Sports: Special Olympics on track See B1
2017 1867
The Weekender Saturday, April 29, 2017
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Allen baseball field project receives boost
FINAL DELIVERY
By SHELLIE SMITLEY The Iola Register
Allen Community College board of trustees approved a $31,000 contribution April 18 to a $93,000 baseball field renovation project overseen by head baseball coach, Clint Stoy. Renovations to the facility will include building a 40-by80-foot covered and turfed hitting pavilion with an estimated price tag of $37,000, and approximately $56,000 for replacing the field’s chain link side fences with synthet-
ic wood fencing. Stoy said an additional $31,000 toward the project has been raised over the last three years through various high school camp fundraisers. The project still lacks approximately $30,000 in fundSee ALLEN | Page A8
Patti Whitcomb has delivered her final letter, having retired this week as a mail carrier in Iola.
Retirement beckons for USPS employees By BOB JOHNSON and RICHARD LUKEN The Iola Register
Dependability is a virtue of enormous proportions in any job, and for more than 30 years Iolans living south of Madison Avenue and east of Sycamore to Tennessee knew within minutes of when their mail would arrive each day. Patti Whitcomb, with a bag bulging with letters and circulars, met her custom-
ers’ schedules. The unofficial motto of the Postal Service says it all: Whitcomb went forth six days a week delayed by “neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night …” “About 6½ hours,” it took her to cover her route. How far did you walk? “I figured it up several times and I think about 12 miles.”. How she came to don a Postal Service uniform began as an accommodation to a friend, and was something
of a lark. “I was working at McDonald’s and a friend said she was going to Fort Scott to take the postal examination,” Whitcomb recalled. ‘‘’Why don’t you ride along with me and take it, too,’ she said. I thought, ‘Why not?’ I told myself if I didn’t take the test, I’d have no one to blame but myself,” for not seizing an opportunity to See RETIREES | Page A6
Volunteers receive from giving By SHELLIE SMITLEY The Iola Register
Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt
Scams abound, AG says By BOB JOHNSON The Iola Register
A little common sense goes a long way in defusing whitecollar crooks who use deceit to steal from well-meaning folks, Attorney General Derek Schmidt said here Thursday. Schmidt spoke at an Iola Area Chamber of Commerce Leadership breakfast attended by about 40.
Schmidt, 49 and a native of Independence, is in the midst of his second four-year term, after spending six years in the Kansas Senate. Trusting citizens often are victims of scams, he continued, with thousands of consumer fraud cases coming before his office each year. “It’s simple, the goal of See SCAMS | Page A3
Volunteering at the Pregnancy Resource Center of Southeast Kansas, Iola, is a two-way street. Lacey Smith, LaHarpe, has volunteered there for more than two years. She sorts donations and completes general tasks as needed. The mother of three works for OPAA, and serves meals at Jefferson School. Smith first found out about the resource center when she saw staff members set up at the Allen County Fair. She felt compelled to volunteer after she found out the type of services the
agency had to offer. “At first I was volunteering just to be volunteering, but when I volunteer there now, (since the birth of her 3-monthold daughter, Rey) I earn mommy money,” Smith said. Mommy money may be earned by completing tasks like attending workshops and classes, donating time and other items, researching infant-related topics and taking a child to a doctor’s appointment. Smith earned mommy money for taking a CPR class. “Everything they have you can spend mommy See GIVING | Page A6
Lacey Smith, with her infant daughter, Rey, volunteers at the Pregnancy Resource Center in Iola. REGISTER/
SHELLIE SMITLEY
Bike shop events still a go, even if it rains
Talk Read Play Misty Hobbs, with the Greenbush Education Service Center, plays with a group of children during Thursday’s Allen County Farmers’ Market as part of the Talk Read Play Allen County campaign on the courthouse square. In the background are, from left, Sha-Dawna Scheibmeir, of Head Start, Leah Oswald of the Iola Public Library, Dannette Cleaver, volunteer, and Nicole Lucke, with Parents as Teachers. REGISTER/SHELLIE SMITLEY
Quote of the day Vol. 119, No. 129
A few dozen hearty bike riders aren’t going to let a little rain spoil their fun. A team of riders will brave whatever elements Mother Nature throws at them as they trek from Lenexa to Iola to celebrate the Velo+ grand opening. “We plan to stay on schedule unless we have lightning in the area; then we will pull over and seek shelter until it is safe to ride again,” Team Velo+ said in a Facebook Friday. The grand opening, which starts at 3 p.m. today, will feature live music, food, a beer
“Success is where preparation and opportunity meet.” — Bobby Unser, racecar driver 75 Cents
garden and a ribbon cutting at the new bike shop at 112 S. Washington. The events will be held indoors if it is raining. IN A RELATED matter, the Humanity House bike giveaway scheduled for today has been rescheduled due to rainy weather. The event will be at 10 a.m. May 6 at the Emprise Bank parking lot on South Washington.
Hi: 61 Lo: 49 Iola, KS