A number of students at Central High School joined in the National Walkout Day Wednesday morning to protest gun violence.

Several thousand walkouts were planned across the country. Wednesday marks one month since the deadly shooting at a high school in Parkland, Florida.

Shortly before 10 a.m. Wednesday, students walked out of Central and to the bleachers at the football field where a short peaceful rally took place that ended with students chanting, “We want change.”

Devon and Emily are two students who worked to coordinate the walkout at Central.

“Today, our protest ensures that gun violence can and will be stopped with the help of you, the students,” said Devon during a speech at the walkout. “As students, this is our most pressing issue. School safety must be prioritized. Just because you are young, does not mean that your voice does not matter… You can make a difference in the world. Central High School is saying, ‘Enough,’ to gun violence. St. Joseph, Missouri, is saying, ‘Enough,’ to gun violence and your action in walking out today is saying, ‘Enough,’ to gun violence.”

Emily said the turnout was better than expected and the goal of the walkout is change.

“The ultimate hope is that lawmakers see that we want change to be made and we want them to do something about the violence that exists in schools,” Emily said. “We really want people to call their congressmen, we really want people to keep speaking out about this, having constructive conversations with people about the situation and not just hiding behind a Twitter profile, but really talking to people about why this means something and why we care.”

A coworking space is meeting needs and filling coffee cups of entrepreneurs in St. Joseph.

CoJoe opened January 31st at 518 Felix St. and features space for rent including table space in an open coworking space or private, furnished offices on a month-to-month or more long-term basis. A conference room also is available to rent by the hour or by the day for important meetings.

“Coworking spaces have opened up all across America and we definitely wanted to be able to provide something like that in St. Joe and test it out and see if we have a market for it,” said Kristie Arthur, St. Joseph Chamber of Commerce Director of Workforce Development. “We really feel like there’s really more opportunity than we know so far.”

Arthur said there have been at least 100 people from a variety of business backgrounds that have come through CoJoe over the past month for short or long term needs and meetings.

“There’s kind of two aspects… looking for those people that need a place to work every once in awhile, they work from home, they want to get out or they are salespeople that need a place to stop by,” Arthur said. “We have access to coffee, you get free WiFi, copy machine access and if you are an entrepreneur and you’re looking for advice, there’s lot of folks that are associated with CoJoe that can get you to the right people if they don’t know how to help you.”

Kyle Kormeier is the Lead Pastor at Renovation Church in St. Joseph. Kormeier said he hasn’t had an office for over three years, since starting Renovation Church, and has been working from home or at coffee shops. With the church growing over the years, he and the associate pastor at Renovation Church had been looking for an office space in St. Joseph.

“I knew immediately that (CoJoe) was a good fit. For us, it’s really helped us to be significantly more productive in how much we can get done, the quality of what we are getting done… because we’re able to have a lot more of that face-to-face time that is really important for any team,” Kormeier said. “Even if I could have an office at our church, I think I’d probably still choose to come down here… There’s so many benefits to coming to a workspace like this and that’s why I want to see more of these offices filled up because I love working with people. There’s just something about being with other entrepreneurs and professionals… creativity feeds creativity and that’s been one of the greatest benefits of being here.”

For more information on CoJoe, click here.

Severe Weather Awareness week will carry over into next week with a weather spotter class.

Buchanan County Emergency Management Director Bill Brinton said the annual NOAA Weather Spotter class goes over various types of weather events and how to stay safe.

“They talk about tornadoes and how they grow or become tornadoes and they talk about different weather patterns and all kinds of basic information about how to be safe in the event of a storm,” Brinton said. “Weather is something that affects all of us and you need to be able to look outside or to follow the news and be able to know what’s going on and how to take safe efforts to protect you and your family.”

The free weather spotter class will be held at 7 p.m. on Tuesday at the Historic Missouri Theater in St. Joseph.

The St. Joseph Public Library was recently awarded grant funding to support this year’s summer reading program.

The Offices of Secretary of State John R. Ashcroft awarded a $15,432 grant to the library.

