The Iola Register, June 28, 2023

Board OKs final bond projects

By VICKIE MOSS The Iola Register

It’s been about a year since major construction was completed at Iola Elementary School, and the school board is just now spending the last dollar. Board members approved two outdoor projects on Monday that will use up the final dollars left from the $35.3 million bond issue. They include new concrete

and turf for playgrounds. In 2019, voters approved a bond for new school facilities. It included the elementary school for $25.5 million, a new science building at the high school for $7 million, and new HVAC for the middle school for $2.8 million. Under the terms of the bond, the district could

spend the money only on school facilities and within five years.

The school board and its construction manager Randy Coonrod kept a close eye on finances, saving money when possible and postponing projects that weren’t essential.

The timeline also gave

Curve grates on motorists’ nerves

By RICHARD LUKEN

The Iola Register

Iola City Council members have heard an earful on a pair of touchy topics in recent days: The metal grates that cross U.S. 54 near “Casey’s Curve” and dog owners who do not clean up after their animals.

Both subjects were brought before Monday’s City Council members.

Councilman Nich Lohman and Councilwoman Kim Peterson both said they’ve heard from residents upset about dog feces left behind on public rightsof-way, such as Highland Cemetery.

“You can do whatever you want on your property, but not on public property or other people’s property,” Lohman said.

Peterson wondered if the city could put a receptacle at the cemetery, or a dispensary for small trash bags for owners to collect their dogs’ droppings.

Assistant City Administrator Corey Schinstock noted the city has signs posted at the cemetery — a popular walking spot for dogs because of the vast areas of enclosed green space — alerting them that dogs must be

cleaned up afterward.

“But we see how well people read signs,” Councilwoman Joelle Shallah muttered.

THE GRATES that span a stormwater runoff channel

have drawn myriad complaints because the pieces eventually become loose and rattle loudly as motorists cross.

Peterson’s concerns were that tires could be damaged, although Schinstock said

that was highly unlikely. The most recent modification by city crews was to put rubber beneath the grates to cushion any rattling, and to bore holes deeper to better

Council says no (for now) to trash fee increase

By RICHARD LUKEN The Iola Register

Iola City Council members will take another swing (or more) at hammering out how to pay for their 2024 spending plan.

On Monday, the Council narrowly rejected a proposed $3 monthly increase in trash collection rates that supporters said could take the place of a property tax increase.

The split 4-4 vote sent the matter to Mayor Steve French, who voted against it.

Nevertheless, the trash rates and property tax mill levy will almost certainly continue to be the primary topics of conversation as the budget takes shape.

City Administrator Matt Rehder gave Council members plenty to chew on at Monday’s meeting, high-

lighted by a bit of good news.

Iola’s projected assessed valuation is projected at more than $34 million for 2024, a $2.5 million increase from 2023. That means that a single mill in a taxpayer’s ad valorem tax rate will generate more money than pro-

jected, Rehder explained. In fact, the valuation boost alone would mean an additional $116,000 in revenues next year. But with revenues still short of expenditures, covering the remainder remains a hot topic.

“If the decision is not to increase the mill levy … we’ll be having this same exact conversation again next year,” Rehder warned. With the higher-than-expected assessed valuation hike, a $3 trash fee would cost Iolans more permonth than a slight mill levy increase, Rehder continued.

Council members Carl Slaugh and Joel Wicoff both spoke in favor raising trash pickup rates to $15 a month, and leaving property tax levies alone.

“I’m against raising the mill levy,” Wicoff said. “And if our trash rate is significantly less than the industry average, isn’t that some low-hanging fruit for us to grab?”

Wicoff and Slaugh were joined by Nich Lohman and

DALLAS (AP) — Scorching temperatures brought on by a “heat dome” have taxed the Texas power grid and threaten to bring record highs to the state before they are expected to expand to other parts of the U.S. during the coming week, putting even more people at risk.

“Going forward, that heat is going to expand ... north to Kansas City and the entire state of Oklahoma, into the Mississippi Valley ... to the far western Florida Panhandle and parts of western Alabama,” while remaining over Texas, said Bob Oravec, lead forecaster with the National Weather Service.

Record high temperatures around 110 degrees are forecast in parts of western

John Masterson attends his first USD 257 Board of Education meeting Monday after being appointed to a seat vacated by Mandey Coltrane earlier this year. REGISTER/VICKIE MOSS

Livestock management considerations for July

amount of salt and mineral offered and calculate herd consumption on a pasture or group basis.

— Adjust how you are offering product to cattle if needed to achieve target intake.

for your cow herd for the rest of the year.

∙ With high feeder calf prices, consider price risk management tools.

∙ Visit with your local FSA and extension office if you plan to utilize CRP acres for emergency forage use or other assistance programs.

Public notices

As July creeps up on cattle producers in the Southwind District, much of the attention is set to continue baling the winter feed. While this is true, there are also cow herd management decisions to think of.

Jason Warner, K-State Research and Extension Cow-Calf Specialist, offers some insight on what we need to watch for in July:

∙ For spring-calving cow herds:

— Score cows for BCS concurrent with grass growth.

— 2-4-year-old females and thin females will respond most to early-weaning.

— Those planning to early wean should Develop a plan for feeding and marketing calves; prepare weaning/receiving pens and waterers in advance; and if feeding early-weaned calves, test forages and have ration plan and ingredients in place 2-3 weeks prior to weaning.

— Schedule early pregnancy checking activities if not already done.

∙ For late-summer and early-fall calving cowherds:

— Evaluate cows for BCS and adjust your plan to ensure mature cows are ≥ 5.0 and 2-4-year-old females are ≥ 6.0 at calving.

— The final 60 days prior to calving represents the last opportunity to add BCS economically.

— Review your calving health protocols as needed.

∙ Closely manage free-choice salt and mineral programs.

— Record date and

— If consumption is 2X the target intake, then cost will be too!

— Properly store bags and pallets to avoid damage and product loss.

∙ Continue to monitor bulls and their activity throughout the breeding season.

— Monitor BCS, particularly on young bulls.

— If pulling bulls from cows to manage the length of the breeding season, schedule those dates and have them on the calendar in advance.

— If bulls are BCS ≤ 5.0 after breeding, consider supplementing to regain BCS going into fall.

Calf Management

∙ If creep feeding calves, closely monitor intake and calf condition/fleshiness.

∙ Monitor calves for summer respiratory illness.

∙ Schedule any pre-weaning vaccination or processing activities.

General Management

∙ Evaluate grass growth and adjust your grazing plan as needed.

∙ Continue efforts to control invasive species in pastures.

∙ Employ multiple strategies, chemistries for late-season fly/insect control.

∙ Begin taking inventory of harvested forages for fall feed needs.

∙ If planning to harvest corn silage, prepare your pile/bunker site and equipment.

∙ Use the Management Minder tool on KSUBeef.org to plan key management activities

(Published in The Iola Register June 21, 2023)

IN THE DISTRICT COURT OF ALLEN COUNTY, KANSAS PROBATE DIVISION

In the Matter of the Estate of STEVEN DON MCDONALD, Deceased AL-2023-PR-000021

NOTICE OF HEARING ON PETITION FOR APPOINTMENT OF ADMINISTRATOR AND NOTICE TO CREDITORS

THE STATE OF KANSAS TO ALL PERSONS CONCERNED:

You are hereby notified a Petition was filed on May 31, 2023, in this Court by Mary McDonald, praying for the appointment of Mary McDonald, as administrator of the estate of Steven Don McDonald, and for the issuance of Letters of Administration.

You are required to file your written defenses thereto on

South 19 feet of Lot 3 and the South 85 feet of Lots 5 & 6, all In Block 56, City of Neosho Falls, KS, commonly known as 1307 Main St., Neosho Falls, and all other property, real and personal, or interests therein, owned by the decedent at the time of death; and you are hereby required to file your written defenses thereto on or before the 10th day of July 2023, at 1:30 o’clock p.m. of said day, in said court, in the City of Iola, in Allen County, Kansas, at which time and place said cause will be heard. Should you fail therein, judgment and decree will be entered in due course upon said petition. KENNETH WRIGHT, Petitioner ROBERTA L. WILKES - 9610 WILKES & DUNN 111 SOUTH STATE Yates Center, KS. 66783 (913) 299-0229 Attorney for Petitioner (6) 14, 21, 28

or before the 14th day of July 2023, at 8:30 a.m., of said day, in the District Courtroom, at the Allen County Courthouse, in the City of Iola, Allen County, Kansas, at which time and place the cause will be heard. Should you fail therein, judgment and decree will be entered in due course upon the petition. All creditors of the decedent notified to exhibit their demands against the estate within four (4) months from the date of the first publication of this notice as provided by law, and if their demands are not thus exhibited, they shall be forever barred.

