Fort Scott, KS

This weekend’s weather was beautiful and hopefully you were able to attend a long-running Fort Scott celebration of the Pioneer days, skills and trades and, of course, tractor pulling.

Pioneer Harvest Fiesta kicked off Thursday night with a parade and ended around 3pm on Sunday. Activities were planned all weekend and certainly provided much entertainment as well as educational. On display is a strong heritage and tribute to those who work hard in our fields. Unfortunately, many of these skills are a dying craft, given over to urbanization.

Hundreds came from all around to visit the craft fair, flea market, the numerous vendors and to see those old tractors. David McCord, president of the Pioneer Harvest Fiesta, may be the Fiesta’s biggest fan, stated he’s already started working on next year’s Fiesta. Hopeful to bring in more people he’s wanting to bring in new agriculture technologies, such as greenhouses, drip irrigation and alternative power solutions, such as wind power. He also envisions capturing the younger audience with some very creative math and science competitions. The prize is something that even the adults may even want to join in the competition. However, you will have for the official announcement when the details have been worked out.

Many vendors from all around came with a wide variety of wares. Antiques, home-made items, food (including home-made peach ice cream and it was as amazing as it sounds.) Cynthia Files and Cindi Taylor were selling Feista ‘wear.’ Proceeds from those items purchased will go on to help restore the older buildings at the fairgrounds. Thanks to them both for the ‘photo op’ and thank you also for the countless volunteer hours (and many other who are unnamed) who help make the Fiesta possible.

It’s very difficult to cover all the interesting events that happened in a short blog, those of you who couldn’t make it did miss out. However, we have lots of pictures of this weekend for you to view. Make sure and put this on your calendar for next year, the last weekend of September, you won’t be disappointed.

If you have information on an event you think we would be interesting in covering, shoot us an email: [email protected]

FortScott.biz is always looking for more readers to tell about the news and events going on in Fort Scott and the surrounding areas! So…….   we are giving away an iPod Shuffle to one subscriber!  To sign up, all you have to do is to subscribe!  <– Click there or you can click to the “subscribe” button on the right  –>

The contest will run until October 11th, 2014. Here are the rules:

• You have to be subscribed to the list to enter. That means you’ll need to type in your email address and then confirm the subscription.
• You can enter from this link or using the form on the right hand side of the page.
• You’ll need to come to Fort Scott to claim the prize. If you live in Alaska, this might not be cost effective for you.
• The winner will be announced and have their picture posted to the site. This probably isn’t a good contest for people in the witness protection program.
• If you are under 18, you’ll need a guardian to accept it on your behalf.

Fort Scott, KS – This weekend’s weather report calls for mostly sunny skies with highs in the low 80’s, this to tell you why you have no excuses to come and visit the Pioneer Harvest Fiesta. The Fiesta is celebrating 58 years this upcoming weekend. If you head on out this weekend, you won’t be disappointed in all the activity.

The Fiesta kicks off with a parade on Thursday, starting at 6pm. Bob Russell will be the Grand Marshall along with the Sharing Bucket, raising funds for those battling with cancer. The parade will feature antique farm implements and more, on the normal parade route through downtown.

Throughout the event, there will be numerous events, exhibitions and demonstrations. Some of these include rock crushing, horse & tractor pull, wheat thrashing, blacksmith, tractor pull and live music. Also, on the artsy side of life, there will be a quilt show in the Meyers Building, hand-made arts and crafts show and the world famous flea market. All three days are alive with Steam Engines, Blacksmiths, Food and Flea Market Vendors, Drag Saw Demonstrations, Tractors & Gas Engines on Display, Baker Fan Demonstrations. For a complete downloadable schedule, click here.

The $5 admission fee is a small price to pay for the free dinner on Friday night, the collector’s button and to show your support for the local vendors and business. Kids under 12 are free (but they don’t get the cool button).

