BREAKING NEWS
UPDATED AFTER PRINT DEADLINE
After print editions of the paper were published, five new cases of COVID-19 were reported Thursday and two new cases on Wednesday.
The county’s total number of cases is now 179. That translates to a countywide infection rate of 15.1 cases per 1,000 residents, an increase of 2.0 in the past seven days.
More than four months after a 27-year-old woman was found dead in a river in Sumner County, a 48-year-old man was arrested Thursday and accused of having murdered her two months earlier in Marion County.
Robert Bruce Mans Jr. was booked into Marion County Jail late Thursday morning. He is being held in lieu of $250,000 bond.
A steep upward trend in recent COVID-19 diagnoses continued this past week with eight new cases on Tuesday bringing the week’s total to 19 reported by the health department.
Tuesday’s eight new cases included four teens — three girls and a boy — a man and two women in their 20s, and a man in his 40s.
Well over a third of all county voters have already cast their ballots a week before the election.
More than 2,000 voters have already voted by mail, drop-offs, or in courthouse early voting booths, county clerk Tina Spencer said.
A COVID-19 outbreak at Goessel’s Bethesda Home hit only three residents while the other nine victims were staff members.
The nursing home is included on the Kansas Department of Health’s COVID-19 website as the scene of an active cluster, but could be removed next week.
Even as Marion County is seeing unprecedented spikes in COVID-19 cases in recent weeks, many remain resistant to wearing masks that could protect others from the virus.
In Marion, despite a mask ordinance in effect through Dec. 31, some still don’t use them.
A county commissioner lashed out at Hillsboro economic development director Anthony Roy Monday, prompting other commissioners to bicker back at her, defending Roy and slamming the county emergency manager a second time.
According to commissioner Dianne Novak, whose term ends in January, Roy was himself to blame for poor communication with county emergency director Randy Frank that led Roy to file an open records request for a copy of the county emergency operations plan after emailing back and forth with emergency manager Frank to no avail.
A water-line break on Walnut St. in Peabody has been fixed and buried, but city officers are looking for solution to Peabody’s infrastructure woes as they wait for a crew to place asphalt over the hole.
The chasm that opened near the sidewalks of the town’s main business district earlier this month was the fourth rupture the city had to deal with in nearly 10 days, mayor Tom Spencer said.
A contract signed with new county appraiser Carl Miller, hired Oct. 12, gives him a $30,000 annual salary through June 30.
Miller, who has been an appraiser 40 years, will work part time for Marion County. He will continue to serve as Stafford County and Ellsworth County appraiser as well as Marion County appraiser.
Every Friday a line of people gathers outside St. Luke Auxiliary Shop hoping to snag a bargain when new items go on sale.
“It’s the norm,” Michelle Gooding said Friday snuggling her small dog, Fritz, against the cold wind as they waited for the shop’s noon opening. “Everybody starts to get in line, and get in there and get a shopping cart.”
2:15 p.m. Thursday, Trick-or-Treat Around the Track at Centre School.
Florence
5 to 8 p.m. Saturday, Main St. Trunk-or-Treat and free haunted house at the city’s library.
Hillsboro
A system that brought snow, sleet and freezing temperatures will haunt the area until Thursday evening, but Halloween weekend looks ‘”boo-tiful,” a forecaster said.
Roger Martin, with the National Weather Service in Wichita, said snowpack and cold air in the northern plains helped drop temperatures in central Kansas for an early taste of winter in October.
Wayne Ollenberger has one condition that needs to be met before he buys a classic vehicle. Its parts and condition have to be the same as if he bought it off the factory line.
“They’re all original,” he said. “There’s no adding stuff on or taking stuff off and changing anything. That’s just the way they come from the factory.”
Weekend weather might have been cold, but firefighters battled the heat Sunday at a house fire in Marion’s 500 block of N. Cedar St.
The home was vacant, but firefighters weren’t taking chances when they arrived, Marion fire chief Preston Williams said.
