Governor Jeff Colyer, M.D. was sworn in as the 47th governor of Kansas at 3 p.m. today in the Capitol rotunda in Topeka, accompanied by First Lady Ruth Colyer and their daughters, Serena and Dominique. Governor Colyer attended mass in Hays this morning with his classmates from Thomas More Prep-Marian High School. He then visited West Side Alternative School, which is also in Hays.
Governor Colyer said, “This public school is a unique partnership with the High Plains Mental Health Center that ensures special needs kids have the same opportunities for success as any other Kansan.”
When asked about his inauguration, Governor Colyer said, “Throughout my life, I’ve been blessed with the opportunity to serve in a variety of ways including as a doctor, humanitarian and lieutenant governor. I’m excited to begin serving Kansans in an even greater way today as the governor of this beautiful state.”
Dr. Colyer is a fifth-generation Kansan from Hays who is dedicated to making a difference in people’s lives on the personal, state, national and international level. Over the last 25 years, Dr. Colyer has volunteered, as a surgeon, in dangerous war zones such as Afghanistan, Iraq, the Balkans, Libya, and Africa. He was an International Medical Corps volunteer and the only surgeon in southern Rwanda during the genocide that killed 800,000 people.
Dr. Colyer also served as a White House Fellow under President Ronald Reagan and President George H.W. Bush in international affairs.
Submitted photos. Fort School High School Choral Director Meredith Reid leads a choir rehearsal Tuesday, accompanied by Pat Harry on the Steinway piano.
Fort Scott High School Choral Director Meredith Reid began a fundraising project to restore the school’s 1925 Model L Heirloom Steinway piano last summer.
The cost of the restoration is $30,000, and Reid’s fundraising has secured $15,000 so far.
“We could get rid of this and get another piano of lesser value,” Reid said. “But this is such a gem.”
The piano is not stuck away in a corner somewhere.
“We use it every day,” Reid said. “We have over 100 high school kids in the choir and we have choir every day. These students are who it is impacting.”
“Pat Harry is our accompanist, she is the best of the best,” Reid said. “Really she is more than that. She is a collaborator both musically and educationally. It’s appropriate to give her the best.”
The high school orchestra class also uses the piano and students use it for practice after school, especially at this time of the year, music contest season.
“It’s a testament to our community and our program to have a Steinway,” Reid said.
The Steinway piano has been in the school district for over 40 years.
There is a mystery surrounding the origins of the piano because no one knows who donated it to the school.
“I talked to Allan Drake (the school’s former business manager) to see if he had any file on it,” Reid said. “I then asked the school board office, they couldn’t find any documentation since there is no purchase history.”
“We talked to former music teachers Charlotte and Larry Swaim,” she said. “Larry knew it had been donated when he first started teaching in the 1970s.”
Whatever the origins may be, the importance to the school’s music program is invaluable.
“It’s an acoustic piano, which means it hits the strings inside the instrument which creates the sound,” Reid said.
It’s a “far superior sound” than a digital sound on an electric keyboard, she said. “The (piano)soundboard is solid spruce. You can’t recreate that in something that’s digitalized.”
“There is a lot more nuance for the accompanist,” Reid said.
The school Steinway is American made, with each part being handmade, she said.
“Each (piano) has a serial number,” she said. “They can tell you all the details. Steinway still keeps records of it.”
A piano technician visited the school Friday.
“He said the Steinway brand is created in such a way as to be rebuilt,” she said. “Not all pianos were made that way. The lesser pianos don’t last that long.”
“It seems like we are putting a lot of money into it, but if we buy a lesser brand, we’ll have to replace it because I won’t last as long,” she said.
“We have received grants from the Bourbon County Arts Council, Fort Scott Area Community Foundation, and the City of Fort Scott, she noted. “Currently, we are looking for more support from organizations, businesses or individuals to donate in any amount to the project. The full project will cost $30,000. We now have $15,000 raised and need $15,000 more.”
Reid’s goal is to raise the funds to send the piano to be restored at the end of the school year in May, and “potentially get it back by next Christmas,” she said.
The fine arts are at the heart of our community in Fort Scott, and restoring the Steinway grand piano will continue this legacy for decades to come in both the community and the school, she noted.
A brand new Steinway of this size would cost $78,400, she said.
“We need $30,000 to completely restore our Steinway. It will be playable for another 50 years at least.”
Reid’s phone number is 620.238.0673 or email her at [email protected].
Ben Workman is the new interim director at the Keyhole.
The Keyhole is the first in a series of interviews about the 2018 United Way of Bourbon County grant recipients.
Donations to United Way stay local, according to its brochure, and the organization focusus on education, income and health.
The community is asked to be a part by contributing to employee campaigns at their place of employment, make a one-time donation via email, or donate on-line at http://bit.ly/bourboncountyuw.
