Officials report the annual Fall Classic Golf Tournament sponsored by the Geary Community Healthcare Foundation raised $34,377 to purchase a ucapit drug dispensing system and auto-pulse continous compression system.

This will be a collaboration use between the Geary Community Hospital Pharmacy Department and Junction City EMT’s.

The golf tournament was held at Rolling Meadows Golf Course.

The championship team members for the 2016 Fall Classic include David Craft, Andy King, Tim Rexrode, and Jeff Roether. They were each awarded cash and gift prizes in addition to individual trophies.

Three more vehicle burglaries were reported in the Junction City Police Department Tour Log Report on Saturday morning.

Police were called to investigated lapsed ( vehicle ) burglaries at 1711 Saddle Drive, 1419 hale Drive, and 1948 Victory Lane.

Those followed two vehicle burglaries that were reported to police on Thursday. They occurred at 1344 Thompson Drive and 1520 Patriot Drive.

The Geary County Office Building will close at 3 p.m. Thursday, September 22 so a shooter in the workplace exercise can take place. The exercise will involve the building and the employees who work there.

Geary County Emergency Management Director Garry Berges said the departments what will be affected by the exercise include the Geary County Clerk’s Office, plus the Geary County Treasurer’s Office, Register of Deeds, Geary County Appraiser’s Office, and the Geary County Human Resource Office.

Those offices will reopen at the regular time on Friday.

Numerous emergency vehicles will be in the area of the County Office Building during the exercise on Thursday, so drivers are asked to try to avoid the area from 3-5 p.m.

Construction activity on US 77 Highway at Rucker Road on the west side of Junction City has advanced to a point where the traffic signal at that intersection is to begin operation in the next week.

KDOT said currently, the ongoing rains have delayed the final striping of US 77. Once that has been completed Junction City will activate the signal lights.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas says its unemployment rate rose in August for the third consecutive month to 4.3 percent.

The state Department of Labor reported Friday that the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate last month was up from 4 percent in July and also higher than the 4.1 percent recorded in August 2015.

The unemployment rate dropped during the first part of this year until it hit 3.7 percent in May, and it’s been inching back up since.

The department said that the state had 8,300 fewer people employed in nonfarm jobs in August than in August 2015, a decrease of 0.6 percent. About 4,200 of the jobs lost over the year were in the private sector.

Construction employment in August was 7.7 percent lower in August 2015, with companies shedding 4,700 jobs.

BY Brian Thompson

Kansas lawmakers — at least the majority of them — think college campuses will be safer starting next July. That’s when a law they approved will allow people to carry concealed handguns on Kansas Board of Regents campuses.

But Joey Paz, a student at Kansas State University, said he’ll feel less safe.

“If this law would have been passed three years ago … I would have seriously considered not going to school in Kansas,” he said.

Paz spoke Thursday during a forum at K-State. The forum, which drew about 60 people, was meant to address the university’s proposed policy to implement the law. However, many in the audience wanted to talk about the law itself.

Michael McGlynn, who teaches in K-State’s School of Architecture, said after the forum that students aren’t the only ones worried about safety.

“Faculty have made it clear that they will check themselves at the door, that they will change the nature of their classes in response to this,” he said.

McGlynn said that if faculty and students are afraid to engage in a free and open exchange of ideas, the culture of the university will be jeopardized.

But Joe Hancock, who teaches animal science at K-State, thinks concerns about the new gun law are overblown.

“I mean, you’re talking about suicides and gunfights in classrooms, and (how) I’m not going to be able to discuss anything controversial,” Hancock said. “I think you’re way underestimating the quality and the caliber of our students at Kansas State University. They’re not a bunch of idiots.”

Hancock, who has a concealed carry permit, said he’ll probably carry a gun on campus from time to time once it’s legal. He said supporters of gun rights shouldn’t have to demonstrate that concealed carry will make the campus safer — just that it won’t make it any less safe.

“And if it doesn’t, you can’t prove that it makes things worse, then leave people alone. Let ’em do what they want to do,” he said.

The proposed K-State policy would require guns to be under the direct control of their owners, unless securely holstered and stored in a residence or vehicle. The university will not provide gun storage and faculty will not be allowed to leave guns in their offices. They also won’t be permitted to designate their offices as gun-free zones.