/s/ Mary McDonald, Petitioner Jacob T. Manbeck, #27684 MANBECK LAW, LLC 10 E. Jackson Ave. Iola, Kansas 66749 (620) 3052592 Attorney for Petitioner (6) 21, 28 (7) 5

ONCE again, thank you to Jason Warner for all of this great information. If you have any additional questions

(Published in The Iola Register June 17, 2023)

Notice of Application for Merger of Banks Bank of Commerce, 101 W. Main, Chanute, KS 66720 intends to apply to the Federal Reserve Board for permission to merge with The Piqua State Bank, 301 W. 1st Street, Gas, KS 66742 and establishes branch-

about the contents in this article, please contact Hunter Nickell at any of the Southwind Extension District Offices.

to: Jeff Imgarten, Assistant Vice President, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, One Memorial Drive, Kansas City, Missouri 64198. The comment period will not end before July 18, 2023. The Board’s procedures for processing applications may be found at 12 C.F.R. Part 262. Procedures for processing protested applications may be found at 12 C.F.R. 262.25. The Federal Reserve will consider your comments and any request for a public meeting or formal hearing on the application if they are received in writing by the Reserve Bank on or before the last day of the comment period.

(6) 17, 28 (7) 18

(Published in The Iola Register June 28, 2023)

IN THE DISTRICT COURT OF ALLEN COUNTY, KANSAS CIVIL DEPARTMENT

U.S. Bank National Association

Plaintiff, vs. The Heirs-at-law of Kimberlynn Foust a/k/a Kimberlynn Cooper, Deceased; United States of America, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development; John Doe (Tenant/Occupant); Mary Doe (Tenant/Occupant)

Defendants.

Case No. AL-2023-CV-000008

Court Number:

Pursuant to K.S.A. Chapter 60

NOTICE OF SALE

Under and by virtue of an Order of Sale issued to me by the Clerk of the District Court of Allen County, Kansas, the undersigned Sheriff of Allen County, Kansas, will offer for sale at public auction and sell to the highest bidder for cash in hand, at the Front Door of the Courthouse at Iola Allen County, Kansas, on July 19, 2023, at 10:00 AM, the following real estate:

The South Half (S 1/2) of Lot Two (2), and all of Lot Three (3), in East Side Addition, a Subdivision in the West Half of the Northeast Quarter (W 1/2 NE 1/4) of Section Thirty-one (31), Township Twenty-four (24) South, Range Nineteen (19) East of the Sixth Principal Meridian, Allen County, Kansas, commonly known as 220 McAtee Rd, Iola, KS 66749 (the “Property”) to satisfy the judgment in the above-entitled case. The sale is to be made without appraisement and subject to the redemption period as provided by law, and further subject to the approval of the Court. For more information, visit www.Southlaw.com

Bryan J. Murphy, Sheriff Allen County, Kansas

Prepared By: SouthLaw, P.C. Shari Ashner (KS #14498) 13160 Foster, Suite 100 Overland Park, KS 66213-2660 (913) 663-7600 (913) 663-7899 (Fax) Attorneys for Plaintiff (233363) (6) 28 (7)

12

TRUTH Newspapers put truth ont and center

Hunter Nickell Extension Agent for Livestock Production

School board appoints pair to Bowlus Commission

By VICKIE MOSS The Iola Register

The Bowlus Commission will have two new members, Stan Grigsby and Jeffrey Anderson.

Bowlus Director Daniel Kays asked school board members to appoint the new members on Monday. The district oversees Bowlus operations.

A vacancy was created with the expiration of a term for Susan McKinnis.

However, Kays said the commission considered two possible replacements and decided to appoint both. He asked for permission to change the bylaws to read that the commission would contain “at least eight members.”

Three members come from Iola and three from outside the city, with Iola’s administra-

tor and a county commissioner also serving.

Grigsby attended Monday’s meeting. He briefly described his connection to the arts.

He and wife, Donna, are longtime supporters of the Bowlus. The couple’s daughter is a Broadway music director.

Grigsby served in the

Navy and worked as a physicist and educator. He now volunteers at the elementary school where he reads to first-graders.

Although he was a physicist, Grigsby emphasized his appreciation for the arts. “The ‘A’ in STEAM is what gives it dy-

City: Budget talks ongoing

Continued from A1

Mark Peters.

Much of Monday’s talk centered on Iola’s trash rates compared to neighboring communities.

Chanute, for example, charges $14 a month for once-a-week trash service. Garnett’s rate is $16 or $17, and it’s limited on how many trash cans or bags folks can leave for sanitation crews.

Others cost $20 to $24 a month.

Also of note, City Clerk Roxanne Hutton said a handful of communities offer recycling pickup days in addition to regular trash pickup, but could not find any that offer twice-a-week trash service like Iola does.

If anything, Lohman said, the city is due for a rate increase, just to adjust to the market.

Council members Josiah D’Albini, Nickolas Kinder, Kim Peterson and Joelle Shallah were opposed, prompting French’s tie-breaking vote against the rate hike.

Shallah noted trash fee increases would be focused solely on residents, because the city does not offer pickup for businesses.

Peterson, meanwhile, noted that Slaugh’s proposal would require the city to cut back on equipment reserve con-

tributions for the Iola Fire Department or other departments.

Shallah asked Rehder to return to the Council’s July 10 meeting with an assortment of mill-levy and trash fee schedules to consider.

The goal is to have a budget ready for publication by late July.

COUNCIL members approved $65,750 in tourism funds, using revenues generated by the hotel-motel tax.

The Iola Area Chamber of Commerce receives the lion’s share at $38,000.

Others were the Veterans Day Parade/Committee, $1,500 to help pay for a veterans meal and for repairs to the Veterans Wall; Southwind Rail Trail, $750 for maintenance; Elks Fest and Junior Elks Fest, $3,000 for an event comparable to the Halloween Boo Bash hosted in previous years by the Iola Police Department; the Iola Community Involvement Task Force/PRIDE Committee, $8,500 as part of a fundraising campaign for a splash park; Iola Rotary, $3,000 payout for Rotary Day in the Park BBQ Contest; Allen County Fair board, $5,000 to host acts and performances at the Fair; Farm-City Days, $5,000, in support of the annual fall festival; Trolley Board, $1,000 to pay

Curve: Grating

Continued from A1

fasten epoxy-covered bolts.

“Unfortunately, it was a poor design” for drainage, Schinstock noted, one that will be addressed and rerouted in a few years once crews rebuild the highway through town.

But with that project on the horizon, Schinstock said the city was leery of expensive redesigns in the interim.

“This is a Band-Aid,” he admitted. “It’s not going to damage vehicles, but it’ll be noisy.”

THE COUNCIL approved spending $33,840 to complete GIS mapping for Iola’s water infrastructure.

In 2018 and 2019, the

for ongoing repairs. The CITF/PRIDE Committee could receive an additional $5,000 in matching funds if fundraising targets are met by the end of the year, City Clerk Roxanne Hutton said.

The Committee recommended against any disbursements for SEK Impact, a youth baseball organization, noting that several other similar youth organizations would likely apply for funding, which could quickly drain the tourism fund.

DEPUTY Fire Chief Gary Kimball will be honored from 2 to 4 p.m. Friday at the Iola Fire Department. Kimball is retiring after 35 years with the city.

namics,” he said to board members, using the acronym for an edu-

cation based in science, technology, engineering, arts and math.

“An education system that doesn’t have a good arts program is missing something.”

Anderson was not able to attend Monday’s meeting. He is the music director at Allen Community College and is temporarily leading the Iola Symphony Orchestra while it searches for a new director.

“Jeffrey is a wonderful resource,” Kays said. “He’s a great teacher and he’s really been lifting up the music program at ACC. He brings a different perspective to the table as a performer and educator.”

BOE: Bond expenditures

Continued from A1

them time to see where the needs are.

That’s what led Maintenance Director Aaron Cole to ask for turf at the elementary school. Board members approved a bid of $172,478.59 from Mid America Turf & Landscaping of Warrensburg, Mo.

Drought conditions over the past two years have prevented sod and grass from taking root at a playground area east of the building. When it does rain, the ground turns to muddy clay and staff attempt to corral students to areas that have some other type of surface.

It’s a problem because the new elementary school is carpeted, Superintendent Stacey Fager said.

“The custodial staff spends a lot of time cleaning carpets,” he noted.

Soccer and baseball fields also are planned for the area, so turf is a good solution, Fager said.

The board also approved a $30,000 bid from Fermin Construction of Alva, Okla., to build a 4-inch, 30-foot

by 46-foot concrete pad at the preschool playground and install basketball goals. Crews will also lay concrete in another section that will measure 30-feet by 80-feet.

The money for that project will come out of the district’s capital outlay fund and not from the construction bond, board member Dan Willis said. He and Tony Leavitt have been monitoring spending on the board’s behalf.

Willis said the district will spend the remaining construction bonds on an awning over the front entrance to the elementary school.

IN OTHER news, the board:

• Welcomed John Masterson, who was appointed to fill a vacancy left by the resig-

nation of Mandey Coltrane. Masterson also is running for the seat in the November election. He is the retired president of Allen Community College.

• Heard an update on summer projects. The gym floor at Iola Middle School has been refinished, and the walls of the gym painted. The crew also fixed a minor mistake at the high school gym; the company had neglected to add the final piece of yellow at the end of the Mustang logo. Fager gave credit to Cole’s maintenance crew for their hard work this summer.

• Board member Robin Griffin-Lohman said she wanted to recognize all of the teachers and staff who are working with students during summer school.

city hired Surveying and Mapping LLC (SAM) — formerly known as Midland GIS — to update Iola’s utility mapping system.

During the process, existing computer animated drawings were converted into the new GIS system for water, wastewater, electric and gas utilities. “But the old auto-CAD files on the water line infrastructure were not very accurate,” Schinstock said.

