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THE IOLA REGISTER Locally owned since 1867
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Thursday, August 20, 2015
Newcomers find their niche at USD 257
Iola native returns to middle school
Meiwes embraces opportunity at IMS
By RICHARD LUKEN The Iola Register
By RICHARD LUKEN The Iola Register
While students invariably hope their assignments come back clean — no wrong answers — David Cunningham doesn’t mind seeing his students make an error or two. “Mistake-making is part of the learning process,” Cunningham explained. “Mistakes can be treated like a bad thing, but they shouldn’t be punished. Sometimes we learn best from our mistakes.” Being a part of the learning process so appealed to Cunningham, he decided to become a teacher. Cunningham, who turns 24 on Tuesday, is preparing for his first year as a seventh-grade science instructor at Iola Middle School. Starting his teaching career in his native Iola is a dream come true, Cunningham said. “This was my first choice,” he said. “I didn’t think I was going to be able to because you never know about job openings.” But when the teaching position opened after the 2014-15 school year, Iola High science instructor Vince
Roger Carlin had a simple message for Brittney Meiwes upon his retirement this spring. “Now it’s your turn,” he told her. Meiwes, seventh-grade history, geography and economics instructor at Iola Middle School, took his words to heart. “I just hope I can live up to the standard he’s set,” she said. Meiwes should have a good idea of how to accomplish this. The Crest High School alumnus served as a student teacher under Carlin in 2011. Since then, she worked as a substitute teacher in Iola, before earning the full-time teaching gig at IMS over the summer. “This job was the ideal job,” Meiwes said. “This is where I knew I wanted to be, especially after I student taught here.” It took Meiwes a few years to figure out her career ambitions. She started out in college a psychology major. “I wanted to do equine-assisted
David Cunningham will teach seventh-grade science at Iola Middle School, after roaming the halls as a student not too long ago. REGISTER/
RICHARD LUKEN
Coons notified Cunningham of the opportunity. “That was a great help,” he said. “I applied and got the job. It’s always good to be home. I was living in Lawrence for four years. I liked living there a lot, but this feels like home. I See CUNNINGHAM | Page A4
Brittney Meiwes, shown here with her daughter, McKenna, will begin teaching social science at Iola Middle School next week. REGISTER/RICHARD LUKEN
psychotherapy with behavioral modification in teenagers,” she explained. But after meeting the man who would become her husband, Seth, those plans changed. “I did not want to pick up my farmSee MEIWES | Page A4
Lawsuit alleges worker fired for not attending service TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A former state employee has filed a federal civil lawsuit claiming she was fired from her clerk job at the Kansas secretary of state’s office after she declined to attend prayer services held in the office. Courtney Canfield, who was hired in January 2013 as an accounts clerk, filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Topeka. She said that be-
fore Assistant Secretary of State Eric Rucker ousted her in November 2013, he “repeatedly and emphatically indicated a basis for her termination as the fact that, ‘She just doesn’t go to church.’” Rucker was served Aug. 7 with the lawsuit, which names the office of the secretary of state and Rucker as defendants, The Topeka CapitalJournal reported.
Secretary of State Kris Kobach told The Wichita Eagle in an email that the lawsuit is baseless and that Canfield was fired for poor job performance. “The suggestion that Mr. Rucker, or anyone else at the Office of the Secretary of State, monitored employees’ church attendance is ridiculous,” Kobach said in the email.
Jennifer Rapp, spokeswoman for the Attorney General Derek Schmidt’s office, said the secretary of state’s office requested legal representation in the case. The attorney general’s office retained private counsel to handle the legal matter, Rapp said. Canfield is a Methodist but didn’t regularly attend church services or “otherwise practice any particular
religious beliefs in any way,” according to the lawsuit. Canfield was promoted in June 2013 to a full-time position as a filing specialist in the business division of the secretary of state’s office. The lawsuit said shortly after she was hired, Canfield was invited by one of Kobach’s administrative assisSee LAWSUIT | Page A4
State asks districts to detail efficiencies By JOHN HANNA The Associated Press
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Four top Republican legislators who will help decide whether Kansas school districts receive extra state aid asked superintendents Wednesday to provide information about how their districts have “used efficiencies to improve outcomes in the classroom.” The GOP lawmakers sent a letter to the superintendents of the 38 districts filing applications seeking about $15 million in additional aid under an education funding law enacted this year. The law set aside $12.3 million to address extraordinary needs during the current school year. The law leaves decisions about what districts receive to Republican Gov. Sam Brownback and the top eight leaders of GOP-dominated Legislature. They plan to meet Monday at the Statehouse to review the applications. Senate Minority Leader Anthony Hensley, a Topeka Democrat who also will be in-
Scientist David Morgan holds a test tube containing predatory wasps, Tamarixia radiata, after breeding at the Department of Food and Agriculture in Riverside, Calif., July 23. The wasp is used to attack the Psyllid, a parasite which contains a bacteria which is deadly to the state’s citrus industry. GINA FERAZZI/LOS ANGELES TIMES/TNS
Scientists turn to wasps for crop protection By GEOFFREY MOHAN Los Angeles Times
RIVERSIDE, Calif. (TNS) — They look like grains of black sand inside a prescription vial. But each speck is a wasp that is lethal to the offspring of the Asian citrus psyllid, an aphid-size bug that
spreads the bacteria that cause Huanglongbing, or citrus greening disease. If California’s $1.8 billion citrus industry is to buy enough time to stave off the disease, which has decimated citrus crops in Florida, Mexico and Brazil, those vials may as well be hourglasses. At least nine trees on sev-
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en properties in San Gabriel tested positive for the disease this summer, the second outbreak in the state in three years. Crews have been going door-to-door on the streets around Vincent Lugo Park, inspecting trees and spraying them with insecticides. See WASPS | Page A4
“Lost time is never found again.” — Benjamin Franklin 75 Cents
volved in the decisions, said the four Republicans are injecting politics into the discussion. Hutchinson Superintendent Shelly Kiblinger, whose district is seeking an extra $461,000, said the letter implies the applicants aren’t efficient and is “incredibly offensive” for those with increases in student numbers. “I’d really like to send our legislators a questionnaire and ask them to prove that they’re really being efficient,” Kiblinger said. The letter asks the districts to provide the additional information by 5 p.m. Friday. The Associated Press obtained a copy shortly after the State Department of Education distributed it. The letter was signed by House Speaker Ray Merrick, of Stilwell; Senate President Susan Wagle, of Wichita, and the chairmen of the Legislature’s two budget committees, Sen. Ty Masterson, of Andover, and Rep. Ron Ryckman Jr., of Olathe. “Specifically, please provide five ways that your See FUNDING | Page A4
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