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KU baton twirler pulls down national championship
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always a “real good crowdpleaser,” Livengood said.) After the scores were totaled, Livengood was on top. When she first picked up a baton at 4 years old, her sister and cousin had twirled before her. Others twirled alongside her at the dance studio in her hometown of Clay Center, where she learned the art as she grew up and went through high school, going to state, national and international competitions.
Legislators are in a pickle. Because of income tax cuts they approved last year, the state treasury is projected to lose hundreds of millions of dollars in a relatively short period of time. So this year, Gov. Sam Brownback is proposing “pay fors” to balance the state budget. But these “pay fors” are proving unpopular among Brownback’s Republican colleagues because they are tax increases. They include extension of a 1-cent state sales tax increase, most of which was LEGISLATURE supposed to sunset on July 1, and elimination of major tax deductions for homeowners. House Speaker Ray Merrick, R-Stilwell, said Republicans, who own a 92-33 advantage over Democrats in the House, haven’t warmed up to Brownback’s idea to keep the state sales tax rate at 6.3 percent, when it is supposed to ratchet down to 5.7 percent. “I don’t see a lot of appetite out here to retain the sales tax,” he said. And legislators are getting heat from Realtors and homeowners who don’t want to lose the mortgage interest and property tax deductions. In the Senate, also controlled by Republicans, 32-8, a committee put the property tax deduction back in its recommended bill. Without support for those “pay fors,” Republicans now are looking at budget cuts. Merrick said he gave his House Appropriations Chairman Marc Rhoades, R-Newton,
Please see BATON, page 2A
Please see BUDGET, page 2A
Nick Krug/Journal-World File Photo
KU MARCHING BAND BATON TWIRLER SHANNON LIVENGOOD performs before the Jayhawks football game against TCU on Sept. 15, 2012, at Memorial Stadium. Livengood won this year’s national collegiate championship earlier this month.
Showstopping performances with marching band anything but routine By Matt Erickson merickson@ljworld.com
For once, earlier this month, Shannon Livengood got to talk to some other people who do what she does. Then she defeated them in a competition. Livengood, a Kansas University sophomore, is the baton twirler for the KU marching band. Earlier this month she won an intercollegiate national championship. But perhaps the best part of the experience, she said, was getting to hang out with
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Not very many people have twirling in common with you, so when we get together at competition, it’s really good.” — Shannon Livengood others who practice what can be quite a solitary art at the college level. “Not very many people have twirling in common with you,” Livengood said, “so when we get together
at competition, it’s really good.” At the ninth annual U.S. Intercollegiate and National High School Baton Twirling Championships on Feb. 3 at William Jewell College in Liberty, Mo., she competed against other twirlers from Kansas State University, the University of Texas and a handful of other schools. They twirled one, then two, then three batons, went through their usual pregame fightsong performance and performed a freestyle routine. (The three-baton routine is
Bills would tackle governance of high school athletics By Peter Hancock phancock@ljworld.com
In what has become an annual ritual at the Kansas Statehouse, lawmakers again this year will consider bills that would overturn certain rules on high school athletic competition and revamp the board that supervises school competitions. This year, however, critics of the Kansas State High School Activities Association have ramped up their public rela-
Critics of KSHSAA want to give parents more control tions campaign by releasing a YouTube video that explains why they think parents — as opposed to teachers, coaches and school officials — should have more say in governing high school competition. “The current board is a bit antiquated for our state,” said Margaret Bonicelli, of Overland Park, who appears in the video. “Other states are light-years
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ahead of us, and we haven’t half of each league’s governing made changes to our board in board. It would also give noneducators at least four out of 14 many, many, many years.” seats on an expanded KSHSAA Dual-participation exemptions executive board. The video is aimed at drumAnother bill, HB 2307, would ming up support for HB 2197. extend to cheerleading the That bill would revamp the gov- same special exemption lawerning boards of all interscho- makers approved two years lastic leagues in Kansas, making ago for swimming. It would lift sure that community members the KSHSAA ban on participatwho aren’t educators make up ing on high school and private
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athletic club teams at the same time. Supporters say parents of student-athletes should have more input in how competitions are governed — competitions that can be the key to students earning scholarships and qualifying for Division I college athletics. But critics fear it would take authority from schools and their coaches to manage their own teams and programs, and Please see KSHSAA, page 2A
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One of the Spencer Museum of Art’s most famous and popular paintings, “La Pia de’ Tolomei,” is on loan this spring to the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. Page 3A
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