English professor James Machor said Texas allows faculty offices to be considered non-public spaces, where guns could be banned.

“Although the law is phrased differently for Texas — I don’t know what the phrasing is — but the University of Texas has allowed its faculty to do that,” Machor said.

Hancock said that was true, but there are several rules that go along with that exception. Texas requires such restrictions to be announced verbally. A sign isn’t enough.

“And, if a student wants to meet with you that might be a concealed carry participant, and you won’t let him in the office, then you have to make arrangements to meet with him somewhere else on campus,” Hancock said.

Vice President of Student Life Pat Bosco said a survey found that most K-State faculty members generally are opposed to the law, and 60 percent of students are also opposed to it.

Bosco said he won’t know until after fall enrollment next year whether the law may put a damper on enrollment.

“We’ve had emails from parents and students on both sides of the issue,” he said. “There are some who are saying that they would not go to a school in the state of Kansas because of this new law. We’ve had others say they’ll feel safer because of this law.”

Bosco said the Kansas Board of Regents has made it clear that universities must work on implementation of the law, and that’s what K-State is doing.

But between now and implementation is an election that could change the political composition of the Kansas Legislature.

Stephen Kucera, who is in his fourth year on the K-State Student Senate, said after the forum that people concerned about the law should let their elected leaders know their stance on the issue.

“Ultimately the only way that we can achieve the best policy is if people register to vote, and go to the polls in November in state and local elections,” Kucera said.

 

The Food and Drug Administration has greenlighted a pilot project by veterinary researchers at Kansas State University to monitor antibiotic use in beef feedlots and dairies with a $1.5 million grant — $300,000 per year for five years.

“Our long-term goal is to establish a functional and efficient antibiotic use monitoring system in beef and dairy production systems, which will support continued advancement of antibiotic stewardship in the United States,” saidMichael Apley, Frick professor of production medicine and clinical pharmacology in the College of Veterinary Medicine.

Apley is working with Brian Lubbers, director of the Clinical Microbiology Laboratory in the Kansas State Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory, and Sandra Godden, a veterinary professor at the University of Minnesota.

“This funding opportunity was issued because of one of the biggest challenges facing our human and animal health care systems today — that of antibiotic resistance,” Apley said. “This challenge threatens to impair, or perhaps remove in many cases, the relatively recent ability to dramatically change the course of bacterial infectious disease.”

The research team is collaborating with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Center for Epidemiology and Animal Health, or USDA CEAH, on data-gathering design structures for industry representation. Data will be collected from 30 feedlots and 32 dairies in states such as California, Kansas, Texas, Colorado, Nebraska, Iowa, Pennsylvania and Minnesota. Participation in the study is both voluntary and anonymous.

“We are fortunate to have the collaborative assistance of both the beef and dairy industries, and the USDA CEAH,” Lubbers said. “With their help, we aim to create usable systems that can be adopted by agriculture to understand and continuously improve our antibiotic use practices.”

Apley said that a primary goal of the research team is to provide detailed benchmarking data so that individual producers and veterinarians can evaluate their antibiotic uses in comparison to their peers.

“This process will open multiple opportunities to study how we can continue to advance antibiotic stewardship in food animal production systems, making our data the starting point for multiple other studies,” Apley said. “Participation by producers is yet another indication that food animal producers take seriously the health of both the animals in their care and the consumers of the food products which they produce.”

Junction City police have received reports of two lapsed ( earlier ) vehicle burglaries.

One report was received at 5:18 a.m. Friday for a vehicle burglary at 1344 Thompson Drive, and the other at 5:30 a.m. Friday for a vehicle burglary at 1520 Patriot Drive.

The Kansas Department of Health & Environment test results for blue green algae at Milford Lake this week have been released by the Corps of Engineers.

The north end of the reservoir, Zone C, remains under a warning. The public is urged to avoid direct contact with the lake water such as jet skiing or swimming.

Zone B and Zone A in the middle and south sections of the lake are under a watch.

Boating is allowed on the entire lake, but if algae moves as the wind shifts, boaters should use caution and move to a clear portion of the lake.