The Lowell Milken Center for Unsung Heroes can be a place for local clubs, classes and organizations to get a facility tour and have their scheduled meetings.
“Groups can schedule tours at the Lowell Milken Center for Unsung Heroes and also use our conference room if they need to have a meeting as well,” Joyce Davenport, administrative assistant, said. “In addition, there is a kitchenette available so refreshments can be served during their meetings in the conference room. There is also a large screen that can be used for media.”
It can accommodate up to 45 people, Davenport said.
The LMC needs clubs/classes/organizations to schedule two weeks prior, so as not to conflict with previously scheduled events.
The room is huge, with a glass-faced southern view of the greenspace next door to the building.
Contact the LMC at 620-223-1312 between 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday.
One group that has used the Lowell Milken Center for Unsung Heroes is the Fort Scott Chamber of Commerce seen here at a weekly coffee event. The conference room is adjacent to the unsung heroes exhibition space.
Denise Duncan saw a need for a Yoga class in Fort Scott and is filling that need.
“Since the Shiney Yoga Studio shut down, I saw a great need,” she said. “There is one with private classes but I wanted a place where everyone could come do yoga.”
Duncan has secured a Yoga instructor, Rachel Henderson of Iola.
“I met this couple from Iola and she was teaching (Yoga) and I asked if she would teach a class in Fort Scott,” Duncan said.
Duncan is the owner of the Beaux Art Center and is using a part of the building for the Yoga class.
“We meet at our loft apartment upstairs, 102 S. National Ave,” she said.
Beaux Art Cente, 102 S. National Avenue.
The classes are held on Tuesdays at 6 p.m.
The cost is $10 per class.
“It is for young/old, chubby/skinny, beginner/pro,” Duncan said. “You can go at your own pace.”
Participants should wear loose clothing or yoga pants, and bring their own Yoga/exerecise mat, she said.
The north wing of the Bourbon County Courthouse has been reconfigured to house the county clerk, treasurer and commission offices.
The Bourbon County Commission’s Economic Development Director has launched a survey to gather information from business owners to develop a strategic plan.
The survey began March 1 and will end April 19, 2019.
“Our goal at the county is to make Bourbon County the place people want to live, work, and play,” said Jody Hoenor, the county’s economic director. “By increasing our population we can lessen the weight of taxes on the individual with more citizens sharing these costs. By being strategic in our planning and involving the community in the process, we believe we will be able to lower taxes.”
The survey is sponsored by the Bourbon County Commission, the Kansas Department of Commerce, with assistance from the Fort Scott Area Chamber of Commerce, Live Local Bourbon County and the Healthy Bourbon County Action Team.
Survey results will inform the county on how to develop an economic development strategic plan and process.
” We will develop measurable goals with actionable items and report progress to the community through several communication channels,” she said.
“Like any other community, there will be many opportunities that will be identified in the survey,” Hoenor said. ” We do not have the capacity or resources to address every single issue. Through a transparent process of gathering community input through both a community perception and business retention and expansion survey, soliciting feedback from focus groups all over the county, and analyzing primary and secondary data we will be able to articulate how the priorities in the strategic plan were identified and determined by Bourbon County citizens years from now.”
The target people for the Business Retention and Expansion Survey, is Bourbon County business owners, CEO’s, and upper management, she said.
“That is everything from at home, e-commerce, farmers, ranchers, long term businesses, to our new healthcare providers,” Hoenor said.
She listed the objectives of the survey as:
“Obtain a source of primary data to develop a measurable county-wide economic development plan.
Aggregated regional survey results will be used to inform regional strategic planning with the Southeast Kansas Regional Planning Commission.
Voices of business owners will be used to participate in the process of improving the business climate, validate local needs, and advocate for regional, state, and federal resources.
Build and maintain strong relationships with businesses.
Develop a better understanding of the concerns, problems and opportunities of businesses in the area and leverage perceived strengths with perceived barriers within the community.
Confidentiality: Information will be protected closely so no one will be able to connect responses and any other information that identifies businesses. Responses will be combined with those of other firms to form an overall aggregate result in percentages, sums, or averages at the county and regional levels.
Final Report: A copy of the summary of findings will be available to all firms that participate in the survey.”
Jody Hoenor, Bourbon County Economic Director.
Interested survey respondents should contact Hoenor at [email protected] for a link to complete the survey.
Hoener’s office is located at 210 S National Ave., Fort Scott, KS 66701 and she can be reached at 620-223-3800 or 620-215-5725 Mobile or www.bourboncountyks.org
Randy Cason, Ascension Via Christi Hospital President speaks at the grand opening of the Fort Scott Emergency Department on Feb. 28.
A ceremony of speeches, prayers, cookies and punch, and tours of the new Ascension Via Christi Emergency Department took place in the former cafeteria of Mercy Hospital on Feb. 28.
