.

By then, though, another gay couple had moved to town. A doctor named Shawn Zimbrunes had taken a job at the hospital, bringing his husband, David Matthew, from Washington, D.C. When he learned it was Baker’s hometown, Matthew told a reporter for the Parsons Sun, he was surprised.

“I wondered where is the memorial? Where is the honor of his legacy? Where are the pride flags?”

Matthew, who had spent most of his life on the East Coast, couldn’t let Pride Month pass without honoring Baker. He bought three dozen rainbow flags (which wasn’t easy, since they’re in short supply around that time of year). He put the first one up in his yard, an act that felt so momentous it brought him to tears.

He also approached businesses along Main Street, and the owner of the popular Kitchen Pass offered to fly two flags out front and one inside in support of LGBTQ friends and employees. There were some questions about affixing flag-holders to city light poles, and in general all of this was a lot of drama for Parsons.

Two of the flags outside the Kitchen Pass were stolen, then returned.

Other than that, Matthew said in a written statement to the Parsons Sun, the response had been overwhelmingly positive.

“I heard heart-wrenching stories about rather awful experiences growing up in a town where they felt hated and excluded, where they feared admitting who they were. People relayed how it brought them to tears to see pride flags flying in a town where they had never felt seen, never felt accepted. I also heard from local residents who were absolutely thrilled to see these flags to honor Gilbert Baker, to honor their son or daughter who is gay, to honor their family and make them visible and appreciated in the place they call home,” Matthew wrote.

One city commissioner agreed that the town should consider a way to honor Baker, and encouraged people who had enthusiasm and ideas to bring them forward.

Fifty years later

The fellowship hall at St. John’s church has grown loud and humid, crowded with members of the class of 1969.

Les Hammett, a State Farm insurance agent who bought a house with his wife in Liberty, Missouri, a while back but still drives to his hometown for work during the week, finds a place near the yearbook table to make a short speech.

He explains why a journalist is here asking questions about Gilbert Baker and encourages everyone to share their memories.

“As far as I’m concerned, Gilbert did a lot to change the world for the better,” Hammett says to emphatic

QUALITY & VA

applause. “Some of us have been talking about trying to do something, just a little plaque to recognize Gilbert, maybe up at the city building or at the high school, something,” Hammett says.

“If you’re interested in helping us, let us know.”

“Good job, Les,” says a man nearby.

By the spring, the city had donated a small plot of vacant land downtown to a group called Southeast Kansas Point of Pride (the group’s name referring not to LGBTQ pride but rather the civic pride that inspires residents to take part in neighborhood clean-ups and plant flowers in pots lining downtown streets). The Point of Pride folks planned to turn the small, empty grassy strip into a pocket park. Renderings show a fountain, a couple of park benches, native plants and, along one wall, a plaque in honor of Gilbert Baker.

Hammett figured it would be ready to dedicate this fall, perhaps in time for the next Gilbert Baker Film Festival at Labette Community College.

“It’s not often that you rub shoulders with a person who changes the world,” says Hammett, who guesses it was 15 or 20 years ago when he learned his classmate had designed the rainbow flag. He’s been impressed ever since.

Hammett’s own memories of high school suggest a nearly universal truth — that teenagers in that setting don’t have any clue how others perceive themselves or each other — which is especially sad in Baker’s case.

“He talked about being picked on in high school,” Hammett says.

“I’ll be honest with you — I just never saw that. I thought Gilbert was well liked. He was in theater and that kind of thing, he was a fun person. I think everybody liked Gil.” But Hammett was preoccupied with his own concerns. “My mom died right before I started high school, and I lived with my grandparents.

I was just trying to survive. I didn’t go to dances and that kind of thing.

My social skills and my social life in high school was not like a lot of folks.”

Maybe everyone feels like an outsider in high school, one way or another. Certainly it’s easier for gay kids today, even in a town like Parsons, which Hammett

A5

describes as “pretty straight.”

Over reunion weekend there was one rainbow flag along Main Street. It was a mile west of downtown, past the middle school, where the thoroughfare’s lined mostly with houses, attached to a white bungalow with potted plants on the front porch.

“We have it up all year,” says Alyson Delich, who has lived in the rental house for a couple of years with her girlfriend, Bailey Collins. Once or twice she’s been outside and someone in a passing car has yelled an obscenity, she says. “They always drive by fast, so you never get to see who it is.”

But in June, she says, “like five people drove by and hung out their windows and yelled ‘Happy Pride!’ when I was on my porch.” That was really cool, she says. “Because there aren’t a lot of flags.”

Delich describes her landlord as “an older man, really nice, sweet, soft-spoken.” When they first put up the flag, she says, “we heard some older people were making comments to him and he was like, ‘They’re nice girls.’”

Now 23, Delich has lived in Parsons since she was a kid; she and Collins got together when they were in high school. “When I was a senior in high school there was probably seven people who were out,” she says. “That’s a small amount of people, but I felt like that was quite a few people for a small high school.”