East Hills Library Youth Services Manager Jess Gould said the grant allows the library to offer programs that provide free books or expand on reading-related educational themes.

“It’s providing resources that otherwise we would not have available,” Gould said. “We have a very limited budget and a lot of the things that we spend money on are already critical to the implementation of the program, so this is just icing on the cake of adding cooler resources, some more exciting things that we can offer and definitely use throughout the years to come.”

This is the second year the St. Joseph Public Library has received funding through the grant. It is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) as administered by the Missouri State Library, a division of the Office of the Secretary of State.

This year’s summer reading program theme is “Libraries Rock” and will run June 1st to August 1st.

The City of St. Joseph Parks Department along with a St. Joseph volunteer and an organization received awards last week.

The awards are given out at the Missouri Parks and Recreation Association Conference each year.

“They have awards for volunteers, they have awards for staff, they have awards for retirees, there’s a variety of different awards (and) they recognize folks at their annual conference,” said Chuck Kempf, St. Joseph Parks, Recreation and Civic Facilities Director.

Kempf said this year, an individual citation was given to Joseph Houts.

“We nominated (him) as an individual who has dedicated a lot of his time and energy as a volunteer for the Parks Department, primarily through fundraising and supporting historical efforts that we have had at the Nature Center… and a few other Park projects and city projects through the years,” Kempf said.

An organization citation was awarded to the George Bode Jr. Benevolent Trust.

“The Bode Trust had never been recognized with this award… and we really felt like that was well beyond time so we nominated them this year,” Kempf said. “We just want the people that help us to realize that we appreciate that. We can thank them and send them thank you cards and give them some local recognition. We just felt like it was an opportunity to give them a little higher level of recognition.”

The Parks and Rec Department received the Show Me Healthy Communities Statewide Training and Funding Initiative Award regarding the Bartlett Park Playground and Recreation project.

“It’s nice when somebody recognizes the fact that you’re trying to do good things, that you’re trying to provide new programming that hasn’t existed in the past or maybe it has existed but not to this level,” Kempf said. “The YMCA has a tremendous inclusive playground at their property and they were kind of the leader in St. Joseph in heading in that direction. At Bartlett Park, which is really our heaviest used playground in the city, we felt like that was an appropriate place to have a large ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) compliant and inclusive playground.”

Kempf said, weather permitting, Bartlett Park renovations are still on track to be completed in May.

Affordability is one of the main goals behind Missouri Western State University’s plan to reduce the number of credit hours required to earn a bachelor’s degree.

The reduction from 124 to 120 will be effective in the fall semester of 2018.

Dr. Paul Orscheln is the associate vice president for enrollment management and student retention at Missouri Western. Orscheln said the driving factor behind the change was trying to close the affordability gap for students.

“We know that in today’s higher education landscape, college can be pretty pricey,” Orscheln said. “Our goal is to make an education here as affordable as possible, also, just being able to help students finish in a timely fashion so that they can start using their degrees to earn a living.”

According to the university, credit requirements within majors or minors will not change. The new minimum reduces the number of elective hours that are needed.

The credit requirement change comes as Missouri Western launches a new program called “Finish in 4” to help more students finish their courses of study on time. Finish in 4 will give qualified first-time freshmen who choose a major or pre-major in their first semester a four-year plan to graduation.

“It goes hand-in-hand with the reduction in credit hours,” Orscheln said. “So students will now be able to take 15 credit hours a semester and, with the Finish in 4 program, what we will do for students is help them monitor their progress in their degree programs, making sure they stay on track all four years, not only from a academic standpoint but from a financial standpoint by making sure the aid is there that they need each semester.”

Incoming freshmen will be able to sign up for Finish in 4 during Griffon Orientation events this summer, or any time prior to the start of their first semester.

Orscheln said Missouri Western’s enrollment outlook for next year continues to look promising with applications for fall 2018 up more than 40 percent over last year and more than double from two years ago.

A driver’s education program is returning to St. Joseph this summer.

According to St. Joseph Safety and Health Council Executive Director Sheldon Lyon, the program includes 30 classroom hours, six hours of driving and 12 hours of observation.

