BREAKING NEWS
UPDATED AFTER PRINT DEADLINE
An unremitting onslaught of COVID-19 cases continued Friday with the health department reporting a confirmed case of a woman in her 30s.
The woman, now in isolation, is the seventh new COVID case since Tuesday.
COVID-19 came back with a vengeance Tuesday as classes for Marion’s pre-kindergarten through fifth-grade students were canceled, 14 students and eight staff members were ordered quarantined, Central National Bank was forced to close its lobby, and the county tied its record largest two-day increase in cases.
The school was closed after an employee was one of four new positive cases Monday. Five more were reported Tuesday, raising the county’s total to 119.
Is the county covered fishing dock becoming the one that got away?
The owner of Ben’s Boat Docks in Kechi, who lost his business entity standing with the Secretary of State’s office in 2003, is postponing contact with county officials trying to find out why a heated, covered fishing dock he was hired in December to build is nowhere to be seen.
Heavy quarry trucks may be tearing up Marion County roads because of a change in how Chase County routes traffic.
Chase commissioners decided to limit traffic on part of Middle Creek Rd. to trucks that have a registered weight under 54,000 pounds.
Visitors to area pumpkin patches could have plenty to pick from this year.
Plenty of moisture in early subsoil and a hot, dry season’s finish have fostered a bumper crop of big, solid fruit with good stems and little rot on Becky Walters’ 30 acres.
Hillsboro city council members will consider a resolution allowing Sunday beer sales at their next meeting.
A proposed resolution will be presented that permits packaged cereal malt beverages to be sold between noon and 8 p.m. any day except Easter, Thanksgiving, and Christmas, city administrator Matt Skiles informed councilmen Tuesday.
After months of impasse over the condition of Diamond Vista wind farm haul route roads, the county is apparently inching closer to filing a lawsuit against wind farm parent company Enel Green Power North America.
Wichita lawyer Pat Hughes, hired by the county to handle actions against Enel, has had frequent closed-door meetings with county commissioners in recent weeks to discuss pending litigation. Hughes handles no other county business.
There will be a new restaurant open on Main St. in Hillsboro, but owner Erik Torres is keeping mum on its name for now.
“The name is going to be a surprise,” he said, adding he might pick “something Mexican.”
A Wichita investment group hopes to have a zoning appeal ruling overturned, 2018 amendments to zoning regulations nullified, and collect more than $75,000 from the county.
Roger Buller at Stonebridge Investments, LLC, filed suit Sept. 25 against Marion County board of zoning appeals. It is the latest step in Stonebridge’s attempt to install wind turbines in an area once planned for development by Rex Savage but later sold to Stonebridge and others.
Sidewalks at D and S. Ash Sts. in Hillsboro are being widened, and city administrator Matt Stiles hopes the upgrades will make the area more accessible to people with disabilities.
The goal is to make the intersection safer and decrease the likelihood of an accident like in June when a boy was killed when he ran into a semi. The improvements also will meet Americans with Disabilities Act requirements, Stiles said.
Seniors who need help figuring out their best prescription plan can get help from are pharmacies and the department on aging.
Plans can be changed between Oct. 15 and Dec. 7.
Developmental screening for children from birth through age 5 are scheduled for noon to 2 p.m. Oct. 13 at Centre School.
Children will be screened for cognitive, speech and language, motor, social, and emotional skills.
The City of Marion’s web site went down for several days before a city official was made aware of the problem.
City administrator Roger Holter said the site was operational again at 11 a.m. Monday after a customer told him of problems with the site.
A plan to bring high-speed Internet to Marion’s industrial park drew criticism from a city council member Monday.
Councilman Ruth Herbel challenged city economic director Randy Collett’s request that the city accept a $160,000 state grant to have Vyve broadband Internet service installed in the city’s industrial park.
The former Hillsboro Post Office will be offered for sale by the Hillsboro land bank.
The owner of the former Hillsboro Post Office building at 1st and Washington Sts. has moved his business to Pratt and offered to donate the building to the land bank, city administrator Matt Skiles told city council members Tuesday.
The City of Florence soon will have a new employee around its offices, after hiring Kristi Darnall as utility clerk.
The part-time position is 24 hours a week at $10 an hour.
Jury trials in Marion County District Court, postponed since March to protect public safety during the COVID-19 pandemic, will resume soon.
Special accommodations will make it possible to protect jury members from exposure to the virus.
