Friday May 5th is the day designated for the annual Geary County third grade Ag Day.

That’s where approximately 700 third grade students in USD 475 will come to the 4-H Fairgrounds at 1025 South Spring Valley Road and learn about the agriculture industry. The programs are taught by 4-H members and Extension Educational Unit members from Geary County.

4-H Extension Agent Ginger Kopfer said there will be classroom presentations and presentations involving livestock. There will be two sessions, with the first one running from 9;15 until 11 a.m. and the second one from noon until two p.m.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has announced that they began releasing 1,600 cubic feet of water per second from Milford Lake on Monday. They are planning to return the lake level back to conservation pool, and then to drop it one foot lower to 1,143 feet.

As of Tuesday the lake elevation was 1,146.61 feet….2.21 feet high.

 

The Geary Community Hospital Board of Trustees have adopted a fiscal year 2018 budget for the hospital totaling just over $39 million.

Dr. Joseph Stratton, Geary Community CEO, said it’s a challenging budget, adnd it’s a challenge in healthcare finance in this day and age. We’re going to look. I think everything’s on the table. I mean we have an idea of some cuts we’re going to have to make. And some of them are just cuts in costs and expenses. Of course we’re going to try and do our best to try and generate more revenue. We’re going to look at our insurance contracts that we have, our supply costs and many other things as well.”

JC Post inquired about an employee pay raise. “At this point in time we’re not able to give a raise for employees. We have something called the GCH scorecard last year where we were able to give a small incentive pay or bonus to everybody. Hopefully we’ll be able to do some of that this year. It’s not seen as a pay raise across the board. It’s a little different way of going about it where everybody is pushing together toward the goal line to do well.”

The Board of Trustees held their monthly meeting on Tuesday.

In the last nine months, there have been over 21,000 riders on the ATA bus.

The exact number – 21,239 – was reported by ATA Bus Board President Florence Whitebread to the Geary County Commission on Monday.

ATA bus currently operates 15 vehicles, one minivan and 14 buses that are all handicap accessible.

That public bus transportation service is offered in Junction City and Geary County, but also Manhattan and Wamego.

For more information visit https://rileycountyks.gov/795/ATA-Bus.

Early work proceeds Tuesday on a major Westar Energy substation project in southeast Geary County.

Ben Bennett, Geary County Commission Chairman, said Westar will take the next step. “Westar will start applying the dust control to the roads getting ready for that project.”

The site of the planned substation is adjacent to Hawkinsmith Road. The haul route for the project will be off Interstate 70 onto K-57 Highway to Clarks Creek Road and then onto Hawkinsmith Road.

The project, when first announced, carried a cost estimate of $64 million.

TOPEKA – The Kansas Bureau of Investigation (KBI) is pleased to announce it has named a new laboratory director.

T.L. Price was named laboratory director for the Forensic Science Laboratory Division of the KBI. Price will oversee the KBI’s four laboratories located in Topeka, Great Bend, Kansas City and Pittsburg. His responsibilities include managing the KBI’s approximately 90 laboratory professionals.

“As lab director, T.L. Price will be instrumental in developing strategies to ensure quality and timely service to KBI customers, while leading the forensic science community into the future,” said KBI Director Kirk Thompson.

Price was recently appointed acting laboratory director upon Michael Van Stratton’s retirement in December 2016. Van Stratton had served as KBI lab director for the past 20 years.

In total Price brings 25 years of forensic science experience to his new role. He had been assistant laboratory director since 2014. Price first joined the KBI as a criminalist technician in 1992, and graduated from Washburn University in 1993. He then worked for a few years as a criminalist in the Fort Worth Police Department Criminalistics Laboratory before returning to the KBI’s Firearms and Tool Mark section in 1996.

Additionally, Price has served as a past president of the Association of Firearms and Tool Mark Examiners (AFTE) and has 17 years of experience assessing lab programs as an American Society of Crime Laboratory Directors/Laboratory Accreditation Board (ASCLD/LAB) international program assessor. As project manager, he also guided construction of the state of the art KBI Forensic Science Center which opened in November 2015 on the Washburn University campus.

“I look forward to collaborating with the many partners who depend on KBI lab services, and in continuing the tradition of service and reliability expected of our laboratory system,” said Price.

“Forensic science is a rapidly progressing field due to constant advances in technology. We’re confident T.L. Price is well prepared to address these diverse challenges for the KBI,” Thompson said.