Fall sports thrills: Postseason awaits area schools See B1
The Weekender Saturday, October 29, 2016
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Advocates tout worth of mental health courts
IRON HORSE RIDES AGAIN
By BOB JOHNSON The Iola Register
By TIM CARPENTER Topeka Capital-Journal
The statewide campaign to discredit Appellate and Supreme courts justices is rife with misrepresentations, Iola Rotarians learned Donald Noland Thursday. Donald Noland, a retired judge, and Bob Tomassi, a retired attorney, helped explain the contoversy. Noland served for 21 years as a Crawford County district court judge. Tomassi practiced law there for 40 years. Advertisements that have deluged Kansans claim justices are activists who favor late-term and other abortions and grievously tried to overturn death penalties for the Carr brothers, whose callous murders of four college students in Wichita several years shocked the state. In that single sentence are three glaring errors, Noland said. An activist judge is one whose personal prejudices and ideology are contrary to the law, which would be true if Kansas Supreme Court justices didn’t confirm a woman’s right to have an abortion. Federal law (in Roe v. Wade) permits abortion, which consequently requires a state su-
Editor’s note: Reporters from the Topeka CapitalJournal and KHI News Service collaborated for a six-month exploration of how the state’s legal system deals with people with mental illness. This is the third in a four-part series, “Mental health on lockdown.”
See JUDGES | Page A3
Steam power on display Scores of trainspotters young and old watched Union Pacific’s Steam Locomotive no. 844 bring all 23,000 pounds of its steel frame to a squealing halt in tiny Durand, just east of Yates Center on Thursday. Hailed as the “Living Legend,” the engine — once a high-speed passenger train — is now famous for its many popular excursion runs, which draw thousands of American families in forgotten railroad towns outdoors for a glimpse of the industrial past. The 844’s “Trek to Tennessee” will overnight in Marysville this evening. In the meantime, follow the “Living Legend” on Twitter @UP_Steam. REGISTER/RICK DANLEY
Municipal Court Judge Bryce Abbott slid into a highbacked leather chair behind a stack of bloated manila files documenting the dilemma of adults seeking refuge in Kansas’ groundbreaking mental health court. He shoved enough progress-report files aside to create a line of sight to defendants and family members, social workers, counselors and the public defender and prosecutor gathered in front of him for a review of dozens of ongoing cases. Action began with the “Rocket Docket” — a kind of flash-bang, front-of-the-line reward for folks dealing responsibly with their nonviolent criminal misconduct, underlying behavioral health condition and, often, a multitude of housing, employment, substance abuse, transportation or antisocial issues. See COURTS | Page A5
Planners set next step for tech ed center By RICHARD LUKEN The Iola Register
Garry Daniels cuts soybeans in an upland field that promises yields of over 50 bushels an acre. Many farmers view this year’s crop as the best of their lifetimes. REGISTER/BOB JOHNSON
Euphoria greets harvest By BOB JOHNSON The Iola Register
The report from field to field and farm to farm is the same — soybean yields are amazingly high, even those that followed wheat. “This is probably the best year I’ve had,” said Craig Mentzer, who farms north and east of Neosho Falls, and he’s been at it full time since the late 1970s. Between Iola and Humboldt, “It’s a superb year,” said Shawn Geffert. The real corker for Geffert is, in addition to typical high yields from fullseason beans, those he planted
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after wheat did so well. “Some last year made 35 bushels (on his fertile bottom ground) but this year are in the high 40s and low 50s,” unheard of hereabouts. South of Humboldt, Garry Daniels, whose soybean fields the Register visited a few week ago, gushes as much as any. Earlier this week, as son Dan was finishing a field, Daniels said it was making nearly 50 bushels — on upland — the best he ever had done on that parcel of land. He salivates thinking about what the soybeans on prize See HARVEST | Page A3
MORAN — With barely a moment to catch their breath, school officials who worked so fervently to get the new technical education center off the ground this fall are setting their Ken McWhirter sights on the future. It’s too soon to tell, however, when the next course offerings — welding, in this case — will begin. “You know how I feel,” Ray Maloney said Wednesday. “I want to get it going,” and have the welding courses running by the spring semester. Maloney owns the old Diebolt Lumber facility southeast of LaHarpe, home to the tech ed center. He spoke Wednesday with school officials from Allen, Neosho and Fort Scott community colleges, Iola, Marmaton Valley and Uniontown school districts, representatives from the Kansas Department of Commerce and Jeff Cokely
“Happiness depends upon ourselves.”
— Aristotle, Greek philosopher (384 B.C.-322 B.C.) 75 Cents
of the Allen County Community Foundation. Those players have met on a regular basis for more than a year as the tech ed center went from vision to reality. Among the topics from Wednesday’s get-together were how students at the tech ed center will be tested in order to earn English or math credits; grant funding possibilities, and how it affects other potential courses; and how the tech ed center will be governed, since so many entities are involved in its operation. The myriad players are necessary because a unique arrangement in how the tech ed center operates. The classes, consisting almost entirely of highschool students, are taught by the community colleges (and are considered college courses) because the jucos can earn state funding by doing so. For example, a construction trades course — the only class offered at the center so far — is being taught by Fort Scott Community College. Administrators from AlSee TECH ED | Page A4
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