Inside: Iola tapped as top Kansas trail town See A3
2017 1867
Sports: Indians on the brink See B1
The Weekender Saturday, July 22, 2017
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Hotel seeks city, county help to buy land By RICHARD LUKEN The Iola Register
The fate of a proposed hotel on the east edge of Iola may be settled in August, when City Council members decide a request to help a developer purchase land for the site. Bill Michaud of Baja Development Group, who owns a Sleep Inn & Suites franchise in Fort Scott, is seeking to build a similar facility in Iola, on a long-vacant parcel of land on the northwest corner of the U.S. 169-U.S. 54 bypass. Michaud is approaching
the Iola City Council and Allen County Commission to go in with him on the purchase of the land. Splitting the cost three ways amounts to $111,666.66 for each. The county has not been formally approached. However, the proposed agreement that will be presented to Council members Aug. 14 notes Baja Development intends to seek financial assistance from the county as well. Michaud said both entities would quickly be recompensed for their investments through additional transient
guest and sales taxes, utility payments, as well as through revenue generated as part of a “Community Improvement District” plan, a 2 percent excise tax paid by Sleep Inn & Suites customers over the next 22 years, or until the city and county are fully repaid. Michaud wants to build a $4.5 million, 32,000-squarefoot facility. The structure would hold between 55 and 60 guest rooms, depending on the architecture. “It’s important for the public to understand that this is not a ‘giveaway’ of tax dollars, but is instead a short-term in-
A hotel developer is seeking city and county assistance to buy this parcel of land to construct a Sleep Inn & Suites franchise in east Iola. REGISTER/RICHARD LUKEN vestment in the community, with long-term benefits,” said Bill Maness, the city and county’s economic development director through Thrive
Pressing for success at the Allen Co. Fair By RICK DANLEY The Iola Register
A good student, a stellar athlete, a dancer, articulate, funny, polite — it isn’t fair that Emilia Wilkerson is also an accomplished 4-H’er with a slate of top-quality projects in the works for this year’s Allen County Fair. Last Tuesday — which also happened to be Wilkerson’s 10th birthday — the third-year Prairie Dell member sat before a binder, the word “TREES” artfully decorating its laminated front. “This is for my forestry project,” said Wilkerson, opening the binder to reveal page after page of the native Kansas leaves she’s collected across the span of two years. Each leaf is selected for its representative quality. Wilkerson rejects the bug-eaten, brokenstemmed leaves that carpet the nearby parks and trails from which she draws her haul, training her attention instead on the largely unblemished specimens. “And we always make sure to grab a few extra,” she explained, “just in case something happens to one of them. Me and my dad, we usually go out on
Spicer steps down from WH post WASHINGTON (AP) — White House press secretary Sean Spicer abruptly resigned his position Friday, ending a rocky sixmonth tenure that made his news briefings must-see TV. He said President Donald Trump’s White House “could benefit from a clean slate.” Spicer quit in protest over the hiring of a new White House communications director, New York financier Anthony Scaramucci, objecting to what Spicer considered his lack of qualifications and to the direction See SPICER | Page A5
Allen County. An economic impact report performed by Municipal ConSee HOTEL | Page A3
Rotary Day BBQ cookoff takes shape By BOB JOHNSON The Iola Register
Emilia Wilkerson, 10, will enter forestry and other projects at the upcoming Allen County Fair. REGISTER/RICK DANLEY
our bikes or we drive around and we find them.” Having returned the leaves to her north Iola home, Wilkerson presses them and then mounts the leaves in her album with a little clear glue and a small label describing the leaf ’s provenance — “White Ash / Elm Creek Park South / 7-17-17.”
“She can mount a leaf for you today, if you’d like,” offers Sandy Wilkerson, Emilia’s mother. “I know all of this is an education for you too. … Do you want to show him the leaf press, Emilia?” Emilia leads the way into the garage, where she does her pressing. Preparing my mind for
a contraption — the “leaf presser” — whose particulars I can’t quite picture, I point to the first appliance that strikes my eye. “Wow” I exclaim, indicating lamely in the direction of a handled, dome-shaped object in the corner of the garage, which See FAIR | Page A8
Rotary Day in the Park has shifted to the midpoint of the Allen County Fair this year. The fair kicks off Thursday and Rotarians will hold sway on Saturday with their “Smokin’ Hot Cars & BBQ.” In years past the premier event has been on the fair’s opening day, for decades a Saturday. Activities will be in Riverside Park. Judging for the barbecue will be in the Little Theatre of the Community Building. Barbecue teams will arrive on Friday and the backyard chefs will fire up grills that evening to begin the traditional slow-cooking of several meats. To date 22 teams have entered the cook-off, 14 fewer than in 2016, but it is not uncommon for contestants to arrive at the last minute. Fairgoers will have opporSee ROTARY | Page A6
An emotional reunion By RICHARD LUKEN The Iola Register
It look nearly 50 years for Joyce Tarter to find her siblings. Her biological father, Pat Kloeckner, had met Joyce’s mother during World War II in California. Their romance was brief, ending after Joyce’s mother, Florence Madler, learned Kloeckner was already married. About that time Florence also learned she was pregnant with Joyce. Things turned out all right for Madler, who about a year later met and eventually wed Clinton Forman, who agreed to adopt young Joyce. It wasn’t until Joyce was about 17 that her mother told her about her paternal
heritage, which sparked a 49-year endeavor to find her father and any other blood relatives. She eventually found them in 2009 after a cousin read an obituary for a Val Kloeckner in Montana. Val was Pat Kloeckner’s son. Through Val Kloeckner’s widow, Joyce eventually found two other siblings, Patty Kloeckner, out of Sonoma, Calif., and Kandy Baker, who lives in Houlka, Miss. (The Register wrote in 2010 about their emotional get-together.) “We’ve been in touch nonstop on Facebook since then,” Tarter said Wednesday. Tarter and husband Jim taveled to California once after their first meeting to See SISTERS | Page A6
Iolan Joyce Tarter, left, and her sister, Kandy Baker
Skin Cancer is the most common form of cancer in the United States.
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A - Asymmetrical, irregular shape D - Diameter, larger than a pea B - Border, irregular or jagged E - Evolving, changed in the past weeks or months C - Color, uneven color