Delich has a supportive family, and says she and Collins are lucky they’ve never encountered more than an occasional derisive comment. But there are so few LGBTQ people in Parsons that the two of them socialize with other queer people mainly at concerts in Kansas City and electronic dance music festivals around the region.

“The younger generations are out and living their lives,” says Zollars, who is now the advisor for Labette Community College’s Gay/Straight Alliance. That club, he says, is a direct result of conversations with Baker about returning to Parsons.

“He wanted to help start GSAs at the high school and the college.

The high school administrator said absolutely not, but we were able to start one at the college,” Zollars says.

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Wednesday, June 10, 2020

Fine

Continued from A1

violating the federal law governing telemarketing, the Telephone Consumer Protection Act. The FCC said the robocalls offered plans from major insurers like Aetna and UnitedHealth with an automated message. If consumers pressed a button for more information, however, they were transferred to a call center that sold plans not connected to those companies.

The FCC said the Missouri attorney general sued Rising Eagle’s largest client, Health Advisors of America, for telemarketing violations last year.

Over more than four months in early 2019, the FCC said, these telemarketers faked the number their calls displayed in caller ID with intent to deceive consumers; purposefully called people who are on the Do Not Call list; and called people’s mobile phones without getting permission first.

iolaregister.com

The Iola Register

Johnson: Health director talks COVID dangers Continued from A1

asked about the challenges of serving such a wide swath of the state, Johnson immediately points to the value of personal relationships.

“I don’t know as many people in Allen, Woodson or Anderson as I do in Bourbon County,” she remarks. “But this COVID-19 pandemic has forced everybody across the state to make more connections and develop relationships with people you don’t know.”

The COVID-19 pandemic is the worst public health emergency in over a century, yet southeast Kansas has been spared much of its wrath. Currently, there are no active cases in Allen, Anderson, Bourbon or Woodson counties. The sole positive report of COVID in Allen county involved a resident who has not been in the state for about three months.

When looking at the four counties’ response to the pandemic, Johnson says, “I think we’ve done fairly well. On our end, we’ve done quite a bit of education for the public, wheth-

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With regards to the low numbers of diagnosed coronavirus cases in the region, Johnson said the department has “been on the ball and been able to reach out before it [the virus] spread further, and that really helped decrease the spread. I think my staff did an excellent job, and I’m very thankful for them and all their knowledge.”

Yet Johnson easily identifies areas for improvement. The department was quickly overwhelmed by the public’s desire to get accurate information, she said.

“We do not have enough staff to take in all the calls, emails, texts and messages we’ve received…I feel bad that we haven’t been able to answer everyone’s questions or comments, but there’s just no way. It’s almost a full-time job in itself.”

Additionally, SEK Multi-County Health Department has no capacity to test someone who believes they may have contracted the virus. “I know a lot of people thought it’d be necessary for the health department to be able to test people,” Johnson says, pointing to Crawford County’s health

department as an example. But when asked if her department should be able to test, Johnson defers, saying, “It’s something people thought we should have been doing. But with the number of PPE involved and the risk to staff, we have to weigh what would be best.”

As the local health officer, Johnson works closely with county commissioners, often speaking with many of them on a weekly basis.

A commissioner from each of the four counties is also on the SEK Multi-Health Department’s Board of Directors.

In the case of a spike of new coronavirus cases, or, as experts suspect, a wave occurs this fall, Johnson holds significant influence in deciding to prohibit public gatherings, but it’s

County: New grant details discussed Continued from A1

istrator for the grant, who will be responsible for equitably distributing the funds to interested businesses.

Based on population demographics, 45% of funds will go to Iola, 35% to Humboldt and the remaining 20% to the surrounding county.

TUESDAY’s meeting began with a funding request from Kathy McEwan, who was representing the GROW council.

The GROW council had recently received a grant from ioby to help supply local food banks, where the funds would be matched by the granting organization up to $1,000.

Hence McEwan asked commissioners if they would be willing to contribute $1,000 in order to receive the grant’s maximum matching funds, and they consented to do so.

“I think it’s a good use of our money,” said commissioner Bruce Symes.

“It ’s the merry hearted boys that make the best men.”

-IRISH PROVERB

This Father’s Day

Lisse Regehr, CEO of Thrive Allen County, discusses with county commissioners the $132,000 CDBG-CV grant recently obtained by her organization to assist businesses in Allen County. REGISTER/TREVOR HOAG Through the funds, McEwan said the GROW council would focus on helping to provide food for residents living on the east side of the county.

Michelle Meiwes also approached the county to make a request on behalf of an organization: ACMAT, the Allen County Multi-Agency Team.

Meiwes was interested in modeling ACMAT’s Family Fun night on last year’s “Water Wars” in Humboldt, more specifically, by having various water features and events like pools and firetrucks to accompany booths on the Iola courthouse lawn.

