Kansas Republicans gather in the “Old Supreme Court” in Topeka for a joint caucus Thursday, as Kansas Secretary of Administration Jim Clark addresses the caucus. Wichita Eagle/Bo Rader/TNS
The Weekender Saturday, June 13, 2015
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Lawmakers pass tax bills, begrudgingly Iola’s sales tax rate jumps to 8.75% By JOHN HANNA and NICHOLAS CLAYTON Associated Press
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas Republican legislators Friday narrowly approved a plan for raising taxes, responding to warnings from top aides
to GOP Gov. Sam Brownback that failing to erase a budget deficit risked funding for universities and invited a downgrade of the state’s credit ratings. Legislators in past years backed the GOP governor by slashing personal income taxes in an effort to stimulate the
economy, but those policies contributed to a budget deficit that ballooned this year. Brownback was forced Thursday to publicly plead with Republican legislators to increase the state’s sales and cigarette taxes to balance the next state budget. His pitch — and his aides’ warnings that he would otherwise have to take drastic action early next
week — prompted GOP lawmakers to tinker with a plan that had failed early Thursday in the House by a wide margin. They approved a package of two bills. “It’s not going to get any better,” said Republican Sen. Steve Fitzgerald, a Leavenworth Republican. “We need to get out of here.” The two bills together would
raise $384 million during the fiscal year that begins July 1. Even with the new revenues, Republicans who drafted the plan said Brownback might have to cut up to $50 million in spending. One measure raises the state’s sales tax to 6.5 percent from 6.15 percent. The House See TAXES | Page A2
Church of Christ celebrates 100 years By RICHARD LUKEN The Iola Register
The Church of Christ is celebrating its 100th year of worship in Iola with an upcoming gospel meeting, in which members will examine “The Life of the Church.” A series of services June 21-24 will include guest speaker Ron Eggleston, who will “Present the Lord’s truth of His word.” “Last year we’d had our first gospel meeting in a while,” said Thurman Golemon, a “gospel evangelist” who serves as Church of Christ’s preacher. That meeting was wellreceived, Golemon said, and member Melody Forman, the church’s unofficial historian, told Golemon earlier this year about how the congregation first started meeting in Iola in 1915. “We figured our next gospel meeting could coincide with the 100th
‘Fireworks’
Supernova Dance Academy caps its first year with a recital tonight at the Bowlus Fine Arts Center. Among the numbers is the production “Wonka,” based on the book, movies and Broadway musical. Above, from left, are Zoie Stewart as Willie Wonka, Cali Riley as Charlie and Olivia Bannister as Charlie’s grandfather. Other performers are, at far left, Henry White, foreground, and Harlei Gregg; and at bottom center, Carly McGuffin, left, and Mia Aronson. The curtain rises at 7 o’clock. Tickets sell for $15 apiece.
See CHURCH | Page A3
REGISTER/RICHARD LUKEN
Wartime diary provides impetus for biography By RICK DANLEY The Iola Register
D
Iolan Becky French hopes to publish her father, Reinhard Krohn’s, World War II-era memoirs from Nazi Germany into a book. REGISTER/RICK DANLEY
Quote of the day Vol. 117, No. 156
uring the waning days of the Second World War, a young German named Reinhard Krohn was captured by the Russians on the far eastern front and interned in a work camp. For four months the 17-year-old soldier slept on the cold wood floors, his pillow alive with bed bugs, the floorboards crawling with lice, and his mind churning with thoughts of his mother and family back home. The dutiful son of a Hamburg city worker — but a boy touched by a passion for farming from the start — Krohn passed through the normal stages of a prewar German adolescence, which included mandatory stints in the Jungvolk and Hitler Youth, before being drafted into the army during the
war’s last gasp, as the Nazi forces scrambled to stiffen their defenses against an advancing Red Army. But on May 4, 1945, the German lines having failed to hold and its troops in full retreat, Krohn was captured along with six of his comrades in the woods near Brandenburg. But there was something like pluck at work in Krohn’s character even then. At a risk to his life, the young soldier hid in the woolen lining of his pants a diary, and each night he transformed its blank pages into a detailed account of his days as a prisoner of war. As the pages advanced, weeks becoming months, Krohn’s writing grew faint; until, near the end of his stay, undernourished and down to a brittle 115 pounds, his hand still weakly grasping the pencil, the entries are barely visible.
“Money often costs too much.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson, American poet 75 Cents
From a page dated Aug. 9, 1945: “Many times we were sitting out resting or laying down — to get up we would have to do it in steps. Sit up, look around, then try to push yourself up — we lacked strength.” Many around Krohn died. The rest subsisted on bowls of gruel. Meat was rare. Fish meal was added to the soup on occasion, as a cheap source of protein — a coarse nutrient that Krohn learned to crave. Extreme hunger has a way of narrowing one’s focus, and in time Krohn became consumed by a single thought, which revolved nightly like a searchlight through the young man’s brain: food, food. From July 23: “Food is the number one subject of conversation during the day. The number two conversation is our release. … In See DIARY | Page A6
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