Hundreds of bicyclists are currently making their way across the state of Kansas.
Atchison, Kansas, Chamber of Commerce Director Jacque Pregont said the ‘Biking Across Kansas’ ride ends on Saturday.
“The Bike Across Kansas people are going to end their bike ride across the long, wide state of Kansas here in Atchison, so they’ll be coming to dip their wheels in the Missouri River and finish that bike ride that they’ve been on for eight days,” Pregont said. “We’ll have lots of activities and things going on that day too, a big block party downtown and lots of fun.”
The 501-mile bike ride began on June 8th at the Colorado border and includes stops in Hill City, Hays and Clay Center. This is the 45th annual Biking Across Kansas event.
A juvenile was taken to the hospital Thursday night after being shot.
According to Sgt. Chase Cotter with the St. Joseph Police Department, shortly before 10:30 Thursday night, they received calls reporting a juvenile male had been shot and was found in an alley behind the 2300 block of Lafayette.
He was transported to Mosaic Life Care for treatment of his injuries. The incident is under investigation and no other information is being released at this time.
Anyone with information is asked to call the TIPS Hotline at (816) 238-TIPS.
St. Joseph Police are investigating a stabbing death Wednesday night as a homicide.
According to Capt. Jeff Wilson, officers responded around 8 p.m. Wednesday to the 2500 block of Mitchell Avenue to a report of a disturbance. While in route, officers were advised there was a stabbing. When officers arrived, they learned there was a fight between two men and one was stabbed in the chest with a knife. Officers located both men in the 1300 block of South 26th.
The 39-year-old man who was stabbed was transported to the hospital where he was pronounced deceased.
A 39-year-old black male was arrested on scene. The names of the victim or suspect have not yet been released.
A 43-year-old man was arrested Tuesday after reportedly displaying a firearm and running from police officers.
According to St. Joseph Police Capt. Jeff Wilson, shortly before noon, officers responded to the area of 800 S. 6th Street in reference to a call reporting a man who possibly displayed a firearm.
Once in the area, an officer located the man who fled on foot. After a short foot pursuit, the man was arrested in the area of 800 Mary Street. Officers located a BB gun on the path of the foot pursuit.
The man was identified as Lawrence R. Kieser Jr. According to Wilson, Kieser has an active probation warrant for his arrest.
As Red Cross shelters for flood victims begin to close, the organization is still helping with relief efforts in other ways.
Red Cross Disaster Program Specialist Teri Layton said the Mound City shelter closed last week and another in Buckner will close this week. Layton said the closings are a good thing.
“It’s a wonderful thing. That means… waters are going down, the folks that were in the shelter were able to find transitional housing.”
The Red Cross is continuing relief efforts in other ways through providing disaster emergency supplies for families in areas where water is receding and doing further case work in those areas. Layton said there are different levels of relief efforts and as those continue, donations are always necessary and volunteers are always needed.
“If your heart is moved by all the hard work that people do to help their community, please get involved with the Red Cross, get trained up so when the next event happens, you’re trained and ready,” Layton said. “When we open up a shelter, we don’t just throw cots up inside and leave. People have to be there to help maintain the shelter, help with the needs of the clients in the shelter, we need people willing to help serve food… there’s just lots of different ways people can be of assistance in a large scale event and the day-to-day events.”
The Greater Kansas City Chapter of the American Red Cross has 34 counties in the surrounding area on the Missouri and Kansas side, including northwest Missouri counties.
“I work with seven of those counties… directly with their emergency managers,” Layton said. “We make sure that we have good volunteer capacity in our communities and we work on preparedness, we work with their families who are affected by everyday emergencies like home fires. We do all kinds of stuff just to make our communities ready for the next event that happens, because it’s not an if it’s a when. The more prepared we are, the better we can respond and recover.”
For more information about area Red Cross relief efforts or volunteering, click here.
Overlooking Normandy beach from Pointe du Hoc. Photo by Brent Martin.
Today, June 6th, 2019, marks the 75th anniversary of D-Day.
“D-Day… not an end, it was a beginning,” said Devlin Scofield, Assistant Professor of History at Northwest Missouri State University. “It was a beginning of liberation of western Europe and an end to Nazi occupation and all of the horrors that were associated with it.”
Scofield said D-Day is one of the most iconic moments of American participation in World War II and a critical moment in the history of the United States and Europe.
“One of the things that’s so important about D-Day, just strictly from a logistical standpoint, was that Operation Overlord was the largest air, land and sea operation ever undertaken in history,” Scofield said. “Just the numbers involved are staggering, something like, 5,000 ships, 11,000 airplanes and over 150,000 servicemen.”