The company will collect additional data on such things as fire hydrants, valves and system valves to realign the system to more accurately reflect the water distribution locations, Schinstock said.

Jeffrey Anderson, left, and Stan Grigsby were appointed Monday by USD 257 Board of Education members to the Bowlus Commission. REGISTER/VICKIE MOSS

Kansas GOP leader wants to ban nonpartisan elections

By JONATHAN SHORMAN The

TNS

The Kansas Republican Party’s new chairman wants to eliminate nonpartisan elections for cities, counties and school boards, throwing his weight behind the concept after the GOP-controlled state Senate earlier this year rejected a similar idea.

The end of nonpartisan elections would have significant consequences for Kansas politics. Critics warn such a change would inject national ideological battles into local government, risking disrupting the often-mundane but crucial tasks local leaders confront, like filling potholes and approving budgets.

Kansas GOP Chairman Mike Brown’s support for mandating the use of political party labels in all elections is highly controversial even among Republicans. His call for partisan local races comes after Republicans in February chose Brown, a former Johnson County commissioner who lost his 2020 reelection bid and has promoted election conspiracies, to lead the party in a divisive election he won by only two votes.

“It’s time to bring Kansas common sense and recognized Republican values back to the forefront and in our local elections to remind the voters who genuinely aligns with them and their values,” Brown wrote in a newsletter to party members earlier this month.

Brown’s promotion of partisan elections suggests he and his allies will continue to push the idea when the Legislature returns in January, potentially forcing lawmakers to take more votes on it. He has embraced the position even after the Kansas Senate defeated, 16-24, a limited measure called SB 210 that would have given local candidates the option of having a party label next to their name on the ballot.

During his time on the Johnson County Commission, Brown unsuccessfully pushed to make the commission’s elections partisan. He lost his 2020 race to Shirley Allenbrand, a more moderate candidate.

Across Kansas, most

local elected positions aren’t attached to a party label, in sharp contrast with state-level and federal positions where Republicans and Democrats go head-to-head on the ballot. Supporters of partisan elections say party affiliation provides voters with important information when making up their mind on low-key races that they may know little about.

But in his newsletter, Brown went further, suggesting nonpartisan races sabotage Republican candidates, allowing Democrats to “hide who they really are” when running in Republican-leaning areas.

Brown has recently signaled that the party is approaching local races as if they are partisan contests. Local elections have been “ceded to Democrats for decades,” Brown told a gathering of Northeast Johnson County Conservatives in May, according to video of the event posted on Rumble, a site popular with the far-right.

At the meeting, Brown said “there is no such thing” as a nonpartisan election and that Republicans had recruited more than 200 candidates to run in local races across the state.

Kansas Democratic Party Chair Jeanna Repass told The Star the state party doesn’t recruit candidates for local races out of respect for their nonpartisan status. She said Democrats strongly support local races remaining nonpartisan.

“I think having nonpartisan races is a unifying way to allow lots of voices at the table, including unaffiliateds and people who lean definitely toward the middle, whatever their

party affiliation is,” Repass said. “I think trying to force party affiliations on these roles is going to disenfranchise the voices that I think are the more moderate in our communities.”

Still, some nominally nonpartisan elections are deeply ideological. The race for Johnson County Commission chair last fall between Mike Kelly and Charlotte O’Hara, for instance, was widely seen as a liberal vs. conservative contest; Kelly won 56% to 43%.

Roeland Park Mayor Michael Poppa said making local elections partisan would hamper civic participation by limiting the field of candidates. Like many opposed to the idea, he noted that adding party affiliation to the ballot would disqualify federal employees and military service members from those offices.

A FEDERAL law called the Hatch Act largely prohibits federal workers from holding partisan elected office.

During a February debate on the bill to allow

local candidates to have a party affiliation on the ballot, state Sen. Mike Thompson, a Shawnee Republican who carried the measure, dismissed concerns over the Hatch Act, saying federal workers “self-eliminate on this particular situation” by choosing to work for the U.S. government.

In Roeland Park and other communities, local officials from different parties have been able to collaborate across party lines, said Poppa, who is also theexecutive director of the Mainstream Coalition, a Kansas-based organization opposed to ideological extremism. It’s a practice he’s worried will be harmed if local elections are made partisan.

“The issues that they’re talking about, the community initiatives that they’re discussing, they’re not part of a state or federal party agenda,” Poppa said. “If we make those local elections partisan, then by default those platforms are going to work their way into local government and we’ve seen

that already in Johnson County and across the state and local governing bodies — and it’s a detriment to the community.”

Several high-level officials have exited Shawnee’s city government over the past year as its nonpartisan council’s conservative majority has moved to implement a GOP-friendly agenda that has included slashing property tax rates beyond staff recommendations and voicing support for a statewide ban on transgender athletes participating in girls sports – a measure the Republican-controlled Legislature approved this spring over the veto of Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly.

At the Northeast Johnson County Conservatives meeting, Brown said “for the most part, we struggle with our local elections” but specifically exempted Shawnee from his criticism. Brown also asked for a show of hands from the crowd of people who were thrilled with their local school boards in recent years.

“No hands go up? OK,” he says in the video of event.

MARK TALLMAN, who has spent decades advocating at the Statehouse on behalf of the Kansas Association of School Boards, said that while school board races in some of the largest districts sometimes become more charged and competitive, many board seats across the state are often decided in relatively non-ideological elections.

“In very small districts, what we tend to hear is pretty much everybody knows everybody,” Tallman said, adding that while the community may have a sense of where board members stand politically, despite a lack of party labels, the decisions that cause controversy in these districts are not typically Republican vs. Democrat issues.

Instead, the disputes school boards face are often over choices like whether to close a building or fire a teacher.

“Those are rarely matters of like heavy campaigning or, frankly, needing to know party,” Tallman said.

Even as Brown has warned that Democrats are using nonpartisan elections to infiltrate lo-

cal government, making the contests partisan has faced significant bipartisan opposition.

When the Kansas Senate rejected SB 210 in February, the vote sharply divided Republican senators, with 16 voting for the measure and 13 against.

“I think it’s a horrible idea. As a matter of fact, I think state elections should be nonpartisan,” said state Sen. John Doll, a Garden City Republican who briefly left the party to be the running mate of Greg Orman, a Johnson County businessman who ran an ill-fated independent campaign for governor in 2018.

“What we’re doing is we’re putting politics ahead of the people and what’s pushing that is party politics.”

During the Senate floor debate, Thompson called the proposal a “transparency issue” and said it only gives candidates the option of having a party designation.

“It just actually allows the voter more information to utilize to make a decision rather than less,” Thompson said.

KANSAS SECRETARY of State Scott Schwab, a Republican who faced an unsuccessful primary challenge from Brown last year, remained neutral on the proposal. But his office, which oversees Kansas elections, raised questions about how the one-page bill would be implemented.

Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Clay Barker, who was a previous director of the Kansas Republican Party, questioned whether unaffiliated candidates would be permitted to use the term “unaffiliated” or whether other terms, such as “independent,” would be allowed.

Local governments across the state opposed the legislation.

John Goodyear, general counsel for the League of Kansas Municipalities, told senators at the time that few decisions made by governing bodies have partisan underpinnings.

Goodyear told the Kansas Senate Federal and State Affairs Committee that cities already have the authority under Kansas law to pass ordinances to establish partisan elections.

“The vast majority have chosen to have nonpartisan elections,” Goodyear said.

Kansas City Star/

Kansas Secretary of State Scott Schwab said he’s remaining neutral on the issue. His office, which oversees Kansas elections, however, is raising questions about how the Republican plan could be implemented. STEPHEN KORANDA / KANSAS NEWS SERVICE

Kansas GOP chairman Mike Brown, center, is proposing all elections in Kansas, must be between those who identify with a political party. (TIM CARPENTER/ KANSAS REFLECTOR)

~ Journalism that makes a difference

Marshall straddles climate change fence

On Wednesday, Kansas Sen. Roger Marshall called those who want to mitigate the already catastrophic effects of our global environmental crisis ‘climate demagogues.’

“If Biden thinks he can send his climate demagogues to Kansas & tell us which cars we can drive, he’s in for a rude awakening,” he tweeted. “The Preserving Choice in Vehicles Act will protect consumer choice & free market competition that drives down costs.”

We were going to point out that he only needs to consult Kansas farmers to learn how serious climate change is, right here and right now.

But on Friday, Marshall inadvertently made that point himself, and then said Washington should come to the rescue.

“The 1200-year drought across the west has hit wheat farmers in Kansas especially hard,” he tweeted, in support of his bill, introduced with Democratic Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet, to strengthen crop insurance. “The historic drought has the forecast for wheat yields looking very bleak.

While this bill can’t make it rain, it does provide flexibility to wheat farmers who need all the help they can.”

Hey Senator, do you seriously not see the connection here? Also, you are wrong about the Preserving Choice in Vehicles Act.

It wouldn’t keep “Biden’s climate demagogues” from crossing state lines. In-

stead, it tells the Environmental Protection Agency that it can’t allow California to impose strict clean air standards to push the state’s conversion to electric vehicles.

IN OTHER WORDS, you’re all for federal intervention in the form of telling California what it can and cannot do, because you don’t agree with that state’s eagerness to respond to our worsening climate.

