Construction of Jon Wefald Hall, the newest residence hall at Kansas State University, started ahead of scheduled and is expected to be completed in July 2016.

According to a KSU news release, the residence hall will be part of the Kramer Complex on Claflin Road,

Named in honor of the university’s 12th president, Wefald Hall will have eight floors and 129,000 square feet of living space for more than 540 students. Renovations to Kramer Dining Center are expected to be complete in May 2016.

There was a big turnout for the Junction City Rodeo Saturday night.

Organizers estimated the attendance at about 1, 500  people. The coordinator for the rodeo’s queen competition and ceremony, Joyce Jensen stated, “Oh it went fanastic. Tonight it looked like we had a packed crowd.”

Daryl Blocker, Junction City Rodeo Association President, said the crowd enjoyed the clown, Whistle Nut a lot. “They enjoyed the clown a lot. He participated with the crowd a lot, so got everybody involved.”

Blocker added overall the the two-night rodeo went right. “We had a few glitches with the announcer because he’s new.” Some time was spent on Saturday with him reviewing the sponsors.  “I apologize to any sponsor out there if they’re name got said wrong. When you’ve got somebody new from out of town he doesn’t know everybody’s name. He even pronounced mine wrong ( Daryl Baker ).”

One bull rider had to be taken to the hospital after he was injured when a bull collided head to head with him.  Blocker noted the injury was not life-threatening.

For the first time in three years a contestant in the bull riding rode the full eight seconds that riders aim for.  No one did it at the Junction City Rodeo the last two years.

Danielle Stuerman, 21, Shawnee, KS was the winner of the rodeo queen competition. She will serve as the Junction City Rodeo queen for the next year. ” She will be a senior at Kansas State University this fall. On being named rodeo queen Stuerman noted she was in shock, and very nervous. On her duties the next 12 months Stuerman said, “For our requirements it’s five appearances, but I’ll probably go to more than that, and do rodeos, parades, and festivals. I’m very excited.”

As for next year’s rodeo, Blocker said, “We’re thinking about doing this wild horse race deal. They did it up in Nebraska where you bring several of these wild mustangs in. You’ve got to saddle them and make a loop around the arena. So yeah I’m already thinking.”

The attendance for the rodeo session on Friday night at the arena just off South Spring Valley Road was also strong.

 

 

Milford Lake is under a blue green algae warning, but it doesn’t mean the public can’t boat or fish. Most of the lake is open for those activities.

KDHE put the north Zone C at a closed level. That area stretches from Madison Point north to the Wakefield Causeway, but the remainder of the lake from Madison Point south to the Dam is open for boating and fishing.

R. J. Harms with the Corps of Engineers, explained the closed zone. “The numbers from up at Timber Creek and the Wakefield area were really high.” Harms added some of the numbers seen up there last summer were high. “So they  have a new category where they actually want us to close the lake and really keep people out of that part of the water. So that’s what we’re in right now. So Zone A is in a warning, Zone B is in a warning, and Zone C is actually closed.”

In the warning areas of Zones A and B direct contact with the water is prohibited, such as swimming or jet skiing. But fishing and boating are allowed in Zones A and B and those large sections of the lake are definitely open for that activity.

Construction of the new Berney Family Welcome Center in the east side of the historic Memorial Stadium at Kansas State University in Manhattan will be complete in April 2016.

In a news release the University reported that the center will be one of the first in the country to provide a central locatiion for students and families to connect with key student activities, including a New Student Services, Office of Admissions, Office of Financial Assistance, Housing and Dining Services, and Career and Employment Services.

The renovation of the west side of the stadium and the relocation of the Purple Masque Theatre was completed in March.

The first of three public collection for the United Way’s Stuff the Bus is Saturday, July 18,  at Walmart. The hours are 8 a.m. until 2 p.m.

Supplies are being collected for school children in USD 475 for the coming school year.

Needed supplies include:

–Three-Ring binders

–Sticky notes ( 3 x 3 inch )

–Black dry-erase markers

–Clorox wipes

–Composition books

–Crayola Crayons ( 24 pack )

–Fiskar Scissors

–Ziplock freezer bags ( one-gallon or quart-size )

–Glue sticks

–Hand sanitizer ( 8 ounce )

–Kleenex ( large box )

–large pink erasers

–Plain pocket folders

–White glue ( 8 ounces )

–Wide-ruled notebook paper

–Wide-ruled spiral notebooks

–Yellow highlighters

–yellow No. 2 pencils

Public collection days are also scheduled at Walmart on Saturday, Aug. 1 and Saturday Aug. 8 from 8 a.m. until 2 p.m.

