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Cuts to food stamps hit hard
BUSINESS By Giles Bruce
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County food bank expects to see surge in people needing help By Scott Rothschild srothschild@ljworld.com
Nearly 320,000 Kansans will have less money to buy food because of the cut in food stamps that went into effect Friday. “The results will be shattering to low-income families in Douglas County,” said Jeremy Farmer, chief executive officer of Just Food, the Douglas County food bank. Farmer said he expects to see a dramatic increase in the number of people using Just Food resources near the end of November, and every month going forward. Because of this, Farmer is putting out the call for 212 people to pledge $30 per month to make up the loss. Please see FOOD, page 2A
Richard Gwin/Journal-World Photos
PEGGY MERSMANN-LAPTAD CARRIES A 50-POUND SACK OF WALNUTS on a recent day at the Laptad Stock Farm, 1439 N. 1900 Road. Mersmann-Laptad is trying to revitalize the family business of walnut farming, which her grandfather Max Laptad, pictured above at the farm in 1987, also used to do. BELOW: Mersmann-Laptad uses a special roller that collects and traps nuts on her farm.
Woman tries to revive family’s walnut farming
M
ost days this time of year, you can find Peggy MersmannLaptad hard at work, trying to revitalize the family business. For two or three hours a day, she walks around her farm north of Lawrence, under the canopy of roughly 250 trees, scooping up walnuts with a basket-looking device at the end of the pole while dodging goats and any nuts that have yet to fall. Reviving a family business is an ambitious goal, maybe more so when that business is walnut farming. But if she doesn’t do it, who will? “I’m the last of the Laptads in the area,” said Mersmann-Laptad, wearing a sweatshirt, jeans and a ball cap over bushy gray hair on a recent, chilly fall day at Laptad Stock Farm, 1439 N. 1900 Road. “The farm was
a second home to me. I’ve always felt like this is where I belong.” In 1854, according to family lore, two Laptad brothers came to Lawrence from Canada, purchasing four 80-acre plots north of town. Nearly 150 years later, all that remains in the family
The property had suffered from years of neglect. The previously spotless farm buildings, including the barn that used to host weddings and frat parties, were a mess. The walnut orchard was encased with head-high brush that’s still being cleared nearly a decade later; this was the first year Mersmann-Laptad has been able to harvest from the grove. Mersmann-Laptad’s goal of bringing back the walnut business became even more challenging after she lost the family’s records in a 2011 fire that leveled her farmhouse. Also destroyed in the blaze were a family Bible passed down since the mid-19th century and a land deed supposedly signed by Abraham Lincoln. Mersmann-Laptad,
are 6.3 acres, which Mersmann-Laptad, 46, said she bought with “sweat equity.” The farm belonged to her maternal grandfather, Max Laptad, until his death in 1995. His wife then sold the majority of the land before her own passing nine years later, when Mersmann-Laptad moved in.
Dairy holds festival in face of uncertain future By Sara Shepherd sshepherd@ljworld.com
Iwig Family Dairy’s annual Fall Festival will go on this weekend, probably under sunny skies even as the farm slogs through financial problems and uncertainty about its future. The dairy has been playing host to the free, family-friendly event for six or seven years, owner Tim Iwig said. “It’s just easy fun,” he said. Iwig’s Fall Festival is planned for 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. today at the farm, 3320 S.E. Tecumseh Road in
Please see WALNUTS, page 5A Please see IWIG, page 5A
Story on sex assault puts KU in spotlight, draws rebuke By Ben Unglesbee bunglesbee@ljworld.com
An Al Jazeera America story featuring a booze-filled party of Kansas University students and disturbing de-
scriptions of their regular sexual encounters at parties has prompted condemnation from KU leadership and student governance at the university. In the video version of the
we go out and we wake up and we are with a girl and we don’t remember anything from the night before, like, ask ourselves, ‘Whoa, did I have sex with her, or no?’” The men also discuss their
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story, three young men discuss having sex while intoxicated — and while their partners were intoxicated — even to the point of blackout. One senior identified as Casey said, “There’s nights where
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fear of being accused of rape after such an encounter. While KU officials, students and even the video’s narrator note that this sort of behavior
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A panel of the Kansas Court of Appeals on Friday overturned the sentence of a Lawrence man who was accused of pointing an air rifle at two people and threatening to shoot them, saying the pellet rifle was not a firearm. Page 3A
Vol.154/No.306 30 pages