She also mentioned that free school supplies would be available to families who attended the event.

Commissioners seemed open to the Mei-

wes’ idea, but given the possibility of damaging the courthouse lawn said Meiwes would need to collaborate with the House & Grounds director to ensure that no major disturbances to the soil and landscaping were made.

Of note, Meiwes has filed to run for county commissioner, aiming to occupy the seat being vacated by Bill King.

During his weekly update, Mitch Garner reported that some of the county’s heavy equipment was temporarily down, including “two brush cutters, a blade and a backhoe.”

However, the necessary parts have been ordered, and so “hopefully by the end of the week we’ll have them going again,” Garner said.

Various projects are nonetheless moving forward around the county,

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including on Humboldt Hill.

Ron Holman said that the women’s restroom at the Humboldt senior center was in need of repairs, including work on the floor and installation of a new toilet.

Commissioners gave him the go-ahead to proceed with the work, as they would “consider it an emergency repair,” said commissioner Jerry Daniels.

When asked for a follow-up on the Black Lives Matter event held Sunday on the Iola square, Sheriff Bryan Murphy said that, from a law enforcement standpoint, everything went well, with “no issues, no problems.”

Murphy also laid to rest the rumor that nefarious outside parties were present at or influencing the event in any way.

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not an authority she’s eager to assert. Johnson says that over the past months, she and county officials have “worked more as a team rather than my saying what we need to do. I believe I need to reach out to those who have more experience with their county, so I’ve worked as a team with them instead of going rogue, so to speak.”

Looking forward, Johnson seems optimistic about the future. “I feel like we’re prepared as a county and our counties as a whole,” she says. “But I can’t tell the future.”

In a rare moment of reflection, though, Johnson asserts that the daily adventures are what she likes best about her work. “It’s a lot of fun,” she says, laughing. “And it’s never boring.”

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The Iola Register

Wednesday, June 10, 2020

American Legion Baseball: A Iola Indians

Indians slip at Pitt

By ERICK MITCHELL The Iola Register

PITTSBURG — Tuesday’s trip to Pittsburg served as a learning experience for the A Iola Indians.

Pittsburg Post 64 kept the Indians’ bats in check for most of the evening, sweeping the doubleheader by 10-0 and 12-5. It was a step backward for Iola, who was coming off a stellar performance at their home tournament over the weekend, finishing with a 4-1 record.

“They were a good team, but they weren’t that good.

We didn’t come to play,” Indians head coach John Taylor said. “Our guys were sleepwalking through everything, and not doing their job. You can’t play baseball like that, especially when you hope to win.”

Iola failed to muster a hit in game 1. While the Indians’ bats were silent, Post 64 made noise. Pittsburg collected eight hits that turned into 10 runs over the course of four innings.

Avery Blaufuss was granted the start on the mound for Iola, allowing six earned runs and garnering only a single strikeout. It may have not been Blaufuss’ best performance, but the Crest pitcher didn’t receive much help behind him.

“They hit the ball well, but we also made some bad plays out there,” Taylor said. “We had some bad throws, bad catches, and didn’t play like we were capable of. I’m not saying we would win that game, but it would have been a lot closer.”

Eli Adams’ right arm earned the start for game 2.

The first-year Indian lasted

Cooper Riley collects the A Iola Indians’ first hit of the evening in the second inning of game 2 against Pittsburg on Tuesday. REGISTER/ERICK MITCHELL an inning, giving up three hits and an earned run. Post 64 added three more runs off Iola’s defensive lapses to take a 4-0 lead into the second.

In the second, Cooper Riley broke Iola’s hitless streak with a double to left field.

Still, the Indians were unable

to find a way to get on the scoreboard.

Iola’s coaching staff went with Gavin Paige for the second inning, allowing four runs before his one-inning stint was complete. Mac Leonard would replace Paige for the final three innings,

earning two strikeouts and giving up two runs in his first mound appearance of the season.

The only bright spot for the Indians came in the fourth and fifth innings. Two runs See INDIANS | Page B2

MLB:

Players and owners remain apart in deal NEW YORK (AP) — Baseball players moved toward teams but remained far apart economically in their latest proposal for starting the pandemic-delayed season, adamant they receive full prorated salaries while offering to cut the regular season to 89 games.

The proposal by the players’ association, given to Major League Baseball electronically Tuesday evening without a negotiating session, was detailed to The Associated Press by a pair of people familiar with the negotiations. They spoke on condition of anonymity because no announcements were authorized.

MLB did not appear to view the proposal as productive but made no comment. MLB has said that absent an agreement it could go ahead with a shorter schedule of perhaps 50 games.

Players made their move one day after management cut its proposed schedule from 82 games to 76. The union proposed the regular season start July 10 and end Oct. 11 — the day before a possible Game 7 of the NBA Finals.

The union accepted MLB’s plan to expand the postseason from 10 teams to as many as 16. However, if management announces a schedule without an agreement, it would not be able to alter the established postseason format.

