NWS Drought Map- 1-16-14 (Click for a closer look)
Several winter storms brought snowfall to the region during the past 30 days. However, precipitation amounts generally remain near or slightly below average. As a result, there has been little change to the ongoing drought conditions in the area. Abnormally dry (D0) conditions continue across much of eastern Kansas and western Missouri. The moderate drought area across northern Missouri remains unchanged.
Abnormally Dry (D0) – Portions of west central, central and northwestern Missouri and eastern Kansas:
In Kansas: A part of or all of Doniphan, Atchison, Leavenworth, Wyandotte, Johnson, Miami, and Linn.
Moderate Drought (D1) – Portions of northern Missouri north of the Missouri river.
In Missouri: A part of or all of Atchison, Nodaway, Harrison, mercer, worth, Putnam, Schuyler, Chariton, Carroll, Ray, DeKalb, Daviess, Caldwell, Livingston, Grundy, Linn, Sullivan, Macon, Adair, Gentry and Clinton.
Illustrator Brad Sneed talks with Horace Mann students about the process he uses to design and illustrate children’s books. Sneed’s visit to Northwest was part of a collaborative learning project involving Horace Mann students, faculty and Northwest education majors. (Photos by Darren Whitley/University Relations)
Students at Northwest Missouri State University and its Horace Mann Laboratory School this week received a glimpse into how the illustrations they find in some of their favorite children’s book are created.
Brad Sneed, an illustrator based in Prairie Village, Kan., visited Northwest as part of a collaborative learning effort coordinated by Horace Mann Art Instructor Erin Oehler and Vicki Seeger, who retired last year as a faculty member in Northwest’s Department of Professional Education.
Horace Mann fourth graders are working on a writing and illustration project with Oehler as well as Northwest faculty and education majors. In March, the students and their instructors also will attend the Children’s Literature Festival in Warrensburg, where Oehler met Sneed last year.
Sneed presented Wednesday to all Horace Mann students during four separate sessions, which Northwest students majoring in elementary education and art education also attended.
Growing up on a farm in rural Kansas, Sneed told the students, he often lost himself in his imagination. He built forts, looked for critters and dreamed of one day being a cowboy or a football player. He also loved to draw and paint and soon realized he could maybe make a living as an illustrator.
Sneed earned a degree in illustration from Kansas University and then set off to New York in an attempt to catch the eyes of picture book editors and art directors.
Not long after returning home to Kansas, Sneed received a call from an editor who was looking for someone to produce illustrations for a new book about a grandfather “with a large belly and a big voice who loves to sing.” The story, “Grandpa’s Song” by Tony Johnston, published in 1991, was the first book with illustrations credited to Sneed.
His career is now 25 years old and he has completed nearly 30 book illustrations.
“I love that I can go to work and spend all day drawing and painting,” Sneed said. “I love telling a story visually with pictures.”
In addition to sharing the story of how he became an illustrator of children’s books, Sneed talked through his process – from the raw doodles he creates for story boards to assembling a practice book with polished sketches to completing the water color paintings that appear in the finished book. Sneed said his illustration process for one book typically lasts six to nine months.
Sneed also read one of his illustrated books for the students, drew sketches for the children and signed books for a small number of children who brought their own copies of his work to the sessions.
Oehler said she hoped Sneed’s story helped students understand that practicing art can be a viable profession. She added that professional opportunities in creative fields are increasing.
“Everything takes practice, but to do something well you have to have a purpose and art is in everything,” Oehler said. “We see it in the books we read, the clothes we wear. It’s pervasive in our culture.”
The Horace Mann Laboratory School, located on the Northwest campus, is an innovative program that provides clinical experience for pre-service teachers and a diverse and interactive learning environment for children. Housed in Everett Brown Hall, the laboratory school serves about 130 students in kindergarten through sixth grade. Early childhood classes for children age 3 through pre-kindergarten are offered in the Phyllis and Richard Leet Center for Children and Families in Brown Hall.
(AP) – A coalition backing a proposed constitutional amendment about farming has raised more than $200,000 for a Missouri ballot campaign.
Voters will decide in November whether to approve an amendment to the Missouri Constitution guaranteeing the right to “engage in farming and ranching.”
The measure was referred to the ballot by lawmakers.
It’s being supported by a coalition called Missouri Farmers Care. The organization reported raising almost $200,000 from October to December and had nearly $229,000 in the bank as it began 2014.