Ascension Via Christi assumed operations of the closed Mercy Hospital Emergency Department on Feb. 1, 2019.
On Feb. 18, the new department began operations in Fort Scott.
The grand opening and ribbon cutting ceremony was the celebration of the emergency department opening.
Randy Cason, president of Ascension Via Christi in Pittsburg said it “was no small feat to open up an emergency department and lab services” and acknowledged the help of the Mercy Hospital administration team and others (a city/county collaboration) who “worked hard to make sure health care will move forward in our community. We understand the need.”
“We opened on the 18th at 7 a.m. and we had our first patient at 7:15 a.m.,” Cason said. “It’s been 24/7 service since then.”
“It’s the most mission based thing we have done,” he said. “I am proud of our team pulling it together.”
In addition to the move to Fort Scott, Via Christi had a name change, “a unified brand move” Cason said. “On Feb. 14, we officially became Ascension Via Christi.”
There are 40 employees at Fort Scott, including emergency, radiology and laboratory services, said Michelle Kennedy, Ascension Via Christi Senior Marketing Specialist.
“We worked hard to see the former employees staying on,” Kennedy said.
The operation of the emergency department will be like any other, she said. “We’ll put patients in categories and the level of care they need.”
“Depending on the urgency, they would be stabilized and transported to another facility for advanced care.”
The facility chosen would depend on hospital availability and the condition of the patient, Kennedy said.
Some of the 40 employees of Ascension Via Christi at Fort Scott. Back row, left to right: Jessica Cobb, Kayla Stewart, Adrienne Kellenberger, Holly Ryan, Barbara Dunlap, Stephanie Holtz. Front row L to R: Naomi powers, Bill Watkins, Brooke Newell, Melissa Wescoat, Jennifer Meadows, Cheryl Koppa.The outside entrance, on the south side, to the Ascension Via Christi Emergency Department.Dr. Tim Stebbins, medical director of the Ascension Via Christi Emergency Department in both Pittsburg and Fort Scott, speaking at the grand opening of the Fort Scott ER on Feb. 28.Ascension Via Christi Hospital has imaging and laboratory services at the former Mercy Hospital building at 401 Woodland Hills, Fort Scott.Fort Scott Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Lindsay Madison speaks during the grand opening and ribbon cutting for the emergency room. Also speaking from Fort Scott were City Manager Dave Martin, Mayor Jeanne Parker, and Father Yancey Burgess (pastor at Mary Queen Of Angels-Fort Scott), who prayed a blessing for the emergency department.The Ascension Via Christi Emergency Department had a ribbon-cutting ceremony at the reception area on Feb. 28, including staff and administration and local city dignitaries.From left: Tawny Sandifer, Ascension Via Christi Chief Nursing Office, and project leader for the Fort Scott Emergency Department; Naomi Powers, Director of the Emergency Department in Fort Scott and Pittsburg; Jessica Cobb, RN Nursing Manager, Fort Scott and Pittsburg; Kayla Stewart, RN Coordinator Clinical Program.Natalie Snyder, RN; Kristi Harbit, RN and Cheryl Koppa, RN, all of Fort Scott, man the emergency department nurses station the day of the grand opening of the Ascension Via Christi Emergency Room, Feb. 28. All of the full-time nurses are local, said Ascension Via Christi Manager of Patient Access, Jennifer Meadows. The emergency department interior “looks pretty much the same,” Meadows said.
Over the past 12 years, Tiffiny Durham has worked many different jobs, in many different locations throughout the United States.
These jobs range from a retreat hostess for Outlaw Ranch in South Dakota, a convenience store clerk in Nebraska, a construction worker in Nebraska, a pine beetle tree marker in the Blackhills of South Dakota among others.
“One might call me a wanderer, as I move from place to place,” Durham said. “It is in these places though, that God has used me to provide a smile for someone having a rough day, or to be that ray of sunshine in a darkening and desperate world.”
Because of her current job, she often works on Sundays, so attending church is difficult.
But Durham has been involved in Family Life Assembly of God in Pittsburg, who have a small group Bible study in Fort Scott on Thursday evenings.
She serves on Wednesday evenings at that church, teaching Bible lessons to the children, she said.
Recently Durham feels God has provided her an opportunity for Christian mission work.
“Within this past year, my heart has begun to really change and I am being pulled in a completely different direction: ministry,” she said.
An important scripture verse for her is Proverbs 3: 5-6 “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understandings. In all your ways acknowledge and he will make your path straight.”
“That scripture is my life verse,” she said. “God gave it to me in college as I got to know Him and have a personal relationship with Him.”
“God has placed me in places where I have been the only believer (in Jesus),” Durham said. “Wherever he puts me, he gave me that verse to let me know I can trust Him, no matter what situation I’m in.”
