WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — Authorities say they are still trying to determine why a man drove his truck through a fence and onto a taxiway at a Wichita airport.
Sedgwick County Sheriff’s Office spokesman Lt. David Mattingly says the 26-year-old man from Marlow, Okla., rammed his truck through a fence at Mid-Continent Airport early Sunday. He then drove onto an airport taxiway and approached a private jet before security personnel stopped him.
Mattingly says the man was talking to himself when he was stopped. A handgun was found in this truck.
The man was jailed on suspicion of criminal trespass and criminal damage to property.
Mattingly says investigators do not believe the event was connected to terrorism.
In December, an avionics technician was charged with trying to carry out a suicide bombing at Mid-Continent.
(AP) — A third generation University of Kansas Law School graduate wants to help aspiring attorneys pay for their educations.
Attorney and commercial real estate investor Beau Gould of Seattle and his wife, Julie Gould, have donated $1 million to the law school. The university announced Tuesday that the money will be used to establish the Gould Family Scholarships.
Gould’s grandfather graduated from the law school in 1922 and his father in 1952. Both men were longtime attorneys in Dodge City.
Gould says he worked several part-time jobs and benefited from scholarships before earning his law degree in 1989. He says it’s important to give back now that he’s able to do so.
The family tradition might continue. Gould’s two teenage daughters visited the school during Homecoming week.
Buchanan County is now in its second year of allowing residents to pay their property taxes by installments. Presiding Commissioner RT Turner says taxpayers of all types are participating, including some businesses. Most participants are senior citizens and others on fixed incomes.
The county started the voluntary program at the request of taxpayers. Turner says only two participants dropped out during the first year. About one thousand county residents are now in the program. For more information call Buchanan County Collector Peggy Campbell at 271.1401.
Kevin Griffin, St. Joseph School District Secondary Fine Arts Coordinator
The 76th Annual Missouri Music Educators Association In-Service Workshop/Conference opens today at Tan-Tar-A Resort.
Many of MMEA’s state membership of over 3,000 music educators will join together as advocates for music education in Missouri schools.
Kevin Griffin, St. Joseph School District Secondary Fine Arts Coordinator, will be attending the Conference. Griffin has been a music educator for 29 years in Missouri and told St. Joseph Post that he always looks forward to the MMEA Conference with great anticipation and excitement.
“It is a time to dialogue and re-connect with other professionals in the field of music education. MMEA has a rich tradition of quality conference clinics and concerts,” he said. “Our state conference is one of the best music education conferences in the United States! I always look forward to hearing quality performances by bands, choirs, and orchestras from throughout the state. This year, I am specifically interested in attending clinics offered at MMEA that will feature the new Common Core Standards and how they will impact our public school music education classes.”
Griffin is also completing a two year term as President of the Northwest District of MMEA. “I will be leading a meeting of music educators from our area on Saturday. We will be discussing and planning events for next school year related to our district and state. These include MSHSAA Solo & Ensemble Contest and District & State Band/Choir auditions.”
The Missouri Music Educators Association is a federated association of the NAfME: The National Association for Music Education which includes nearly 80,000 Music Educators dedicated to providing a comprehensive, well-balanced, sequential, and quality education to every child in America.
Kevin Griffin of Truman Middle School in St. Joseph is Northwest District 1 president
(AP) – A former fighter pilot says he’s raising eyebrows by going through basic training at Missouri’s Fort Leonard Wood at the age of 52.
Sgt. Steven Lyzenga went through Marine Corps Officer Candidate School in 1981 before transitioning to the U.S. Air Force Officer Training School. For 14 years he was an F-16 Falcon pilot.
After taking a break from the armed services to perform missionary work, the former major walked into an Air Force recruiter’s office. He was told he was too old to fly but that he could go in as enlisted and retire at his highest rank.
Lyzenga jokes that he’s traded in his F-16 for an M16.
After graduating next month, he will be with a National Guard unit in Newport News, Va., where he is from.
OLATHE, Kan. (AP) — A former Johnson County teacher has been sentenced to more than four years in prison for having sexual contact with two 14-year-old boys he met after answering adult ads they placed online.
43-year-old Jeremy John Way was an award-winning science teacher at St. James Academy in Lenexa. He pleaded guilty in November to two counts of criminal sodomy involving the boys.
In both cases the boys initially claimed to be 18. Court documents say that while Way knew they were younger than that after meeting them, he didn’t know their actual ages.
Way was sentenced Tuesday to four years and seven months. His attorney, former Kansas Attorney General Paul Morrison, had asked the judge to consider a lesser sentence of three years.
