The Geary County Community Involvement Team and Geary County Rural Fire Department will host an Easter Egg Hunt on Saturday, March 24th at the East Rolling Hills Park Shelter ( Shelter one ) at Milford Lake.
This is for youth ages infant to 8 years.
There will be more than 2,000 eggs to hunt and special egg prizes.
| Not as cool. Mostly sunny in the morning, then mostly cloudy with a 30 percent chance of rain showers in the afternoon. highs in the lower 60s. Southeast winds 5 to 15 mph. |
Geary County has improved in the County Health Rankings, moving from 74th out of 102 counties in health outcomes to 63rd.
According to the Geary County Health Department key improvements include tobacco cessation rates, declining from 22% down to 18%, a continued decline in the violent crime rate, and number of uninsured residents.
According to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation the County Health Rankings & Roadmaps, a collaboration between the Foundation and the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute, compares counties within each state on more than 30 health-influencing factors such as education, jobs and access to quality healthcare.
For almost a decade, the rankings have been a benchmark for community health, using statistical modeling to estimate rates for health outcomes and factors that make a difference in how well and long we live.
The Rankings assist the local health department and public health stakeholders in starting important conversations on public health concerns and initiatives. The data is often used in local and regional grant applications that can augment program funding sources or fund new initiatives. It is also used in the compilation of community health assessments that guide local efforts. The Roadmaps portion of the Rankings assist local health departments in identifying evidence based strategies to tackle tough public health challenges.
The Junction City Little Theater will present The Wizard of Oz on back to back weekends in April at the C. L. Hoover Opera House.
The show dates are Friday, Saturday and Sunday April 20th and 21st at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday the 22nd at 2 p.m. along with Friday and Saturday the 27th and 28th at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday April 29th at 2 p.m.
The show is being directed by Little Theater President Ellie Dillon.
Junction City Little Theater season ticket holders can call the Opera House Box Office at ( 785 ) 238-3906 to make reservations.
Executive producers include Gatherings at 3 Thirteen and Central National Bank while the orchestra sponsors are Lacer Motors and The Stroda Family.
Senator Jerry Moran’s Office announced this week that the senator spoke with Army Undersecretary Ryan McCarthy to advocate for Fort Riley as the right installation for the 16th Armored Brigade Combat Team.
Moran stated, “As the Army is deciding the location for the 16th Armored Brigade Combat Team, it is critical that they make their decision using quantitative data, not subjective bias towards certain bases.I expressed to Undersecretary McCarthy that Fort Riley is the ideal location for the new ABCT, and I am confident the data shows Fort Riley is the best place to live, train, deploy from and come home to the Army.
Moran stated. “I will continue to urge the Army to pick Fort Riley for the new ABCT, and I look forward to him visiting soon to see all that Fort Riley and the surrounding communities have to offer.”
The fiscal year 2019 President’s Budget Request includes funding for an additional Armored Brigade Combat Team. Moran is working to host Undersecretary McCarthy on Fort Riley in the coming months to highlight why the 1st ID in Kansas is the right fit for the 16th ABCT.
The State of Kansas currently provides approximately $4.6 billion per year for public school K-12 funding.
The State Supreme Court has mandated an increase.
Now reports from consultants are laying out three different possible funding scenarios for improving student performance, with the least expensive costing $451 million more per year. the more ambitious option, boosting the graduation rate and vastly improving student scores on standardized tests, would result in a $2 billion increase.
State Representative Lonnie Clark, Junction CIty thought the report would be more conservative. But when it came right down to it, it looks likes it’s going to be a really substantial amount of increase to fund the schools. At this point in time with the state’s situation in revenue it’s going to be an uphill battle.”
Clark noted numerous mistakes were found by legislators in the consultants’ report so perhaps if there are mistakes in one part of the report it may not be as bad as it actually looks. Despite that, on the funding scenarios Clark noted that the report was pretty shocking to most of the people in the House Education Committee. “It was so high. We thought maybe there might be an increase, we were hoping there would be a little bit of a decrease just from the state’s situation side of it. But for these kind of numbers it was kind of a shock to everybody I think.”
Candidates for governor touched on topics ranging from agriculture, economic growth and management and planning for state government to school safety and security during a Geary County Farm Bureau Association forum on Thursday.
Jim Barnett stated agriculture and livestock are the core of the state’s economy and that is one of his top priorities. “The economy and what’s involved in feedlots and how important that is to our state.”
