WASHINGTON, D.C. – During a speech on the U.S. Senate floor Thursday, U.S. Senator Roy Blunt (Mo.) called on Senate Democrats to stop blocking the Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act, bipartisan legislation that he co-sponsored to help innocent victims of human trafficking and ensure law enforcement officials have the tools they need to hold predators accountable.
Author: Stan Unruh
Prairie fire
The smell and sight of spring burning on the Flint Hills evoked this childhood memory.
It started with a spark on a rail that jumped into the dry, spring prairie and ignited. Within seconds the southerly wind whipped the fire across the pasture toward our small, rural school.
The culprit was an old black steam engine from the Union Pacific railway that lurched and pulled boxcars filled with wheat across the flat short-grass prairie. It was one of those giant puffing behemoths complete with pistons and huge driving wheels.
The year was 1959. The place – Seguin, Kan., population 50 counting three dogs and two cats.
I attended grade school in that two-room structure and while I enjoyed class as much as any of my schoolmates, these prairie fires were legendary. Such an event provided us the opportunity to miss class, abandon our schoolhouse and watch the approaching fire under God’s grandest cathedral – the big-sky country of northwestern Kansas.
Inside our school, Sister Helena Marie lined us up to march onto the road and away from the fire. Outside, we could hear the crackling fire as it licked up the tinderbox-dry grass. The flames raced along the ground a good foot tall. The smoke trailed into the blue sky, and looked like it might block out the sun.
As the hypnotic orange flames raced toward school, we all talked about how close the fire might come, would it burn our school down and where would we go then?
For our dads, fighting these fires was something completely different. Such fires threatened to burn a neighbor’s home to the ground, destroy a farmstead or even take a life.
Our small rural community did not have a fire department, fire truck or any other fire fighting equipment. When prairie fires occurred, my dad and his farmer neighbors jumped off their tractors and into their pickups and headed for the smoke. One of them always had a water tank in the back; others brought gunny sacks that they soaked with water. Then they ran out onto the prairie to fight the fire.
This wasn’t the first time dad and his farmer neighbors wielded their makeshift fighting tools. Steam engines, dry buffalo grass and strong winds often provided the possibility of such prairie fires. These western Kansas farmers had plenty of experience fighting the flames.
None of my friends or I had a watch at the time, but I figure it took our dads close to an hour to finally beat every last flame into submission.
As they walked back to their pickups, their gait was slow. Soot covered their faces, hands and clothing. They all wore smiles.
They’d stopped the fire. This battle went to the farmers.
We all cheered and like newborn spring calves, threatened to run to our parents. Sister Helena Marie would not hear of it.
“Back into the school house,” she ordered.
As I recall this happened about midafternoon and until the brass school bell rang dismissing us for the day, I spent the rest of that day fighting the fire in my mind. Most of my classmates did the same.
After we bounded down the steps and hit the ground outside the school, Albert Rall, my brother, Steve, and I ran to the edge of the burned prairie southwest of the building.
Here we surveyed the burned pasture stretching nearly a half-mile in front of us. As we walked our shoes turned black as burnt grass crunched under our feet. A couple of the posts that supported the barbed wire fence bordering the school property were charred and cracked.
Our nostrils filled with the smoky particles covering the blackened landscape. The three of us walked back toward the schoolhouse. Once we came to the edge of the fire burn, we all three stepped off the distance from there to school.
The distance was approximately 40 yards or about 55 steps for an 11-year-old. The fire had come so close this time. If our dads had arrived a few minutes later, our school might have burnt to the ground.
We all breathed a sigh of relief. We were thankful, but no one said a word.
Laughing, we raced around the school and bolted back up the stairs to our desks. Once seated, each of us took out our books and started writing inside the front covers, “In case of fire, throw this in.” That was directly under the already written words, “In God we trust. In school we rust.”
John Schlageck, a Hoxie native, is a leading commentator on agriculture and rural Kansas.
KC Council approves settlement in aviation lawsuit
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — The Kansas City Council has agreed to pay $1.75 million to settle a lawsuit with an air cargo company.
The Kansas City Star reported that the City Council signed off on the payment to K.C. Air Cargo Services on Thursday. The suit claimed that the city had allowed subsurface water from Kansas City International Airport land to migrate onto its leased property.
Company Attorney Christopher Shank said Friday that he and his client hope the settlement resolves the water issues. The company has been told a city water line nearby had been taken out of service.
The company’s lease with the city will also be amended to redefine its property boundaries and reduce the rent payments. The existing lease expires in 2017.
Missouri woman sentenced for her role in 2013 murder
GALENA, Mo. (AP) — A southwestern Missouri woman has been ordered to spend 14 years in prison after she admitted in court that she had a role in killing a man whose body was found by hikers along a Table Rock Lake shore.
Twenty-one-year-old Ann Marie Jean Patrick of Kimberling City was sentenced Friday. She pleaded guilty to charges of first-degree involuntary manslaughter and theft of a motor vehicle. Six other counts were dropped.
