Sports: Iola teams fall to Wellsville See B1
THE IOLA REGISTER Locally owned since 1867
www.iolaregister.com
Wednesday, February 25, 2015
ALLEN COMMISSION
County eyes razing hospital
Cosmic Bowling
By BOB JOHNSON The Iola Register
Allen County commissioners briefly discussed what may become of the older Allen County Hospital following an executive session Tuesday morning. A week earlier they asked County Counselor Alan We-
Hospital bears more cuts to Medicare By SUSAN LYNN The Iola Register
Hospitals can no longer be viewed as “cash cows,” for a community, Ron Baker, CEO, said at Tuesday night’s meeting of hospital trustees. Just as education and social services have had to bear massive funding cuts, so too, have
those in health care. Over the next nine years Allen County Regional Hospital can expect to see almost 6 percent of its federal funding for Medicare cut, Baker said. “And we’re the lucky ones,” he said, because of the hospital’s critical access designation, which gives it special See HOSPITAL | Page A4
Lenten breakfast Ron Hagman, prepares sausage for the Lenten breakfast at First Presbyterian Church this morning. The next breakfast is at St. Timothy’s Episcopal Church on March 4. REGISTER/KAYLA BANZET
Quote of the day Vol. 117, No. 80
See COUNTY | Page A4
Business tax breaks more widespread TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas officials acknowledge that a tax exemption championed as an economic stimulus by Republican Gov. Sam Brownback has helped 89,000 more business owners than previously anticipated, but the state’s revenue chief said Tuesday the policy shouldn’t be blamed for the state’s budget problems. Revenue Secretary Nick Jordan said the exemption
USD 257 fifth grade D.A.R.E . graduates celebrated their accomplishments with a bowling party at Country Lanes in Iola on Tuesday. Trenton Varney, left, takes a turn while Ally Ellis, right, attempts to bowl a strike. REGISTER/KAYLA BANZET
ALLEN COUNTY REGIONAL
ber to obtain bids for razing the structure, and are interested in pressing in that direction. A handful of developers have looked at the structure with no results. Commissioner Jerry Daniels told the Register there was a possibility removal of the 60-year-old building
— the most dramatic part of personal income tax cuts enacted at Brownback’s urging in 2012 and 2013 — is boosting the state’s economy. But new figures from the Department of Revenue about who’s benefited from the policy have intensified a legislative debate over whether the exemption should be modified. Kansas See TAX| Page A4
Historian tracks Civil War veterans By RICK DANLEY The Iola Register
“Any understanding of this nation,” said the late novelist and historian Shelby Foote — whose honeyed drawl and white, nicotine-tinged beard were made famous by a 1990 Ken Burns documentary — “has to be based on an understanding of the Civil War. I believe that firmly. It made us.” It’s doubtless the belief of John Jackson, too, who, since a trip to Chanute’s Elmwood Cemetery in 2004, has been compiling a database of Civil War gravesites, concentrating the better part of his efforts — at least so far — on southeast Kansas. Jackson discussed the project in front of a small gathering at the Iola Public Library Tuesday evening. “I’ve been to 225 cemeteries, been to 75 counties. I’ve researched Civil War veterans all over the place.” After pacing the morbid aisles of this or that prairie cemetery, Jackson, armed with the identifying information he’s culled from the headstone, will take a deep scholarly dive into the archives, until he’s got his fill of each soldier’s story. Jackson, who lives with his wife in Chanute, was recently named assistant manager at Walmart in Iola, which
John Jackson presents a program Tuesday night on the Civil War. REGISTER/RICK DANLEY hasn’t left him as much free time for sleuthing as he’d like. But in the tradition of the best amateur historians, he sets out in his car on weekends and on vacations with the idea of drawing a few lost facts back into the light of public memory. The Kansas Historical Society has recognized the significance of Jackson’s pursuit and provides an interactive version of his findings — the “Sleeping Heroes”
“If you can’t get rid of the skeleton in your closet, you’d best teach it to dance.” — George Bernard Shaw 75 Cents
database — on its website. Although none of the most famous battles of the Civil War were staged in Kansas, Jackson is not unwise to the fertile ground he’s treading. To the extent that the country staged anything like a dress rehearsal for its formative catastrophe, it took place along the woodland border of eastern Kansas, where, years before the first shells burst See HISTORIAN | Page A4
Hi: 52 Lo: 18 Iola, KS