Trusting in God, she believes God has given her the next adventure; The World Race through Adventures in Missions.
To learn more about Adventures in Missions, click below:
“Starting in June of 2019, God will be using my gifts to provide hope and a ray of sunshine in some of the darkest, poorest parts of the world,” she said. “This program is unique because it is not only a mission trip but a chance to allow God to work through me and help me to grow deeper in my walk with God.”
She will travel with a team to Guatemala, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Morocco, Ethiopia, Djibouti, India, Nepal, Myanmar, Thailand, and Indonesia.
“We will work in churches and ministries within local communities to preach the Gospel, plant God’s word, minister to women and children trapped in the cycle of prostitution and human trafficking, working in orphanages, and provide help where needed,” she said.
Durham is fundraising for this mission trip and she asks for prayer support.
Durham is having a family game night at the First Presbyterian Church on March 22 from 6 to 8 p.m.
“It will be a fun family evening,” she said. “Bring and stay with your kids. You have 15 minutes to try a family game, then a buzzer will ring and you move to the next game.”
There will be a silent auction which will be the fundraiser for Durham.
The Redfield City Council. Photo by Jody Hoenor. From left: Pam Speer, Deputy City Clerk; Wilma Graham, Council; L.D. Morrison, Council; Michael Beerbower, Council; Ed Guss, Mayor; John Speer, Treasurer; Kirby Martin, Council; and Beth Guss, Acting City Clerk.
Redfield’s City Council is working to improve their town.
One of the ways to improve is the way the council is elected.
“We will have elections every two years, like everyone, but not everybody running for office at the same time,” said Beth Guss, acting Redfield City Clerk.
“When my husband (Ed Guss) took office, everyone but Wilma Graham was new, and nobody had known what to do,” she said.
They visited with neighboring Uniontown Mayor Larry Jurgensen and City Clerk Sally Johnson about the issue and were told about staggering the election so all are not new members at the same time, she said.
Following protocol, the City of Redfield published the proposed changes in the Fort Scott Tribune on Feb. 9 and 16.
This ordinance will take effect 61 days following the final publication.
An election of city council members will take place this November 2019, with succeeding elections every two years for the positions of those whose terms have expired.
This year Wilma Graham and L.D. Morrison will be up for re-election.
“Anyone can register to run,” Guss said.
Other members of the council in addition to these two are Clarence (Ed) Guss, Kirby Martin, and Michael Beerbower.
Beth Guss said she is the acting city clerk until a replacement can be found.
It is difficult to find citizens who will serve in a community of Redfield’s size, 157 people, “not counting the dogs,” she said with a laugh. The town is located in the middle of Bourbon County.
“We’ve got small-town issues, like all small towns,” she said. “We are working to make our town better.”
Fort Scott’s First Southern Baptist Pastor James Collins stands near the sign on the church property at 1818 S. Main. The congregation will be breaking ground on a new Family Life Center in April-May.
A local church is expanding its’ facility because the congregation is growing.
First Southern Baptist Church, 1818 S. Main, is building a new building east of the present one, which will be the FSBC Family Life Center.
James Collins is in his third year of pastoring the church, and the church has grown from 12 to 130 people, he said.
“The church was small,” Collins said. “We’ve had tremendous growth.”
“I taught on the Passover last year,” he said. “We didn’t have enough room, so we decided to expand.”
The church’s childrens program includes AWANA on Wednesday evenings.
“We have a big children’s program, 80 kids on Wednesday night,” Collins said. “We needed a place for them.”
AWANA stands for Approved Workman Are Not Ashamed, from 2 Timothy 2:15 in the Bible.
In addition to that growth, the Cornerstone Bible Church, at 6th and Horton, merged with FSBC after its’ pastor left.
Ben Workman, the former pastor of Cornerstone Bible Church, was called to a church in Oklahoma, his home state.
“They wanted to get back closer to home,” Collins said of Workman and his family. “He loved it here but wanted to go and do that.”
That congregation asked Collins to fill in preaching and help look for a new pastor.
After a few months, when the pastor-less congregation felt like God was working in the First Southern Baptist Church congregation, “They wanted to be a part of where God was working,” Collins said.
Approximately 25 people came from the Cornerstone congregation to the First Southern Baptist congregation, Collins said.
An expansion was in the works.
The new building will be two-stories and feature a multi-purpose room, classrooms and a kitchen and measure approximately 80 feet by 120 feet. The multi-purpose room will be used as a fellowship hall and gym. It will be built on the east side of the current church building.
Groundbreaking will be in the spring.
“April or May, hopefully,” he said.
“We are not going into debt,” Collins said. “We are doing the building in phases.”
Fundraisers have been scheduled for the year including a recent pancake feed and the preparing and delivering of a luncheon meal to Peerless Products. In May the church will be part of the town-wide rummage sale and there will be a fundraiser at the Bourbon County Fair in July, he said.