While the complete driver’s ed program has not been available in St. Joseph since 2014, Lyon said they have offered the classroom portion of driver’s ed the past two years.

“(It) was very well received and very popular, but families wanted that time behind the wheel and they’re right, their young drivers are inexperienced and they needed windshield time,” Lyon said. “The number one killer of students age 16 to 19 years of age is not disease, it’s not violence, it’s their car. So what a great way to provide them with that training, it helps safeguard them while they spend the most dangerous hours of the day behind the wheel, whether it’s going to and from school, out with their friends, that type of thing.”

The program starts June 4th and there are morning or afternoon classes for drivers ages 15 to 19.

For more information on times and cost, contact the St. Joseph Safety Council at (816) 233-3330 or click here.

Lyon said there are spots reserved for students from low income families and to contact the Safety Council for more information.

This week, the National Weather Service and state and local emergency management agencies will emphasize the importance of learning about severe weather and preparing for it.

A statewide tornado drill will take place Tuesday morning as part of Severe Weather Awareness Week.

Emergency Management Director for the City of St. Joseph Jada McClintick said the week is an opportunity to take a moment to think about the different types  of severe weather experienced in the area.

“Of course, tornadoes come to mind automatically but, more commonly in our area are severe thunderstorms, high winds, winter weather, ice storms which result in power outages, we have flooding concerns, all those different types of natural weather situations we encounter in our area,” McClintick said. “It gives people an opportunity to stop, consider what happens here and how that affects their individual families or their individual businesses and how they can protect themselves better and be a little bit more prepared and more proactive in those situations.”

Families are encouraged to create or review their severe weather preparedness plan.

McClintick said preparedness tips are posted weekly on the City of St. Joseph Emergency Management Facebook page.

“We try to pick a topic each month. Last month was water preparation because we want people to feel like you don’t have to spend a whole lot of time and money to make a preparedness kit and you don’t have to feel like it’s overwhelming and you need to do it all at once,” McClintick said. “Just doing one thing once a month could prepare your family immeasurably in the event of a disaster or even just a serious storm, it doesn’t have to be a major disaster, but something where the power goes out, your family is prepared and taken care of.”

A statewide tornado drill will take place at 10 a.m. on Tuesday as part of Severe Weather Awareness Week.

Missouri Department of Transportation crews were out at Benton High School Friday morning conducting seat belt checks.

Northwest District Area Engineer with MoDOT Adam Watson said they do several seat belt checks throughout the School District.

“We check seat belt compliance, are the kids and faculty wearing their seat belts,” Watson said. “One of the first safety features for the highway is the car, is using the safety features in the car. Wearing the seat belt… It’s one of your best defenses against distracted drivers. You can’t fix them driving distracted, but you can protect yourself by (wearing) the seat belt. We work with the schools to make sure that we reinforce with everyone that, school students, wear that safety belt.”

According to MoDOT, crews checked 332 cars and handed out candy. There were 555 people in those cars and 430 of those occupants were wearing a seat belt and 125 were not.

State Representative for the 11th District Galen Higdon was also at Benton High School Friday morning.

“I was a 30-year veteran of the Buchanan County Sheriff’s Department, I saw a lot of crashes. I’ve had to go out in the fields and pick up people that were ejected and small children and various things,” Higdon said. “I’ve got young grandchildren now that are out driving on the roads and I want them to be safe and I want everyone out there to be as safe as they possibly can and use the safety devices in their vehicles.”

Higdon has been involved with a bill regarding distracted driving.

“What I did was, just to test the water and to make it as non-intrusive as I could, we’ve taken it to people that drive for hire – school bus drivers, taxi cab drivers, Uber drivers – anybody that has a fare, a passenger in their vehicle, that they have to use a hands-free communication,” Higdon said. “No texting, no putting the phone up to your ear, no distracted driving… keep both hands on the wheel, pay adequate attention to the road and protect those people that trust you to drive them down the road.”

Higdon said the bill went before the body Thursday and will be voted on next week to be sent to the Senate.