There was a good turn out for the Christmas Parade Tuesday night. The event featured a number of floats followed by the lighting of the downtown Christmas tree and a living Nativity presentation by Bethel Church.
A number of organizations were setup offering hot chocolate and downtown stores stayed open late to provide shopping opportunities for the crowd.
The Free Holiday Supper will be served at 5:00 PM, Saturday, December 10 in Arcadia Community Center. Open Door Mission and Christian Church are the Hosts. Please take a non-perishable food item to fill Christmas Baskets for Holiday Giving. There will be door prizes and music by Janelle Bunny.
The Bearcat Cafe in Arcadia is open Tuesday thru Saturday 7AM-5PM.
Lynetta Fisher was pleased to hear the birthday song dedicated to her Sunday morning as she gave her offering. Among those present were her brothers Zack & Nick Younge in Arcadia Christian Church.
Walter & Donnette Parrish came from Houston, Texas to visit his parents, John & Vera Parrish in Pittsburg and other family relatives for Thanksgiving Holiday.
Bill, Delton Jr, Tom and Allen Watt sons and two grandsons, Douglas & Joseph Watt visited Mae Watt for Thanksgiving Day . Bill’s Great Grandson, Michael was recently married in St. Louis.
Cause for a great Thanksgiving Holiday when Landen Walrod shot a 10 point Buck. Sunday November 27, Charles & Willa Cable celebrated Thanksgiving with Bob & Lori Cable,Sam and Nate in Lamar, Mo. Guests were Seth Cable & friend Paige from Pittsburg.Then Thanksgiving Day, Charles & Willa celebrated with Cherri & Paul Walrod family from Eudora and Mable Tacilet from Ft. Scott.
Arcadia residents want to send a thank-you to Senator Jerry Moran, Republican from Kansas who is working to help save Arcadia Post Office and other small towns’ mail service.
The day Class # 10 met in Arcadia Christian Church bungalow, November 16, 2011, Arcadia welcomed the first snow of the season.By the time to return home, it had all disappeared. Members are asking folks to please save the UPC’s from Best Choice groceries. It is to raise funds in order to help the JOY and Class #10 do for others especially during this season and throughout the year.
Bill Dobbins, Frontenac, fell in his home on Saturday, Nov 26. He is now in Via Christi Hospital, Pittsburg facing surgery for a broken hip. His friend, Charles Corporon, went to see about him when Bill did not answer his phone. EMS and Police soon had the patient in the hospital.
Ora Lee Phoebe Foster Morey, 80, died Wednesday, Nov 23, 2011 in Via Christi Hospital in Pittsburg. She was born in Arcadia to Richard & Anna Mae (Bennett) Foster and was married to Jerome Morey in 1956. She attended Arcadia Grade School and a graduate of Pittsburh High School. Many of us old timers remember her well as a little girl in Arcadia.
Ron Wolf of rural Garland suffered a heart attack last week and was rushed to a KC Hospital.
During Thanksgiving week, Shirley Applegarth of Tulsa and her sister, Mildred Beitzel and daughter Linda & Mike Chase were house guests of Mary V. Shead. They flew back to their homes in Washington State the weekend after attending a large family reunion dinner held in the Farm home of Vickie & Larry Shead. Those signing the register on Thanksgiving Day numbered seventy-three. Many of the cousins and little ones stayed until after church the following Sunday.
On a recent week, Ralph & Cindy Shead, Phil & Susan Casey and Emily, and Doug Reed went to Atlanta, Georgia to attend the National Missionary Convention as delegates on behalf of LATM, Joplin.
The Larkin Witt Financial Group will be holding an open house from 10 to 2 on Thursday December 1st. Their offices are located at 207 E. 1st Street. The public is welcome and refreshments will be served.