The players’ plan would have the World Series end in mid-to-late November, and players said they would accept MLB’s proposal to have the ability to shift postseason See MLB | Page B6

College Football: 2020 Season

NCAA finalizing plan for extended college football preseason

By RALPH D. RUSSO The Associated Press

After the pandemic wiped out spring practice for most major college football teams, an NCAA plan to extend the preseason by two weeks could help coaches and players make up for the lost time.

The NCAA’s football oversight committee expects to finalize a plan on Thursday to allow teams to conduct up to 12 unpadded, slow-speed practices, also know as walkthroughs, during the 14 days before the typical preseason begins in August.

Teams will be permitted up to 20 hours per week of what the NCAA calls countable athletically related activities during those extra two weeks, leading into a normal 29-day preseason practice schedule. The walk-throughs will be part of those 20 hours

per week, along with weight training, conditioning, film study and meetings. Players will not be permitted to wear pads or helmets during walkthroughs, which cannot exceed one hour per day.

Notre Dame coach Brian Kelly said the extra time on the field with a ball will be valuable for teaching schemes, but not necessarily for assessing player development.

“That going to be all the install that you didn’t get in in the spring is really going to take place during that period of time,” Kelly said Tuesday.

“They won’t be an opportunity to see skills on display.”

The football oversight committee has been circulating its proposed schedule to NCAA members as a way to encourage feedback. West Virginia See CFB | Page B6

Driver Bubba Wallace stands by his car before qualifying for the NASCAR Cup Series Auto Club 400 at Auto Club Speedway on Feb. 29. KATELYN MULCAHY/GETTY IMAGES/TNS

Wallace calls to ban Confederate flag

By DAN GELSTON The Associated Press

The familiar scene of Confederate flags waved by fans at NASCAR tracks could soon be a relic of racing’s good ol’ boy roots.

Bubba Wallace — the lone

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black driver in the sport — wants the stock car series with deep ties to the South to ban the flag at its properties and formally distance itself from what for millions is a symbol of slavery and racism.

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SCAR is on its way to that move. As the nation grapples with social unrest following the death of George Floyd in police custody in Minneapolis, the predominantly white field of drivers united See NASCAR | Page B6

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B2

Wednesday, June 10, 2020

Indians Continued from B1

came across to start the fourth after a series of wild pitches that saw Riley and TJ Taylor score safely.

The Indians completed the fourth-inning scoring with an RBI from Brandon McKarnin, scoring Drake DeLaTorre.

In the fifth, Riley collected his second hit of the game with an RBI single to score Carter Hutton. Iola added another run later in the inning after Leonard’s atbat led to a walk that forced a run home.”

The Indians have the rest of the week to atone for Tuesday’s play. They face Ottawa on Tuesday and have a tournament in Fort Scott over the weekend.

Taylor said he is excited for the trip to Fort Scott, and looks forward to seeing how Iola fares against top competition in their age group.

“We get to play kids that are close to our age, and it is a 16U tournament not a 17U,” Taylor said.

“We have a bunch of young kids, and only have one player that is 17. I think it is a good measuring stick, because it is a showcase tournament.”

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NASCAR set to allow fans back in Florida, Alabama

By DAN GELSTON The Associated Press

NASCAR is ready to reopen to fans.

One of the few sports to run in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, NASCAR is now the largest to allow fans to return as more states relax their business shutdowns.

NASCAR decided a limited number of fans can attend races this month at Homestead-Miami Speedway and Talladega Superspeedway.

NASCAR says all fans will be screened before entering, required to wear face coverings, mandated to social distance at six feet, and will not have access to the infield, among other revised operational protocols.

NASCAR will allow up to 1,000 Florida service members, representing the Homestead Air Reserve Base and U.S. Southern Command in Doral, to attend the Cup Series race Sunday as honorary guests and view the race from the grandstands.

Talladega Superspeedway in Alabama will allow up to 5,000 guests in the frontstretch grandstands/towers for the June 21 Cup race. There will be limited motorhome/camping spots available outside the track.

“It’s a cautious, conservative approach,” said Daryl Wolfe, NASCAR executive vice president and chief sales and operations officer. “We feel confident in our plan. Also it doesn’t mean that we won’t also

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have additional learnings and adapt our plan going forward. That’s the whole purpose of being very slow, methodical in phasing this in.”

NASCAR has returned to racing, but had not allowed fans inside the tracks in North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia.

“We’re going to have a lot of hand sanitizing, hand washing,” said John Bobo, NASCAR vice president of racing operations. “One of the things that I’m kind of proud of to see is we’re going to have a clean team, a clean team that’s at track constantly cleaning everything very visibly for every guest that’s there to know we’re doing everything we can to

keep them safe. We feel confident in the plan.”

