Saturday, August 29, 2020
Locally owned since 1867
iolaregister.com
Tech center’s reach keeps growing By VICKIE MOSS The Iola Register
LAHARPE — Three Iola seniors spread out with their laptops at the new internet cafe at the Rural Regional Technology Center Thursday morning. They delved into an online class on phlebotomy, the process of drawing blood. The class is offered through Neosho County Community College as part of the tech center’s new Health Occupations program. “This is a little more challenging” than a regular classroom setting, Kelsie Finley said. “But I enjoy a challenge, and it’s giving me a head start in my nursing classes. I want to be a trauma nurse.” Students Taylor Boren and Kamri Hall agreed. Taylor also wants to become a nurse. Kamri isn’t sure yet what she wants to do, but appreciates the opportunity to “broaden my ideas on the health pathway.” The internet cafe is located in the center of the RRTC. Four doors lead to classrooms: welding, construction trades, wind energy and health occupations. Wind energy is taught in conjunction with Cloud Community College.
IHS tennis proves double trouble for opponents
PAGE A6
State seeks boost in jobless benefits
PAGE A2
Area teen hurt in wreck PAGE A3 Trump lashes out at Biden in address
PAGE A7
Iola High School seniors, from left, Taylor Boren, Kelsie Finley and Kamri Hall familiarize themselves with an online phlebotomy class offered through Neosho County Community College as part of the new Health Occupations program at the Rural Regional Technology Center in LaHarpe. REGISTER/VICKIE MOSS The other three are offered through NCCC. Behind the door on the south side of the cafe, instructor Tina Kelley teaches a class on Certified Nursing Assistant and medical terminology. At the end of the program, students will earn their CNA certificate and be able to go directly into the workforce,
Welding continues to be the most popular program — so popular, in fact, that it expanded to three daily sessions. Classes are limited to 15 students. The morning class has 13; mid-day and afternoon classes each have 12. In five years of the RRTC’s existence, it continues to grow into the original vision
of a regional technology training center. It now includes school districts in Iola, Moran, Uniontown, Crest, Erie and Chanute. THE RRTC started after LaHarpe business owner Ray See RRTC | Page A4
Japan’s Abe says he will step down TOKYO (AP) — Japan’s longest-serving prime minister, Shinzo Abe, said Friday he is stepping down because a chronic health problem has resurfaced. He told reporters that it was “gut wrenching” to leave many of his goals unfinished. Abe has had ulcerative colitis since he was a teenager and has said the condition was controlled with treatment. Concerns about his health began this summer and grew this month when he visited a Tokyo hospital two weeks in a row for unspecified health checkups. He is now on a new treatment that requires IV injections, he said. While there is some improvement, there is no guarantee that it will cure his condition and so he decided to step down after treatment Monday, he said. “It is gut wrenching to have to leave my job before accomplishing my goals,” Abe said Friday, mentioning his failure to resolve the issue of Japanese abducted years ago by North Korea, a territorial dispute with Russia and a revision of Japan’s war-renouncSee ABE | Page A3
Vol. 122, No. 213 Iola, KS 75 Cents
or continue their education. Health occupations is the newest program at the tech center and quickly maxed its enrollment with 20 students, Melissa Stiffler, CTE Coordinator for USD 257, said. Enrollment for wind energy is also maxed at 13. Construction trades has 10 students, with a max of 12.
Iola Chamber of Commerce intern Lindsay Myers presses a button connected to one of the interactive displays featured in the Smithsonian’s “Crossroads: Change in Rural America” exhibit, which opens today at the Bowlus Fine Arts Center. REGISTER/TREVOR HOAG
Standing at the crossroads By TREVOR HOAG The Iola Register
Opening today at the Bowlus Fine Arts Center, the special Smithsonian exhibit “Crossroads: Change in Rural America” challenges viewers to critically engage nearly all their senses. Drop by anytime from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m., and prepare to think deeply about the question: What does “rural” mean? This is both the first
and overarching inquiry that guides one’s journey through more than a dozen different displays, each with its own interactive media, questions, concepts and more. For example, the exhibit’s first display serves itself as a kind of crossroads, from which point one may proceed along multiple directions or paths. While deciding which way to go, one is asked about what crossroads one’s own
community might be at, while simultaneously being invited to analyze a mural overflowing with rural imagery. In the next display, one is confronted with the question of “change,” and is encouraged to consider both the historical past of rural America as well as its future, including daring to ask whether it still has one. Implied throughout is the See DISPLAY | Page A5
A successful START means we all have to do our part. It’s safest to stay home. BUT IF YOU HEAD OUT:
629 S. Plummer - Chanute 620-431-4000 www.neoshomemorial.com
You can help prevent the spread. Learn more at www.cdc.gov