The Lyons Twin Mansions started out as a single mansion catering to bed and breakfast clients, but has evolved into a boutique hotel. Pat Lyons said that the younger generation of customers prefer the freedom of choosing when, what and if they eat. The traditional approach of making one big breakfast for all the guests didn’t work well with the changes in the market. This required a shift away from serving a family style breakfast to a restaurant oriented service and led to the opening of a restaurant in the South mansion.
See below to enter the Lyon’s Twin Mansion Month of Brunch Giveaway!
Not only does this provide guests with an experience more in line with the needs of todays visitors, but it also provides locals with a wonderful place to eat breakfast and lunch in a unique historic setting.
The restaurant is open for walk in service 9 to 2 Tuesday through Friday and 8 to 2 on the weekends and there is no need to make reservations. The full-service lounge is open from 5 to 8pm on Thursdays and Fridays and while there is no kitchen service during those hours, customers are welcome to carry in food.
The kitchen is run by Nate Lyons and Pete Collins while Marianne Avett serves the tables. The setting is designed to be quiet and relaxing and every item on the menu is priced below $10 (sunrise menu, midday menu). Miss Pat said that the goal was to provide great food at a reasonable price and to get people to come and enjoy a comfortable environment that encourages visitors to stay and visit.
The back room of the restaurant has a pool table setup and ready for a game. Across the hall from the main dining area in the library is a large screen television that Miss Pat says the kids enjoy when parents want to stay and talk for awhile.
For business people, the large tables and quiet environment in the dining area make it an idea place to talk with clients or just get out of the office for a meeting. For larger groups or when more privacy is necessary, there are meeting areas available. Miss Pat said, “Our meeting space is free if you dine with us.” Additionally both mansions have wireless internet access, large screens, digital projectors, and phone conference equipment available for use.
The Lyons Mansions also offers free tours and Miss Pat said that it is a great place for locals to bring visiting out of towners who are interested in hearing about some of the history in the area.
The Lyon’s Twin Mansion Restaurant is offering a special give away to subscribers of FortScott.Biz. They are offering a “Month of Brunch.” The winner will be chosen from subscribers to FortScott.Biz and will be given coupons for a weekly brunch meal at the restaurant for the month (taxes not included). So make sure you signup by clicking here if you don’t already get our emails.
We’ll draw a winner in a week. Be sure to watch your emails because you’ll have 48 hours to respond before we select a new winner.
The Commissioners and Marty discussed the roads. There was some discussion with the County Attorney about an antenna to be mounted on a water tower and how to handle the electrical meter.
The commissioners were served some papers regarding a civil suit with the sewer district. The County Attorney said that the lawsuit revolves around actions taken by the commissioners under 1927A 01.
At 10am Allen Warren moved $46,079 to purchase a generate from Cummings. The generator will be used to power the rock conveyers at the quarry. Chairman Endicott seconded it. A second motion was made to finance the purchase at a rate of 4% through Citizen’s Bank. Barry tractor offered a rate of 3.99%, but the Commissioners decided that with such a small difference, they should keep the note local.
There was some discussion about the county vacation schedule. Since New Years day falls on a Sunday, the County should be closed Monday, January 2nd. Instead New Years Day was listed as being taken on December 27th — the day after Christmas.
Marty Rivers with Eagle Fuels wants to buy the convenience stores at either end of town. He asked to visit with the commissioners about the taxes. He talked to the people who had the first mortgage and Tom Hill. He wondered if he paid a lump sum payment if some of the taxes could be dropped. Commissioner Warren said that the only way the Commissioners could drop some of the property taxes or interest is if the bankruptcy court works out an agreement with the commissioners.
One of the pieces of property is 2191 Soldier Rd. It has unpaid taxes back to 2006. Mr. Rivers asked if he could pay part of the taxes to keep them from going to the tax sale. He was informed that the current tax sale only covers property that is delinquent from 2007 and prior so if he were to pay the taxes through 2007, the properties would be pulled off the tax sale. It was mentioned that only homestead properties can be partially redeemed and once a non-homestead property was delinquent and sold to the county, the entire amount of due taxes must be paid to keep it off of the sale.
