Sports: American League wins All-Star game See B1
THE IOLA REGISTER Locally owned since 1867
www.iolaregister.com
Wednesday, July 16, 2014
ALLEN COUNTY
Thompson stands by votes Commissioners By SUSAN LYNN The Iola Register
Rep. Kent Thompson, RDistrict 9, stands by his vote to continue funding green energy standards, even though it may have cost him support of ultra-conservatives, including the Kansas Chamber of Commerce. Other than that one issue, Thompson maintains he has toed the line that should please the right wing, including votes to overrule federal authority with guns, void teacher tenure, and enact property tax relief in favor of school funding. The Renewable Portfolio Standards passed in 2009 mandated utility companies in Kansas acquire 20 percent of their electricity from renewable sources by 2020. Kansas is on track to meet that standard primarily because of its contributions to the development of wind energy. “We’re at 16-17 percent right now,” he said, of meeting the green energy standard. Support from Republicans and Democrats helped defeat
refuse EMS aid By BOB JOHNSON The Iola Register
Kent Thompson repealing the state law. The Senate had earlier passed the measure. “Kansas is ranked third in the nation as a potential site to develop wind energy,” Thompson said. “We know it’s clean, and I believe it also can be viewed as an economic
development factor for southeast Kansas.” Both Monarch Cement in Humboldt and Ash Grove Cement of Chanute provide the cement used to anchor the massive wind towers. See THOMPSON | Page A4
Allen County commissioners left Iola hanging over a financial precipice Tuesday morning. After agreeing last week to consider providing some relief in the face of a nearly $400,000 ambulance service shortfall, Commission Dick Works dismissed discussion by saying, “Let’s wait until October and see how finances are going.” “They (the city) can take out of their reserves or we take it out of ours,” Works observed. “They signed the contract.” The contract calls for Iola to provide ambulance service with the county’s contribution being up to $750,000 from run revenue, plus purchase of replacement ambulances by the county. A week ago Iola asked for $189,000, or half the shortfall, from the county’s ambu-
lance fund, which has about $446,000. Commissioners voted unanimously to consider the request with the provision that Iola would be obligated to repay the amount if it decided to hand ambulance service back to the county. Commissioner Jim Talkington’s observation that the “city wants to know quicker than October,” with it in the midst of figuring its 2015 budget, stirred no change in the brief conversation. County Counselor Alan Weber said he had prepared an addendum to the contract to facilitate financial assistance on the county’s part. “I guess I’ll put it on the back burner for now,” he concluded. THE COUNTY’S inaction leaves Iola in a pickle, City Administrator Carl Slaugh told the Register. See COUNTY | Page A4
USD 257
Property owners to see tax break for year By KAYLA BANZET The Iola Register
Property owners in USD 257 may see a tax break for the 2014-15 school year. Board of Education members set an Aug. 11 budget hearing to consider a spending plan that shaves about 8 mills from the district’s ad valorem tax levy. The lower levy was possible because of court-mandated legislation that increased the state’s contribution for Local Options Budget reimbursements. The legislation stemmed from the Kansas Supreme Court’s order to provide more
equitable education funding, Superintendent of Schools Jack Koehn explained. “Before this year, the state wasn’t picking up its share of the LOB equalization aid,” Koehn told the Register. “It was only paying about 78 percent of it. This year, it’s paying 100 percent.” As a result, USD 257 can generate nearly $3.2 million for its LOB — which can be used for general operating expenses — with a levy of about 16 mills. Last year’s budget required a levy of 26 mills. Meanwhile, the district will increase its capital outlay levy from 6 mills to 8 mills, while See USD 257 | Page A6
Jake Ard, director Thursday, 8 p.m. -PROGRAM-
The Star Spangled Banner......................................................arr. J.P. Sousa Joyce's 71st N.Y. Regiment — march......................................Boyer & Lake By The Light Of The Silvery Moon.....................................Edwards, arr. Teague Repasz Band — march......................................................Lincoln, arr. Yoder Pictures At An Exhibition..............................................Moussorgsky, arr. Curnow Washington Square............................................................Seward Coburger March.................................................................Arr. Del Borgo Summer of '42................................................................Legrand, arr. Osterling When The Stars Begin To Fall.............................................Arr. Allen The Thunderer...................................................................John Philip Sousa
Quote of the day Vol. 116, No. 183
Library hosts speaker on Irena Sendler By KAREN INGRAM The Iola Register
Iola Municipal Band Since 1871 At the bandstand
Megan Stewart Felt, Fort Scott, tells a group of more than 40 about her first meeting with Holocaust heroine Irena Sendler, who saved 2,500 Jewish children from the Nazis. “There is still, unfortunately, a lot of anti-Semitism in Poland today,” Felt said. “Irena’s grave has been desecrated three times.” REGISTER/KAREN INGRAM
In 1999, four Uniontown High School girls went to the post office to mail a letter to Poland. They were working on a National History Day project and had wanted to tell the story of Irena Sendler, a forgotten heroine of Nazi-occupied Warsaw during World War II. Sendler is credited with saving about 2,500 Jewish children from certain death in the Nazi concentration camps. As they dropped the letter into the mailbox, Megan Stewart Felt and the other girls had to wonder if a 90year old woman in Poland would even respond to four girls from rural Kansas. They got a reply — in Pol-
ish. After hunting down a translator, the girls heard Irena’s first words. “To my dear and beloved girls...” the letter began. And so began a journey that, for Sendler, had started more than 60 years ago and, for Felt, would mark a period of her life full of turmoil and triumph that would change her forever. SENDLER was born in 1910. She was 28 when the Nazis occupied Poland, sent all the Jews to the Ghetto in Warsaw and began to systematically exterminate them. Sendler, a Roman Catholic, saw an opportunity to use her job as a social worker to falsify documents and smuggle Jewish children out of Warsaw and out of Nazi hands. With 25 collaborators, Sendler created an under-
“Every man must decide for himself whether he shall master his world or be mastered by it.” — James Cash Penney, business man 75 Cents
ground network. In one of her most famous escapes, she smuggled a child out of the Ghetto in a carpenter’s bag. At the last minute, the little girl’s parents gave Sendler a silver spoon with the girl’s name inscribed on it — Elzbieta — so that she would not forget who she was. At this point in the story, Felt opened a small case and held aloft the spoon for all to see. Elzbieta escaped. Her father was killed when he refused to get on the train to Treblinka Extermination Camp. “He kept saying, ‘I have a little girl,’” Felt said. “They shot him and stuffed him in a trash can.” Elzbieta’s mother got on the train, and soon after died See SENDLER | Page A4
Hi: 76 Lo: 58 Iola, KS