The Kansas Department of Transportation heard from Southeast Kansas residents during a Local Consult meeting to seek public input on IKE, the Eisenhower Legacy Transportation Program. The event at the Bowlus on Thursday morning included discussion on needed improvements to state highways. Truck drivers hauling material to and from Monarch Cement Co. in Humboldt face a particularly troublesome stretch of road on K-39 west of Chanute toward Fredonia. Kent Webber, president of Monarch, shared his concerns about the road at a special meeting organized by the Kansas Department of Transportation at the Bowlus Fine Arts Center on Thursday morning. KDOT officials met with [...]

With infrastructure funds flowing from Washington, D.C., It’s in Iola’s best interest to apply for every penny it can, Mayor Steve French said. “That money’s gonna go someplace,” French said at Tuesday’s City Council meeting. “We might as well bring some of it back home if we can.” City Administrator Matt Rehder gave Council members a preliminary list of potential projects that could utilize Bipartisan Infrastructure Legislation funds. The two biggest-ticket items would be to replace all of the bare steel gas mains in the city, expected to cost about $10 million, and relining Iola’s 75 miles of sewer lines, which carries a [...]

A few years after relocating here from Pennsylvania, a friend of mine dove into home ownership. Being extremely knowledgeable and passionate about birding and gardening, she decided to convert part of her front yard into a native plant pollinator garden.  She’s had no problem with the plants, but the city codes are giving her fits. ... Unfortunately, native pollinator gardens violate many communities’ local ordinances. These old laws reflect the 1950s ideal of a suburban lawn. They incentivize the planting of nonnative grass which is mowed short and often treated with fertilizers. They also encourage or condone ornamental shrubs, trees, and [...]

The Iola City Council approved changes Monday to its municipal code for electric customers who take advantage of parallel generation, like solar or wind power. Moving forward, utility customers will be limited to installing systems that generate no more than 4% over their peak monthly consumption. For energy delivered to the City of Iola’s grid, customers will be credited on a yearly basis. The ordinance falls in line with Kansas statutes. The restrictions apply to all electric customers, not just residences. Source: The Iola Register

A curious squirrel found out the hard way that some objects should never be climbed. The furry-tailed rodent made its way last Wednesday atop a breaker within the Oak Street substation, which powers much of the central part of Iola. The squirrel proved to be a suitable conductor for 69,000 volts of electricity to arc through its body with a mighty jolt and fireball. The breaker sustained extensive damage from the subsequent explosion, causing a power outage for several minutes. Source: The Iola Register

Funding for upgrades to Chanute’s historic train depot will hinge on an upcoming sales tax referendum. Local voters will decide in the November general election whether to extend a quarter-cent sales tax to fund upgrades for a number of city facilities, including the old Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad Train Depot, which houses the Chanute Public Library and the Martin and Osa Johnson Safari Museum. The building, which was last remodeled in the early 1990s, faces a laundry list of needs, most prominently a new HVAC system priced at $1 million or more. Source: The Iola Register

Color David Janssen a realistic optimist. The Savonburg City Councilman was asked to peer into a crystal ball and eye the community’s future, say five or 10 years down the road. On one hand, the future of small towns like Savonburg is bleak, Janssen admitted. With an aging population, fewer and fewer quality homes to entice out-of-towners and an infrastructure that has well outlived its realistic life span, it’s easy to see why rural populations continue to decline, he said. To wit, Savonburg’s population at the 2010 census was over 100. As of 2022, that number had dropped to 75. “If [...]

With Allen Community College set to celebrate its centennial anniversary, the Register spoke with several former Red Devils on why ACC remains a special place in their hearts. Today, we speak to Red Devil alums George Catron, David Heard, Gary Hoffmeier, Ken and Kit McGuffin and Gary McIntosh. All attended Allen when it was still Iola Junior College, and located on the third floor of Iola High School. Ken McGuffin compared the third-floor environment to a New York City cocktail party, with hundreds of students, often shoulder to shoulder, moving from class to class. Source: The Iola Register

Another 50 subscriptions would help Rita Sharp sustain her small-town newspaper. Sharp has owned the weekly Lucas-Sylvan News since 2012. It covers the towns of Lucas in Russell County and Sylvan Grove, 12 miles away in Lincoln County. Sharp’s paper has weathered the coronavirus pandemic, the rise of social media as a source for news and advertising, and the aging and shrinking population in Lucas (population 337) and Sylvan Grove (population 285). Without missing an issue even when the pandemic closed schools, city and county businesses, and events, Sharp continued publishing. She mails about 450 copies a week to local residents [...]

Four graduates of the Drug Court program shared powerful stories about addiction and recovery. One woman credited the program with saving her life. Their stories were markedly different in many aspects, but with similar themes. The four most recent graduates of Allen County Drug Court — an intense, supervised recovery program drug offenders can complete as a means to escape a life of addiction — shared stories at a ceremony Thursday. Graduates Ashten Wilson, Amanda Sharp, Jacob Bancroft and Tabitha Valentine each described, in varying tones, how tough circumstances in their younger years eventually led to drug addiction and eventually legal woes. Each shared the [...]