Patrick initially was charged with first-degree murder in the 2013 death of 28-year-old Dan Martin of Lampe. His pickup truck was found later in Arkansas.
A co-defendant, 30-year-old Justin Tuttle of Lampe, has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder and other charges in the case. He’s to go on trial in September in Jasper County on a venue change.
Kansas City considers new regulations for ride sharing
KANSAS CITY, MO. (AP) — Uber and Lyft have expressed different reactions to new regulations for ride sharing services proposed by Kansas City.
The Kansas City Star (http://bit.ly/1Ba8ROL ) reports that the city proposed new regulations Thursday that would lower permit fees for individual drivers to $250. Drivers would also have to submit proof of state vehicle. The proposal also gives ride sharing companies the option to pay an annual fee of $10,000, which would drop the driver permit fees to $150.
A spokeswoman for Uber said in an emailed statement that the proposed regulations show that the city does not fully understand how the ride sharing industry works. A lawyer, who has been negotiating with the city on behalf of Lyft, said that the proposal is not perfect, but “it’s certainly closer to what we have in mind. . It’s moving in the right direction.”
“The Kansas City ordinance remains full of unworkable provisions that reflect a misunderstanding of how the ridesharing industry works,” Uber spokeswoman Jaime Moore said in a statement. “Applying taxi-like regulations to UberX will prevent drivers from meeting the skyrocketing demand for rides in Kansas City.”
City Manager Troy Schulte says that the city has compromised as much as it can.
Uber has continued to operate in Kansas, but Lyft suspended its operations in October of last year.
The City Council will debate the proposed regulations next week.
NE Kansas woman convicted of roommate’s knife slaying
LAWRENCE, Kan. (AP) — A 20-year-old Kansas woman has been convicted of killing her roommate and former employer by nearly decapitating him.
Jurors in Douglas County deliberated nearly five hours before finding Sarah Gonzales McLinn of Lawrence guilty of first-degree murder in the January 2014 death of 52-year-old pizza shop owner Harold Sasko.
McLinn’s attorneys had acknowledged that their client killed Sasko, but they sought an acquittal on claims that she had mental disease or defect at the time of the slaying. Defense witnesses also testified that McLinn had multiple personalities.
But jurors concluded McLinn was able to form intent to kill Sasko, contrary to what her attorneys argued.
Prosecutors are seeking a 50-year sentence that doesn’t carry the prospect of parole. Jurors will begin hearing that portion of the trial Monday.
Bill to finance state building repairs, block gov. authority passes
JEFFERSON CITY (AP) – Missouri senators have passed a bill slated for repairs to state buildings and some new construction.
Senators voted 26-5 Thursday to lift restrictions on $200 million in bonds that had been intended to pay for a new mental health facility at Fulton State Hospital.
The Legislature last year authorized the bonds to pay for the mental health facility, but Missouri later found a different way to finance it.
Republican Sen. Mike Parson’s bill would allow the state to use that bonding authority to pay for other building repairs and $75 million in new construction.
The measure also included language intended to block the governor from extending existing bonds without approval from lawmakers.
The bill now advances to the House.
Judge deviates from plea in sentencing man in NE Kan. deaths
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A Shawnee County judge has deviated from a plea agreement in sentencing a man for killing two women and wounding a third in 2003 in Topeka.
The Topeka Capital-Journal reported that King Phillip Amman Reu-El, formerly known as Phillip Cheatham Jr., was ordered Friday to serve his capital murder and attempted first-degree murder sentences back-to-back instead of at the same time. The decision means the earliest the 42-year-old could be released would be in about 26 years. He already has served more than 11 years for the crimes.
Amman Reu-El avoided the death penalty by pleading no contest in February as jury selection was beginning for a retrial. His original conviction was overturned by the Kansas Supreme Court because of ineffective counsel in his first trial.
Mo. man hospitalized after vehicle hits a field post, overturns
MOUND CITY- A Missouri man was injured in an accident just before 1 p.m. on Friday in Holt County
The Missouri State Highway reported a 2009 Mercury Milan driven by Clyde D. Winstead, 70, Rockport, was northbound on Interstate 29 five miles south of Mound City.
The vehicle traveled off the east side of the road and hit a field post.
The vehicle continued north off the road, struck an embankment, the backside of a guardrail and overturned.
Winstead was transported to the Community Hospital in Fairfax.
The MSHP reported he was wearing a seat belt.
Mo. man sentenced for hammer attack on his blind girlfriend
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — A Kansas City, Missouri, man has ordered to spend 18 years in prison for pummeling his blind former girlfriend with a hammer.
The Kansas City Star reports that a Jackson County judge sentenced 54-year-old Larry D. Simms on Thursday after finding him guilty of various assault and weapons charges.
Authorities say Simms attacked several women, including his ex-girlfriend, last May. She survived.
Simms denied attacking the former girlfriend with a hammer and says he pushed the other women in self-defense after they attacked him with a knife.