The farming rights amendment will appear on the ballot as Constitutional Amendment 1.
(AP) — A panel of Food and Drug Administration experts again opposed expanding use of Johnson & Johnson’s blood thinner Xarelto to reduce dangerous blood clots in a new group of patients, those with acute coronary artery disease.
The FDA panel on Thursday voted unanimously against broader use of the pill, saying too much information is missing from company studies to accurately gauge Xarelto’s benefit. The same panel also voted against broader approval in 2012.
The FDA, which is not required to follow the panel’s advice, has also twice rejected J&J’s request to approve Xarelto for preventing life-threatening blood clots in patients with acute coronary artery disease.
J&J already markets the pill for several patient groups, including those with an irregular heartbeat and those undergoing hip or knee replacement surgery.
(AP) – Missouri House Speaker Tim Jones will give the official Republican response to Gov. Jay Nixon’s State of the State address next week. St. Joseph Post and Eagle Radio 680 KFEQ will broadcast the Nixon’s speech live on Tuesday evening.
Jones, of Eureka, will pre-record his remarks before the Democratic governor delivers his speech on Tuesday.
Jones also delivered the official Republican response to Nixon’s address last year, criticizing the governor’s ultimately unsuccessful call to expand the state’s Medicaid system.
Nixon has indicated he will ask lawmakers again this year to expand the health care program for about 300,000 Missourians.
Jones was elected to the House in 2006 and became speaker in 2013. He is considering a bid for statewide office in 2016.
(AP) – The Senate chairman of a Missouri Medicaid study panel has introduced a plan to revamp the health care program without expanding it.
Republican Sen. Gary Romine, of Farmington, filed legislation Thursday that would expand the use of managed care plans and provide financial incentives for patients to hold down their medical costs.
Romine’s legislation largely follows the recommendations of a special committee he lead last year. It makes no mention of expanding Medicaid eligibility for lower-income adults as allowed under President Barack Obama’s health care law.
Missouri’s Republican legislative leaders have repeatedly said they want to overhaul the Medicaid program – not enlarge it.
Romine’s bill would let Medicaid enrollees who chose high-deductible health plans, but don’t incur many costs, keep a portion of the savings.
(AP) — One person is dead after being shot in broad daylight outside of City Hall in Kansas City, Kan.
Officers reportedly heard multiple gunshots shortly before someone reported the shooting at 3:20 p.m. Thursday. Initial reports were that the man was shot in the head while between City Hall and the health department building directly to its east.
Police shut down part of a nearby street to investigate the shooting. Information about a suspect was not immediately available.
(AP) — Speaker John Boehner says the GOP-controlled House won’t take up legislation aimed at neutering a 2012 overhaul of the federal flood insurance program that is hitting homeowners who have long paid below-market rates with big premium hikes.
The Ohio Republican said “we’re not going to do that” when the topic was broached in a hallway exchange with The Associated Press in the Capitol complex.
The bipartisan 2012 overhaul of the much-criticized flood insurance program is requiring owners of vacation homes, frequently-flooded properties, and businesses to lose their subsidized rates over time. Other homeowners can keep their subsidies but can’t pass them on when selling their houses, which has caused a disruption in home sales.
The Senate will shortly take up legislation to delay major elements of the 2012 law.
(AP) – Gov. Jay Nixon is proposing an additional $4.5 million for a program that offers customized worker training for companies that create or retain jobs in Missouri.
The governor said Thursday the funding boost would go to Missouri Works Training. Nixon will release his budget recommendations next week for the fiscal year that starts July 1.
Nixon’s office says Missouri Works Training last year helped train more than 35,000 workers at 339 companies statewide.
Nixon says skilled employees are important for the economy and that his administration has focused on strengthening the state’s workforce.
(AP) Two Turkish citizens face federal smuggling charges for allegedly shipping tainted cancer treatment prescription drugs from Turkey and other foreign countries into Missouri.
Federal prosecutors say OzKan Semizoglu and Sabahaddin Akman smuggled three shipments from Turkey to Chesterfield.
A grand jury indictment filed Thursday in federal court says the pair falsely identified the shipments as gifts and documents with little or no monetary value. They are also charged with sending drugs requiring constant cold temperatures in packages without insulation, which could taint the medicine. They were arrested Thursday in Puerto Rico.
Each faces one felony count of conspiracy to smuggle merchandise into the United States and three counts of smuggling. Online court records did not list an attorney for either defendant.