POTTAWOTOMIE COUNTY – Two people were injured in an accident just after 7p.m. on Friday in Pottawatomie

The Kansas Highway Patrol reported a 1985 Ford pickup driven by Courtney Hercules, 52, Wamego, was northbound on Kansas 99

The truck left the roadway to the east, came back on the roadway for a time then left roadway to the east again.

The truck traveled through a ditch and struck an embankment approximately 60 feet off the road.

Hercules was transported to Mercy Hospital.
A passenger John Quigley, 51, St. George, was transported to Wamego City Hospital.

They were not wearing seat belts according to the KHP.

The President of the Junction City Rodeo Association, Darryl Blocker was happy with the crowd during night one of the Junction City Rodeo Friday.

Blocker felt that the cooler temperatures later in the evening helped bring more people out.

“Overall we had a few shady things at the beginning, but the weather was pretty cooperative with the cloud cover. I thought we had a great crowd for as hot as it was,” said Blocker.

There weren’t any major problems reported with night one, besides one bull rider that was transported to Geary Community Hospital with a possible head injury after being bucked off early in his ride.

The Rodeo will kick off again Saturday night at 7:30 p.m. at the Geary County Fairgrounds located just off Spring Valley Road on Junction City’s west side.

The American Red Cross Blood Drive on Friday in Junction City  resulted in the collection of 79 units of blood….an encouraging total after problems occurred during the blood drive on Thursday at the Municipal Building.

Due to internet issues in the Municipal Building the drive had to be cancelled on Thursday.

Initially the goal had been to obtain 75 units of blood on Thursday, and 50 on Friday. But because of the problems Thursday the blood drive had to be reduced to one day.

Coordinator Tom McRae noted normally the second day of a planned drive is the slow day, but Friday the turnout was steady all day with only one or two times where donors had a wait time of more than a few minutes, and there was never a time when no one was waiting.

McRae also issued a thank you to loyal donors, several of whom returned on Friday after being turned away on Thursday.

Central National Bank was presented with a framed certificate commemorating 125 years of supervision under the Office of the Conptroller of the Currency, an independent bureau in Washington D.C. which serves to regulate and supervise all national banks in the United States.

Chairman Emeritus Ed J. Rolfs accepted the certificate on behalf of the bank with his son and current C.E.O. and President Ed C. Rolfs standing at his side. Emily Schrader and Keith Osborne made the formal presentation on behalf of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.

“Central National Bank customers can be assured that their deposits are safe and secure with our bank. We are proud to continue our long-standing relationship with the OCC and look forward to serving our customers for the next 125 years,” said Rolfs.

Central National Bank reported strong performance through the first half of 2015 and finished the second quarter with total assets of $886 million. The bank serves customers across a broad geography including 34 retail banking branches in 22 communities in Kansas and Nebraska.

“We are very proud of our long history of strength and stability for our customers,” said Rolfs. “We are also pleased to have been recently named on of the top 200 Healthiest banks in the country by DepositAccounts.com. As a point of reference, this site tracks and reports health ratings for more than 7,000 banks and credit unions in the country and we have been ranked number 48. The ranking is based on an analysis of our capital strength as well as our total value of loans considered to be at risk.”

The public can now begin enrolling in the new Everbridge Emergency Notification System which will completely replace the current IRIS System by Thursday, July 23rd.

Garry Berges, Geary County Emergency Management Director explained that the new Everbridge System will allow users to select from a list of a number of different alerts that they wish to receive.

“In fact if they live in Junction City and work in Manhattan or Topeka they can sign up and receive certain alerts from those counties too, they are two of the other participating counties,” said Berges.

In Junction City users can receive notifications on such things as street closures, water main breaks and any other public messages to go along with any weather related messages they elect to receive.

“It’s very user-friendly. If they only want to get alerts like Tornado Warnings and Thunderstorm Warnings and nothing else, they can sign up for that. They can even say that between the hours of 6 p.m. and midnight they do not want to get alerts, the only alert they will get will be a Tornado Warning for their location. If they live in the northern part of Geary County and the alert is for the southern part of Geary County they will not receive an alert.”

You can sign up for the new Everbridge System online by following this link. You can also find more information on the Geary County website at www.ks-geary.manatron.com.

Those who don’t have access online can also receive help by calling the Geary County Emergency Management Office at 785-238-1290 from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday.

Once you are registered you will start receiving alerts right away. The service is free to sign up and use.