The effort to collect school supplies for needy children in Geary USD 475 and St. Xavier schools began on Saturday. Members of the public had an opportunity to purchase supplies at Dillons on West 6th Street and at Walmart on East Chestnut Street. They could then turn them over to the United Way, who along with volunteers, will oversee their distribution to the schools in August.

Nicole Mahder, Executive Director of United Way of Junction City / Geary County, collected donations at Walmart and placed them on a school bus donated for the event by JC Transportation. “They have gone very well. The heat definitely kicked us a little bit but Geary County still showed up. We have stuffed that bus.”

Mahder added that some of the donations included two big boxes of composition notebooks, full boxes of three-ring binders, and numerous other boxes of supplies.

The collections will continue at Walmart on East Chestnut and Dillons on Saturday’s July 20th and 27th. The overall collection of supplies will continue until August 2nd. You can drop off supplies at the United Way office at 139 Eighth Street and at other select business locations.

The Director of the Military Affairs Council for the Junction City Area Chamber of Commerce, Craig Bender, would like to see more people from Junction City on the Flint Hills Veterans Coalition. He attended a recent meeting where there were only a couple members from Geary County present. The coalition is comprised mostly of Manhattan residents.

Bender stated, “No reason why Geary County, Junction City, shouldn’t be equal partners in supporting that. So we want to reach out to our veterans organizations as well as other military support organizations to kind of get over there and be a part of it so we can help them as well as help them help us.”

Bender updated the Military Affairs Council Advisory Committee on that topic this week.

Other information was provided by different council members and staff during a meeting on Thursday.

–Fort Riley plans to send only eight runners to the Army 10-miler in Washington D.C. this fall. But there will be a contingent representing Junction City in that race. The group will include Mickey Fornaro-Dean, Jeff Underhill, Allen Dinkel, Craig Bender and Charles Stimatze.

–David Fullmer will be the new incoming Deputy Garrison Commander.

–Kevin Lambert is the new 1st Infantry Division Chief of Staff.

–Approximately 6,200 Soldiers are deployed from Fort RIley. But there should be a nearly full contingent of troops on post in October, with most of those deployed returning to Fort Riley.

–There has been some discussion about getting some World War II veterans into an Honor Flight program based out of Wamego. Through the program those veterans can travel to Washington D.C. to view the memorials there.

–There is a proposal to make Junction City a POW / MIA city. It will go to the city commission. A  number of military related events are already done in the community.

–Fort Riley Day at KSU during the upcoming Wildcat football season will be on October 5th when K-State hosts Baylor.

The annual Stuff the Bus effort to gather school supplies for needy children begins on Saturday ( July 13 ) and continues through August 2 in Junction City.

The public can donate school supplies or money for that purpose at designated locations.

This Saturday items will be collected at the Walmart Supercenter on East Chestnut Street and at Dillons on West 6th Street from 10 a.m. until 4 p.m.

 

The wheat harvest has produced strong bushel per acre yields in Geary County.

Extension Agent Chuck Otte indicated there are less acres of wheat planted now compared with 20 years ago. “But it was a very good year. There were some fields obviously that got harvested by hail back in May. But the fields that were left were outstanding. Yields were very good, well above normal. ” Otte added that he had heard a range of 60 to 85 bushels per acre.

Otte stated, ” Quality was down and we expected that. Protein was down, test weight was down, that’s because of all the rain that we had. But it more than made up for it with the amount of yield.”

Otte noted the harvest is nearly complete in Geary County.

EIsenhower Drive traffic has been detoured between 5th and 6th Streets this week while city public works crews repair a failed sanitary storm drain pipe.

Officials were hopeful of completing the project Friday ( July 12th ), but they still had to put 40 tons of asphalt down. Access was provided for home owners and businesses in the impacted block.