Sports: KU headed to Sweet Sixteen See B1
THE IOLA REGISTER Locally owned since 1867
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Monday, March 21, 2016
Fire destroys Piqua home
By RICHARD LUKEN The Iola Register
PIQUA — Clayton Abbott and Tisha Covey lost everything they owned, “but got out with everything that was living,” in a Saturday house fire. The fire started in an attached garage while Abbott, Covey and their four children were inside the home, unaware. Trena Jacobs, who was eating dinner next door at Silverado’s, told the Register her husband, James, noticed the garage fire. While others in the restaurant assumed briefly it a controlled fire, James Jacobs instead raced to the house and kicked in the front door.
Volunteer Woodson County firefighters were called to the scene of a fire that destroyed a Piqua home Saturday. PHOTO COURTESY
See FIRE | Page A2
OF TRENA JACOBS
Lawmakers uncertain ‘fairness target’ possible By JOHN HANNA The Associated Press
Sunset spectacle Humboldt’s Mike Myer captured this spectacular image of the setting son over the marsh arch bridge west of Humboldt on Bridge Street. Myer said he hoped to capture the sun directly to the west because Sunday was the first day of spring, although the sun drifted slightly north as it neared the horizon. PHOTO
COURTESY OF MIKE MYER
Search continues for missing Iola man
Area law enforcement agencies continue to search for Iolan Shawn Cook, who has been missing for more than a week. The Iola Police Department, with assistance from the Allen C o u n t y Sheriff ’s Department Shawn Cook and Kansas Bureau of Investigation, received a tip early Saturday about Cook’s potential whereabouts, leading to a series of searches in and around Iola, Police Chief Jared Warner said. Warner said officers conducted several interviews “exhausting every lead, with the hopes a new lead opens.” The search warrants have yet to pin down Cook’s location. “It’s been a busy couple of days,” Warner said, adding it’s too soon to determine whether a crime has occurred. “It’s still a missing persons report.” On Sunday, several law enforcement vehicles were spotted parked near a house along U.S. 54 between Iola and Gas for much of the afSee SEARCH | Page A4
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Republican lawmakers assert that they may never be able to meet the Kansas Supreme Court’s demands for fair-
ness in education funding and will see a chaotic budget process every year as they reshuffle dollars among local school districts. The high court said last month that Kansas has not given poor districts their
fair share and schools must shut down in July unless lawmakers fix the problem. In response, the Senate could debate a bill Monday looking at redistributing part of the See GOP | Page A2
Neosho River’s history runs deep By RICK DANLEY The Iola Register
I
n the fall of 1911, President Taft was presented with a case of bottled water from the Iola Booster Club. Attached to each bottle was a label: “This bottle contains Neosho river water, nothing else. ... We use this water on our streets, lawns, tables. We drink it, and we vouch for its purity. Please try it.” It’s not recorded whether the plump Republican sipped from the gift before his train chugged off, but the gist of the label’s message is as true today as then: The Neosho River, still the area’s main source of drinking water, is, quite literally, a part of the people who live here. On Thursday, the Iola Public Library hosted a panel discussion devoted to the Neosho River. The event featured Toby Ross, superintendent of the Iola Water Plant; Susan Stover of the Kansas Geological Survey; Allen Community College biology instructor, Travis Robb; and Register reporter and selfdescribed “river rat,” Bob Johnson. It’s hard to confirm the Booster Club’s claims a hundred years out, but if the 27th president were reinflated today, he’d be unwise to pass up a glass of what, according to Ross, industry experts have recently voted the “best tasting water in Kansas.” But it wasn’t always the case, averred Bob Johnson. “The early water that was pu-
Quote of the day Vol. 118, No. 100
Susan Stover of the Kansas Geological Survey talks during a program about the Neosho River Thursday at the Iola Public Library. REGISTER/RICK DANLEY rified often came out of the tap murky and had fish scales in it, and pieces of weed.” Not to mention the many cases of typhoid fever, said Johnson, “which probably came from bad water.” Turning bad water good
Ross relayed in detail today’s methods for transforming the brown broth of the Neosho — an Osage word meaning, unbelievably, “clear water” — into the award-winning beverage that wets your lips today:
First, water is pumped from the Neosho River into a high-powered “clarifier” at the plant, which acts as “a basic cleanup” mechanism meant to eliminate most of the water’s initial turbidity. From there, it moves through the “ozone system,” which is the plant’s main disinfectant, “and which takes care of taste and odors.” Next, it’s on to “lime softening,” which reduces the water’s natural hardness. From there, the stuff is blasted with CO2, which lowers the pH of the
“Coincidence is God’s way of staying anonymous.” — Albert Einstein 75 Cents
water, before traveling into one of four “dual media filters,” each consisting of a layer of anthracite coal over a layer of sand through which the water filters. At this point, it sluices into an underground “transfer well,” where fluoride, chlorine and ammonia sulfate are added to the mix. Nearing the end of its journey, it moves to the “clear well...which is basically a million gallons of storage and a pump that pumps it See RIVER | Page A4
Hi: 65 Lo: 45 Iola, KS