You also seek federal intervention in the form of aid to Kansas farmers, even as you call those who see what’s happening to our world demagogues.

This obtuse incomprehension is especially confounding because you know who’s going to benefit from all those new electric vehicles California wants?

Workers at the new Panasonic battery plant in De Soto, Kansas, of course. And by extension, the state’s economy as a whole.

California’s a vast market, and its policy choices do have ripple effects on our consumer choices here.

But as usual, Marshall isn’t arguing against California’s policy choices on the merits, or even truthfully.

When he says he’s for keeping Biden’s climate demagogues out of Kansas, what he really means is that the federal government should tell California what to do. That’s different. And it’s the definition of demagoguery.

— Kansas City Star

Rebellion sputters but war rages on

During the failed August 1991 putsch in Russia, the good guys were reformers Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin. The bad guys were an incompetent claque of the military and KGB within the Politburo and the rebellion fizzled when Yeltsin climbed on that tank in Moscow. The Kremlin’s nukes were kept secure and the world caught its breath. The once all powerful Soviet Union then peacefully flickered out of existence a few months later.

Today, there is a lot less optimism over the standoff in Russia. There is no white hat promising freedom and liberty, but black hats only with Yevgeny Prigozhin of the Wagner Group of mercenaries versus Vladimir Putin and another really bad guy, the dictator of Belarus,

For animals, July 4 is no holiday

By CRAIG SHAPIRO People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals

He’ll sit bolt upright at the first blast, his eyes wide with fright. As the barrage intensifies, he’ll cower under the table or in the far corner of the kitchen. Wherever I go in the house, he’ll be at my feet, trembling.

The Fourth of July is no holiday for Max, our youngest dog. It’s not one for me anymore, either, even though it’s my birthday. Fireworks ruin everything when they scare those you hold dearest.

Max isn’t alone — not by a stretch. Fireworks sound exactly like “bombs bursting in air,” and they send dogs, cats and other animals into a panic. Some jump over fences or break chains to flee the deafening blasts. Others are so desperate to get away that they crash through windows.

No wonder animal shelters see a significant spike in admissions of lost animals every Independence Day and any other time fireworks go off. It’s anyone’s guess how many remain lost forever.

Fortunately, Max is small enough that he can’t get away from me should he try to run — but his tags are up-to-date and he’s microchipped, just in case. He has a ThunderShirt to help him cope with the stress, and we’ll close the windows and curtains and turn up the TV to muffle the noise. A long walk in the early evening will tire him out.

But companion animals

Dogs will respond to situations that are potentially scary to them by watching their owners actions and emotions. Be calm, supportive, and snuggly. (DREAMSTIME/TNS)

aren’t the only ones terrified by fireworks. The explosions scare deer onto roads, where they’re at risk of being hit by traffic, and frighten birds to the point that they abandon their nests and young.

The harm caused by fireworks doesn’t end there:

They trigger more than 19,500 wildfires every year.

Exploding and airborne fireworks pose the greatest threat to lives and homes

— animals’ and humans’

— but sparklers, fountains and smoke bombs can ignite fires, too. Disoriented by the thick smoke and laboring to breathe, large animals may try to outrun the flames, if there’s time. Small animals may try to shelter under rocks and in burrows.

Those with babies might not escape.

And even after the smoke clears, more damage is done.

Fireworks release a witches’ brew of contaminants, including carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, nitrogen, sulfur dioxide and particulates that diminish air

quality and exacerbate the climate catastrophe. The shell casings that litter the ground can be ingested by animals. We don’t need fireworks to get our red, white and blue on. There are kinder, safer ways to oooh and aaah without terrifying animals or poisoning the environment.

Last year, Galveston, Texas; Castle Pines, Colorado; and Imperial Beach, California, joined other cities in replacing their Independence Day fireworks displays with animal-friendly, environmentally responsible drone shows. This year, Taos, New Mexico, and Lake Oswego, Oregon, are holding laser light shows.

Unfortunately for Max and all the other animals who will be scared stiff on the Fourth of July, their corner of coastal Virginia has yet to get with the times. Until then, this Yankee Doodle Dandy wants just one thing for his birthday. Rain.

Aleksandr Lukashenko, being the truce-maker.

Again, the same question: Are the nukes secured from rogue elements? And it seems the answer is thankfully yes. The added question is whether the only good guys around, the invaded Ukrainians, can get some relief from the open quarreling in the Russian camp. We can only hope so.

Putin’s horrible war of conquest against Ukraine is what caused all of this.

Prigozhin’s Wagner army for hire has been the only effective force for the Kremlin against Kyiv. And it was Prigozhin’s extraordinary criticism of the Russian ministry of defense for bumbling leadership in the Ukraine war that led to his rebellion. Prigozhin doesn’t want peace with Ukraine;

he wants a stronger war effort.

Having called off his treasonous march on Moscow to return to the Ukraine front, will Prigozhin succeed in strengthening the Kremlin’s fighting agility, as the Ukrainians ready their own counteroffensive? The Americans and our allies have to help Ukraine succeed this summer, as defeating Prigozhin and Putin on the battlefield is a must.

The poor wartime performance of Czar Nicholas’s Russian Army in 1905 (against Japan) and 1917 (against the Kaiser) both precipitated revolutions in Russia. We will see if the poor wartime performance of Czar Vladimir’s Russian Army in Ukraine will do the same. The world watches.

— New York Daily News

A look back in t me. A look back in t me.

70 Years Ago

June 1953

The Iola City Commission last night purchased equipment with which to operate a sanitary landfill in which the community’s garbage and trash will be buried. Clem Griffith, city engineer, said the landfill will be temporarily located in the northwest corner of the municipal airport south of town on low land which is of little use. Griffith said it will be moved later to a plot the city owns west of town. When the landfill is started the city’s garbage will no longer be fed to hogs and the dump east of town will be abandoned. Both garbage and trash will be buried. *****

Morris Gelphman and Max Gelphman were the high bidders this morning for the Iola Coal and Junk Co. sold at sheriff’s auction to close the estate of the late Leon Gelphman, who died in 1948. The sale also terminated the partnership of Morris and Leon Gelphman, who founded the business. The property included the business and several lots near the M-K-T tracks between Jefferson and Sycamore streets. Max, one of the new owners, has been employed by the partnership for two or three years. He is a brother of Morris Gelphman.

*****

Yates Center’s reservoir is drying up and the city may wish to purchase water from Iola in the near future, Clem Griffith, city engineer, told

the Iola City Commission this morning. It is believed water would be shipped from Iola to Yates Center in tank cars over the Missouri Pacific lines. The commission empowered Griffith to develop a plan for supplying water to Yates Center if the need develops.

*****

Earl Chambers, owner of Iola Truck and Tractor Co., 510 N. State, has acquired the local agency for Nash automobiles. Howard Leavitt of the Leavitt Motor and Implement Co., 301 South St., has held the franchise for several years. Chambers has purchased Leavitt’s stock of parts and accessories. Leavitt will continue to sell farm implements and used cars and trucks.

*****

Iola’s need for a new national guard armory and the industrial promotion levy will be discussed before the all-member meeting of the Iola Chamber of Commerce at noon tomorrow. The speaker will be Angelo Scott, editor of the Register. The two proposals will be voted upon at a special city election on July 14.

*****

Between 300 and 400 oilmen from Kansas and Oklahoma will be in Iola July 8 to inspect waterflooding projects in this vicinity. The tour is the sixth of its kind arranged by the Kansas-Oklahoma Water Flood Operators. The caravan will first visit the Walter Fees project near Colony.

Heat: First blast of summer blankets South, Midwest

Continued from A1

Texas, and relief is not expected before the Fourth of July holiday, Oravec said.

Cori Iadonisi, of Dallas, summed up the weather simply: “It’s just too hot here.”

Iadonisi, 40, said she often urges local friends to visit her native Washington state to beat the heat in the summer.

“You can’t go outside,” Iadonisi said of the hot months in Texas. “You can’t go for a walk.”

WHAT IS A HEAT DOME?

A heat dome occurs when stationary high pressure with warm air combines with warmer than usual air in the Gulf of Mexico and heat from the sun that is nearly directly overhead, Texas State Climatologist John Nielsen-Gammon said.

“By the time we get into the middle of sum-

mer, it’s hard to get the hot air aloft,” said Nielsen-Gammon, a professor at Texas A&M’s College of Atmospheric Sciences. “If it’s going to happen, this is the time of year it will.”

Nielsen-Gammon said July and August don’t have as much sunlight because the sun is retreating from the summer solstice, which was Wednesday.

“One thing that is a little unusual about this heat wave is we had a fairly wet April and May, and usually that extra moisture serves as an air conditioner,”

Nielsen-Gammon said. “But the air aloft is so hot that it wasn’t able to prevent the heat wave from occurring and, in fact, added a bit to the humidity.”

High heat continues this week after it prompted Texas’ power grid operator, the Electric Reliability Council

of Texas, to ask residents last week to voluntarily cut back on power usage because of anticipated record demand on the system.

The National Integrated Heat Health Information System reports more than 46 million people from west Texas and southeastern New Mexico to the western Florida Panhandle are currently under heat alerts. The NIHHIS is a joint project of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The heat comes after Sunday storms that killed three people and left more than 100,000 customers without electricity in both Arkansas and Tennessee and tens of thousands powerless in Georgia, Mississippi and Louisiana, according to poweroutage.us.