Collins believes God led him to Fort Scott.
“I was in the Army as a chaplain,” he said. “I was retiring. I was being considered for a big church in Oklahoma. We were on vacation and a friend said ‘You need to check out Fort Scott.'”
The pulpit committee asked him to come and preach.
“When we got to the city limits of Fort Scott, I felt like the Lord spoke to my heart ‘This is where you are coming’,” Collins said. “I always had a heart to be a small town pastor.”
“The first year and the last year of our four-year-old’s life I had (served in the Army) in Iraq,” Collins said. “It hit me. I wanted to go where I could close the door and take my kids fishing. That was a little bit of my motivation…a slower pace.”
“We are pouring our lives into the community,” Collins said. “We love being a part of Fort Scott.”
He and his wife Amanda have three children: Abby, 14 years old; Tim, 12 and John, 8.
Kirk Sharp, director of the Gordon Parks Museum at Fort Scott Community College shared a link about the 2016 Gordon Parks Choice of Weapons Award winner, Kevin Willmott.
Willmott is a KU Professor and filmmaker that won an Oscar on Feb. 24 for Best Adapted Screenplay for the movie ‘BlacKkKlansman’ that he co-wrote with Spike Lee, Charlie Wachtel & David Rabinowitz.
Photo: top row: left to right: Ashton Nave, Dalton Womeldorff, Grant Feagins Middle Row: L-R Jonie Antonio, Audra McFarland, Jakob Slinkard, Jorden Willard, Landon Doherty, Jade Bailey, Karina Kantilal, Takia Page, Natalie Eaton, Brooklyn Miller. Bottom Row: Reaghn Dowell, Shekhar Gugnani, Thade Yates, Elizabeth Ngatia, Brooklyn Lyons, Rebekah Sweyko, Hunter Adamson, Neil Gugnani, Zach Mundhenke
The Fort Scott High School Talking Tigers Forensics Team competed on February 23 and took first place in the sweeps, with 202 points. The event was held at Pittsburg High School.
“For not being able to go out in over a month due to bad weather, this team really did an outstanding job!,” said forensics teacher, Angella Curran.
The following students placed:
(* indicates state qualifiers)
*Brooklyn Lyons placed 4th in prose and 1st in Program Oral Interpretation
*Elizabeth Ngatia place 2nd in poetry and 1st in Original Oratory.
*Hunter Adamson placed 2nd in Dramatic Interpretation.
*Karina Kantilal placed 2nd in Program Oral Interpretation.
*Rebekah Sweyko placed 1st in impromptu and 2nd in Domestic Extemporaneous Speaking.
*Shekhar Gugnani placed 1st in Foreign Extemporaneous.
*Reaghn Dowell placed 2nd in Domestic Extemporaneous Speaking.
Neil Gugnani placed 6th in Impromptu.
Karina Kantilal and Audra McFarland placed 5th in duo.
Thade Yates placed 3rd in Info 10.
Audra McFarland placed 6th in Dramatic Interpretation.
Dalton Womeldorff placed 5th in Domestic Extemporaneous Speaking.
Kale Nelson and staff of the State Farm Insurance Agency. From left Chalia Swank, licensed representative; Nelson, agent, and Rebecca Ballou, receptionist. Not pictured is Sharon Campbell who works part-time as a customer service representative.
State Farm Insurance Agent Kale Nelson has moved to a more easily accessed location.
“It’s one of the best locations in Fort Scott, being at the intersection of 69 Hwy. and South National Avenue,” Nelson said.
“There is a tremendous amount of traffic, he said.
The new address is 1805 S. National, in a building that is still in the process of being totally renovated.
Today, the parking lot of the property was being graveled for customers, and they are still in the process of settling in the building, Nelson said.
Demolition of the interior of the building started last summer and Nelson and his staff moved on February 19, he said.
“I’m thrilled with the way it turned out,” Nelson said. “There is a little more work to do.”
Besides purchasing his own business property, investing in the community was a goal Nelson had in the renovation.
“It was important to make an investment in a historical building,” Nelson said.
“We’ve had a lot of people share stories about the property (and its many transformations),” he said.
Nelson has been a State Farm Agent since 2005.
Working with people drives him, he said.
“I really enjoy helping people put their protection plans in place….life, some health, home, auto, business, bank… a large range of offerings. Help them overcome what deficiencies they have with the best value for their dollar,” he said.
Hours of operation for the business is 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to noon on Saturday and evenings by appointment.
“The Saturday morning hours are for people who can’t get in during the week,” Nelson said
Attorney Justin Meeks will also have an office on the property when his section of the building is completed.
The new State Farm Insurance office is located at 1805 S. National, this photo was taken a few weeks ago. The building is located at the intersection of 69 Hwy. and South National Avenue.
