Doug Schroeder, the former Hesston police chief who stopped the Excel Industries shooter, has taken over a statewide organization that reviews law enforcement training curriculum and has the authority to investigate and revoke officer licenses. Schroeder started earlier this month as the executive director of Kansas Commission on Peace Officers’ Standards and Training. The appointment comes in the wake of a tumultuous 2020, where the argument over the role the police play in American life was hotly debated and defunding the police became a national issue. Source: Wichita Eagle

The Sedgwick County Commission voted Friday evening to effectively reject a mask mandate in indoor public spaces — after multiple physicians pleaded with the commission to require face-coverings and an anti-mask activist threatened to show up outside commissioners’ homes if they passed a measure aimed at slowing the spread of the coronavirus. The decision came after County Health Officer Dr. Garold Minns proposed requiring masks as the COVID-19 delta variant surges and local hospitals fill with younger, sicker patients. Source: Local News | Wichita Eagle

It a was drizzly, uncomfortably chilly day in October 1969, and the one-time milo field that would soon be home to the Sedgwick County Zoo was a muddy, mucky mess. A little over 50 years later, though, all Barb Hoppins remembers is the cold, the dirt and her mother’s instructions: “Get Mr. Blakely’s autograph.” Hoppins, then a fourth-grader at Peterson Elementary School, was one of about 75 schoolchildren chosen to serve as ambassadors at the “Commencement of Work” ceremony on the Wichita site of the future zoo, which would open almost two years later. All the kids present that day got [...]