Bobo declined to reveal if NASCAR has had anyone test positive for COVID-19 since racing resumed May 17 at Darlington Raceway. Supercross said earlier this month no one tested positive for the virus when it resumed with 705 riders, team members and race officials on site.

The Cup Series race Wednesday night at Martinsville Speedway and a doubleheader weekend June 27 and 28 at Pocono Raceway will be held without fans.

NASCAR said it was prepared to handle the increased crowds. Wolfe said there could be limited hospitality at Talladega.

“We’re going to have PPE there for fans if they didn’t bring their own,” Bobo said. “We’re going to instruct fans to do it. Then staff is also going to make sure that we do have compliance in that area when needed politely.”

Talladega tickets will be sold on a first-come, first-served basis to fans who purchased tickets or reserved camping for the originally scheduled April 26 race. There will be limited menus and limited food preparation onsite.

NASCAR had set guidelines to safely hold the events using CDC guidelines on social distancing and personal protective equipment.

The venues were com-

pletely used to maintain distancing in garage stalls and where the haulers are parked, while drivers self-isolate in their motorhomes as they prepare to compete.

“We really miss our fans, but, at the same time, we’re with our fans,” 2018 NASCAR champion Joey Logano said. “Before the races start and you’re on pit road and you don’t have any fans around you, you can’t hear any cheering or booing from driver’s intros, or everyone getting all fired up before they say ‘drivers start your engines.’ We don’t have that part, but when the race starts, the race starts and you’re kind of in the zone and you don’t notice it.”

Federer out for remainder of 2020 after injury setback LONDON (AP) — Roger Federer will miss whatever remains of the coronavirus-impacted 2020 tennis season because of a setback in his recovery from surgery on his right knee.

The 20-time Grand Slam champion had arthroscopic surgery on his knee in February and said Wednesday in a statement on Twitter that he had a second procedure that will delay his return until 2021.

The 38-year-old Federer had initially planned to be sidelined for at least four months, but because the tour was suspended amid the coronavirus pandemic he has barely missed any elite tennis.

“A few weeks ago, having experienced a setback

during my initial rehabilitation, I had to have an additional quick arthroscopic procedure on my right knee,” Federer posted. “Now, much like I did leading up to the 2017 season, I plan to take the necessary time to be 100% ready to play at my highest level.

“I will look forward to seeing everyone back on tour at the start of the 2021 season.”

Like other sports, tennis has been thrown into disarray because of the coronavirus pandemic, which has claimed more than 400,000 lives worldwide.

Wimbledon, the oldest Grand Slam tournament, was canceled for the first time since 1945. The next edition of the grass court

tournament will be June 28 to July 11, 2021.

Organizers of the French Open and the U.S. Open are still hoping to stage their major tournaments this year.

The start of the French Open was postponed from late May to late September. The U.S. Open recently said that it still hopes to hold the tournament as planned in New York.

Main-draw play is scheduled to begin Aug. 31.

Federer had also planned to represent Switzerland at the Tokyo Olympics, trying to complete a career Golden Slam by winning a gold medal in men’s singles.

The games will now be staged in 2021.

Shortly before his initial surgery in Febru-

ary, Federer reached the semifinals of the Australian Open, where he lost to defending champion Novak Djokovic 7-6 (1), 6-4, 6-3.

Djokovic later said: “Obviously, he was hurting. You could see it in his movement.”

Federer, who turns 39 in August, missed much of the 2016 season to injuries. He returned in 2017 and won the Australian Open and Wimbledon.

Djokovic, who has 17 Grand Slam singles titles, is considering skipping the U.S. Open, if it is held.

He told Serbia’s state broadcaster RTS on Tuesday that the proposed restrictions because of the coronavirus pandemic would be “extreme” and not “sustainable.”

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Human remains linked to missing kids

By REBECCA BOONE The Associated Press

BOISE, Idaho (AP) — Authorities said they uncovered human remains at an Idaho man’s home Tuesday as they investigated the disappearance of his new wife’s two children — a case that’s drawn global attention for its ties to two other mysterious deaths and the couple’s doomsday beliefs.

Chad Daybell, who married the children’s mother, Lori Vallow Daybell, was arrested on suspicion of concealing or destroying evidence after local and federal investigators searched his property, according to the Fremont County Sheriff ’s Office. He has not yet been formally charged, and his attorney, Mark Means, did

not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Joshua “JJ” Vallow, who was 7 when he vanished, and 17-year-old Tylee Ryan haven’t been seen since September, and police say Chad and Lori Daybell lied to investigators about the children’s whereabouts before quietly leaving Idaho. They were found in Hawaii months later.

Besides the missing children, the couple has been under scrutiny following the deaths of both of their former spouses.

Police from the small town of Rexburg, the FBI and sheriff ’s investigators searched Chad Daybell’s home in the eastern Idaho town of Salem for the second time, bringing in backhoes and setting up

tents in a nearby field.

The search warrant is sealed, and Rexburg Assistant Police Chief Gary Hagan said he couldn’t reveal details other than the search is linked to the children’s disappearance.

