Inside: Summit welcomes dreamers See A8
Sports: Iola travels to Garnett
2017 1867
See B1
The Weekender Saturday, February 11, 2017
Locally owned since 1867
www.iolaregister.com
Good practices pay dividends
Laura and Jeff Johnson will receive the Grassland Award at Wednesday’s Natural Resources Conservation Service meeting in Iola. REGISTER/BOB JOHNSON
Johnson banks on farming
By BOB JOHNSON The Iola Register
Jeff and Laura Johnson live in a nicely appointed home along U.S. 59 south of Moran. They are parents to two sons, Trent and Ty, and depending on the time of year they care for about 800 cattle. There was a time when tossing flakes of hay from a flatbed truck wasn’t so prominent in their plans. Wednesday evening the Johnsons will be recognized as Grassland Award winners at the annual Natural Resources Conservation Service meeting. Allen County banks are sponsors. Jeff grew up on a family farm east of Redfield. He being the only boy among three siblings, Jeff took to chores early. “I started driving a tractor (2510 John Deere) when I was six or seven years old. My legs weren’t long enough to reach the pedals,” so he sat perched on the edge of the seat. He attended school in Uniontown, completing high school at JayhawkLinn where he starred on the football team and
graduating in 1983. His goal then was to return to the farm. His parents, Andy and Karen Johnson, had other thoughts. “Go to college and then get a job,” they admonished, so young Jeff could gain perspective as to whether farming was for him. A football scholarship — he was a defensive back — took him to Baker University, Baldwin. After graduation, Jeff took on with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and spent two years in Des Moines, 1987-89. A banker had told Jeff if his interest were banking, starting as an examiner would open doors. Following were terms at several local banks — moving mostly because of changes in ownership. Today he is with Community National Bank in Iola. A time at Humboldt National was meaningful. Sandy Ellis, a fellow employee, arranged a date with a Humboldt girl, Laura Walburn. “I’d seen her at track meets,” Jeff said, in his mildmannered way. They married in 1992. His duties at Commu-
nity National mesh well with his cattle business. “They’re really good to me,” Jeff said. He works one or two days a week in the bank, “and I’m available to customers anytime on my cell phone or by appointment.” That allows him and Laura — with a hand from the boys mainly during summer, Trent being a student at Kansas State and Ty at Iola High School — to do all that 1,650 acres of grass and 800 cattle demand. THAT’S WHERE the farm story of the Johnsons really begins. In younger days on the family farm, tending crops and cattle on 1,200 acres gave him a firm background. When he found himself in coat See JOHNSON | Page A5
Vol. 119, No. 74
By BOB JOHNSON The Iola Register
In 1967 George and Gertrude Meiwes came to Allen County to find land. Living in the famed Llano Estacado — flatland on the High Plains of west Texas that an early Spanish explorer once said “is unending as is the ocean” — Gertrude’s only requirement was that if the family moved to Kansas, the land had to be flat enough “so I can see a long ways.” The Meiwes family found such a place northwest of Moran.
The annual Allen County Conservation District meeting and dinner will be at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday at the Bass Community Building, 5 N. Buckeye. The Gene and Seth Meiwes families will be recognized for soil and water conservation. Jeff and Laura Johnson will receive the annual Grassland Award.
Force. The Iola Police Department assisted in the investigation and made the arrest, in the 500 block of East Madison Av- Ted Clous enue. Clous was scheduled to appear Friday in U.S. Federal Court in Wichita. The ACC Board of Trustees suspended Clous from his teaching contract last summer, after learning of the ongoing investigation. He submitted his resignation shortly thereafter.
Quote of the day
Conserving a family affair
Conservation dinner set
Former ACC instructor arrested on porn charge Ted J. Clous, a former music instructor at Allen Community College, was arrested Tuesday for his alleged involvement in distributing child pornography. The arrest was reported Friday by the Iola Police Department. Clous, 36, who worked at the college from 2011 to 2016, was arrested on a warrant out of the U.S. District Court following a grand jury indictment, according to an IPD media release. The investigation was initiated by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, involving the Kansas Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) Task
Gene, Karen, Seth and Brittany Meiwes, McKenna, 3, and Kelcie, 2 months, will receive the Soil and Water Conservation Award. COURTESY PHOTO
Son Gene, 5 at the time, had been born in Hereford, Texas, and didn’t have a say, but fit right in with the family’s farming, just as his son, Seth, has in more recent times. Gene and Seth, and their families, were selected this year as soil and water conservation winners, annual recognition promoted by the banks of Allen County through the Natural Resources Conservation Service. The Meiweses of the ’60s settled on 800 acres. Cattle, once as many 3,000 yearlings, were a favorite of George’s. He attended livestock sales to build the herd each year. Never was there a day when a large number of cattle weren’t wherein sight of the Meiwes headquarters. The apple didn’t fall far from the tree. Gene and Seth have a herd of 800 cows
and 600 offspring in the process of gaining weight on grass and supplement. At 800 to 900 pounds, the youngers are transferred to a feedyard in Nebraska for intensive weight gain. “Usually, we have 650 cows, but with good crops and cheaper cattle we bought another 150 this year,” said Seth, whose nature it is to study a question before he replies, a trait he picked up from his affable father. “We also have two families to support,” which requires decisions predicated on what pays out better, said Gene, 54. That’s why wheat hasn’t been a part of the crop rotation in recent years; “It just didn’t figure out.” The cow-calf operation works this way for the Meiweses: They turn in bulls with cows twice a See FAMILY | Page A5
Senate punts on school funding debate By JOHN HANNA The Associated Press
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Top Republican legislators couldn’t sell their colleagues Thursday on cuts in education spending as part of a budget-balancing package that also would have included income tax increases opposed by GOP Gov. Sam Brownback. And the Legislature’s GOP majorities appeared split on how much to hike income taxes. Republican leaders in the state Senate canceled debates on three bills in a budget-balancing package. One measure would have cut aid to public schools by $128 mil-
lion, or $279 per student, by June 30. Another would have increased personal income taxes to raise $660 million over two years, starting in July. A third would have authorized $100 million or more in internal government borrowing. The debate was supposed to represent a key test of the Republican-controlled Legislature’s appetite for spending
“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” — Benjamin Franklin 75 Cents
cuts, tax increases and defying Brownback. Republican leaders announced the Senate would debate no legislation until members can agree on budget-balancing proposals. “Things fell apart last night,” said Senate President Susan Wagle, a Wichita Republican. Kansas faces a projected shortfall of about $320 million in its budget for the fiscal year that ends June 30 and total shortfall for existing programs of nearly $1.1 billion through June 2019. Kansas has struggled to balance its budget after GOP legislators heeded Brownback’s call to See SENATE | Page A5
Hi: 74 Lo: 40 Iola, KS