Mr. Rivers was told that from a procedural standpoint, paying through 2007 would buy him some time before the properties that were delinquent from 2008 could be sold.
Mr. Rivers bought the gas station near Frontenac and leased it out to a local person who has been running it. He hopes to do the same thing with the stations in Fort Scott.
Keith Jeffers wants to take County Attorney Terri Johnson’s parking spot and put in a storage shed. The shed will be paid for by a grant for emergency preparedness. He is working on getting a grant to put in a generator. The Commissioner’s approved to buy the building and put it on Terri Johnson’s parking lot. They plan to assign her a different spot.
James Maine and Kimberly Alexander want to setup an account at the dump. They have a contract to do demolition on several trailers at the KOA camp from Jeff Michael. They want to be able take the debris to the dump and use the money from selling the scrap metal to pay the dump fees. The commissioners decided to give them a small amount of credit with the dump so they can proceed.
In 2008 Kristi Banwart started making hair bows for her daughter and even sold a few of them at craft shows. She soon found that there was a big need for quality ribbons and other supplies for her projects. Eventually she purchased a large supply of good ribbon, but it was much more than she could use on her own. After listing for sale online, she found there were a lot of people looking for the same thing and the ribbon sold quickly.
There are probably thousands of hairbow makers across the US, who have run into the same problems locating good ribbon making supplies. Most people just stop at this point and make do with what they can get, but Kristi’s entrepreneurial streak kicked in. She began researching global suppliers and looking for manufacturers who could make high quality ribbon.
Finally she sat down with her husband, Trent, and asked, “How much do we have on our home equity line of credit?” And that is how Hairbow Center was started.
With the line of credit, the Banwarts were able to order a shipping container full of high quality grosgrain ribbon, hair clips, and all the other supplies that you need to make hair bows.
As the first container crossed the ocean on its way to Fort Scott, Trent mentally calculated how long it would take to sell the inventory based the bulk products they were splitting up and selling. The answer was measured in decades.
When it arrived, the inventory filled their garage. With an online webstore to sell the product, sales exploded. People all over the world discovered that www.hairbowcenter.com in Fort Scott Kansas was the place to go for quality ribbon and quick shipments.
Trent didn’t have to worry about his garage being stuck with the original inventory, but it wasn’t long before the garage couldn’t fit all the product they needed to inventory.
Eventually they built a warehouse on the East side of Fort Scott. They now have 7 employees working out of the 6,500 square foot, high efficiency facility where they ship an average of 100 orders each day and maintain an inventory of over 3,000 items.
The Hairbow Center is now creating ribbon with custom printed designs and even a custom line of specialty ruffled ribbon. So some of the products shipped from their warehouse aren’t available anywhere else in the world except Fort Scott.
Rural Kansas isn’t usually the first place businesses think of to build a large online business, but Haribow Center is finding a lot of advantages in Bourbon County. Land, electricity, construction and labor are all relatively inexpensive. By selling on the Internet, the Banwarts are able to stay a part of the community they love while tapping into a global demand for their products.
Over a decade ago Mercy had a picnic in the park. I recently found a bunch of photographs I had taken of the event and thought some people in Fort Scott, might enjoy seeing them.
Click on any of the small images below to the larger image. Clicking on the larger image will take you to the next photo in the list. If you recognize someone, please consider emailing them a link or sharing it with them on Facebook. Also don’t hesitate to leave a message in the comments on this post or the individual pictures.
There was a ribbon cutting ceremony for the new Edward Jones office today at noon. Approximately 35 people attended the event. Jamie Armstrong (Financial Advisor) and Tedena Tucker (Branch Office Administrator) will both be working in the new location at 1713 S. National Suite B. The office is right next to subway in a section of the building that used to be the Movie Gallery.