“Throughout the investigation, detectives and investigators have recovered what’s believed to be human remains that have not been identified at this time,” Hagan said in a news conference.

Lori Daybell has been charged with child abandonment and obstructing the investigation and is in jail on $1 million bond. She’s pleaded not guilty. The Idaho attorney general’s office has said it was investigating Chad Daybell in the death of his first wife, Tammy Daybell.

The complicated case began last summer, when Lori Daybell’s brother shot and killed her estranged husband, Charles Vallow, in Phoenix. Her brother, Alex Cox, said the shooting was in self-defense.

Charles Vallow had filed for divorce, claiming Lori believed she had become a god-like figure who was responsible for ushering in the biblical end times. Cox died in December of an apparent blood clot in his lung.

Shortly after Charles Vallow’s death, Lori and her children moved to Idaho, where Chad Daybell lived. He ran a small publishing company, where he published many of his own fiction books that centered on apocalyptic scenarios.

B4

Wednesday, June 10, 2020

The Iola Register

iolaregister.com

Lying about income leads to problems Dear Carolyn: My husband, “Bill,” heads a research lab at an academic institution. We met when I was working there my first year out of college. He stayed in academia and I moved on to the biopharmaceutical industry; I’m now head of manufacturing at a small company.

My in-laws believe that Bill’s Ph.D. means his job is much more important and lucrative than mine when actually I make quite a bit more than he does. We never felt the need to correct them, but my mother-in-law has been a royal pain about me working ever since I had my daughter, “Sara,” two years ago. I recently got an earful about how I’m neglecting my daughter, how I don’t need to work with Bill’s salary and so on. I usually let this go since I’d work whether we needed the money or not, but I’d had a miserable, stressful couple of

Tell Me About It Carolyn Hax

weeks and I snapped and told her to talk to her son, since I’m the main breadwinner and he should be the one to stay home.

Of course she doesn’t believe I make more money since I “only” have my master’s, and she told Bill I was telling lies about him. Bill is now ticked off at me because he says his dad would be “devastated” to know that I out-earn him.

Should I go along with what my husband wants and tell my mother-in-law I made a mistake, and of course Bill makes more money? If I do this Bill has promised to get her to lay off me, but the truth caused all this trouble — will a lie fix it?

— Breadwinner Breadwinner: The

truth did not cause this problem! Your inlaws’ sexism did, with a hard assist from their delusions. And from their son. Wow. You say Bill is “ticked off at me” — not his parents — and he’s offering to back you up only if you lie for him. He is angry at exactly the wrong party.

You can certainly apologize for losing your composure, and using the truth as a weapon. And you can spend some time exploring your own mind for the reasons you played along with this twisted charade.

But the solution is not to lie the truth back into a box in the closet. The truth is out, so own it. Live it.

For yourself, for your child, for The Cause and, ultimately, for your marriage.

Tell Bill you’re not going to be part of a lie anymore. You’ll love him, encourage him, support him emotionally as he stands up to his parents and takes

Treatment for male hot flashes Dear Dr. Roach: My husband successfully completed 45 days of radiation for prostate cancer. His last PSA was non-detectable. He has to take medication for two years as part of the cure. However, it is causing him to have horrible hot flashes and night sweats. The usual over-the-counter solutions for women do not seem to be helping at all. Would you suggest something designed for a male? — P.B. Answer: The first effective treatment for prostate cancer was depriving the cancer cells of androgens, which was initially done sur-

gically, by removing the testes. It is done now with medications that act like gonadotropin-releasing hormone.

Although these initially stimulate testosterone production, their continued use causes lower levels of testosterone, and within a month testosterone levels drop to the same levels as in men who have had surgery to remove their testes.

Hot flashes occur in 80% of men and can be very disruptive. Treatments that are effective for women are often not effective in men, as you observed. The best-studied and most effective treatments in

men were medroxyprogesterone (a hormone that opposes some actions of estrogen) and cyproterone (an antiandrogen available in Canada, but not the U.S.). It reduced hot flashes by 84% to 95% in men. Venlafaxine, normally used as an antidepressant, reduced symptoms by 50%, and gabapentin, used for epilepsy or for nerve pain, reduced symptoms by about 45%.

It’s very important to treat the symptoms so he can continue this treatment, which is part of his best chance for long-term remission from prostate cancer.

a universe of flak for it, but you will not lie for him to appease anyone — especially not people who are so eager to diminish your value just to reinforce their own ignorance and self-satisfaction. And diminish his value, by measuring only in terms of pay. Enough.

If Bill is ready to die on this big fat lie of a hill, then it’s probably time for a marriage counselor.

(Suitably credentialed to garner his respect!)

Re: The Lie: I’m thinking your in-laws didn’t assume Bill made more than you.

He TOLD them so.

That’s why he wants you to salvage his lie.

— Anonymous Anonymous: Yikes.

