Everything Pets had a ribbon cutting Saturday morning at 9:30. The store is owned by Dawn Bryant and is located at 605 S. National. They have large selection of pets and supplies with everything from snakes to flying squirrels to puppies.
Please stop by and welcome this new business to Fort Scott.
Larkin Witt Financial Group held an open house December 1st from 10 to 2 at their office at 207 E. 1st Street. The event drew quite a number of people with over 60 individuals visiting before noon.
Bob Larkin has been involved in financial services for over 40 years. His first office was in Security State Bank in 1974. He grew up on a farm in Fulton, still farms today and was even the co-owner of a local John Deere dealership.
Jordan Witt graduated from PSU (finance) and KU (MBA) and is heavily involved in the Fort Scott community. In the last election he successfully ran for the U234 school board and has been serving there.
The office recently launched their new website at www.larkinwitt.com. The site has a number of financial calculators, articles, research and forms for requesting quotes on insurance and other services.
Jim Brown has quite a Christmas lights display at his house on 13 S. Margrave. His home is located just South of Wall Street behind An Octave Above. You can tune your radio to 100.5 FM and see nearly 8,000 lights running a custom made light show synced to the music. The music is on a 16 minute loop and he plans to run it from 6:30 to 9:30 every evening through Christmas.
Below is a video of the house. If you are reading this in an email, you may have to visit FortScott.Biz to watch it.
Christmas Lights 2011 from Jim Brown on Vimeo.
Two years ago at Thanksgiving Mr. Brown found DoItYourselfChristmas.com where people talk about how to do animated lighting synced to music. He bought the printed circuits and components and made all the controllers himself by soldering the components together.
Mr. Brown said the actual setup of the lights took about two days, but he has spent all of his spare time from the last two years creating the circuit boards and programming all the songs. There are 72 channels that can be independently turned on and off and dimmed from 100% to 0%. Mr. Brown said that programming a single song took about 20 hours. His personal computer controls the circuit boards that control the lights. He programmed the songs using a free piece of software called Vixen.
He runs this off of a temporary electric service on a separate meter. After measuring it the first night, he calculates it will cost $0.60 per night. Mr. Brown said a static display would probably cost three times that because the animated display has many light off or dimmed at any given time.
Mr. Brown said to make sure not to forget to tune the radio to 100.5 because it just looks like a bunch of flashing lights with out the music.
If you live in Fort Scott, you definitely need to take some time to go by and see the light show.
Volunteers in Manila, Philippines are currently trying to break Fort Scott’s record for the longest line of coins. The stunt is part of governmental effort to get more coins back into circulation.
Everything Pets at 605 S. National will be having a ribbon cutting ceremony at 9:30 Saturday morning December 3rd. Stop by to welcome a new business to Fort Scott.
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 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.
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.
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.
Seven employers had tables at the Fort Scott Job Fair at the performing arts building of FSCC today. Here is a little about each company.
They didn’t want to say anything about their company without having it approved by their corporate office, but it is reasonable to assume they have at least one position open.
Klein makes water and fuel tanks that are then mounted on the back of large trucks. They are looking for welders, mechanics, drafts persons, and other positions. Klein is based in Fort Scott and the company has been around since the 1960s. They are looking for employees who can help them grow.
Epoch is located in the old Western/Cigna building near Mercy Hospital. Epoch is part of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Kansas City. They process claims for Blue Cross and other companies. They have claims and data entry positions coming available and plan to hire 20 to 50 people in the next 3 or 4 months. They also plan to have some customer service positions open the second half of 2012.
Since examining claims is something that takes training, they are partnering with FSCC to create an online course to train claims examiners.
Atkinson is located in the industrial park in Pittsburg. They make custom enclosures for electrical and waste water treatment facilities. They have a number of floor positions open (electricians, welders, painters, etc.) as well as some office positions. They are looking to hire a total of 25 to 30 people. They are currently running a day shift of 7 to 3:30 Monday-Friday and are getting ready to start a night shift from 8:30p to 7am Sunday – Thursday.
Peerless makes architectural windows and doors and is based in Fort Scott. They are looking for an IT Programmer and a Production Supervisor. Peerless touts their competitive pay, good benefits and stable business history as benefits to potential employees.
H & H Publishing
H & H publishes the Deadline and other advertising. They have current openings for sales associates and are looking to expand business in the near future. With their expansion they will need investigative reporters, sports writers and other writers.
Hospice Care of Kansas provides hospice services to people with terminal illness and support for their families. This includes medical help, but also involves bereavement support and even a summer camp for kids who have lost a loved one. They are currently looking for LPNs and RNs. They have two full time positions available, but there are many opportunities for people who want part time work.
They are also looking for volunteers who can sit with patients or help answer phones in the office.
While not an employer, Kansas Works had a table at the job fair to let potential employees and employers know about their services. For employees they offer many self service tools via their website. These tools include job search and online resume listing services. There is also a Local Workforce Center in Pittsburg where job seekers can go to get help with their resume and job hunting skills.
Kansas Works also has a number of grants available that allow them to offer in greater assistant for people in certain situations. This can include training and education. In some cases they can even offer on the job training where employers are reimbursed for a portion of the wages they pay a new employee as they learn the skills of a new position.
Kansas Works also offers programs for at risk kids and youth to help them acquire work experience and gain some of the soft skills necessary to pursue a job in the market.
For employers, they offer a number of services that can help provide grants and tax savings for organizations that are looking to hire. Since they work with a large number of prospective employees they can provide many services for free such as screening, recruitment, and advertising available positions.