Fort Riley Ghost tours are back again this Sunday, October 23rd.

Established in 1853 as ‘Camp Center’, Fort Riley was at the center of a cholera outbreak where thousands of people were infected and died within a matter of hours from contracting the disease.

To this day, there are many parts of Fort Riley that are haunted.

Tricia Verschage, ‘Ghostess’, said that she has had personal encounters with some of the haunted activity on Fort Riley.

“I used to work on one of the brigades on Fort Riley for six years and the first question that people would usually ask me was ‘is my house haunted?’…but one commander actually had a house that was haunted,” said Verschage. “They had a cavalry soldier that lived up on the third floor, a mother and two children on the middle floor where the bedrooms where and then on the lower floor there was an old man that wore like an Abraham Lincoln hat.”

Verschage and her teenage children, who babysat for that Commander, saw the ghosts whom were very friendly.

“They kind of  hung out with us all night long and watched tv with me – they like Toddlers and Tiaras,” said Verschage recanting the story told to her by her teenage daughter.

Verschage said that she knows where many of the haunted houses are, but most people don’t want to know if they are affected.

The Ghost Tours on Fort Riley will be this Sunday, October 23rd from 4:00 – 7:00 pm.

Everyone should meet on the Cavalry Parade Field (site of Apple Days) for the approximately 1 1/2 mile walk that Verschage describes as “stroller friendly”.

This event is free and open to the public.

The strength of economic development in Junction City and Geary County is fueled by the Consolidated Chamber of Commerce.

The Junction City Area Chamber of Commerce houses the Geary Convention & Visitor’s Bureau, Membership Enhancement Division, Military Affairs Council and the Economic Development Commission.

Dennis Beson, Chamber of Commerce CEO said that the beauty of having a consolidated chamber is that the ability to seamlessly work together.

“The consolidated Chamber in itself provides an opportunity for all four of our divisions to actually address economic development, each division works off each other…let’s imagine our Convention & Visitor’s Bureau brings somebody in on a tour that sees the area and says ‘wow this is a great place, I’d really like to establish something here’, and from that we could flow a lead right in to economic development,” said Beson. “Maybe on of our members has a need to expand, well – economic development; a military person that is coming out the military and wants to start a business – they all flow together and that’s the beautiful thing about the consolidated chamber.”

Beson said that economic development is largely why he supports building a new high school.

“From an economic development standpoint, a brand new high school is a very big selling point, obviously there’s taxpayers that say ‘well I don’t care, I don’t have kids in school’ and so on and so forth; however, it’s a bigger picture, having a nice world class facility or at least a new facility makes a great difference when a company is locating here,” said Beson.

Beson is part of the Steering Committee to determine whether or not to build new, renovate or do nothing in regards to Junction City High School.

The Junction City Area Chamber of Commerce operates under one roof at 222 W. 6th Street in Junction City.

The race for the Presidency of the United States has garnered enough attention to fuel future history class discussions for a lifetime – but will anyone remember the local elections?

How many of us even know the local candidates?

The Junction City Area Chamber of Commerce is hosting a Candidate Forum next Monday, October 24th.

Dennis Beson, Chamber CEO, said that he hopes to see a lot of community involvement.

“We are allowing the people to come out, meet the candidates [again] and ask some tough questions…we will give you a 3×5 card when you’re coming in, write a question down and it may or may not make the podium based off of time…we’d like you to come out, we’ve got a pretty good range of candidates that are going to be there,” said Beson.

Local candidates for County Commission, County Attorney, and 68th District House of Representatives will be in attendance.

Other candidates for multi-county, statewide races may also be in attendance.

The event will be broadcast live on 1420 AM – The Talk of JC.

The forum will begin at 6:00 pm on Monday, October 24th at the C.L. Hoover Opera House in Junction City; doors will open at 5:30 pm.