Earlier this month, the most populous county in Oregon filed a $1.5 billion lawsuit against more than a dozen large fossil fuel companies to recover costs related to extreme weather events linked to climate change, including a deadly 2021 heat dome.

Multnomah County, home to Portland and known for typically mild weather, alleges the combined carbon pollution the companies emitted was a substantial factor in causing and exacerbating record-breaking temperatures in the Pacific Northwest that killed 69 people in that county.

An attorney for Chevron Corp., Theodore J. Boutrous Jr., said in a statement that the lawsuit makes “novel, baseless claims.”

WHAT ARE THE HEALTH THREATS?

Extreme heat can be particularly dangerous to vulnerable populations such as children, the elderly, and outdoor workers need extra support.

Symptoms of heat illness can include heavy sweating, nausea, dizziness and fainting. Some strategies to stay cool include drinking chilled fluids, applying a cloth soaked with cold water onto your skin, and spending time in air-conditioned environments.

Cecilia Sorensen, a physician and associate professor of Environmental Health Sciences at Columbia University Medical Center, said heat-related conditions are becoming a growing public health concern because of the warming climate.

“There’s huge issues going on in Texas right now around energy insecurity and the com-

pounding climate crises we’re seeing,” Sorensen said. “This is also one of those examples where, if you are wealthy enough to be able to afford an air conditioner, you’re going to be safer, which is a huge climate health equity issue.”

In Texas, the average daily high temperatures have increased by 2.4 degrees — 0.8 degrees per decade — since 1993, according data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration amid concerns over human caused climate change resulting in rising temperatures.

Wednesday, June 28, 2023

Sports Daily B

Coffield’s comfort evident on course

By QUINN BURKITT The Iola Register

Brennen Coffield’s success at the Class 4A state golf meet has whetted his appetite for more.

Since medaling at the state competition by finishing 19th, Coffield has been hitting the links.

“During the summer I want to be out there every day,” said Coffield, a sophomore.

The Mustang is currently competing on the Central Links Tour on both the Kansas and Kansas City sides. On Wednesday, he competes at the Quail Ridge Golf Club in Winfield.

At the Class 4A state golf meet, Coffield stayed steady through both days after shooting an 83 on day one and an 82 the second day. He ultimately finished with a total score of 165, 21 strokes above par.

Coffield also credited his teammates and Coach Jeremy Sellman for his success.

Fellow golfers Xander Sellman and Chris Holloway, who didn’t compete

at the state meet, stayed alongside Coffield to root him on and help out when

needed. On day two of the tournament, Coffield hit six pars in a row.

“I thought it was a great experience with my teammates and coaches being there,” said Coffield. “I thought I played OK and I’m hoping to improve on it throughout the summer and get back there next year.”

Coffield said his iron play and putting is what helped him succeed at state, but that his chip shots let him down. Hence, this summer’s focus is on the latter.

The Mustang 2023 golf team was a balanced mix of veteran and novice golfers, which allowed them to bounce ideas and tips off each other.

“The atmosphere was awesome,” said Coffield. “Every day at practice we were always having fun. It was a great time on the van traveling to meets, but when we got to the course we were

Buy me some peanuts and Cracker Jacks...

always serious and trying to play our best.”

GOLF GENES run in the Coffield family. Brennen’s dad, Travis, was a standout golfer for both Iola High School and at Allen Community College. Brennen said he has learned a lot of the game from his father and loves competing against him.

“I try to take as much away from him and soak in all of the information I can,” Coffield said. “He’s always helping me out every day and makes sure my swings are in the correct position and that I’m practicing the right way. He knows how some of the courses play and how to attack them.”

“I enjoy competing with my dad. I’m really competitive with him and try to beat him as much as I can. It helps get that competitiveness out of me. I just really love practicing golf.”

LSU wins College World Series

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — LSU went from its low point of the season to the ultimate high in a span of 24 hours.

A day after it gave up the most runs ever in a College World Series game, LSU cranked up its offense and won its first national title since 2009 with an 18-4 victory over Florida on Monday night in the third and deciding game of the finals.

LSU (54-17) staved off elimination three times in bracket play and bounced back from the humiliating 24-4 loss in Game 2 to claim its seventh championship, second to Southern California’s 12.

“We got punched in the mouth yesterday,” Tigers star Dylan Crews said. “That’s the beauty of baseball. You wake up in the morning and do it all over again. We woke up today and you could see on everybody’s faces that we were ready to go. Nobody in the country was going to beat us today.”

The Tigers wiped out an early 2-0 deficit with a six-run second inning against Jac Caglianone (7-4). The runs kept coming until they finished with the most in a title game since USC’s 21-14 win over Arizona State in 1998. The 14-run margin was the largest ever in a final. Their 24 hits were most in a CWS game.

“It wasn’t our day, all the way around,” Gators catcher BT Riopelle said.

Thatcher Hurd (8-3) gave up Wyatt Langford’s two-run homer in the first and then allowed no hits or runs while retiring 18 of the next 21 batters. Riley Cooper took over to start the seventh and gave up Ty Evans’ CWS-record fifth homer, and Gavin Guidry finished the combined five-hitter.

Cade Beloso said coach Jay Johnson’s message to the team in the morning meeting was simple.

“It was, ‘One game for the national championship. Are you in?’ Everybody was, ‘Yeah, let’s go.’ You can’t let baseball get to you,” Beloso said. “The game is brutal sometimes. You have to show up and play the next day.”

There was speculation after Sunday’s blowout loss about the Tigers bringing back ace Paul Skenes for a third start in Omaha. He threw a combined 243 pitches over 15 2/3 innings in two spectacular appearances, and he would have been working on three days’ rest.

See TIGERS | Page B3

Iola’s Rec baseball games were going on Monday night. Below is pictured Parker McKarnin of Sonic Drive-In. At right is Colton Hall of Iola Pharmacy.

Iola’s Brennen Coffield at the Allen County Country Club in March. Coffield medaled at the state meet as a freshman. REGISTER/QUINN BURKITT

Iola’s Brennen Coffield with his medals at the Class 4A state golf meet last month. REGISTER/QUINN BURKITT

Russia won’t charge Wagner group owner

BY THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Yevgeny Prigozhin, owner of the private army of prison recruits and other mercenaries who have fought some of the deadliest battles in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, escaped prosecution for his abortive armed rebellion against the Kremlin and is in Belarus, that country’s president said.

The exile of the 62-year-old owner of the Wagner Group was part of the deal that ended the short-lived mutiny in Russia. He and some of his troops are welcome to stay “for some time” at their own expense, President Alexander Lukashenko said.

The Russian Defense Ministry said preparations are under way for Wagner to hand over its heavy weapons to the Russian military. Prigozhin had said those moves were underway ahead of a July 1 deadline for his troops to sign contracts to serve under the Russian military’s command.

Seacrest tapped as next ‘Wheel’ host

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Ryan Seacrest will become the new “Wheel of Fortune” host after Pat Sajak’s retirement next year.

Seacrest and Sony Pictures Television announced Tuesday that Seacrest has signed a multi-year deal to host the long-running game show starting with Season 42.

Sajak recently announced the upcoming 41st season would be his last on the show.

It’s the latest hosting gig for Seacrest, the popular “American Idol” host who also now rings in the new year for many on “Dick

Ryan Seacrest TNS

Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve.” Seacrest in his statement also praised Vanna White, another mainstay of “Wheel of Fortune.”

Both White and Sajak have been on the show since the early 1980s.

Russian authorities also said Tuesday that they have closed a criminal investigation into the uprising and are pressing no charges against Prigozhin or his followers after the negotiated deal. The Federal Security Service, or FSB, said they, “ceased activities directed at committing the crime.”

Still, Russian President Vladimir Putin appeared to set the stage for charges of financial wrongdoing against an affiliated organization owned by Prigozhin.

He told a military gathering that Prigozhin’s Concord Group earned $941 million from a contract to provide the military with food, and that Wagner had received over over $1 billion in the past year for wages

and additional items.

“I hope that while doing so they didn’t steal anything or stole not so much,” Putin said, adding that authorities would look closely at Concord’s contract.

For years, Prigozhin has had lucrative catering contracts with the Russian government. Police who searched his St. Petersburg office on Saturday said they found $48 million in trucks outside, according to media reports confirmed by the Wagner boss. He said the money was intended to pay soldiers’ families.

Over the weekend, the Kremlin had pledged not to prosecute Prigozhin and his fighters after he stopped the revolt on Saturday, less than 24 hours after it began, even though Putin had branded them as traitors and authorities rushed to fortify Moscow’s defenses as the mutineers approached the capital.

The charge of mounting an armed mutiny is punishable by up to 20 years in prison. Prigozhin escaping prosecution poses a stark contrast to how the Kremlin has treated those staging antigovernment protests in Russia, where many opposition figures have gotten long sentences in notoriously harsh penal colonies.

Prigozhin issued no public statements Tuesday.

The series of stunning events in recent days constitutes the gravest threat so far to Putin’s grip on power amid the 16-month-old war in Ukraine.

In addresses Monday and Tuesday, Putin has sought to project stabilit y and demonstrate authority.

