Families and organizations from around Fort Scott opened their homes and buildings for members of the community to visit and tour during the 36^th Annual Homes for the Holiday Tour Saturday and Sunday, as well as the Moonlight and Mistletoe Tour held Friday evening.

“This took almost a year in coordination,” said Rhonda Dunn, president of the Historic Preservation Association, during the Moonlight and Mistletoe Tour Friday. “And I think it is going absolutely great.”

Participants in the tour included buildings such as the Mary Queen of Angels Catholic Church, built in 1872, which allowed visitors to see its collection of artwork and stained glass windows. Bethel Community Church, constructed in 1916, was also open as was the Bourbon County Courthouse, which had new exhibits on display.

Families also gave tours of their homes, such as Arlo and Ernestine Eden, who, with some of their seven children, pointed out its antiques and other items collected or passed down through generations of their family. They also told stories of their farmhouse, such as when a tornado tipped it on its side in 1916 and it had to be put upright once again.

Bob and Denise Duncan also opened their home, located on the second floor of what was previously a commercial building on S. National. A Mad Hatter Tea Part was also held at the location Saturday afternoon, with community members of all ages dressing for the occasion.

A new and possibly one-time addition to the tour this year was the E3 Ranch owned by the LaRoche family, which was the highlight of the Moonlight and Mistletoe Tour Friday evening. Interest in the tour led to the 150 tickets being sold out quickly, with more tickets being added and again sold out.

The Moonlight and Mistletoe Tour first visited the home of Loren and Julie Readinger, Jennifer LaRoche’s parents, which was built by her great-great-grandfather in 1927. The Readingers moved into the home just a year ago after remodeling it.

The tour also visted major league baseball player and Fort Scott native Adam and Jennifer LaRoches’ first home – now a guest house, their E3 Ranch house built in just the past few years and a building housing a basketball court, batting cages and further living quarters where a reception was held Friday evening.

Dunn said she had mentioned to Jennifer, her cousin, during the previous Moonlight and Mistletoe event that the HPA would love to one year have the E3 Ranch on their tour. Initially Jennifer said they would rather wait until they lived in the home full-time, but a month later they said they would host the event this year, with Adam expressing an eagerness to help with the fundraiser.

The E3 Ranch — named after a baseball term designating an error by the first baseman, LaRoche’s position — allowed visitors to see LaRoche’s baseball and hunting trophies on display as well as the living areas of the couple and their two children. A live nativity scene was also on their property, with costumed children accepting requests for Christmas carols.

Participants said they were pleased that the homes on the tours throughout the weekend had a lived-in feel to them, instead of merely being on display.

Friday evening, Dunn and the HPA also presented a check to the Chamber of Commerce and the city of Fort Scott to go towards purchasing a new trolley for the city.

Members of the community bundled up and lined Main Street for the annual Christmas Parade through downtown Fort Scott Tuesday evening, ending with the lighting of the mayor’s Christmas tree and an appearance from Santa Claus.

“What a wonderful way to spend the evening with family and friends,” Mayor Cindy Bartelsmeyer said.

Local businesses, churches and other organizations participated in the parade, with the theme Old Fashioned Christmas this year. Representatives from Mercy Hospital, the Lowell Milken Center, SEK Financial, Westar Energy, Shepherd Autogroup and area 4-H teams, Cub Scout groups, schools, churches, fire and police departments participated in the parade.

Prizes were awarded to Medicalodges, Mercy Hospital and the Fort Scott Church of the Nazarene for their floats.

The parade ended at Skubitz Plaza where the tree was lit. Children could then have their photo taken with Santa Claus at Papa Don’s.

In the past eight months, former Fort Scott Community College professor Marcel Normand completed a biography on the life and impact of fellow teacher Lucile James and how she influenced not just the community, but his own family’s lives.

That book, The Lucile James Story: Portrait of a Remarkable Teacher, will be available at the Fort Scott Community College Thursday December 3, for a book signing event.

Normand said he first met James, raised in Pleasanton, when they both started teaching at the Fort Scott High School when he was just 25 years old and she was 52. Their offices were located near each other, they taught on the same floor and they often shared lunch breaks.

“We just kind of hit it off,” Normand said of when they met, saying theater and deciding who would direct the school play that year became the foundation of their friendship that would last for decades.

Normand married his wife in the next year after meeting James, and their families grew close to one another, with the couples often going dancing together over the weekends.

“We had a family friendship,” Normand described the couples’ bond. “It was much more than a school relationship.”

Normand and James would go on to teach at FSCC and, by the early 1970s, Normand said he knew he would write a book about James one day, as he was inspired by her life and teaching method. Normand said she had a flamboyant and fun attitude that seemed to match her red hair, but could also be disciplined and professional in the classroom.

After James’ husband died in 1974, she would spend about every other weekend with Normand’s family, often enough that their three children would begin to consider her a grandmother. Two of those three children would later take English classes from James at FSCC.

In the 1970s, James had heart surgery as a result of heart disease. In 1985, just months after FSCC hosted an appreciation dinner for James, doctors discovered a malignant tumor on her brain, leading to her death later that year.