(AP) — Hundreds of abortion opponents are expected to converge on the Kansas Statehouse to mark the anniversary of the historic U.S. Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion.
The anti-abortion group Kansans for Life was having a full day of workshops and presentations Wednesday, the 41st anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision.
Gov. Sam Brownback was scheduled to speak at a noon rally.
The Republican governor is a strong abortion opponent. During his State of the State address last week, he compared past protests outside the Wichita clinic of the late Dr. George Tiller to work by abolitionists before the Civil War to end slavery. Tiller was known for performing late-term abortions before he was gunned down in 2009.
Kansas has enacted numerous restrictions on abortion since Brownback took office in 2011.
Officials in Platte County are hoping you can help as they investigate multiple reports of stolen telephone wire.
According to the Platte County Sheriff’s Office, incidents have occured along 45 highway between Farley and I-435, the area just south of Platte City, and in Riverside.
The thefts in these areas have typically occurred after dark. It is believed the thefts are a means to obtain copper.
The theft of telephone line has the potential for disrupting telephone communications, including wireless services. The Sheriff’s Office is asking the public’s assistance in identifying the thieves and deterring further theft. Citizens are asked to contact the Sheriff’s Office if they observe vehicles parked near cellular towers or in the vicinity of telephone wires that are not clearly associated with a telephone company or telephone contractor.
The telephone line primarily being taken is covered by a black outer sheathing and has multi-colored pairs of wire underneath the sheathing. Telephone wire can vary in thickness and may be between 1” and 7” in diameter.
A known method for extracting the copper from these types of lines is to melt the telephone wire. The melting of the exterior sheathing produces large amounts of black smoke. If citizens observe any suspicious or unusual burning they are asked to contact their local fire department and the Sheriff’s Office.
Citizens with information regarding these thefts may contact the Sheriff’s Office at 816-858-3521 or the TIPS Hotline at 816-474-TIPS.
Gov. Nixon prior to the State of the State address on Tuesday
(AP) In the annual State of the State address, Gov. Jay Nixon laid out to taxpayers and lawmakers what he thought were the most important issues facing the state.
He began by saying the state of Missouri is “strong” and cited many achievements of programs like “Show-Me-Heroes”, which takes care of Missouri veterans. He also said that in the past year, the state has added nearly 44,000 jobs, and went on to praise the state’s auto industry.
Nixon focused a large portion of the beginning of his speech on expanding education funding in next year’s budget. He said that in order to have more jobs, Missourians needed to devote more resources to education.
“More technology. Smaller class sizes. Well-prepared teachers,” Nixon said. “The tools our kids need to succeed. Accomplishing that goal is going to take an unwavering commitment by all of us, and it’s going to take money. That’s why my [2015] budget increases funding for K-12 this year by $278 million, and will put us on a path to fully funding the foundation formula next year.”
But House Speaker Tim Jones (R-Eureka) did not agree.
“We have increased spending to education over the last two-to-three decades in this state and in this nation,” Jones said. “Billions of dollars have been poured into our education and to our government schools, and that has not resulted in improvements of test scores. It has not helped the St. Louis Public Schools become accredited. School districts have actually fallen into unaccredidation. As the money has poured in, the results have either flatlined or gone down.”
Nixon also said he will push for Medicaid expansion this year, and said that he will try to reform Medicaid in the “Missouri way”.
“Each day we don’t act, Missouri’s Medicaid system continues as it has for years, without additional protections for taxpayers, or new measures to promote personal responsibility,” Nixon said.
Nixon also said he wants to put an end to workplace discrimination against the LGBTQ community, and to limit campaign contributions.
President Pro Tempore Tom Dempsey told reporters after the speech that he thought there was a bit of rhetoric in the speech, and said Governor Nixon delivered the speech with a condescedning tone.
Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon is proposing $30 million of additional state spending for early childhood education programs.
The governor’s budget includes adding $20 million to the Missouri Preschool Program. That would roughly triple the program.
(AP) — Subcompact cars fared poorly in new crash tests from an insurance industry group.
None of the 12 minicars tested got the highest rating of “good” from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.
The Chevrolet Spark was the only car that earned the second-highest rating of “acceptable.” Six cars — including the segment’s best-seller, the Nissan Versa — got the lowest rating of “poor.”
The small overlap test, introduced in 2012, mimics what happens when the front corner of a car collides with another vehicle or an object like a utility pole at 40 mph.
IIHS says the Honda Fit and Fiat 500 were the worst performers in terms of potential injury to drivers.
Both Honda and Fiat pointed out that their cars get top ratings in IIHS’s other four tests.
WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — Authorities say they are still trying to determine why a man drove his truck through a fence and onto a taxiway at a Wichita airport.
