BREAKING NEWS
UPDATED AFTER PRINT DEADLINE
Republican Lori Lalouette-Crawford won the 1st District Marion County Commission seat by one vote over independent Craig Dodd, 676 to 675.
Provisional ballots were counted and results certified this morning (Monday) at the county commission meeting.
Marion County voters stood in line at polling places for upwards of two hours Tuesday to cast their ballots. At the end of the night, 58 percent of Marion County’s 7,760 registered voters cast ballots.
“That is very good for us in Marion County,” said Tina Spencer, Marion County Clerk and election officer. “I’m very excited, but I’m upset that people had to wait. I know that’s made it difficult.”
Emergency services dealt with a challenging week of calls, including the familiar effort of dispatchers to find emergency responders amid a shortage of on-call ambulance workers.
Friday afternoon, a 67-year-old woman fell in Florence, but no one with the Florence Fire Department answered the page from dispatch operators.
Mid-Kansas Coop is sponsoring its annual coat drive at all MKC locations from now through Nov. 14.
The annual “Share the Warmth” campaign is organized by members of the MKC Community Involvement Committee to bring winter coats and apparel to those in need.
The Peabody Community Foundation Board of Directors will be host the third annual “After Hours Community Thanksgiving Reception” from 4 to 7 p.m. on Nov. 13.
The Prescott House Bed and Breakfast at 501 N. Sycamore will be the venue for the reception. Light refreshments will be served and musical entertainment will be provided.
Faced with a difficult decision at their Halloween meeting, County Commissioners Dan Holub, Roger Fleming, and Randy Dallke were unable to choose between various decorative pumpkins and deferred declaration of a winner to a democratic vote of county employees.
It came in the midst of a three-hour commission meeting Friday, providing for some good fun for county offices and a reprieve from more serious business for the commissioners.
Norma Lee Riggs is 88 and plays the organ at Marion Christian Church two Sundays a month, sometimes three. Riggs, who is unable to use all her fingers when she plays, hopes another, younger organist takes over for her. However, like other organists in the community, she has been waiting for a replacement but none has come.
“If we could find someone, that would be great,” Riggs said. “But that’s the problem. Being 88-years-old, I’m not going to be able to do it much longer. I love to play, though.”
Though it wasn’t the biggest Toy Run in Marion County’s history, 76 motorcycle riders and nine classic cars filled with passengers braved the cold temperature of the open road Saturday to amass over 150 toys for underprivileged children.
One organizer, Mike Sechler, said that in his 21 years helping the event, 120 riders was the largest Toy Run Marion County has ever seen.
The city of Marion drew praise from the county commissioners at a meeting Friday for the city’s implementation of a curbside recycling program, set to begin in January.
“I’m tickled to death,” Commissioner Randy Dallke said. “I’m gonna make a prediction that the city of Marion people will enjoy it, after they get used to it.”
A cunning posse of mechanically-minded youngsters recently cowboyed up and branded Marion-Florence’s FFA chapter onto the nation’s hide by placing eighth overall in an Agricultural Technology and Mechanical Systems Career Development competition.
Marion High School seniors Raleigh Kroupa and Bret Voth made up the younger half of the fab four, while Kansas State freshmen and MHS graduates Clint Kroupa and Nicholas Meyer, who is also Kansas FFA sentinel, rounded out the team’s elder half.
When Ida French closed the doors to her restaurant, Zimmerman’s Deli and Coffee Shop, Friday afternoon, only she and her two employees knew it was for the last time.
French had already reached an agreement by that point with the building’s owner, DuWayne Suffield, and after a weekend of moving, the Main St. storefront was empty by Sunday evening — no more kitchen, no more tables, no more Zimmerman’s.
The public is invited to attend a Veterans Day service Tuesday at St. John’s Nepomucene Catholic Church in Pilsen.
A new woodcarving honoring Father Emil Kapaun will be unveiled and dedicated in the church following the 11 a.m. Mass. The woodcarving is sponsored by John Moore of Gallup, New Mexico, and carved by his friend, Mark Chavez. Both men will be present for the ceremony.
At least 60 participants attended the No-till on the Plains whirlwind exposition Monday in Marion County. The 501c3 non-profit educational organization promotes the benefits of no-till, a process in which seed is planted directly into soil that has not been disturbed through plowing or disking.
This was the first time No-till on the Plains has been in Marion County. Many national conservation service employees from throughout the state attended the event as a training seminar.
