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V ol . 1 2 6 • I s s . 2 9 1 • 2 2 Pa g e s
SUNDAY
March 24, 2013
LEADER &TIMES
SENTENCED Judge sentences man who cut the throats of his own 3 small children
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Schroeder now an appellate judge
SERVING THE HOME OF MARGARET SCHMIDT, HAPPY BIRTDAY!
Consulting firm may be key to
Getting Liberal on the retail radar
By ROBERT PIERCE • Leader & Times District Judge Kim Schroeder has served in that position in Kansas’s 26th Judicial District since 1999. On March 15, he was sworn in as a judge on the state’s Court of Appeals. Schroeder was appointed by Gov. Sam Brownback to succeed outgoing judge Christel Marquardt on the 13-member court. Marquardt retired on Jan. 14. Schroeder was presented to the Court of Appeals by Hugoton attorney Wayne Tate. Judge Schroeder was first elected to the 26th Judicial District Court in 1998 and was serving as a trial judge before being appointed to the Court of Appeals. In that tenure, he presided over civil, criminal, juvenile and domestic cases. Schroeder is a past member of the Board of Governors of the Kansas Bar Association and a board member of the Southwest Kansas Bar Association. He has also served as treasurer of the SWKBA since 1992. SCHROEDER Prior to his time on the bench, he practiced law in Hugoton with the firm Brollier, Wolf & Schroeder for almost 17 years in general practice of law. The new Court of Appeals judge received his undergraduate degree and his law degree from Washburn University in Topeka. Schroeder is married and has two children. He is a member of the First Christian Church of Hugoton. Schroeder said thus far, he is looking forward to getting started with
By EARL WATT • Leader & Times Most of the 30,000 cities and towns in the U.S. have economic development staffs calling businesses in an attempt to recruit them. Liberal is no different. But like many of the other 30,000, trying to get to talk to the site selecting personnel for a retail company is almost impossible. One major retailer even hung up on Liberal’s economic development people before listening to another appeal from another town asking to speak to the site selector. One company actually showed some interest after an initial call from Liberal’s Melanie Lunceford. But instead of calling Liberal to further the conversation, he called a different kind of company instead. “You would think if he was intrigued and wanted to respond, he would email us back,” Liberal Economic Development Director Jeff Parsons said. “ Instead he calls Retail Attractions. He asked if they did business in Liberal. He told them, ‘These guys are doing it right,’ as far as hunting retailers, but he called Retail Attractions because he has worked with them before.”
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School makes me feel like dancin’
Retail Attractions then made the call to Liberal on behalf of the client. “That is how we got hooked up with them,” Parsons said. “It is an example of how that business works.” For retail businesses to cut through the “white noise” of economic development staff calling on a continual basis, they work with firms like Retail Attractions to help provide the information they need to find the right locations for expansion. The retailer will then get a third-party view of a community rather than a sales pitch, and then they can make a decision based on the relationship with the consulting company. Liberal will eventually show up on the radar of retailers that believe the community fits their specific mold, but it could take a lot longer. “We recruit retail constantly,” Parsons said. “We do it every day. Eventually, we will run across those guys just by the sheer number of calls. But it may take us three years to stumble across that guy who is doing a mall deal, and by then he has moved on. That
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Retail stores are approached by economic development directors on a daily basis, but most use site selection companies as well as consultants help find the ideal growth locations.
CLEMENS
HATCHER
FRIEDERICH
COMBS
WILLIAMS
Candidates discuss whether teachers should have guns By ROBERT PIERCE • Leader & Times
S t u d e n t s s i n g a n d d a n c e d u r i n g a n o p e n i n g c e l e b r a ti o n o f t h e n e w K a n sa s C h i l d r e n ’ s S e r v i c e Le a g u e H ea d S t a r t l o c a t i o n . T h e p r e s ch o o l p r o v i d e s e a r l y c h i l d h o o d e d u c a ti o n to u n d e r p r i v i l e g e d c h il d r e n an d t h e n e w e s t l o ca t io n a ll ow s f or m o r e s t u d e n t s i n S e w a r d C o u n t y t o r e c e i v e e d u c a t i o n th r o u g h t h e p r o g r a m. Fo r m or e p hot os of t he e v ent , s ee PAG E 4 A. L&T photo/Keeley Moree
In the 1990s, a shooting took place at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo. Since then, shootings have occurred at other schools, including Virginia Tech and last year’s incident at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Conn.
With those crimes in mind, gun control issues have once again popped up in the American conscience, and one of those concerns were addressed at Monday’s USD No. 480 Board of Education candidate forum. The five candidates seeking the three open seats on the board were asked if they think teachers and administrators should be allowed to
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After a million year absence, dinosaurs are returning to Kansas and can be seen at the Mid-America Air Museum. APRIL 6 - MAY 5
carry concealed weapons in Liberal schools and to give their reason for their point of view. The first candidate to answer the question, Tammy Williams, paused for about 10 seconds before explaining her position. “That’s a really hard question,” she said. Williams said she would not support the carrying of concealed
weapons, but she did say security guards and detectors are in place at schools in the district to make those in the school feel safer. “I just have a problem if a teacher has a concealed weapon,” she said. “Can a student get to it? A student can overpower a teacher. I would say no.”
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