Scofield said D-Day was a culmination of years of planning and was an assault on five different beaches code-named Omaha, Utah, Juno, Sword and Gold.
Pointing the way to Omaha Beach./Photo by Brent Martin.
“The conditions that these soldiers faced were daunting. The Germans had had four years to fortify the French coastline,” Scofield said. “I think it’s also important to keep in mind that many of these soldiers were young men, many not more than 20-years-old, and were asked to do an incredible task – and the cost that the Allies bore is incredible. Around 10,000 casualties and more than 4,000 who were actually killed.”
After the landings, Allied troops would advance their fight and take Paris in late summer. Germany surrendered less than a year later in May 1945.
Normandy cemetery./Photo by Brent Martin.
Seventy-five years after D-Day, visitors to Normandy can see the American cemetery on the bluff overlooking Omaha Beach with rows and rows of white marble gravestones marking the resting place of the over 9,380 who lost their lives on or after D-Day.
“Having been there myself, I can attest to the hallowedness of the place, and it’s places like this that we can begin to grasp the full measure of what it cost to defeat National Socialism,” Scofield said. “Now, 75 years on, there’s fewer and fewer eyewitnesses who participated in the landings and as the veterans themselves increasingly disappear, I think it’s important to keep alive the memory of their sacrifices and also the values for which they were fighting.”
A couple of the items the St. Joseph City Council discussed at Monday night’s meeting included kratom and sewer rates.
According to the United States Drug Enforcement Administration, leaves from the tropical tree Kratom in Southeast Asia cause stimulant and sedative effects in different doses. Kratom can be taken as a pill, crushed and smoked or brewed as a tea. According to the FDA, there is still a lot of research being done on the effects of kratom.
St. Joseph Mayor Bill McMurray said the council voted 6 to 2 against banning kratom. After the vote, however, a bill was proposed that would prohibit the possession of kratom by or sale of kratom to anyone under the age of 21.
“The Opioid Task Force is very concerned about kratom and particularly its use among middle school and high school kids. On the other hand, there were people who talked about, ‘Kratom has helped me with anxiety or getting off opioids,’ or ‘I can use it instead of ibuprofen for arthritis pain or whatever,’” McMurray said. “I think the compromise that seems as though most people are willing to accept is that we just ban the sale for those who are under the age of 21, just as we do alcohol.”
Also at the meeting, McMurray said the council decided to have a work session regarding sewer rates.
“We don’t want to increase the sewer rates this year and there’s some confusion by staff. We’re going to have a work session and clear up the confusion,” McMurray said.
The St. Joseph City Council will meet next at 7 p.m. on June 17th.
CORRECTION-A previous version of this story stated there was a first reading of the bill to prohibit the possession of kratom by or sale of kratom to anyone under the age of 21, but according to the city clerk, due to council procedures at the last meeting, a first reading did not take place. The first reading will take place at the June 17th meeting.
Flood damage to U.S. 136 in Atchison County/MoDOT photo
The summer construction schedule could change as repairs to roads damaged by flooding will take priority.
According to the Missouri Department of Transportation, hundreds of Missouri roads are closed due to flooding.
According to MoDOT Area Engineer Adam Watson, the roads closed include ones that have been closed since the flooding in March and roads closed from recent flooding.
Watson said roads will not be opened and repairs cannot start until the rainy season slows down and waters can recede. Watson adds that flooding, as well as traffic, has caused damage to roads this spring.
“A lot of people, or like the railroad or other civil services, those project are hauling a lot of material. Well, that material is coming out of heavy trucks, heavy rock trucks, (and) those trucks are doing damage as well that we didn’t expect this early in the season,” Watson said. “There’s been a lot of heavy equipment prior to the floods or even just these last few weeks – people wanting to get their farm equipment up and out of areas that are prone to flooding – that equipment has been running over the roads when and where we didn’t expect it, so we’ve had considerable additional damage because of the flood.”
Watson said since there has been levee damage, every time the river comes up, the roads are re-flooded and that will continue through the rainy season.
“I’m not a great crystal ball reader, I don’t know how long this rainy season is going to last, but it’s going to last quite some time. Then compound that with quite a bit of rain falling north of us and quite a bit of snow melt north of us still to be coming down this way,” Watson said. “That’s going to keep the river level higher, longer and it’s going to compound our problems without the levees.”
Watson said anyone can report a flooded or damaged road to MoDOT by calling 1-888-ASK-MODOT.
“What we’re really concerned about is the damage they might see from water, not even necessarily flooding, but a lot of rain or a lot of water pushing along the roads sometimes even washes out culverts,” Watson said. “While that’s more difficult to see, it does erode its way up into the road system or the pavement. If they see that, definitely give us a call.”
Motorists can find a map of road closures around the state at modot.org.
