Sports: Iola Middle School hosts track meet See B1
THE IOLA REGISTER Locally owned since 1867
www.iolaregister.com
Wednesday, April 13, 2016
GIVING CELEBRATED
Gas Council
City says no to cigarette limits, KwiKom request By BOB JOHNSON The Iola Register
GAS — KwiKom efforts to place an antenna on the Gas water tower to provide wireless Internet to the town’s residents was frustrated again Tuesday evening. For the third, and presumably last time, KwiKom representatives have met with Gas council members only to be rebuffed. In comments before the meeting, Mayor Darrell Catron said he had no stomach for putting relay switching equipment and an antenna on the tower. When the meeting began, Catron said an annual payment of $1,200 KwiKom had
Kids under 21 are coming out from Iola to buy cigarettes, as well as gasoline. — Gas Mayor Darrel Catron
offered as rent was too low. Instead, Catron said $1,000 a month would be more to his liking. Vogel cringed, saying that was too much and more than the company pays anywhere else. Deb Sager, appointed to See GAS | Page A3
Allen County Commission Iola City Councilwoman Nancy Ford received the Kansas PRIDE Community Partner Award for Iola. REGISTER/RICHARD LUKEN
Councilwoman earns community partner award By RICHARD LUKEN The Iola Register
Doing for others became a theme of Monday’s Iola City Council meeting. It started with the announcement of a pair of awards by the Kansas Department of Commerce. First was a Kansas PRIDE Natural Star Capital Award that went to Iola’s Community Involvement Task Force/ PRIDE Committee, in recognition of the group’s efforts to build and open a disc golf course in south Iola.
The golf course, explained Barb Anderson, a Kansas Department of Commerce regional project manager, came about after CITF/PRIDE began looking at ways to develop vacated green space following the 2007 flood. Because the land is in a flood zone, no housing or other structures can be built there, Anderson noted. With acres of undeveloped green space, CITF/PRIDE began investigating ways to develop its use for recreation. With the nearby Elm Creek Park South already open, a
disc golf course was next on the group’s wish list. The golf course opened in 2015. “Although there’s more to do, the course is able to be used,” Anderson said. NEXT, came a Kansas PRIDE Community Partner Award to Iola City Council member Nancy Ford, a founding CITF/PRIDE member. Anderson lauded Ford’s volunteerism for wide and varied projects throughout See AWARD | Page A6
Memorial garden proposed for square By BOB JOHNSON The Iola Register
Alana Kinzle encouraged Allen County commissioners Tuesday to add a memorial garden to the courthouse lawn. “We’re always talking about having something to do downtown on the square, and all we have there are the Veterans Wall and the big clock,” she said. “We need more,” such as a place for people to enjoy and reflect. The recommendation came as no surprise to Steve and Frances Kinzle, her parents. They’d told Alana, her mother said, “if the younger
generation doesn’t get involved, who will?” Alana, 24, told commissioners a flower garden, and maybe a fountain, would brighten up the square. “Any specific ideas or photos?” asked Commissioner Tom Williams. Alana said many such attractions exist throughout Kansas and other states, including one in Joplin that is “attractive and nice. It gives people peace just to sit there. It’s so serene.” Debbie Bearden, who came to support Alana’s proposal, said more benches See COUNTY | Page A6
Laid-off Americans (finally) returning to labor market Will they find jobs? By DON LEE Los Angeles Times
WASHINGTON (TNS) — After years of sitting on the sidelines, hundreds of thousands of workers who lost their jobs in the 2007-08 financial crash are finally getting back into the game. Friday’s jobs report shows that since September, droves of laid-off Americans who had been conspicuously absent from the recovery began returning to the job market, some finding opportunities and others actively seeking them. The nation’s labor force — people with jobs and those unemployed but looking for
It’s a really good sign. It means people are feeling optimistic about job prospects, and people who had dropped out are coming back in. — Dean Baker, Center for Economic Policy Research
work — grew by about 2.4 million over the past six months, about as much as the prior three years combined. Just last September, the labor participation rate — the share of the working-age population with jobs and looking for work — dropped to a 39year low of 62.4 percent. But since then, the labor force has risen sharply to 63 percent,
Quote of the day Vol. 118, No. 117
still way below the 66 percent in the months before the recession, but nonetheless a two-year high. “It’s a really good sign,” said Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington. “It means people are feeling optimistic about job prospects, and people who had dropped out are coming
back in.” The surge in the labor force surprised some analysts who wondered whether many of the laid-off workers would ever return and worried about a permanent, huge loss of productive human resources. Most of the improvement in participation is coming from prime-age workers, those who are re-entrants, said Sophia Koropeckyj, a labor economist at Moody’s Analytics. The inflow of younger workers, those who are new entrants or have been students, accounts for less than one-quarter of the increase in the labor force, she said. “People who gave up see
“Care and diligence bring luck.”
— Thomas Fuller, English clergyman 75 Cents
See LABOR | Page A3
Jobless 10 8 rate 6
ANNUAL
Percent of 4 5.1% 5.3% civilian labor 2 force that 0 ’15 is unemployed, ’05 by month, seasonally adjusted: 5.0% 10 10 88 66 44 22 00
March ’15
March ’16
Graphic: TNS Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
Hi: 72 Lo: 42 Iola, KS