 

Dickinson County, KS:  In April of this year the Sheriff’s Department was notified by the Kansas Bureau of Investigation (KBI) of a possible match between unidentified remains found near Upland in Dickinson County in 1974 and a person reported missing from Tulsa, Oklahoma in 1974. This match was the result of communication between databases maintained by the Doe Network (www.doenetwork.org) and the National Missing and Unidentified Persons system (NamUS) (namus.gov).

Investigation conducted by the Sheriff’s Department determined it was necessary to exhume the remains of the unidentified victim to attempt to determine if the remains were in fact the missing person.

On Wednesday morning (10/19/2016) the Sheriff’s Department and the KBI exhumed the remains. They were assisted by Forensic Anthropologist Dr. Michael Finnegan of Forensic Anthropological Consultants, LLC; employees of the Abilene Cemetery and employees of the Martin-Becker-Carlson Funeral Home.

The remains will be sent to a laboratory for comparison with information provided in the Tulsa, Oklahoma case.

Investigation conducted in 1974 by the KBI indentified a serial killer, Cecil Henry Floyd, as the suspect in the Dickinson county case. Investigative reports indicate that Floyd admitted to killing 11 individuals, four killings in Florida, one killing in Kansas, and one killing in Nebraska and the remainder of the killings in Indiana.

-Gareth Hoffman, Sheriff

As the old saying goes – ‘you look good, you feel good’ – and a little TLC may be exactly what Junction City needs.

Ed Lazear, Junction City Parks and Recreation, addressed the Junction City Commission Tuesday evening regarding the beautification of the city.

“The two major entrances to our community have roundabouts in them, but the landscaping is really looking pretty poor…[we] went out to Master Landscape, a company that was highly recommended to us, to kind of redesign the whole roundabout with new plants, new looks, [and] to try and provide us with some plants with a little more color and maybe even a little heartier,” said Lazear.

The two entrances to the city that Lazear referenced are the roundabouts at East Chestnut Street and South Washington Street.

The total projected cost of the project is $8898.01.

The City Commission did not vote on the proposal during the Tuesday, October 18th meeting.

 

Talk on the possibility of a new high school has generated mixed feelings and distrust in some cases amongst community members.

Many are leery of the potential cost, the possibility of tax hikes, and other question the necessity of a new building.

Pat Landes, Junction City Commissioner, said that there’s a misconception when it comes to the possible new high school project.

“If we do go that route, [build a new school] the majority of this will be paid by impact aid dollars, as well as the 48 or 49 percent of the bond payment will be made also by the state – so the city would be responsible for either nothing or very little,” said Landes.

Landes is one of  55 different members that are part of a Junction City High School Steering Committee.

The committee will consider whether or not to build a new school, renovate the current facility or do nothing; by January they hope to reach a consensus to present their educated opinion to the school board for further consideration.

The Steering Committee will tour the current high school building on October 27th.

Junction City: Today, the Junction City/Geary County Convention & Visitors Bureau (CVB) was awarded the 2018 State of Kansas Tourism Conference. The conference is conducted by the Travel Industry Association of Kansas and Kansas Department of Wildlife, Parks and Tourism. The conference will be held in the Fall of 2018.

This multi-day conference will bring local, regional and state tourism and business professionals to Junction City and Geary County. In addition, the conference will feature national speakers and offer a great networking opportunity.

The CVB in conjunction with the area lodging properties brought together a powerful proposal that demonstrated teamwork and the willingness of the community to host such an event. The event will be hosted at the Geary County Convention Center, with other events taking place at the Milford Lake Conference Center and area attractions.

“This event will provide an opportunity to demonstrate the teamwork that exist in Junction City and Geary County, our willingness to showcase our community and a chance for local and regional leaders to interact with tourism professionals” stated Michele Stimatze, Marketing Manager for the Junction City/Geary County CVB.

The Junction City/Geary County Convention and Visitors Bureau is a division of the Junction City Area Chamber of Commerce. The Junction City Area Chamber of Commerce consists of the Convention and Visitors Bureau, Economic Development, Military Affairs and Membership Enhancement.