BREAKING NEWS
UPDATED AFTER PRINT DEADLINE
Last week's record surge in COVID-19 cases ebbed slightly Monday.
County health officials reported 18 new cases — the same number as they reported Friday.
Hillsboro was notified Friday that Herington Memorial Hospital will close its embattled downtown Hillsboro clinic Feb. 28.
The hospital’s legal authority to purchase, build, renovate, or expand into Hillsboro was challenged Tuesday in a lawsuit filed by Herington taxpayer Robert Danzmann.
A Herington Memorial Hospital-owned clinic opened in 2019 in Hillsboro, deemed illegal by the state attorney general, prompted a Herington man to file suit Tuesday against the hospital, the city of Herington, and the Herington city commission.
Robert Danzman, an 82-year-old resident of Herington for four years, seeks a Dickinson County District Court ruling that the hospital did not comply with its legal obligations in purchasing, building, renovating, and expanding into Hillsboro.
A feared post-holidays surge in COVID-19 cases hit like a tsunami Monday with disclosure of a record 41 new cases in Marion County.
That’s 10 more than ever have been reported on a single day before, eclipsing a record set Nov. 9.
The last time she saw him was three weeks ago, when he was being loaded into an ambulance to go to Newton Airport and meet a waiting air ambulance.
Since then, Don has recovered the ability to speak, hold a cell phone, and walk with the aid of a walker.
Barbara VanHorn, 86, didn’t expect to end her weekend with nearly 50 stitches in her leg when she and her son, Mark, tried to move her washing machine onto a trailer Sunday.
They were trying to move the machine from the porch to garage at her Peabody home, but it fell and pinned her leg underneath.
A trio of burglaries this weekend that continued Monday evening might be connected to a larger string of thefts, and could have links to a car chase on county roads early Tuesday morning.
Similar burglary cases have been popping up in Saline County, sheriff Rob Craft said.
A restaurant probably is not in store for a space that has housed several well-loved Marion eateries, but new owner John Wheeler plans to rescue the building along with its historic mural — a project he admits will be daunting.
“It’s going have to be a total gut,” he said of the long-neglected structure at 211 E. Main St.
A number of improvements are coming to Marion County Park and Lake — including a hoped-for clearing out of an area used for camper storage.
Lake superintendent Isaac Hett told county commissioners Monday that he wants to hire a tree trimmer to clean up dead trees in the lake’s trailer park before spring. This could make the park more attractive to owners.
Winter is prime time for fishing in a heated fishing dock at the county lake — if only there was one.
A year after a Kechi company accepted a $101,950 down payment from the county to rebuild a heated fishing dock destroyed a year and a half ago in a storm, the new dock is nowhere in sight.
Employees of county hospitals are getting vaccinated against COVID-19 thanks to Thursday’s vaccine delivery by Kansas Highway Patrol helicopter.
Residents of St. Luke Living Center will likely be vaccinated this week as well.
Hillsboro has changed course on its proposal of a combined emergency medical service station for Hillsboro and Marion County.
The idea has been discussed between Hillsboro and county commissioners for months, but the city has decided lease discussions are not going to be successful.
Although a federal order that employers provide emergency COVID sick leave and family leave expired Thursday, county commissioners voted that day to extend the benefit through the end of March for all county employees.
Commissioners also spent their final meeting of the year transferring funds from one budget category to another.
Jerry Toews has been collecting vintage tractors since he graduated from college, and he sees no reason to stop now, after 54 years pursuing the hobby.
Toews’s interest is in tractors built in the 1920s or earlier, which he prefers because inventors of the day designed the machines without an established blueprint.
Snow may dot the pastureland, but this season’s first batch of weaned calves have joined the county’s herds on it.
Marion farmer Eugene Just says he has “quite a few” out sampling the late winter grass along with corn silage, hay, and brome.
Kansas Farm Bureau plans to begin recognizing sesquicentennial farms that have been in the same family for 150 years.
Farms must be 150 years old by Dec. 31 to qualify.
If rules are made to be broken, it may be time to dismiss another oft-cited adage — one about never discussing religion or politics in polite society.
Editorials rarely are deemed polite. Perhaps they should be. “Polite” derives from Latin words meaning “polished” or “burnished.” Neither involves ignoring differences. Pleasing sheens are achieved only after intentionally creating friction to rub away rough edges. That’s a pretty good description of what editorials attempt to do.
ANOTHER DAY IN THE COUNTRY:
What ever happened to that?
LETTERS TO EDITOR:
Sore losers,
Father Kapaun
More than 60 years later, Gene Winkler still remembers the moment he knew Doris Richmond was his soul mate. He was standing in a Lincolnville restaurant in the early 1960s.
“Centre just had a basketball game,” he said. “I went into that little restaurant on the corner, it isn’t even there anymore. I met her then and said ‘this is the one I think I want to marry.’ ”
When Karson Taulbee and her family decided to move to Marion from Colorado, she was looking to be closer to family.
With a 2-year-old daughter and 4½-month-old son, it was important to Taulbee that her children grow up around their relatives.
Screenings for cognitive, motor, speech, language, social and emotional development, and vision and hearing among children newborn through age 5 will be offered Jan. 12 in Hillsboro.
Screenings will be done from 9 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. by Marion County Early Intervention Services. There is no charge for the service.
Marion County Democrats’ officers for the next two years will be Eileen Sieger serving as county chairman, Martin Holler as vice chairman, and Janet Bryant as secretary and treasurer.
A required ethics report has been submitted to the state Democratic Party office in Topeka.
CALENDAR OF EVENTS:
Calendar of events
MEMORIES:
10,
25,
40,
55,
70,
100,
140 years ago