Edward Jones provides financial services to nearly 7 million clients in the United States and Canada.
The only person listed on the agenda at the start of the meeting was Marty giving the road report at 9 am and opening sealed bids for a generator at 10 am.
The Slick Rock Bridge project is going to incur an expense of $167,000. The $167,000 will be reimbursed by the Kansas T-Works program. However, the county needs to come up with the $167,000 payment to get the work done before the county can be reimbursed. The commissioners and the clerk determined that there was enough money available.
The current timeline looks like the bridge will take 5 months to build.
One of the county high loaders is using over a gallon of oil each day. It will cost $3,895 in parts to do a rebuild on the engine if the county does it themselves. A new engine would cost $20,200. The commissioners looked over different quotes and options. There was quite a bit of discussion regarding what would be most cost effective.
A citizen called in to ask how to go about protesting their taxes. Commissioner Warren conferred with the Clerk and told them they would need to speak with the Treasurer’s department who would help them setup a review with the county appraiser.
A citizen came in and asked about who is responsible for maintaining a fence between property when one piece of the property is in the CRP program. The commissioners said there is a $7.50 charge per commissioners to do a “fence viewing” where the Commissioners will come out and meet with both owners and then decree which owner is responsible for which part of the fence.
There was some discussion about how property boundaries works. Commissioner Coleman said that if you discover your neighbor has built a fence that is on your property, you have 15 years from the time it was discovered to correct the problem. Otherwise the fence becomes the new property line.
The citizen had to pick which two commissioners he wanted to have view the fence. Commissioner Coleman suggested that he choose Commissioner Warren and Chairman Endicott–even though that meant he would forgo the lucrative $7.50 payment for his service.
There was a bid opening at 10 am for a generator. Commissioner Endicott had five sealed bids. They ranged from $46,079 to $92,500. The Commissioners decided to wait to review the bids before awarding the contract.
Kansas Senator Bob Marshall came in at 10:00 to see what was going on and see what they though of the economic forum in Iola yesterday.
He wanted to talk about citizen Gary Harper who was concerned that his acreage has changed due to the GPS and the assessor process, but there has been no change to the deed. Senator Marshall said that if the assessed acreage changed, it needs to be changed on the deed. Mr Harper joined the conversation and Judy Orr was asked to come up to discuss the issue.
Senator Marshall asked whether or not GPS had been approved to be used for appraisals. Mr. Harper said that he had a 4.5 acre piece of property that has grown to 5.7 acres according to the appraiser’s office.
Senator Marshall pointed out that people can end up paying taxes on their property for years, but when they go to sell it, they can only sell it for the amount on the deed.
Shane Walker (Bourbon County GIS Coordinator) explained that the older maps were not “ortho rectified”. This means they didn’t take into consideration the curves in the land. So the amount of land may change because the property isn’t flat. He said that sometimes a 1,000 foot line on the old maps would turn into a 1,021 foot line.
Mr. Walker said that Mr. Harper’s property change had to do with the way the old maps were made and that instead of measuring to the middle of the river, the old maps just went to the edge of the bank. He also said that years ago land was recorded in an “Atlas Book” and in some cases what was actually sold was very different from what the person thought they had. So the “Atlas Book” may have recorded the land as 80 acres, but in some cases it might have only been 60 acres.
After Mr. Harper and Senator Marshall left Judy Orr (County Appraiser) came in with the deed in question. She read it and most of the measurements in the legal description said things like “about 20 rods more or less.” Shane Walker said that he had seen some descriptions that said, “to the big rock in the middle of the river” or even “to the big oak tree.”
Keith Jefferies (Bourbon County Emergency Manager) talked about some of the emergency preparedness that is taking place. He also said that there is a red flag fire warning today and has placed several public service announcements letting people know that they should not burn. They are working on organizing a deployable mortuary system staffed with volunteers.
