Inside: USD 257 school board meets See A2
Sports: Iola’s Elysia Kunkler qualifies for Junior Olympics See B1
2017 1867
THE IOLA REGISTER Locally owned since 1867
www.iolaregister.com
Tuesday, July 11, 2017
Republican leaders pursue ACA repeal vote
Iola City Council
Council accepts grant for bridge
By ALAN FRAM and ERICA WERNER The Associated Press
By RICHARD LUKEN The Iola Register
Iola is one step closer to seeing a pedestrian bridge built across Elm Creek along South Washington Avenue. City Council members voted, 6-1, to formally accept a $197,000 grant from the Kansas Department of Wildlife, Parks and Tourism to fund much of the project. If complete, the bridge would create a convenient thoroughfare for pedestrians and cyclists to access the Lehigh Portland Trails complex just south of Elm Creek as well as a park directly across the creek. Gates Corporation employees also would have an easier route should they choose to bike or walk to work. The rub continues to be how to close a projected funding gap of about $80,000. The KDWPT grant, combined with other grants seSee BRIDGE | Page A3
Heralded heroes Vacation Bible School, hosted by Wesley United Methodist and First Presbyterian, attracted nearly 100 youngsters for a week filled with games, Bible lessons and songs. At top, helper Thane Meadows, left, assists Isabella Hull as she participates in a costume quick-change relay race. At bottom left, the youngsters do a song-and-dance number. At bottom right, Ed Flener, associate pastor at Wesley and Calvary United Methodist Churches, addresses the crowd. Vacation Bible School runs through Friday. REGISTER/RICHARD LUKEN
At least 16 die in military plane crash ITTA BENA, Miss. (AP) — A U.S. military plane used for refueling crashed into a soybean field in rural Mississippi, killing at least 16 people aboard in a fiery wreck and spreading debris for miles, officials said. Leflore County Emergency Management Agency Director Frank Randle told reporters at a briefing late Monday that 16 bodies had been recovered after the KC-130 spiraled into the ground about 85 miles north of Jackson in the Mississippi Delta. A witness said some
bodies were found more than a mile from the crash site. Marine Corps spokeswoman Capt. Sarah Burns said in a statement that a KC-130 “experienced a mishap” Monday but provided no details. The KC-130 is used as a refueling tanker. U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis, who represents North Carolina, said the plane was from the Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point, N.C. Andy Jones said he was working on his family’s catfish farm just before 4 p.m.
they were looking for infor mation. They wanted it so badly.” The interview is Veselnitskaya’s first public Donald Trump Jr. c o m m e n t since Donald Trump Jr. acknowledged that he made time for the meeting hoping to get information on Clinton, his father’s Democratic presidential opponent. The president’s son has said the meeting was arranged by an acquaintance he knew through the 2013 Miss Universe pageant Trump held in Moscow. On Monday, Trump Jr. tweeted sarcastically, “Obviously I’m the first person on a
Quote of the day Vol. 119, No. 178
See ACA | Page A3
Humboldt City Council
when he heard a boom and looked up to see the plane corkscrewing downward with one engine smoking. “You looked up and you saw the plane twirling around,” he said. “It was spinning down.” Jones said the plane hit the ground behind trees in the soybean field, and by the time he and other reached the crash site, fires were burning too intensely to approach the wreckage. The force of the crash nearly flattened the plane, Jones said.
Scenes such as this re-enactment of the Confederate raid of Humboldt during the Civll War will be held in downtown Humboldt once again in October 2018. REGISTER FILE PHOTO
Rebels plan to raid Humboldt once again
Russian lawyer details Trump Jr. meeting WASHINGTON (AP) — A Russian lawyer said she was summoned to Trump Tower during last year’s presidential campaign to meet with Donald Trump Jr. and asked if she had damaging information on Hillary Clinton, according to an interview aired today by NBC’s “Today” show. The lawyer, Natalia Veselnitskaya, told NBC she received a phone call from a man she didn’t know and was told to meet with Trump Jr. She says she didn’t have information on the Clinton campaign and has never worked for the Russian government. “All I knew was that Donald Trump Jr. was willing to meet with me,” she said through a translator. On Clinton, she said: “It’s quite possible that maybe
WASHINGTON (AP) — Republican leaders are hoping to stage a climactic vote on their health care bill next week, though internal rifts over divisive issues like coverage requirements and Medicaid cuts leave the timing and even the measure’s fate in question. “We need to start voting” on the GOP bill scuttling much of President Barack Obama’s health care law, No. 2 Senate GOP leader John Cornyn of Texas told reporters Monday. Some Republicans said a revised version of the bill could be introduced Thursday, and Cornyn said the “goal” was for a vote next week. Cornyn cited seven years of unresolved Republican debate over how to replace the 2010 statute during which “we gain a vote, we lose a vote.” That underscored a sense among top Republicans that they had little to gain by letting their disputes
campaign to ever take a meeting to hear info about an opponent ... went nowhere but had to listen.” According to the NBC interview, Veselnitskaya suggested she didn’t initiate the meeting; she says she was lobbying against U.S. sanctions affecting Moscow but wasn’t acting on behalf of the Kremlin. She said Jared Kushner, Donald Trump’s son-in-law, also attended the meeting but left after a few minutes. Paul Manafort, then Trump’s campaign chairman, was there too but never participated and spent much of the meeting on his phone, she said. It wasn’t clear from the NBC report who in the meeting asked her for information on Clinton.
By BOB JOHNSON The Iola Register
HUMBOLDT — In 15 months Confederate raiders with come to burn Humboldt again, just as they did during the Civil War. This time it will be a reenactment, though in much the same place that it occurred more than 150 years ago, in the downtown area. Humboldt council members gave unanimous approval to a proposal to move Civil War Days to the downtown square Monday night. Previously it occurred every other year in Camp Hunter Park, at the southwest edge of town. The park is named for the camp that housed
“It is only through enlightenment that we become conscious of our limitations.” — Nikola Tesla, inventor (1856-1943) 75 Cents
Union troops during the war between the states. Carolyn Whitaker, who has the lead role in putting the historic event together, told council members having the reenactment downtown would be truer to history, since that was where two wartime raids occurred. Streets around Humboldt’s storied square will be closed to accommodate the festival on Oct. 18, 2018. Whitaker also thinks it will have more of a draw being downtown and will give local merchants a boost. A BASIN at the water plant was drained last week See HUMBOLDT | Page A3
Hi: 96 Lo: 75 Iola, KS