Charlene Gibson, 65, of Newton died October 21, 2014, at Newton Medical Center.
She was born on August 12, 1949, in Kansas City, Missouri, the daughter of Rev. Charles and Helen Tanner Bath. She was raised in the Kansas City area and graduated from Leavenworth High School in 1970.
Alice Meysing, 84, of Lincolnville died Monday in Hillsboro.
A funeral mass will be 10 a.m. Saturday, with the Rosary preceding the Mass at 9:30 a.m. Interment at Pilsen Cemetery will follow the Mass.
The chickens arrived in early May. They were three weeks old. They had their own chicken coop that they stayed in at night while the skunk slinked by and the coyotes howled.
Ken and Malinda Stuchlik bought the 14 chickens to make eggs. They knew it was a 16- to 18-week cycle before any chickens produced. So for the first few months there was not any expectation of finding eggs.
Marion County farmers — and farmers across the country — are going to have some choices to make before enrolling their various commodities in protection plans.
Farm Service Agency executive director Sara Morrey recently attended a weekend training program to learn about provisions of the 2014 farm bill, which covers American farmers from this year until 2018.
Dennis Klenda of Pilsen has raised hogs since 1970. The 70-year-old is preparing to leave the business by the end of the year.
“I cried when I moved the last batch of weaning pigs from the little concrete floor to the finishing floor,” he said.
Imagine a high school student walking for the first time into a convention center where the population of your entire town could sit in one small section of the arena.
What would you expect from an event in its 87th year, an event that drew 60,000 likeminded strangers to Louisville, Kentucky, from all over the United States into a nexus of agricultural related activities known as the National FFA Convention?
Marion County extension agent Ricky Roberts characterized next year’s wheat crop as “coming up good” and the soybeans as “OK.”
“That’s what we can tell right now,” Roberts said. “For the most part we have enough moisture and the wheat is coming up real good.”
This is a frustrating week for penning an opinion column. All the Halloween festivities are over. No questionable behavior was exhibited even though the celebration was on a Friday night. The young children enjoyed their excursion into “Trunk or Treat” downtown, wandered the streets for a bit afterwards, and then everyone went home. A good time was had by all.
The Peabody-Burns High School football team racked up another victory on Thursday night and beat Lebo 66 to 18. By the time you read this they will have been host to Osborne in the beginning round of playoffs. Whether they won or lost, they have had a stellar year and PBHS has had a great run with an undefeated team for the first time in several decades.
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USDA commodities will arrive at Marion County senior centers Nov. 12.
Each site will distribute them according to its own schedule and may not distribute on the same day. Check the local site for a schedule.
Retired professor Max Terman will present his research about the Civil War and his family’s connection to it at Tabor College’s second Lifelong Learning session at 9:45 a.m. Friday in Wohlgemuth Music Education Center.
Terman will mark the war’s 150th anniversary by discussing his two Civil War books, “Hiram’s Honor” and its new sequel, “Hiram’s Hope,” along with images and songs from the era.
The Marion County Lake Chat and Dine Club will hold its annual soup dinner and business meeting at 6:30 p.m. Saturday at the Lake Hall. Officer elections are among the agenda items.All current and former lake residents and mobile home owners are invited, and are encouraged to bring a side dish and a friend.
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Claire Good
Defending state champion Osborne knocked Peabody-Burns out of the state playoffs Tuesday with a solid 66-44 win over the Warriors in Peabody.
The Bulldogs built a 24-point lead early and never trailed. The Warriors made it close in the second quarter, using a 75-yard Clayton Philpott touchdown and capitalizing on an Osborne fumble for another to pull within 2 points, 30-28.
Peabody-Burns Warriors football accomplished a rare goal Thursday in the senior night 66-18 victory over Lebo. Not only did the team become Class 1A 8-man district champions, but they finished their 9-game regular season without a loss.
“We have not had a football team finish the regular season undefeated since 1977,” PBHS Athletic Director Ray Savage said.
Charges are pending after one Tabor athlete was hospitalized and another suffered minor injuries in incidents 30 minutes apart in and around Hillsboro last week.
Manuel Michael Pineda, 23, a 5-foot-10, 225-pound senior linebacker on the Tabor football team, suffered a severe laceration and loss of consciousness in an altercation shortly after 3 a.m. Oct. 26 at a rental home at 406 S. Ash St. in Hillsboro, according to a police report.