Normand referred to the book, which took him about 16 months to write, as a 30^th anniversary edition as it was printed about 30 years after James’ death. Normand encourages family, friends and students of James to read the book as well as those who have only heard about her.

During a meeting last Tuesday, leaders and volunteers in the Fort Scott Circles program received an update of the program, a report on current and upcoming needs and a check from a local family.

Siblings Robert Irby, Mary Rio and Janette Braun attended the meeting and presented a check of $1,694 to the program from the Dr. Pratt and Pauline Irby Endowment Fund, which they had set up in honor of their parents and use to help local charities they believe their parents would have supported.

Irby said he first heard about the program’s needs when he heard a report on the program during the Gordon Parks Celebration in October. Prior to that time, he said Circles was just a name to him.

“I was most struck when you said there was a need for transportation,” Irby said.

Braun, who is a member of the Circles resource team, said she and her siblings decided that need would be a good cause for the fund, recalling when their own father needed help with transportation when he could no longer drive.

“We understood that need,” Braun said, adding she believes her parents would have also supported that cause. “We’d like for it to be used for emergency transportation funding for Circles leaders.”

Those Circle leaders are members of the community who want to improve their way of life and join the program for training and assistance to help them towards that goal.

The current group has eight Circle leaders who will graduate to the next level of the program on Dec. 16. Beginning in the new year, those participants will each need one or two accountability partners who will provide support for them as they strive to reach their goals.

“It’s about being a friend,” Hedges said of the role of those allies. “There aren’t a lot of rules to it.”

The allies are required to attend monthly meetings but can decide how involved they are between those meetings, whether they want to meet with or call the Circle leaders on a more regular basis.

“We do need more allies,” director Jan Hedges said, saying they have about seven or eight signed up right now but need 16. “That is the greatest need right at this minute.”

For those interested in helping, a training session for allies will be held Dec. 8. They are also looking for members of the community who might have an expertise or knowledge they can share with the Circle leaders, such as concerning budgeting, renting homes or other areas.

Members of the community and area churches gathered Tuesday evening with the Ministerial Alliance for a service of music and testimonies in preparation for the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday.

“Thanksgiving is not about stuff,” Life Point Assembly of God pastor Steve Bell said, saying, even without that stuff, there is still much one can find to be thankful for. “It’s about redemption.”

Participants of all ages attended and also performed during the service, which included instrumental and vocal performances. First Baptist Church youth pastor Sam George and Fort Scott city manager David Martin also shared testimonies from their lives and what they are thankful for, including their jobs and families.

“I want to be thankful tonight for what God did in my life,” George said after speaking of a time in his life before he decided to become a pastor.

The event drew a group large enough that more chairs had to be added to have sufficient seating.

“What a blessing it is that we can come together and worship him together,” FBC pastor Marvin George said, saying that is why they gather prior to Thanksgiving.

With a railroad track running through the city, it is hard for residents of Fort Scott to get away from the noise of trains going by, but a process which began years ago has come a step closer to diminishing some of that noise.

More than a year ago, when the Sleep Inn Hotel was in the process of coming to the area, the city told them they would look into working with the Kansas Department of Transportation and the railroad to put in a quiet zone that would prevent trains from blowing their horns within specified areas.

“The quiet zone has always been on the radar for the city,” City Manager Dave Martin said, saying they looked into it even before he took his position with the city.

Since then, the city of Fort Scott has gotten the approval needed for a quiet zone to be put in place where the tracks intersect with Wall Street. With architects and contractors already employed for the task, the project could be done by next summer.

The zone would forbid trains from blowing their horns within a quarter of a mile in either direction of the intersection. Since the area near the Wall Street intersection is also a pick-up and drop-off point for railroad crews, the trains will still have to blow their horns when they start up.

Eventually, the city hopes to have similar zones at 10th and 6th streets, though that could take some time because of other KDOT projects in that area.

The first quiet zone will cost a total of $128,182.40, with the city using the transient guest tax and some other city funds since they had not budgeted for their portion of that expenditure.

The project will include demolishing certain roads near the track, redoing the sidewalks and building a 100-foot concrete median on the east and west side of the tracks. In preparation for that project, some roads have been abandoned with the city commission’s approval at recent meetings while Hill Street was moved over since it was too close to the tracks.

Martin said that construction work should begin by the end of the year and says they do not anticipate ever closing the road completely as work is done.

“I think it will be a good impact for the citizens and the hotels on the north end of town,” Martin said. “It will quiet that area.”

The Olsson Associates have served as the engineers for the city for the project. Marbery Concrete in Fort Scott has been contracted for the project.

The project along National Avenue continues as crews put in new water lines as well as install storm drains and curbs.

While the current, closed section between 9^th and 11^th streets should open in upcoming weeks, City Manager Dave Martin said the work crews will then move on to another section, likely to the north, resulting in more road closures.

“I know it’s very frustrating for everybody,” Martin said of the road closures, but said that was the only safe way to do it. “When it gets all said and done, it will be very nice.”