Susan Quick said that Dan Meara (the attorney handling the tax sale) should have everything ready by December 1st. Ms. Quick said that Mr. Meara had some cases ready to file, but she had told individuals that they had until December 1st to pay their taxes. She also said it wasn’t fair if some people had the foreclosures started before others because it would give some people more time to pay.
The Commissioners said that they had planned on the lawsuits being filed in groups so they wouldn’t be done all at the same time. The Treasurer said that they had always filed them all together. She feels that the Commissioners have “kicked the rug out from under her” in a number of things and asked the Commissioners to wait until the December 1st date to keep things fair and consistent with what the public had been told by the Treasurer’s office.
She said that waiting until December 1st is legal and that is the way they have always done it. Commissioner Allen said that “this is a new day.” It was brought up that the tax statements said to pay Bourbon County Treasurer Susan Quick. The Commissioners asked why this had changed. Ms. Quick said that this is how it has always been and asked,”Do you think I’m stupid enough to take the checks that are made out to me and cash them?”
She said she would change it next year to just say Bourbon County Treasurer.
Chairman Endicott said he would talk with Mr. Meara and ask him to hold off on filing anything until December 1st.
The Treasurer said that she has collected $58,938 in back taxes since October. She also said that the properties that are not homesteads can be sold one year sooner than the other properties. Joanne Long said that in the past they have only sold properties after 3 years in order to avoid difficulties in determining what is homestead and what is not.
The Treasurer said that all the money in escrow accounts from the payment plan has been applied to the taxes. Commissioner Warren asked if anyone was still on the payment plan. Ms. Quick said that it had been discontinued and no one is currently on the payment plan. Ms. Quick said, no one is being held off of the tax sale.
She gave the commissioners a list of $231,000 in taxes from properties from 2008. They asked for the same report for 2009 and 2010.
So November 30th is the last day people can pay taxes to avoid being on the tax sale. After this point, the property cannot be partially redeemed and the entire amount of unpaid taxes must be paid to prevent a sale.
The “extension” category goes to the Southwind Extension District which appears to fund some of the local Extension Offices. In the past, the extension office was only funded by the state and wasn’t paid for by a separate local levy, but now it is.
The “other” category is what funds Fort Scott Community College. Sometimes in the past this was labelled as FSCC. The change was due to differences in the way the computer systems handle creating the statements.
The County Treasurer’s office has Payment Under Protest Applications. These allow you to pay first half of the property taxes. The protest must be filed by December 20th. The County Appraiser will schedule an informal hearing. After the hearing the County Appraise will notify the citizen of the results. If the citizen wants to further contest the appraisal, they can file an appeal with the Small Claims and Expedited Hearing Division or through the Regular Division of the State Court of Tax Appeals.
The Treasurer wanted to make sure the everyone knew that the money doesn’t go to her personally. The instructions on how to pay have been this way for years, so there has been no change in this matter.
This week’s Chamber Coffee was held at The Iron Star Antiques & Such at Main and Wall Street. The Iron Star is owned by Barbara Trimbure and is run as a coop with several departments with both old and new items. One of the Iron Star’s specialties is taking old furniture and giving it new life. The upstairs in the building hosts the resale shop and they also have a section of baby gifts.
Barbara said the most people think that stores like the Iron Star get the majority of their sales from tourists, but in reality is it the local customers that keep coming back again and again. To cater to local customers, they are constantly changing things around and bringing in different items to keep the store fresh and interesting.
Barbara said that they will be having an open house on December 20th for last minute Christmas shoppers.
Other news and announcements:
The Gala Committee presented the Fort Scott Area Community Foundation with a check for $16,952. Two thirds of this came from the Gala and the rest came from a 50% matching program.
At 12 noon on Friday there will be a ribbon cutting for the new Edward D. Jones location at 1713 S. National Suite B (next to Subway). The public is invited and light refreshments will be served. Come to help welcome Jamie Armstrong and Tedena Tucker in their new office.