In his Kremlin speech to soldiers and law enforcement officers on Tuesday, Putin praised them for averting “a civ-

il war.” The ceremony featured the president walking down the redcarpeted stairs of the Kremlin’s 15th century white-stone Palace of Facets to address the troops.

Russian media on Tuesday showed Defense Secretary Shoigu, in his military uniform, greeting Cuba’s visiting defense minister in a pomp-heavy ceremony. Prigozhin has said his goal had been to oust Shoigu and other top Russian military leaders, not stage a coup agianst Putin.

Lukashenko, who has ruled Belarus with an iron hand for 29 years while relying on Russian subsidies and support, portrayed the uprising as the latest development in the clash between Prigozhin and Shoigu. While the mutiny unfolded, he said, he put Belarus’ armed forces on a combat footing and urged Putin not to be hasty in his response, lest the conflict with Wagner spiral out of control.

Like Putin, Lukashenko portrayed the war in Ukraine as an existential threat, saying, “If Russia collapses, we all will perish under the debris.”

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov would not disclose details about the Kremlin’s deal with the Wagner chief. He said only that Putin had provided Prigozhiin with “certain guarantees,” with the aim of avoiding a “worst-case scenario.”

Asked why the rebels were allowed to get as close as about 120 miles from Moscow without facing any serious resistance, National Guard chief Viktor Zolotov told reporters, “We concentrated our forces in one fist closer to Moscow. If we spread them thin, they would have come like a knife through butter.”

Defending Tour De France champ Vingegaard, Pogacar meet in rivalry

By SAMUEL PETREQUIN The Associated Press

One rider, two-time Tour de France champion Tadej Pogacar, was so strong at the start of the season that he was compared to the great Eddy Merckx before an injury stopped his seemingly unstoppable rise.

The other, defending champion Jonas Vingegaard, dethroned Pogacar last year and arrives in top form to defend his title next month.

The two have already gone head-to-head twice at the Tour, and are building one of the greatest rivalries in the storied history of cycling’s most famous race. Add to this fierce rivalry four mountain-top finishes and a Tour record 30 difficult climbs, and you’ve got the ingredients for a mouth-watering three-week duel in the scorching heat of July.

And as if the script wasn’t exciting enough, there are more storylines in store to spice up the 110th edition of the grueling race that starts this weekend from the Spanish city of Bilbao. Former champion Egan Bernal is returning into the fray at the Tour for the first time since his life-threatening crash, while veteran sprinter Mark Cavendish tries to become the most decorated stage winner in the history of the race.

Pogacar was in a class of his own a bit earlier this year, triumphing nearly everywhere he showed up. Following his wins at the Amstel Gold Race and Fleche Wallonne, he aimed

for a hat trick of the Ardennes one-day classics when he suddenly found himself down on the ground, forced to abandon Liege–Bastogne–Liege because of a crash that left him with a broken wrist requiring surgery.

Before the accident two months ago, Pogacar had been untouchable on all sorts of terrain, also dominating the field at the Tour of Flanders and the weeklong Paris-Nice. His setback has reshuffled the cards.

Pogacar still had a decent amount of time to prepare for the Tour with training camps at altitude, and proved last week at the Slovenian national championships that he his back in form by winning both the time trial and the road race.

In addition to his own skills, and since you can’t win the Tour alone, the UAE Team Emirates leader will be supported by a squad made of excel-

lent climbers and allaround riders, including the experienced Rafal Majka, Mikkel Bjerg, Matteo Trentin and Adam Yates.

“As a team, we have worked so hard to prepare and everything is where it needs to be, we have a very good group,” Pogacar said. “There will be some serious competitors but that will always be the case in the biggest races. We are going there to put on a good show and of course with the aim of victory.”

To cover the 3,405 kilometers (2,116 miles) featuring eight mountain stages across five mountain ranges, Vingegaard, too, can count on awe-inspiring teammates, the “super domestiques” who dedicate themselves to their leaders’ glory.

Wout van Aert, Dylan van Baarle, Sepp Kuss, Tiesj Benoot, Christophe Laporte, Nathan Van Hooydonck and Wilco Kelderman will be supporting him.

Connor McDavid wins NHL MVP

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Connor McDavid won his third Hart Trophy as NHL MVP on Monday night, falling one vote short of unanimous selection after the highest-scoring season by a player in more than a quarter-century.

in a regular season, records made possible in part by rule changes.

This year was a rare instance in which most of the major award winners were obvious since before the end of the regular season.

The former fish factory worker from Denmark was runner-up to Pogacar in his first Tour two years ago then came out on top in a thrilling battle with his Slovenian rival last year, building his triumph on two big rides in the Alps and the Pyrenees.

Starting in the Basque Country in northern Spain, the mountainous nature of this year’s course, which features only one time trial, could well give Vingegaard an edge again, as his recent win at the Criterium du Dauphine — a tough stage race serving as a rehearsal for the Tour — suggested.

Behind the two, other contenders include Jai Hindley, who last year won the Giro d’Italia, Ben O’Connor, Enric Mas, and French riders David Gaudu and Romain Bardet. The Ineos-Grenadiers team will have various cards to play with Bernal,

See ANNUAL | Page B4

Tigers: National Champs over Florida

Continued from B1

It turned out Skenes was able to watch from the dugout in the comfort of his sneakers while LSU poured on the runs and Hatcher kept dealing. Skenes headed to the bullpen to do some stretching and throwing in the seventh inning. He went back to the dugout after the eighth and stayed there until he and teammates rushed the mound when Guidry struck out Colby Halter to end it.

Skenes was named the Most Outstanding Player of the CWS.

The overwhelmingly partisan LSU crowd included Kim Mulkey, coach of the national champion women’s basketball team and the mother of Kramer Robertson, who played shortstop on the 2017 team that lost to Florida in the CWS finals.

The Tigers had been pointing toward a title run since their first team meeting last August. Johnson brought back the Southeastern Conference player of the year in Crews and the rest of the core of the 2022 lineup.

Three key transfers took LSU to a higher level. Skenes was the first college pitcher in 12 years with 200

strikeouts and could be the No. 1 pick in the amateur draft. Tommy White hit 24 homers and drove in a nation-leading 105 runs. Hurd was solid as a starter and reliever and matched his longest outing of the year in the title game. “Right people, right place, right time,” Johnson said. “This is the way it was supposed to go.”

LSU joined Mississippi, Mississippi State and Vanderbilt in a line of four straight national champions from the SEC.

“Oh my gosh, this is what I dreamed of since I was a freshman, holding this trophy,” Crews said. “We’re champions, baby, bringing it back to LSU. It’s been a long journey for us. We dealt with a lot of stuff.

Just to finally say we’re national champions ... I cannot wait to put another flag over the field.

It’s going to be awesome.”

Florida (54-17) won the SEC regular-season title, was the No. 2 national seed and set school records for wins and home runs — the Gators hit 17 of the 35 homers by all teams in the CWS. But the Gators were unable to carry

over the momentum from their record-setting production Sunday.

“I thought our team was in a really good place,” Florida coach Kevin O’Sullivan said. “I thought BP was good. They were loose. Put two on the board the bottom half of the first. I thought the dugout was electric. And then all of a sudden we had four walks and I think two hit-by pitches ... and then we had to go to the ‘pen earlier than we wanted to.”

Caglianone, Florida’s two-way star, struggled with his command for a second straight start and was done on the mound after 1 1/3 innings. He remained in the game as the designated hitter.

LSU got on the board when Jordan Thompson, who had been 1 for his last 30, singled in a run. It was tied after Caglianone hit Cade Beloso — his fifth hit batter in his 5 2/3 CWS innings — and a walk to Crews put LSU in front. Cade Fisher relieved and gave up a couple RBI singles and a sacrifice fly.

Josh Pearson’s fourth homer of the season highlighted the Tigers’ four-run fourth inning.

McDavid also won the Ted Lindsay Award as the NHL’s most outstanding player as voted by his peers. The Edmonton Oilers’ captain led the league with 64 goals, 89 assists and 153 points. That’s the most points since Mario Lemieux in 1995-96. McDavid previously won the Hart in 2017 and 2021 and the Lindsay in 2017, 2018 and 2021. Universally recognized as the best hockey player in the world, McDavid is still searching for his first Stanley Cup title after Edmonton lost in the second round of the playoffs to eventual champion Vegas.

“Certainly it’s not lost on me what these trophies mean in the grand scheme of our game,” McDavid said. “To do it a number of times, it means a lot to me. Obviously, it’s not the motivating factor, but it’s special still.”

One voter out of 196 picked Boston’s David Pastrnak as MVP. The Bruins had a big night at the league’s awards ceremony after setting the record for the most wins and points

San Jose’s Erik Karlsson also became a three-time award winner, receiving the Norris Trophy as top defenseman — his first such honor since 2015. Karlsson at age 32 was the first defenseman to surpass 100 points in a season since Brian Leetch in 1992.

“I still feel like I had a fantastic year and I felt good the whole way, but I feel like there’s more,” said Karlsson, who has expressed interest in being moved to a team that has a chance to win the Stanley Cup. “That’s what makes me excited moving forward.”