Josh Svaty touched on business industry growth by noting the state is not growing as it could because the work force is not available. ” As your governor I would do several things. One you have to maintain your investment and commitments to your higher education. Those are still not only the places where you train but also they’re entrepreneurial and businesses spin out of that.” Svaty added the state must always spin out new businesses to account for an ever changing economy. The candidate also called for affordable housing in rural communities as something the state must address.
On the subject of school safety Arden Anderson touched on the issue of possibly arming teachers to deal with shooters in schools. “If we’re going to arm teachers arm them non-lethally, rubber bullets, tasers, dart guns. So there’s no issue here of a teacher worrying about am I going to kill a child. Because guess what, you want to see lawsuits, teacher gets armed, they’re nervous, we’ve got kids all over, they unload their pistol on the shooter and they shoot two or three children along with them. Now what, what are we then going to do?
Continuing on the possibility of arming teachers Carl Brewer stated law enforcement and people in the military engage targets, and it’s hard to ensure a round goes where it is supposed to. The former Wichita mayor stated, “you would be amazed at how many times I had to settle a lawsuit because the person they intended to shoot may or may not have been shot but the other person on the opposite side, the innocent person actually did.”
Ken Selzer referred to his time operating the Insurance Department just like a business to the extent that there are similarities between government and business. ” We thoughtfully reduced the number of employees, thoughtfully reduced our costs. At the same time the number of customers concerns and complaints in the industry were going up so we serviced 30% more inquiries with 20% fewer people. We’re recognized by an outside third party for an excellent job we were doing in responding in responsiveness, transparency, all kinds of fun issues like that.”
Lt. Governor Tracey Mann represented Governor Jeff Colyer during the forum. Mann indicated the state needs to be strategic and long term. He referred to the decision by former President Dwight Eisenhower to build the interstate system which has I-70 running through Kansas. “We overlook his decision and his vision to build the interstate highway system and how that fundamentally changed the economy of Kansas and the entire country. ” Mann believes leaders understand return their is a return on investment on all of our dollars that we spend on transportation. ” I think we ought to be strategic about it. I think that we need to work with our local communities, with the county commissions, locally they know best where these dollars ought to be spent to get the biggest bang for the buck.” Mann noted the infrastructure needs to be in place to get ag products to markets to keep prices as high as possible.
State Senator John Doll, representing Greg Orman, commented on the ag economy. “The tax structure, we needed a fair tax structure. ” Doll noted no one wants to pay taxes. “But what we have done because of the unfair tax system is that we’ve made unfunded mandates for local government. That has increased your property taxes immensely. The eight rollover has been very brutal because we can’t make any money. That has to be looked at. That needs to be addressed and be addressed now.”
The forum was sponsored by the Geary County Farm Bureau Association at the Flint Hills Ag Services location in Geary County.
Scheduled to begin at 10 a.m. from Gross Memorial Coliseum in Hays
Members of the Junction City / Geary County SWAT executed a JCPD search warrant at 8389 Nelson Road on Thursday.
According to Police Captain Trish Giordano, Samuel Ruggero, 43, was arrested suspicion of Aggravated Indecent Liberties of a Child. Bond was at $100,000 for Ruggero at the Geary County Detention Center.
Police thanked the members of the Geary County Sheriff’s Department, Grandview Plaza Police and the KBI High Risk Warrant Team, who assisted with the warrant and activities leading up to the execution of the warrant.
The ribbon cutting was held Thursday for the new Children’s Mercy Hospital pediatric clinics located on the lower level of Geary Community Hospital.
Community members in attendance had an opportunity to tour the facility and hear from Children’s Mercy and Geary Community leaders about the project.
Children’s Mercy Vice President Marshaun Butler went back to the beginning of the approximate $1.9 million dollar project, noted it started about two years ago. “We are excited to be here, to be able to bring pediatric specialty services closer to home, closer to your back yard where patients and families do not have to travel just to have their follow up visits. We want to help bring those services closer to patients in central Kansas.”
Geary Community Hospital CEO Dr. Joseph Stratton noted the clinic space is now complete. ” I’d like to welcome Children’s Mercy Junction City to Junction City.”
Donors provided money for the project with the help of the Geary Community Healthcare Foundation and Children’s Mercy development personnel. The idea originated when Bob and Teresa Bramlage approached Stratton in February of 2016, and from there the project eventually became reality.
The clinic space includes 12 exam rooms., two telemedicine rooms, a lab draw room, reception area and two nurses stations. There are currently specialty clinics for cardiology and endocrine / diabetes. Several additional clinics will be offered through telemedicine technology in the coming months, and Children’s Mercy officials anticipate the addition of other specialty clinics throughout the year.