The organizers are very grateful for the support from their sponsors: Advantage Metals, Atkins Insurance Agency, Bartlesmeyer Jewelry, Big Sugar Lumber, Billiard Hammer Hartman Insurance Inc, Cheney Witt Memorial Chapel, Chicken Annies-Girard, Landmark National Bank, Diehl Banwart Bolton CPAs PA, Fort Scott Livestock, Fort Scott Tribune, Key Industries Inc, KOMB-FM All-Hit 103.9, McDonald’s Restaurant, Medicalodges, Fort Scott, Norris Heating and Air-Conditioning, Rogers Body Shop & Alignment Services, Sekan Printing Company, SGT Group, Shepherd Team Auto Plaza, Sonic Drive-In, Tractor Supply, Union State Bank, Ward/Kraft Inc, WCA.

We hope to see you all out there!

If you have an event you think we may be interested in covering, please send us an email: [email protected]

Fort Scott, KS Living in a community for a long number of years, can make it easy to take for granted some of the components that make a community great. Fort Scott Community College is something we should be proud of because it’s in our backyard, but also because it ranks highly in national standards compared to other community colleges.

Recently, FSCC was ranked among 700 other community colleges and landed in top ten. Historically speaking, FSCC is also the oldest community college in the state of Kansas. But just because you are the oldest, doesn’t simply earn you the right to place among the top 10 schools in the nation.

Three categories were taken into account when comparing the 700 schools. SmartAsset, who aggregated all the data, looked a primarily three categories in the comparison study. These areas where: low-cost education, good return on investment and high success rate (measured by graduation and transfer rate).

“For FSCC to rank the third in graduation rate among the top 10 community colleges in the nation, and to be listed among the top 10 community colleges in the nation with an overall score that takes into account high success rates, high return on investment and low cost of education, for this I would say a celebration and an acknowledgement of the faculty’s sincere and hard efforts is warranted,” said Elie Riachi, Faculty at FSCC.

To read the full story, you can click here. Certainly this is a high achievement and something the community of Fort Scott should be very proud to have a school of this caliber. Great job faculty and staff – keep up the good work!

You may only have a couple of weekend left of good camping weather! Of course, living in Kansas, you may have a couple months of good camping weather left.

Fort Scott and the surrounding area have numerous camping options, one overlooked space is Lake Fort Scott. Lake Fort Scott may not be the best camping area, but there is a great expanse for free day use activities. Fishing and picnicking would most likely be on the top of the list.

Lake Fort Scott has a surface area of 360 acres and is owned and maintained by the City of Fort Scott. It’s located about 2 miles South and 3 miles West of Fort Scott. As you are heading West on Indian Road, there are two entrances. The second entrance will give you access to the majority of the public areas. Much of the lake’s shoreline is developed for housing, but there are plenty of areas to drop a line in.

Lake Fort Scott is mostly known for it’s fishing, especially large flathead and channel catfish. Lake Fort Scott participate in the Community Fisheries Assistance Program. You can learn more about the program by clicking here. What it really means for you is great fishing and no local/city fishing permits. Although you still need a state fishing license.

The day use areas are found on the NorthWest side of the lake. This is also where primitive camping is available for $5 self pay, per night. The view is nice, but don’t expect much anything else at these very primitive sites.

Overall, it’s certainly worth the day trip to visit Lake Fort Scott which is within about 20 minutes of anyone in town!

City of Fort Scott: 620.223.0550

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Ft Scott – Hundreds gathered for the culmination of events on Saturday, September 12th, to pay tribute and remember the fallen heroes who gave their lives in the “war on terror.’ Each life represented by a flag on the parade grounds at Fort Scott, during the “Symbols of Sacrifice” event.

The parade grounds and flags will remain up until September 17th. The event is co-sponsored with Fort Scott National Historic Site (FSNHS, Friends of FSNHS, Mercy Hospital, and the Symbols of Sacrifice Committee. The scheduled kicked off at 7am with the reading of the Roll of the Honored Dead, highlighted with a Remembrance Ceremony at noon, concluding with an American Military Sacrifices through the Years timeline. US Army (Retired) Lt Colonel Peter Schifferle, PhD, Professor of History at the Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, provided keynote remarks.

Members of the Kansas City St. Andrew’s Pipes and Drums ushered the observers to the parade field at the conclusion of the ceremony, playing Amazing Grace.

For the complete schedule you can view it here. Visitor Information 620-223-0310

If you know of a story you think we would be interested in covering, shoot us an email: [email protected]