Ben Workman is the interim director of the Keyhole, since December 5, 2017.
Workman said the Keyhole is a place to provide Christian-oriented recreation, social and education opportunities for area youth.
“The Keyhole (board) wants the kids in our area to be productive members of society, through Christian values,” Workman said.
“The entertainment side is a draw to the kids,” he said.
“We have goals of youth to respect authority, love each other and love their parents,” Workman said. “That’s the pastor side of me.”
Workman is pastor of Cornerstone Bible Church and also is a current board member of the Keyhole.
Other board members are Dona Bauer, Tim Harper, Judy Hood, Marge Madison, Kenny Felt.
The facility is located across from Fort Scott High School at 1002 S. Main. Phone number is 620-223-4700.
The Keyhole, 1002 S. Main focuses on youth.Hours of the Keyhole.Rental policy of the Keyhole.What the Keyhole offers youth at the facility.
Rental policy of the Keyhole.Hours of the Keyhole.What the Keyhole offers youth at the facility.
Fort Scott Tiger Andrew Callahan will sign and be officially invited to play in the Kansas Shrine Bowl on Feb. 14 at 11:30 am in the Fort Scott High School Media Center.
More Bourbon County families are getting the food and resources they need to be healthy due to a new collaboration between Mercy Hospital Fort Scott and the Crawford County Health Department, which provides Women, Infants and Children (WIC) to Bourbon County.
In October, the Crawford County Health Department partnered with Mercy to bring WIC counseling services for pregnant women and new mothers to the hospital. Personnel from the health department meet with new and ongoing clients the last Wednesday of every month at the hospital.
Additional clinics are held at Buck Run Community Center the first Tuesday and second and third Thursday of each month.
“Since starting the clinic at Mercy, we have seen the number of participants jump from three in October to 23 in December,” said Linda Timme, MS, RDN, LD, CBE, nutrition services coordinator at Crawford County Health Department. “This validates the significant need for continuing WIC services and other services for families in the Bourbon County area.”
The goal of the partnership between Mercy and the WIC clinic is to ensure families have access to supplemental food, nutritional education and other vital health care and social services.
According to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) website, WIC serves 53 percent of all infants born in the United States.
Statistics for Bourbon County demonstrate the importance of offering WIC services to the area residents. For example, the number of babies born at a low-birth-weight (less than 5 pounds, 8 ounces) is on the upswing, despite the national numbers declining.
Additional research by County Health Ranking and Roadmaps show families in Bourbon County are more likely to have limited access to healthy foods and lack a steady and reliable source for food than families in other areas of the country.
The idea of merging WIC with Mercy originated from the Healthy Bourbon County Action Team’s Healthcare Pathways Subcommittee.
“Our focus is to take care of the whole person—including the social determinants of health, said Jody Hoener, LBSW, MBA, Mercy Clinic quality and community benefit liaison. “Before offering the WIC clinic at Mercy, pregnant women at Mercy’s Maternal and Infant Clinic found it difficult to make it to both their prenatal appointment and their WIC appointment due to work schedules and limited time off or finding transportation. We didn’t want these mothers to have to choose between eating healthy food or receiving prenatal care.”
Mercy dietician Sherise Beckham, MS, RD, LD, hopes the collaboration will help moms by connecting them to services in one location.
“We’re hoping Mercy can provide a one-stop-shop for mothers to access great obstetric care, prenatal/postnatal education and all the resources WIC has to offer them,” Beckham said. “Many of the mothers we see in the maternal and infant clinic also participate in WIC so it seemed a natural fit to begin a working relationship between WIC and Mercy. As a dietitian, I hope this will help eliminate barriers for these mothers to access nutrition education. I hope this collaboration will reinforce the importance a healthy diet and lifestyle is for them and their children.”
WIC’s target population is low-income, nutritionally at-risk pregnant women, breastfeeding women, non-breastfeeding postpartum women, infants, and children up to their 5th birthday.
For more information about the monthly WIC clinic at Mercy, contact Jody Hoener at 620-223-7029.
The Golf Course Advisory Board will meet February 1, 2018, at 10:00 a.m. at Woodland Hills Golf Course, 2414 S. Horton. The meeting will take place in the clubhouse. This meeting is open to the public.
Kansas Governor Sam Brownback on Friday issued a proclamation declaring Tuesday, January 30, 2018 a “Day of Prayer and Fasting” in Kansas, and issued the following statement:
“President George Washington, in his 1795 Proclamation for a Day of Public Thanksgiving called on Americans “to acknowledge our many and great obligations to Almighty God and to implore Him to continue and confirm the blessings we experience.””
“I personally feel blessed by the time I have spent serving our great state and would like to observe a time of prayer and fasting before God takes me on to the next part of my journey. I invite all Kansans to join me as we pray for our state and our nation.”
This is Governor Brownback’s final proclamation signed as Governor of Kansas.