The Bruins had three award winners: captain Patrice Bergeron, goaltender Linus Ullmark and coach Jim Montgomery. The Vezina Trophy as top goalie and Jack Adams Award as coach of the year were each a first for Ullmark and Montgomery. Ullmark led the league with a 1.89 goals-against average and .938 save percentage and was tied for

See NHL | Page B4

The only down note for LSU was an injury to catcher Alex Milazzo, who landed awkwardly on his left leg when he had to hurdle Riopelle as he crossed home plate in the fourth inning. That didn’t stop Milazzo from celebrating. A teammate gave him a piggyback ride to the mound for the ceremonial dogpile.

Marcel Kittel, team Argos Shimano, during the Tour de France, stage 10 between Saint Gildas-Des-Bois and Saint-Malo in France on July 9, 2013. PETE GODING/EMPICS Sport/ABACA PRESS/TNS

Ticket sales, anticipation high ahead of Messi’s Miami entrance

MIAMI (AP) — There are reminders around the city of Miami of Lionel Messi’s impending arrival: A mural of the seven-time Ballon d’Or winner painted with pink and black Inter Miami colors in the artsy Wynwood neighborhood. Another painting of the soccer star at the entrance of a local Argentinian restaurant. No. 10 Argentina jerseys sprinkled throughout the city.

Messi, who turned 36 this month, announced on June 7 that he was joining Inter Miami in a move that stunned the soccer world and will bring one of the sport’s biggest names to the United States and Miami, where enthusiasm for the sport has been growing.

Messi, who spent the past two years with Paris Saint-Germain, is still finalizing paperwork with his new club. He is expected to make his Inter Miami debut on July 21 at home against Cruz Azul in the Leagues Cup.

The move is hoped to provide a huge boost to attendance and interest in Major League Soccer ahead of the 2026 World Cup, part of which will be hosted in the U.S., as well as for Inter Miami, a club led by another global soccer icon, Da-

LINTAO ZHANG/GETTY IMAGES/TNS

vid Beckham, that is looking to garner the same popularity as other sports franchises in South Florida.

“He’s going to be able to leave this wonderful legacy, and it’s a legacy that couldn’t be better timed,” said Anson Dorrance, who’s in his 47th season as the women’s soccer coach at North Carolina. “We’re going to be hosting the next World Cup on the men’s side. ... And a part of constructing a platform to make sure we sell out every stadium is to make sure our top men’s professional league, the MLS, is also selling out all of our stadiums.”

The league is already getting there. Ticket prices for Inter Miami matches have skyrocketed since Messi’s an-

Alcaraz replaces Djokovic at No. 1 ahead of Wimbledown

By HOWARD FENDRICH The Associated Press

Carlos Alcaraz replaced Novak Djokovic at No. 1 in the ATP rankings on Monday, meaning the 20-yearold Spaniard is expected to have the top seeding at Wimbledon.

nouncement and teams are already selling additional tickets to future matches against the club.

According to data provided by Vivid Seats, a ticket marketplace, the average listed price for Inter Miami’s match against Cruz Azul jumped from $126 on June 6 (one day before Messi’s announcement) to $2,151 on June 20 — a 1,607% increase.

Site traffic, the company said, increased by 27,037% from June 6 to June 7.

On SeatGeek, another ticket exchange site, the average ticket to watch an Inter Miami match was $34 on June 6. On June 7, it was $178, according to data provided by the company.

“Messi is one of the

See MESSI | Page B6

NHL: MVP goes to McDavid

Continued from B3

the most wins with 40 — getting them in just 48 starts.

“You want to be the best at your position or even the best player, which is very tough when you have guys like Connor McDavid and Sidney Crosby playing against you, that’s a tough one,” Ullmark said. “Still, you have that goal.”

Montgomery coached Boston to 65 wins in his first season with the team, and he thanked those who supported him through a low point in his career.

“Three and a half years ago, the Dallas Stars terminated my contract because of my struggles with alcohol, and I had to change my actions and behaviors,” Montgomery said. “For those who struggle out there, you can change,

you can affect change within yourself, and it doesn’t happen alone. You need a team.”

Bergeron won the Selke Trophy as the best defensive forward for a sixth time, building on the NHL record he broke last year. At age 37, he led the league in faceoff wins and percentage and was only on the ice for 27 goals against at even strength in 78 games.

Seattle’s Matty Beniers won the Calder Trophy as rookie of the year. Beniers led all rookies with 57 points and was tied for the lead among them in goals with 24, helping the Kraken make the playoffs in their second year of existence.

“I think I was pretty fortunate this year production-wise,” Beniers said. “Every year is not going to be like that, I know that, but it was

definitely a good start. I was obviously really happy and thankful for the year.”

Anze Kopitar of the Los Angeles Kings won the Lady Byng Award for gentlemanly conduct, Steven Stamkos of the Tampa Bay Lightning won the Mark Messier Leadership Award, and Kris Letang of the Pittsburgh Penguins — who had a stroke on Nov. 28 but returned to play 12 days later — won the Bill Masterton Memorial Trophy for perseverance and dedication.

Members of the Professional Hockey Writers’ Association vote on the Hart, Norris, Selke, Calder, Masterson and Lady Byng. General managers determine the Vezina, while members of the NHL Broadcasters’ Association pick the Jack Adams.

Alcaraz, the reigning U.S. Open champion, is coming off the first grass-court title of his career, which he won Sunday by beating Alex De Minaur in the final at Queen’s Club in London, and that helped him rise one spot from No. 2.

Djokovic, who picked up his men’s-record 23rd Grand Slam title at the French Open this month, chose not to play any tuneup tournaments on grass ahead of Wimbledon and slid down one place.

It is the sixth time the No. 1 ranking has switched in 2023, the most since it happened seven times in 2018.

Play begins at Wimbledon on July 3.

The All England

Club will announce the men’s and women’s seeds Wednesday and is expected to simply follow the ATP and WTA rankings for those 32 berths in each 128-player singles draw. That would put Alcaraz and the leading woman, Iga Swiatek, in the top line of each bracket. Swiatek remained at No. 1 — as she has for every week since first climbing to that position in April 2022 — on Monday, a little more than two weeks after she won the French Open for the third time. Australian Open champion Aryna Sabalenka kept her hold on No. 2, and defending Wimbledon champion Elena Rybakina is at No. 3. Jessica Pegula moved up to No. 4, switching with No. 5 Caroline Garcia. Wimbledon’s seedings used to be based on a formula that took into account players’ recent success there and at other events contested on grass courts. But with only the rankings matter-

ing now, there is the unusual situation of even last year’s results at the All England Club not mattering — because the ATP and WTA chose to withhold all rankings points that would have been earned at Wimbledon in 2022 to protest the club’s decision to ban players from Russia and Belarus over the invasion of Ukraine.

That war continues, but the club is allowing Russians and Belarusians to compete this time.

Djokovic has won Wimbledon each of the past four times it was held — in 2018, 2019, 2021 and 2022; the tournament was canceled in 2020 because of the coronavirus pandemic — and seven times in all.

“I mean, Novak is the main favorite to win Wimbledon. That’s obvious,” Alcaraz said. “But I will try to play at this level, to have chances to beat him or make the final at Wimbledon.” If they are indeed

See TENNIS | Page B6

Annual: Tour de France gets set

Continued from B3

Tom Pidcock and Daniel Martinez.

Bernal, who won the 2019 Tour, was very close to becoming paralyzed after an accident involving a bus at the start of last year in Colombia during training. He is returning to the Tour for the first time since the crash.

Competing in his

last Tour before retiring, Cavendish will try to win at least one more sprint in his attempt to break the record for most stage wins. Cavendish matched Merckx’s mark of 34 stage wins at the 2021 Tour but was left off Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl’s roster for the race the following year. He now rides for the Astana Qazaqstan

Team. Known as “The Manx Missile” because he comes from the Isle of Man, Cavendish also won the Tour de France’s best sprinter’s green jersey twice. He has won stages at all three Grands Tours — Tour de France, Giro d’Italia and Spanish Vuelta — and became a world champion in 2011.

Lionel Messi of Argentina reacts during the international friendly match between Argentina and Australia at Workers Stadium on June 15 in Beijing.

Relationship rut headed straight for the aisle

Dear Carolyn: My boyfriend and I graduated from high school as the pandemic hit, and instead of going to university with all the uncertainty about classes, we moved in together and started working full time.

Everyone was working from home and it felt like a dream job, but now that everyone is back to their normal lives, I’ve been stuck at home and I feel isolated and lonely. We have drifted from our friend group and don’t see them on a regular basis. I feel out of touch and have started to feel depressed. I gained weight and became more solitary than I previously was.

Nowadays I work from home, watch TV, make dinner, wait for my boyfriend to come home, we watch TV together, and start the day over again. He works 10hour days, after which he just wants to watch TV and rest. When we do go out it’s for grocery shopping and other errands and we argue all the time. I’ve been feeling neglected and it feels like I’m not a priority anymore despite multiple conversations.

So finally three weeks ago he brought me out to dinner at a nice place and we had a wonderful time! The weekend after that he bought me flowers and scones from a local bakery, and I started to feel like he was making me a priority again. I was so happy and feeling better about myself and our relationship, I had almost pushed all my doubts out of my mind. Then last weekend he proposed, and I said yes.

Now I’m worried I just said yes because there wasn’t a reason to say no, the relationship is “good” and “safe,” and breaking up and moving out would be messy

and hard. I know he would be a great father and husband one day and he’s a very sweet and a genuinely caring person. He is the type of guy you would want to marry. Am I doing this for the wrong reasons?