Marion graduate Matthew Christensen has attended just one week of in-person classes at Kansas State University but he has kept a positive attitude despite disturbances his first year of college.
“It feels very similar to school in the spring,” he said. “I don’t mind it at all. I feel like I might learn better in person, but I don’t mind the schedule and just being able to hang out.”
Anyone in the mood to hear a horror classic this Halloween can turn on a radio at 7 p.m. Saturday for a broadcast showcasing Tabor talent.
“Frankenstein: The Radio Play,” written by Philip Grecian, was performed live by Tabor students and recorded for broadcast on the radio.
Chisholm Waner and Dante Snyder are the only seniors in Marion High School’s production of “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown,” but each feels at home playing the part of a younger sibling on stage.
“We’re more chaotic, more childish than the other ones,” Waner said. “We were fine with it because that matches our personalities more.”
Brace yourselves. The scariest of days loom large on our ever darker, even frostier horizon. And we’re not talking about Halloween — nor even the sugar-induced comas soon to be inflicted on millions of households after consumption of mass quantities of goodies that costumed kids normally would gobble up if not for a pandemic.
The real trick or treating will begin Tuesday, when the nation finishes seemingly endless weeks of voting and creates a night of the living dead for anxious TV anchors who, unable to make instant projections, might end up endlessly batting balls of yarn across the screen as every shred of planned content except their shellacked hairdos begins melting away.
ANOTHER DAY IN THE COUNTRY:
These are strange timesLETTERS TO THE EDITOR:
Electoral College,
Partisan politics . . . ,
. . . are too dirty,
Abortion and race,
Appraising a hire,
Voting for the future,
Parties reversed
For the first time, flu shots will not be given at the Marion County Health Fair.
That means the only services that will be offered are hospital laboratory blood tests.
Peabody Historical Society has invited residents to participate in an Election Day meal from 10:30 to 6:30 p.m. Tuesday at Peabody Methodist Church.
The meal will include soup, pie and cinnamon rolls. The historical society requests that anyone wanting takeout call (316) 648-3687.
Cognitive, motor, speech and language, social and emotional development, vision and hearing will be checked for children birth through 5 in Marion Nov. 10.
Screening will be done 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. by Marion County Early Intervention Services. There is no charge for the service.
Peabody-Burns students and Peabody home school students have been invited to attend Peabody’s Good News Club at Peabody Methodist Church.
The Bible club, hosted by nonprofit organization Child Evangalism Fellowship, is scheduled to start at 3:30 p.m. Thursday, and is open to second through fifth grade children. Written permission from parents is required.
Peabody Community Foundation will celebrate giving back to a community Tuesdays in November.
The foundation encourages citizens to send thank-you cards to send thank-you cards Nov. 3 to people who make their community special.
Donations of coats, gloves, hats, and other winter wear that either are new or in good condition are being accepted at The Wringer in Peabody.
A white three-drawer bin for gloves, hats, and scarves will sit next to a rack for donated coats.
CALENDAR OF EVENTS:
Calendar of eventsMEMORIES:
10,
25,
40,
55,
70,
100,
140 years ago
A year ago Teegan Werth didn’t know if she’d ever play sports again, much less volleyball.
She developed a collapsed lung that required two emergency surgeries.
Local volleyball teams rolled into substate competitions Saturday with high expectations, and no team reached greater heights than Hillsboro, who won its championship.
The Trojans entered as the top seed at Inman’s Class 2A and they showed why by dropping just one set the whole day.
The final week of regular season play was a turbulent one for Marion County schools, as three never had the chance to take the field, and Hillsboro missed out on a big win.
Reasons for the cancellation, affecting Marion, Centre, and Goessel, varied from COVID-19 concerns to academic ineligibility.
Freshman runner Levi Allen has been on a tear for Hillsboro all season and he continued that practice during Saturday’s regional race at Berean Academy.
Allen placed third in the boys race with a time of 17:14.6. Other state qualifiers for Hillsboro included Tristan Reed in 10th, Emersyn Funk 2nd in the girls race, and Moriah Jost in 9th.