Register readers share holiday plans See A4-A6
THE IOLA REGISTER Locally owned since 1867
Wednesday, November 25, 2015
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County agrees to light up square for holidays By RICK DANLEY The Iola Register
Though only days before Thanksgiving, the talk at Tuesday’s county commission meeting dwelt largely on Christmas. Tracy Keagle, the force behind Santa’s Toy Shop, requested the commissioners’ approval to “light up all the trees on the courthouse
square” during the Christmas season. Given Iola’s desire to promote itself as the city with the nation’s largest town square, it only makes sense, Tracy Keagle argued Keagle, that it be adorned during the holidays.
Keagle described the shape of her ambition, which includes winding lights around the trees’ trunks and around the branches that can be reached by ladder. For the uppermost branches, she proposed the use of “light balls” — individual decorations made from chicken wire, which can be projected up and over the highest limbs and left to dangle in festive
lambency throughout the holidays. No city or county crews will be required for the project, said Keagle. “I’ll get the people and the lights and everything we need.” “Do you know how many trees are out there?” questioned Chairman Tom Williams, reminding Keagle of the scope of her proposition. “Twenty-five,” answered
Keagle, without pause. “See, I would really like for this to become a thing where people in Chanute are going, ‘Man, let’s go to Iola — their town square is all lit up.” Persuaded, the commission gave Keagle approval to decorate the courthouse square, with the caveat that she remain in regular contact See COUNTY | Page A6
Schmidt: Let lawmakers decide ed funding By ROXANA HEGEMAN The Associated Press
WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — State attorneys urged the Kansas Supreme Court on Tuesday to allow the governor and lawmakers to decide whether schools were getting enough money, not a small number of school districts challenging in the courts a new school-funding law. The state argued in a lengthy legal filing that the issue of school funding — which has been locked in legal disputes for years — should be left to elected officials and not legal fights in courtrooms. But attorneys said that if the court decides to rule on the issue, justices should be convinced that funding is constitutionally sufficient based on evidence that suggests students are excelling. The high court is considering the case after a lower court invalidated key parts of a school funding law enacted by the Republican-dominated Legislature this year. A lower-court panel sided with the school districts that sued to block the law, which ended up cutting aid that all districts expected to receive in the 2014-2015 school year to help the state balance its overall budget. The state was ordered to immediately increase aid to public schools by roughly $50 million, but the Supreme Court put that order on hold in June while it considered the state’s appeal. In a 92-page filing, Attorney General Derek Schmidt contended that the Supreme Court should not allow a small number of school districts to second-guess the Legislature’s judgment. The filing cites student performance and graduation data, and says Kansas has made “steady improvement” in assessment test scores for all students in See AG | Page A6
FEASTS FIT FOR FRIENDS
Elementary schools hosted Thanksgiving feasts Tuesday with meals featuring songs, games and scores of elaborate costumes. Clockwise top left, Jefferson second-graders, from left, Akeela Thompson, Alexandra Rensing, Michaela Riebel and Gage Tredway fill their plates; McKinley kindergartners Brecken Bycroft, from left, Dakota Seals, Isabella Hall and Anna-Belle Goodbody-Tomlinson, sing during their meal; McKinley kindergartner Chantel Dozier takes a bite of her meal; Lilly Fernandez sings at the McKinley meal; Madison Lee shows off her pilgrim’s hat at McKinley; Jefferson second-graders Joel LaCrone, Payton Kern and Alydia Carllson socialize during their meal; and McKinley kindergartner Eliana Rafferty enjoys visiting with a classmate. PHOTOS BY RICK DANLEY AND RICHARD LUKEN
Elks lodge seeks help to fill gift food baskets With area residents faced with trying times this holiday season, the Iola Elks Lodge wants to help. For more than 30 years, the Elks have provided food baskets to area families in need for Christmas, and want to do the same this year. “Last year, we gave out over 60 food baskets,” noted Teresa Grewing, organizer. “Times are hard, and the need increases.” The Elks Lodge is seeking donors to help purchase more. Grewing said a $50 donation is sufficient to purchase a food basket for a family of five. Meanwhile, the Elks are collecting items to sell at their second annual live auction and “Soul Warming Soup Buffet” at 6 p.m. Dec. 4. Grewing, who has helped with the basket giveaway for
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the past five years, has a special draw to the charitable effort. She recalled one Christmas as a young mother to three children, “working, paying my bills, but struggling.” “It was Christmas and I didn’t know how I was going to have a Christmas dinner or buy my girls toys,” she recalled. About two weeks before Christmas, she heard a knock at her door. Two gentlemen came in with a box loaded with food. They had met Grewing’s daughters at morning breakfast sessions before school. In addition to the food, the Samaritans brought three handmade cribs, with handSee ELKS | Page A6
U.N.: It’s record hot in 2015 WASHINGTON (AP) — Because of man-made global warming and a strong El Nino, Earth’s wild weather this year is bursting the annual heat record, the World Meteorological Organization announced today. The United Nations weather agency’s early bird report on 2015 says it is the hottest year on record, surpassing last year’s record heat. It made the proclamation without waiting for the end of the year because it has been so extraordinarily hot, forecast to stay that way and unlikely to cool down enough to not set a record. The report comes the week before world leaders assemble in Paris to try to negotiate an agreement to fight climate change. “This is all bad news for the planet,” the agency’s secretary-general, Michel Jarraud, said in a statement.
“I am grateful for what I am and have. My thanksgiving is perpetual.” — Henry David Thoreau 75 Cents
The report is not surprising: Scientists at the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and elsewhere already were saying that 2015 likely would be the hottest. The U.N. agency, NOAA, NASA and Japan’s weather agency all say 2014 is the current record hot year with a global temperature of 14.57 degrees Celsius, 58.23 degrees F. “I would call it certain,” NOAA’s chief climate monitor, Deke Arndt, said on Tuesday. “Something gamechanging massive would have to happen for it not to be a record.” Records go back to 1880. Jarraud also said it is likely that the world has now warmed by 1 degree Celsius, or 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit, over pre-industrial times. That’s a symbolic milestone: See STUDY | Page A6
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