Sports: Iola track athletes bring home league titles See B1
The Weekender Saturday, May 16, 2015
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Developer drops plans for ACH site Clears way for grocery store, apartments By BOB JOHNSON The Iola Register
In a matter of minutes, Friday morning, focus for development of the older Allen County Hospital site shifted solely to a grocery store and housing. “We’re going to pull out,” Arlyn Briggs declared at a special Allen County Commission meeting. “It was never our intent to try to drag out” negotiations to purchase the abandoned hospital and convert it to a care facility for Alzheimer’s and other patients. “We decided it wasn’t feasible from a financial point.”
Briggs’ group looked to the hospital after deciding conversion of Hedgeapple Acres, a bed and breakfast east of Moran, to a place to care for Alzheimer’s patients also wasn’t feasible, he said. “It would have been foolish to spend $100,000 for three or four people.” Instead, it has continued under Briggs’ management as a bed and breakfast. Briggs acknowledged G&W Foods’ plan to build a grocery was good for the Iola area. “I believe in competition,” and “thought for sometime Iola needed a grocery,” with See ACH | Page A6
Touch and go The intersection of highways 54 and 59 in Moran is considered by many the most dangerous intersection in Allen County. GOOGLE MAPS PHOTO
Moran intersection prone to accidents By BOB JOHNSON The Iola Register
M
ORAN — The frightening sound of screeching brakes and the imminent “boom” of a crash are alltoo familiar to Kirk Dwyer,
whose restaurant, Chancy’s Grill and Shake, is a stone’s throw from the intersection of highways 54 and 59. Since Dwyer took over the restaurant in 1992, accidents at the intersection have occurred frequently. Twentytwo times, in fact, since 2005, according to Kansas Depart-
ment of Transportation. Without hesitation, Sheriff Bryan Murphy pegs the intersection as the most dangerous in Allen County, on strength of the proliferation of accidents and that many of them — 11 of the last 22, See WRECKS | Page A6
Locals bring taste of jazz to Iola bandstand Sunday By KAYLA BANZET The Iola Register
The Iola bandstand will feature jazzy tunes at 7 p.m. Sunday. Humboldt native Jud Hawley, along with Allen Community College music director Ted Clous, Seth Cuppy and Tyler Holloway, will play a variety of jazz numbers in the heart of Iola. Hawley, event organizer, hopes to see a good crowd. Hawley had his start in music at a fairly young age. “My dad tried to play guitar but he was awful at it,” Hawley, 20, said jokingly. “So the guitar was lying around and I picked it up to play it.”
Tots and tassels
Ronnie Adair waves to her family during the morning Age to Age graduation ceremony Friday at Iola’s Windsor Place, site of the USD 257 Preschool. REGISTER/KAYLA BANZET
See JAZZ | Page A6
Jud Hawley plays during the Allen County Farmers Market Thursday. Hawley along with three other local musicians will perform at the Iola bandstand Sunday evening. REGISTER/KAYLA BANZET
Lohman ready to take next step
Long’s passions fuel college plans
By RICK DANLEY The Iola Register
By RICK DANLEY The Iola Register
One of the few Iola graduates venturing outside the usual orbit of Kansas colleges, Jo Lohman will attend Drake University, in Des Moines, this fall. “It will be a nice change in scenery, getting out of Kansas,” says Lohman. Lohman, who will graduate on Sunday as one of this year’s valedictorians, is a magnet for honors. The senior recently earned the Educational Excellence Award, Drake’s Presidential Scholarship, and has been named a 2015 State Scholar, to pick from a long list of accolades. Lohman is a good athlete — track, basketball, cross country — and a good bells player in the high school band.
On the morning of the last day of school, Lexie Long was seated on the edge of the stage in the Creitz Recital Hall alongside one of her favorite teachers, Iola High School art instructor, Amy Shannon. A group of students was scattered around the room, which was hung with paintings and decorated with d i s p l ay s of handformed p o t t e r y. It was the day after the student art show. L o n g , one of this year’s valedictorians, broke away to speak with the Register about her time at IHS,
Jo Lohman But she is self-mocking when discussing her contributions to these extracurricular pursuits. “I’m average,” Lohman says of her status as a track athlete. “Not out front and not in the back.” But Lohman leans forward and speaks passionately when engaged in a topic that recruits what is obviously the A-student’s chief
Quote of the day Vol. 117, No. 136
gift: her intelligence. It may not add anything to describe a class valedictorian as smart, but Lohman is unusually thoughtful when discussing what See GRAD| Page A6
Lexie Long but not before Ms. Shannon offered this advice: “I would really suggest you take a picture of her with her artwork, because Lexie is multitalented.” Long stepped into a quiet side hallway of the Bowlus Center’s basement. Upstairs the band was rehearsing Elgar’s Pomp and Circumstance march — the graduation song — in preparation for Sunday’s ceremony. Next time Long hears
“The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.” — Dr. Seuss 75 Cents
those notes, she will be saying goodbye to Iola High School from her perch at the top of the class. Was that an aim of hers from the start? “School has always been very important to me,” says Long. “It’s been my goal to be one of the valedictorians of our class.” Long has recently added, to her unblemished See LONG | Page A3
Hi: 77 Lo: 64 Iola, KS