Monday, July 20, 2020
Locally owned since 1867
iolaregister.com
Fair scaled down, socially distanced By RICHARD LUKEN The Iola Register
The crowd was smaller, but there was still plenty of fun to be had Sunday, to kick off the 2020 Allen County Fair. Sunday’s activities — arts and crafts and home environment judging, followed by the 4-H Dog Show in the evening — drew the 4-H’ers and a few family members, but little else. The indoor judging was
spaced throughout the afternoon to provide plenty of social distancing opportunities. This year’s scaled-down version of the Fair — prompted by COVID-19 — runs through Sunday. That means some staples of past fairs, such as the rodeo, Baby Barnyard exhibits, Barnyard Olympics, 4-H Picnic and Style Revue, are no-gos this year. There are no open-class contests for the general public
Students compete in Shrine Bowl
PAGE B1
Moran food group gets donation
See FAIR | Page A4
PAGE A2
Sedgwick County has no plans for more COVID-19 safety measures Above, judge Donna Kovacic visits with Abby Rinehart about her arts and crafts entry during the Allen County Fair Sunday at Riverside Park. At right, starting from left, 4-H’ers Shelby Shaughnessy, Hallie Sutherland and Rohan Springer parade their dogs around the show arena. REGISTER/RICHARD LUKEN
Trump not ready to commit to election results if he loses WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is refusing to publicly commit to accepting the results of the upcoming White House election, recalling a similar threat he made weeks before the 2016 vote, as he scoffs at polls showing him lagging behind Democrat Joe Biden. Trump says it’s too early to make such an ironclad guarantee.
“I have to see. Look ... I have to see,” Trump told moderator Chris Wallace during a wide-ranging interview on Fox News Channel. “No, I’m not going to just say ‘yes.’ I’m not going to say ‘no,’ and I didn’t last time, either.” The Biden campaign responded: “The American people will decide this election. And the United States government is perfectly capable of
GOP leaders head to White House as virus crisis deepens By LISA MASCARO The Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — Top Republicans in Congress are expected to meet today with President Donald Trump at the White House on the next COVID-19 aid package as the crisis many hoped would have improved has dramatically worsened, just as emergency relief is expiring. New divisions between the Senate GOP majority and the White House posed fresh challenges. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell was prepared to roll out the $1 trillion package in a matter of days. But administration panned more virus testing money and interjected other priorities that could complicate quick passage. Trump insisted again Sunday that the virus would “disappear,” but the president’s view did not at all match projections from the leading health professionals straining to halt the alarming U.S. caseload and death
escorting trespassers out of the White House.” Trump also hammered the Pentagon brass for favoring renaming bases that honor Confederate military leaders — a drive for change spurred by the national debate about race after George Floyd’s death. “I don’t care what the military says,” the commander in chief said. The Republican president
described the nation’s top infectious diseases expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, as a “a little bit of an alarmist” about the coronavirus pandemic, and Trump stuck to what he had said back in February — that the virus is “going to disappear.” On Fox, he said, “I’ll be right, eventually.” The United States tops the global death toll list, with more See ELECTION | Page A2
WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — The Sedgwick County Commission has no immediate plans to follow a White House task force report that lays out additional measures officials should take to slow the spread of COVID-19. A White House Coronavirus Task Force report released Thursday by the Center for Public Integrity says communities and states were considered in the red zone if they had more than 100 new cases per 100,000 people in the week prior to the July 14 report. Sedgwick County is in the “red zone” for cases, the Wichita Eagle reported. The report calls for See WICHITA | Page A2
Bearing the weight of a mountain Trevor Hoag Just Prairie
President Donald Trump toll. Lawmakers were returning to a Capitol still off-limits to tourists, another sign of the nation’s difficulty containing the coronavirus. Rather than easing, the pandemic’s devastating cycle was happening all over again, leaving Congress little choice but to engineer another costly rescue. Businesses were shutting down again, schools could not fully reopen and jobs were disappearing, all while federal aid expired. Without a successful federal strategy, lawmakers are trying to draft one. “It’s not going to magically disappear,” said a somber McConnell, R-Ky., last week See LEADERS | Page A4
The sun’s sickly pallid light was fading, receding from the forest floor as I proceeded north through the timber, following the line traced by a sandstone farm fence. I was on the hunt for a place called Baker’s Bluff, which I knew was hidden somewhere nearby, though the armadillos and whitetails weren’t providing much direction. One pink and banded fellow trundled along in the distance, too low to notice the wind, then scuttled away on my approach. Breaking through the undergrowth into a clearing, I paused to watch the tall dry grass shift in the wind in places where it had managed to erupt around patches of red-orange stone on the surface. It was as if each rock was its own smooth, flat island,
The sandstone cliffs of Baker’s Bluff soar 50 feet overhead as one looks up from its base along the creek bed. REGISTER/TREVOR HOAG which made movement across the field a dance as one moved from stone to stone. At this point in the spring, the colors of Kansas had not yet folded forth, and rather than gold and blue and green, the scene was instead largely muted and dead. Leaves from oaks and other species crunched and crackled beneath my boots, as I dodged beneath lichen-covered branches in my black
wool hat. I dreamed Baxter Baker there, wandering the woods beside me, on land for which he’d paid a mere $200 in 1877, perhaps with a rifle in hand. I dreamed the way he moved, swaying and stealthy, still affected by his time training for Civil War battles with Company B, in the 119 Illinois See BLUFF | Page A4
Order Today...
Vol. 122, No. 184 Iola, KS 75 Cents
DELIVERED TOMORROW order today by 1 p.m. & get by noon tomorrow 2103 S. Sante Fe Chanute, KS
620-431-6070
DELIVERY TO IOLA & HUMBOLDT ARE ON IN-STOCK ITEMS ONLY