Martin said he realized going into the project that it would likely span into the new year, but that the wait would be worth it as water pressure is improved in that area and the storm drains help prevent flooding along National.

“The project’s going pretty well,” said Bob Grissith with Amino Brothers Co., saying they have already put in a 12-inch water line from the south end of the project to 8^th Street and the storm sewer for drainage from 9^th to 11^th Street.

With that part complete, Grissith said they will now finish grading and putting in curbing before moving on to the next section. Because of the upcoming holiday and current weather forecasts, Grissith said it will likely be another two weeks before that portion opens once more.

“I don’t think the citizens realized the magnitude of what we have going there,” Martin said. “It’s not just a simple overlay of the road.”

Work goes slowly as crews come across hard rock they have to break through, a common problem for such projects in Fort Scott, Martin says. The crews will work until the weather gets too cold and will pick it up again in 2016.

For the 28^th year, the Beacon food pantry will host their Soup Line fundraiser Friday, with the goal of raising $5,000 and serving 1,000 people from the community.

The Beacon, which helps provide food, clothing and other necessities to Bourbon County residents in need, is partnering with the Young Professionals League and about 35 area churches to put on the event, which will be held at the Kennedy Gym at St. Mary’s Catholic School from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Friday.

For the past five years, Jamie Armstrong has organized the event, including the purchasing of the food needed for the vegetable beef and chicken noodle soup, helping prepare the food as well as organizing the efforts of the 100 volunteers and 35 area churches who provide about 300 homemade pies.

“We really couldn’t do it without our churches,” Armstrong said, adding she appreciates the inter-faith partnership among the churches to help provide for those in need in the county.

For $5, participants can get a bowl of soup made from scratch, a drink and homemade dessert. Anyone who might not be able to stay long because of work or other responsibilities can take the meal to go.

Although Armstrong admitted there may be other, more efficient ways to raise money, such as just by asking the community for donations, she said they enjoy the “labor of love” the soup line is as they take time to work to serve the community and raise funds for the Beacon.

For the past five years, the city of Fort Scott has offered tax rebates to residents and businesses of Bourbon County who participate in the Neighborhood Revitalization Program, which offers property tax rebate incentives to those who improve the state of their homes or properties.

During the Fort Scott City Commission’s meeting Tuesday evening, the commissioners unanimously voted to renew the program another five years after hearing a report from Heather Smith, the city’s director of economic development.

“This has really been a critical tool for us in economic development,” Smith said, saying the program from 2011 to 2014 had 16 commercial and 14 residential properties participate with 10 others applying to participate in 2015.

During that time, the commercial properties increased their valuation by about $2.6 million while the residential participants increased their value by $920,000. That total of $3.5 million in increased value outweighed the approximate $1.3 million in property tax rebates for the participants over the five-year term for residential properties and 10 years for commercial.

To receive the tax rebate, participants must increase the value of their property value by at least 15 percent. The rebate is then 100 percent of the taxes resulting from that appraised value increase, so it does not reduce the current revenue from taxes.

Brochures of NRP information Smith brought to the meeting states that “qualified improvements include any construction, rehabilitation, or additions that increase the appraised value of the property.”

“We’ve got some great opportunities I think to utilize this program and sell this program to people that have an interest,” Smith said.

Since its beginning, changes have been made to streamline the program, including putting it into the hands of the county starting in January, as the county has the needed software and capability of running it more easily than Smith and the city could.

“We want to see valuations go up,” Smith said of the goal of the program.

The Fort Scott National Historic Site is looking for people who have stories to tell about the history of the fort over the years as the National Parks Service and StoryCorps work together to record stories from sites in the Midwest region in honor of the NPS Centennial year in 2016.

StoryCorps, a non-profit organization in existence for a decade, has helped thousands of people over those years record their stories and are now helping the NPS do the same. Those recordings will be stored in archives as well as used on the StoryCorps’ weekly radio broadcast on National Public Radio’s Morning Edition.

“What we would be looking for is pairs of people who have interesting stories to tell about maybe something that happened here at the fort,” said Holly Baker, chief of interpretation and resource management at the fort, adding that could be a wide variety of people, such as volunteers at the fort, those involved in making it a national site or residents of the orphanage. “Anyone else who has had a special tie to this place and has a story that they can share that would be interesting to a national audience.”

The project asks for participants to tell their stories in pairs, using their dialogue to tell the story instead of an actual interview. Each recording will last about 40 minutes.

“We’ve got some folks in mind who have stories to tell and now we’re opening up the invitation,” Baker said, saying anyone interested in participating should contact her at her email: [email protected] or look for examples of such recordings at storycorps.org.

Baker says they hope to have four or five pairs of people committed to the project by the end of the year and a date will be set in the spring for the recording. Whether the recordings from Fort Scott are specifically used on the radio or not, Baker said they will likely be able to get copies of the recordings that can be shared with the community.

“I think it’s certainly very valuable to us to preserve our own oral history and what fascinating things have transpired that some of us may not know about and others of us may have forgotten about,” Baker said, adding that history will then be archived with the NPS for safekeeping.