That has the sickening thud of truth.

Write to Carolyn Hax at tellme@washpost.com. Get her column delivered to your inbox each morning at wapo.st/haxpost.

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302 S. Washington | 620-365-2111 | iolaregister.com

B6

Wednesday, June 10, 2020

The Iola Register

iolaregister.com

CFB plans return

NASCAR: Moves to become more

athletic director Shane Lyons said he doesn’t expect much to change before it is taken to the Division I Council for approval next week. The council meets June 17.

“I think there’s been a lot of collaboration among the conferences,” Lyons said.

Schools have started this week bringing their football players back to campus for voluntary workouts — mostly weight training and conditioning — in team facilities. Players are being tested and screened for COVID-19 and will continue to be monitored for the coronavirus.

Under the oversight committee’s plan, this period of voluntary activities would run until about July 12, depending on the exact date of a team’s opening game.

That will be followed by two weeks of summer access, which usually happens earlier in the year. During that time, coaches can require up to eight hours per week of weight training, conditioning and film study.

Lyons said if any tweaks are made to the plan before it goes to the council they would likely be made to this two-week period.

Around July 24, the meetings and walkthroughs can begin.

Then 29 days before a team’s first game — Aug. 7 if the opener is Sept.

5 — the usual preseason practice period starts.

Lyons said teams will be required to complete at least the four weeks of standard preseason before playing a game.

There has been concern among NCAA officials and athletic administrators that some schools will not be able to start their preseason work soon enough to begin their seasons on time because of restrictions put in place by state and local authorities to fight the coronavirus.

Those fears seem to be easing now.

“It all gives us a little

for a video promoting social change. A black NASCAR official took a knee before Sunday’s race near Atlanta in what may have been a first for the series, and the governing body vowed to do a better job of addressing racial injustice.

Wallace — who wore a black T-shirt with the words “I Can’t Breathe” at Sunday’s race — seized the moment and issued his most compelling comments yet on the topic of race and racing: “My next step would be to get rid of all Confederate flags.”

“There should be no individual that is uncomfortable showing up to our events to have a good time with their family that feels some type of way about something they have seen, an object they have seen flying,” Wallace told CNN. “No one should feel uncomfortable when they come to a NASCAR race. So it starts with Confederate flags. Get them out of here. They have no place for them.”

Wallace arrived in

Continued from B1

bit of relief knowing the campuses are starting to reopen and these student-athletes are back working out on campus,” Lyons said.

WHAT WILL practice look like during a pandemic? The oversight committee won’t be in charge of those details.

Those decisions will be made at the school level, guided by local health officials, but medical experts at the conference and NCAA level are also expected to provide guidance.

Todd Berry, executive director for the American Football Coaches Association, said he would expect some coaches to segment their teams, holding multiple practices per day.

Berry said when he was coaching he would use this approach to give players more repetitions and individual attention.

Now it could be used to limit exposure just in case a player contracts the virus.

“The ones and threes practiced in the morning. Two and fours practiced in the afternoon,” he said.

Tulane team physician Greg Stewart, who is heading the American Athletic Conference’s COVID-19 advisory panel, said the hope is testing and screening of the players for the coronavirus will go well enough that players won’t need to use face coverings during practice.

“But the coaches and staffs would all wear N-95 masks,” Stewart said, referring to the highly protective masks often used by healthcare workers.

If facing coverings are needed for players, Stewart said neck gaiters — stretchy scarves made of lightweight, breathable material — could be the way teams go.

“If the group is spread out and socially distanced and they’re running and doing stuff like that, they don’t need to have that on,” Stewart said.

Continued from B1

“Now, it’s kind of a middle finger,” NASCAR historian Dan Pierce said.

But as Confederate monuments are toppled around the South and calls for social justice continue to ring out, those fans may have run out of time.

Wallace will make another statement Wednesday when NASCAR returns to Martinsville Speedway in Virginia. He is driving a #BlackLivesMatter paint scheme for the Richard Petty Motorsports ‘ No. 43 Chevrolet.

“I think it’s going to speak volumes for what I stand for,” Wallace said in a Twitter video.

“We knew the Martinsville race was open, we did not spell sponsorship for that, and it sparked an idea of, why not run a #blackout car?”

The message is simple for Wallace: “All lives will not matter until black lives matter.”

Wallace, though, conceded he rarely gave the Confederate flag much thought.

“What I’m chasing

is checkered flags, and that was kind of my narrative,” Wallace told CNN. Wallace is silent no more. He has emerged as NASCAR’s outspoken leader in the wake of Floyd’s death.

Floyd, a black man, died after a white Minneapolis police officer pressed his knee into Floyd’s neck while Floyd was handcuffed and saying that he couldn’t breathe.

Wallace’s fellow drivers have followed his lead and broken with past protocols, where any hint of rankling corporate sponsors often led to muted responses to societal issues.s “I think it’s one of those things that some of us are just ignorant about and don’t really think about it or worry about it,” 2017 Cup champion Martin Truex Jr. said Tuesday.