— Worried Worried: I think you know you are without my having to say it. “Good” and “safe” are neither if you are lonely, depressed, isolated, overeating, out of touch and deep in a repetitive domestic rut. He may be as great a person as you say, and even as good a match for you as you have told yourself he is. You trust him, you respect him, and when you voiced your ongoing concerns about feeling neglected, he listened to you and made “genuinely caring” changes. I receive distress calls every day from marriages built on less. But that doesn’t mean you have enough to build on, or are anywhere near ready to build. That’s because you have not made yourself enough of a priority, lapsing into dependency on the quality of one person’s attention. No mate can be everything, for anyone. Your soul is screaming out for more: more purpose, more meaning, more challenges, more friends, more connections, more interesting things to see, learn, do. The post-pandemic realities have changed but your mid-pandemic choices have not. You’re a fly in 2020 amber.

Some of this you will need to say to your fiancé. That you appreciate how attentive he

has been, for starters. That you realize now it was not all on him that you felt so neglected.

That losing touch with friends and working from home and cycling from job to TV to sleep is not healthy for people who’ve barely cracked open their 20s. . .or for anyone, really. That it hasn’t been healthy for you. That you would like to start a running conversation on ways to pull yourself, and each other, out of this rut.

But some of this you will have to reckon with fully on your own. A daily commitment to building a fuller life. This will be hard and take time, but stay with it, and resist the lure of binary thinking. You’ve framed this as good/ safe versus messy/hard without giving creative, scary, bold, new or different a chance. Call your old friends. Take a class or join a rec league and make new friends. Dance. Sing. Make art. Volunteer. See a doctor about your depression. Look for an in-person job. Research and visit colleges.

Ask yourself what roads lead out of your comfort zone. Ask yourself what you’d rather be doing tonight, tomorrow, next week. Ask yourself whom you admire. How did they get there? Think of when you last felt confident, happy and strong. Who was close to you then, and can you catch up

with this person now?

If your response to all these prompts is to feel emotionally paralyzed, then you can cut your to-do list to these: 1. Primary care appointment for the depression. 2. One baby step, one micro-change, in defiance of your rut. A walk outside after work? One call to one friend? This path makes you stronger, too. Your relationship will either adapt and improve as you take better care of yourself, or you will grow strong enough to address the fact that it hasn’t kept up. Either one beats living your life by default.

Yesterday’s Cryptoquote: Seize the moments of happiness, love and be loved! That is the only reality in the world, all else is folly. — Leo Tolstoy

ZITS

by Jerry Scott and Jim Borgman

BEETLE BAILEY by Mort Walker

HAGAR THE HORRIBLE by Chris Browne

MARVIN by Tom Armstrong

HI AND LOIS by Chance Browne

BLONDIE by Young and Drake

MUTTS by Patrick McDonell

Players returning from LIV golf part of agreement

By DOUG FERGUSON The Associated Press

The PGA Tour and European tour have agreed to work with Saudi backers of LIV Golf to decide how defectors to the rival league can return and what kind of punishment they should face, according to a framework agreement obtained by The Associated Press.

The agreement also said the for-profit company to be formed by the PGA Tour and the Saudis will be the “entity for professional golf” and that the tours will coexist with LIV Golf.

The framework agreement, signed on May 30, was among documents requested by Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., for a July 11 hearing in Washington.

Blumenthal chairs the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations.

“Our goal is to uncover the facts about what went into the PGA Tour’s deal with the Saudi Public Investment Fund and what the Saudi takeover means for the future of this cherished American institution and our national interest,” Blumenthal said last week.

The PGA Tour has said it would participate, though it was not clear if Commissioner Jay Monahan would attend. He stepped away on June 13 — one week after the stunning deal was announced — for a “medical situation” and turned day-to-day operations over to two executives.

LIV Golf returns this week in Spain and at least finishes the 2023 season, if not beyond.

The agreement says the PGA Tour and European tour “will work cooperatively and in good

faith to establish a fair and objective process for any players who desire to re-apply for membership ... and for determining fair criteria and terms of readmission consistent with each Tour’s disciplinary policies.”

The PGA Tour suspended players once they competed in a LIV event because they did not have releases required under the tour’s policy. The suspensions are believed to be at least through the 2024 season.

The AP previously reported on the assurances in the agreement that the tour would keep a controlling interest in the new commercial entity — known for now as “NewCo” — regardless of how much the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia contributes.

The framework agreement sent to Blumenthal is lacking details that all three sides are still try-

ing to work out, such as the future of LIV Golf.

It did not mention how much the PIF planned to invest in the new entity. The PGA Tour and DP World Tour — the commercial name of the European tour — are contributing all their commercial businesses and rights. NewCo would be an umbrella for all future golf-related investments of the three groups.

NewCo is to conduct an “objective empirical data-driven evaluation of LIV and its prospects and potential” and assess the benefits of team golf and then decide “how best to integrate team golf into PGA Tour and DP World Tour events going forward,” the agreement says.

Monahan, as CEO of the new entity, would determine the plan and strategy of NewCo operations, which would include LIV.

The second paragraph

Tennis: Djokovic bumped

Continued from B3

seeded Nos. 1 and 2, Alcaraz and Djokovic could meet only in the championship match on July 16. At Roland Garros, Alcaraz was the No. 1 seed for the first time at a Grand Slam tournament, while Djokovic was No. 3, and they were drawn

to meet in the semifinals. The first two sets were terrific, but then Alcaraz faded because of full-body cramps he attributed, at least in part, to tension, and Djokovic took the last two sets 6-1, 6-1 on the way to the trophy. There was no other major change in the men’s rankings Mon-

day, with Daniil Medvedev still at No. 3, followed by Casper Ruud at No. 4 and Stefanos Tsitsipas at No. 5. Taylor Fritz, who is from California, and Frances Tiafoe, who is from Maryland, were at Nos. 9-10, remaining the first pair of American men in the top 10 in more than a decade.

Messi: Entrance buzzing Miami

Continued from B4

greatest athletes of all time, and he is attracting huge demand for the chance to see him play in Miami and across the U.S.,” said Chris Leyden, SeatGeek’s director of growth marketing. “He joins the likes of LeBron (James) and (Tom) Brady when it comes to having such an immediate and dramatic effect on ticket demand after moving teams.

Messi’s situation is particularly unique in that a lot of U.S. fans have a chance to see him live for the first time ever.”

Messi chose Miami over Al-Hilal in Saudi Arabia, where many thought he would go and follow longtime rival Cristiano Ronaldo. Returning to Barcelo-

na, a storied franchise where he spent most of his career, was also an option, but Messi said when he announced his decision that he wanted to go to the United States to “live football in another way.”

In more than 17 years of representing Argentina at the international stage, Messi has scored 102 goals against 38 different national team opponents. One of the greatest scorers in the sport’s history, Messi scored twice in last year’s World Cup final against France, a match that Argentina won on penalty kicks to give Messi one more accomplishment on his resume.

“This is going to stimulate everything about soccer in this

of the six-page agreement referred to as the Saudi fund and two leading tours creating a global golf partnership and “unifying the game.” It later mentions the new entity’s plan to

create financial returns, “including through targeted mergers and acquisitions to globalize the sport.”

The PGA Tour and European tour already have an alliance, and other

tours such as Japan and South Africa have similar agreements. The Asian Tour is affiliated with LIV Golf.

The agreement also says the tours and the PIF would work together to try to get the Official World Golf Ranking to recognize LIV Golf, though that would be subject to OWGR criteria and the application that LIV filed last July. LIV fails to meet several criteria, in part because its events have no cuts and 48-man fields.

The PIF, along with investing in the new commercial entity, would make a financial investment as a “premier corporate sponsor” of the PGA Tour or European tour, invest in becoming a title sponsor on one of the tours and contribute to a program geared toward growing the game.

The PIF sponsors the Saudi International, which previously was part of the European tour.

The agreement also laid out a timeline to reach a definitive deal by Dec. 31.

TUESDAY,

“Get

country,” Dorrance said of the move.

Messi will join a struggling club that is last in the Eastern Conference with a 5-13 record. Inter Miami recently fired its coach, Phil Neville, after 2 1/2 seasons.

Messi will have another Barcelona star at his side in Miami. Barcelona captain and former teammate Sergio Busquets will join the team this summer, as it recently confirmed via social media.

Ahead of his arrival, Inter Miami is increasing capacity at DRV PNK Stadium by roughly 3,000 seats in the next four weeks by filling in the corners, raising capacity to about 22,000.

“Slice

“Lite

THURSDAY, June 29

FRIDAY, June 30

SATURDAY, July 1

SUNDAY, July 2

Red, White, & BBQ

MONDAY, July 3

Hot Rods… - Hot Deals Buy 2 – 500 Gram cakes at regular price. 3rd – ½ off. Drive your hot rod in, snap a photo with the Lite ‘Em Up crew, and get 20% off orders of $100 or more!

TUESDAY, July 4

My Country, My Land, My Freedom - Dress up as your favorite American patriot to enter a contest for a RED NECK BASKET.

LIV Golf CEO Greg Norman greets fans in the gallery during Day Three of the LIV Golf Invitational - Tucson at The Gallery Golf Club. CHRISTIAN PETERSEN/GETTY IMAGES/TNS