State officials rejected Marion County’s plan to use part of a COVID-19 relief grant to build a $33,473 storage facility for personal protective equipment.
Planned was a 24-by-30 foot storage facility, which would be 11 feet tall, to be used to store personal protection and first response equipment for law enforcement agencies in the county.
Funeral services will be 1 p.m. Friday at First Baptist Church of Durham for Lola M. Redger, 92, who died Monday at Newton Medical Center.
She was born Oct. 16, 1927, at rural Fort Cobb, Oklahoma, to Edward and Katherine Schartner Nightingale.
IN MEMORIAM:
Christy DruseIN MEMORIAM:
Arlene WilliamsIN MEMORIAM:
John NavratIN MEMORIAM:
Bill Alkire
Soybean harvest in the county has just begun and test weights have been decent, but yields could have been better if not for late summer drought.
“It’s good in places, and in places it’s not,” Laverne Bina said as he waited in line with his first load at Marion Cooperative Grain & Supply. “I have no idea what it’s going to make.”
Farmer Alan Hett is always cautious when working with grain bins during harvest because he is well aware of the possible dangers.
“You sure don’t want to get in one while the grain is being taken out,” he said. “You can get sucked down into that grain and you can’t get out. You’d suffocate in there.”
KU’s football team appears to be so bad that even the announcers for Saturday’s game on ESPN didn’t bother to show up. They literally phoned in their play-by-play from Arizona and Connecticut.
It wasn’t the Jayhawks’ ineptitude that kept the announcers away, of course. It was fear of becoming infected in what has become one of the nation’s leading states for new COVID-19 cases. If the announcers had come to Kansas, they might have been forced to quarantine for two weeks when returning home.
KU’s football team appears to be so bad that even the announcers for Saturday’s game on ESPN didn’t bother to show up. They literally phoned in their play-by-play from Arizona and Connecticut.
It wasn’t the Jayhawks’ ineptitude that kept the announcers away, of course. It was fear of becoming infected in what has become one of the nation’s leading states for new COVID-19 cases. If the announcers had come to Kansas, they might have been forced to quarantine for two weeks when returning home.
ANOTHER DAY IN THE COUNTRY:
A 240-point cakeCORRECTIONS:
Ambulance callLETTER TO THE EDITOR:
Socialized medicine,
At a crossroads,
Election, morality
Hillsboro Chamber’s Trick-or-Treat Main St. will be 5:30 to 7 p.m. Oct. 30. Marion’s Main St. Trick-or-Treat will be 4 to 5 p.m. Oct. 30. Participants are being asked to wear face masks and maintain six feet of social distance.
In Hillsboro, a route will be marked on sidewalks for trick-or-treaters to follow. There will be no games. Main St. businesses are being asked to give out candy on the sidewalk, not in their stores. In Marion, participants are being asked to use the north side of Main St. to walk west and the south side of the street to walk east.
Peabody-Burns Elementary School teacher Megan Marie Crosley will sign her book, “How I Pranked my Principal,” from 11 to 3 p.m. Nov. 7 outside Peabody-Burns High School.
MEMORIES:
10,
25,
40,
55,
70,
100,
140 years ago
Leah Brunner family loves golf but the Centre freshman never shared their passion for the sport until this fall.
“Almost every person in my family plays golf,” she said. “I picked up a club, but I was probably half the size of it at the time, and I never played golf before.”
Multiple Marion County volleyball teams were off last week with no games since Sept. 28 or earlier. The ones who did see action experienced mixed results.
Marion struggled in tournament play Saturday at Beloit. The Warriors won their second set against Hanover 25-18, but lost both the first and third sets 25-20.
Marion’s homecoming game Friday against Hutchinson’s Trinity Catholic got off to a bad start as the Celtics returned the opening kickoff for an 87-yard touchdown. It didn’t let up from there, with Hutch Trinity going on to win 41-0.
The Warriors’ responded well with three runs for 27 yards on their first drive but were forced to punt after gaining one first down.
County cross-country teams had a pair of difficult races this past week, with runners trying their best Thursday to maintain recent success.
Marion was led by freshman Gavin Wasmuth’s 18:33 finish, which was good for 31st place at Halstead. Tristen Dye and Christopher Beery were the Warriors’ two other sub-20 minute finishers, Dye at 19:19 and Beery at 19:42. The team was rounded out over the next few minutes with Cooper Bailey coming in at 21:23, Hayden Mendoza at 23:55 and Wyatt Helmer at 25:34.