“And then you hear somebody like Bubba talk about it and how he feels about it and it wakes you up a bit.

Yeah, I think NASCAR is going to do the right thing there.”

MLB: Players want 89-game 2020 season Continued from B1

games to neutral sites.

Teams say they fear a second wave of the coronavirus and do not want to extend the World Series past October. Deputy Commissioner Dan Halem told the union a 76-game schedule could not be staged unless players agreed to a deal by Wednesday.

Players continue to insist on full prorated salaries as specified in the March 26 agreement between the perpetually feuding sides.

The deal gave players service time in the event no games are played this year along with a $170 million salary advance.

MLB says that because the season like-

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UPDATED OPERATIONS • No

more than 15 members in the facility at a time (first come, first serve).

• Must check in at the front desk with staff upon arrival. ~ Will utilize a waiting list and call when available if at capacity.

•6

foot distance from others must be maintained.

• Masks are encouraged, but not required.

• No group classes will be offered at this time.

• No group basketball; can individually use court, ball will be checked out from staff and must be sanitized when finished.

• Must

the sport hyped as a trailblazer of sorts in a series that has long lacked diversity in the field. He finished second in the 2018 Daytona 500, but has had limited success and often needed patchwork sponsorship deals to keep racing. His biggest reach for now is as an agent of change: The 26-yearold Alabama native has pushed the issue of race to the front burner for NASCAR. “We want all to feel welcome at our events in the future,” said Daryl Wolfe, NASCAR executive vice president and chief sales and operations officer.

NASCAR has been more open in recent times to the eradication of the Confederate flag. Former chairman Brian France in 2015 tried to ban the flying of Confederate flags at race tracks, a proposal too broad to enforce and one that angered NASCAR’s core Southern-based fan base.

Not everyone obliged and fans staunchly defended their Confederate flags and raised them from their RVs.

sanitize all equipment before and after usage. Additional disinfectant spray

and paper towels will be available throughout the facility.

• No

sharing of equipment. If a spotter is needed, staff will be available.

• No youth under 16 allowed in the building.

• Showers, lockers, and water fountains are off limits.

ly would be played in empty ballparks without fans, the absence of gate-related revenue would lead to a loss of $640,000 for each additional game played, a figure the union questions. MLB’s proposal would guarantee players 50% of prorated salaries and another 20% if the postseason is completed, and teams would fund a $50 million pool for players’ postseason shares even if no or few tickets or sold. MLB also would forgive 20% of the salary advance.

Players had been set to earn about $4 billion in salaries this year before opening day was pushed back from March 26 due to the new coronavirus, and the union’s initial economic proposal on May 31 called for a 114-game schedule running through October and salaries totaling $2.8 billion. The shorter schedule in the new plan lowered the amount to about $2.2

billion.

MLB’s offer Monday was for just under $1.3 billion in salaries, but only about $1 billion would be guaranteed.

The rest is contingent on the postseason’s completion.

Mike Trout and Gerrit Cole, the highest-paid players with $36 million salaries, would get $19,777,778 each under the union’s plan.

MLB’s offer would guarantee each $8,723,967 with the chance to increase to $12,190,633 apiece if the postseason is completed.

A player at the $563,500 minimum would earn $309,577 under the union plan and up to $244,492 from MLB’s offer. Those at $1 million — about half those on current active rosters — would get $549,383 under the union proposal and up to $389,496 in the MLB formula.

A 50-game schedule with prorated salaries would total just

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over $1.2 billion and leave Cole and Trout at $11,111,111 each.

Players proposed that $5 million from joint management-union funds be marked toward supporting nonunion minor leaguers and social causes.

Players would agree to participate in events such as an offseason All-Star Game and/or Home Run Derby and to broadcast enhancements such as wearing microphones during games.

The union did not accept management’s offer to suspend freeagent compensation this offseason, which would eliminate the qualifying offers that cause some teams to decline to pursue players.

Players accepted MLB’s proposal that high-risk players could opt out of this season while receiving salary and service time, but that other players who opt out would not receive salary or service time.

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~ Hands free water bottle filling station will be available.

• Equipment

will be removed such as yoga mats, jump ropes, sweat towels, etc.

Please bring your own and only bring in items that are necessary for your workout • Wash

your hands upon entrance.

• Staff have the right to ask you to maintain social distancing efforts, clean your

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equipment and follow the rules. If non-compliant, staff may ask you to leave.

If you have a fever, feel sick, or have been exposed to anyone with COVID-19, please stay at home.

NEW

HOURS

• Monday-Friday 6 a.m. to 8 p.m.

• Saturday 8 a.m. to 12 p.m.

• Closed Sunday

Limited operating hours to have staff present at all times to ensure cleaning and sanitizing.

302 S. Washington | 620-365-2111 | iolaregister.com