Sports: Iola squads pick up tourney wins See B1
The Weekender Saturday, December 13, 2014
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If you build it, they will come A look at housing in Iola By RICK DANLEY The Iola Register
Holiday hosts
Iola High School’s leadership class hosted kindergarten students from Iola’s three elementary schools for a Christmas party at the Recreation Community Building at Riverside Park. Above, senior Emma Piazza leads a group of youngsters with an assortment of songs. At left, Taylor Stout and Dillon Ivy show how to make a Christmas decoration. The activities included games and snacks. The high-schoolers were under the guidance of Regina Chriestenson. REGISTER/RICHARD LUKEN
ROTARY
You don’t get very far into a discussion of the labor shortage in Iola before the town’s lack of affordable housing surfaces. Iola has a fair number of available houses on the upper end. It has a scattering of public, income-limited homes and apartments on the lower end. And it has hundreds of very old homes — many vacant — whose potential for rehabilitation is ebbing fast. “What we desperately need,” says Jim Gilpin of Iola Industries, “is affordable housing for working families. We’ve been at this long enough to know that that is our biggest problem.” The problem isn’t Iola’s alone. Conferences are held
An in-depth series looking at Iola and Allen County’s workforce environment. each year in places like Wichita and Topeka, where the goal is to, if not answer the perennial problem of work force housing in rural Kansas, at least provoke some of the right questions. For instance: How can a community overcome the fact that the rise in construction costs have outpaced the rise in workers’ wages, which means few, if any, developers are willing to build houses that are truly affordSee HOUSING | Page A7
Deep roots keep Shetlars in Iola
Students hunt for holiday deals
By BOB JOHNSON The Iola Register
her in sixth grade at Zillah School, east of Humboldt. She then attended Elsmore High, which closed after her senior year because of statemandated unification of school districts. At Iola Junior College she was a bit miffed at the school not having athletics for girls. “I would have tried to play basketball,” Ann said. But all worked out well; with time after classes she took a part-time job with Brink and Dunwoody, a civil engineering and architectural firm on the second floor of the Register building. That’s where she met Ken, working part time with his father, Charles. Seeing each other daily led to romance
COLONY — Christmas is quickly approaching but Crest Elementary School students aren’t worried. They have all of their Christmas shopping done. For the fourth year, Crest Parent Teacher Organization members helped students shop for their loved ones. LeAnn Church, one of the organizers, said children Pre-K age through fifth grade participated. The PTO members set up a makeshift store on the school’s stage. Children came through the store to shop for presents. The pop-up shop was made possible by members of the community. “All of these items are donated,” Church said. “We ad-
See ROTARY | Page A4
See CREST | Page A7
When Ann Shetlar graduated from Elsmore High School in 1966, she looked back with pride on being part of a high-profile sports tradition at the small school. The girls basketball team, of which she was an integral member, had been undefeated for eight straight years. Thursday she and husband Ken gave Iola Rotarians a glimpse of their lives during talks required of new members. Ann was one of six siblings who grew up “in an old farmhouse” southeast of LaHarpe. She attended a stereotypical one-room schoolhouse through fifth grade, after which consolidation put
By KAYLA BANZET The Iola Register
Crest first graders McKenna Powell, left, and Levi Prasko shop for their loved ones on Thursday afternoon. REGISTER/KAYLA BANZET
891st deployment to Africa called off
Christmas jazz
Andrew Terhune plays a solo during the Iola High School winter band concert Thursday night. REGISTER/RICHARD LUKEN
Quote of the day Vol. 117, No. 35
Soldiers of the Kansas Army National Guard’s 891st Engineer Battalion, headquartered in Iola, will not go to Africa next spring. According to a news release, the National Guard Bureau informed Maj. Gen. Lee Tafanelli, Kansas adjutant general, that due to changing mission requirements deployment of the 891st Engineer Battalion to West Africa has been canceled. “Our soldiers were willing
“Vision is the art of seeing what is invisible to others.” — Jonathan Swift 75 Cents
to go,” said Tafanelli, “but it’s a fact of military life that missions can and do change. The Department of Defense reduced the mission requirements, so there was no longer any need for an engineer battalion headquarters and forward support company.” The deployment was announced in mid-November that 891st soldiers would build medical facilities as See 891st | Page A7
Hi: 59 Lo: 54 Iola, KS