Some projects and changes will soon be underway within the Buchanan County Corrections Division. 

According to Buchanan County Sheriff Bill Puett, an electronic refitting of the correctional division will start August 1st. 

“We’re going to ask people to be patient with us because we’re going to have to take all the electronics down which means everything is going to go back to hard keys until they get the electronic replaced,” Puett said. 

Puett said the electronics there are about 30-years-old. 

“The things that drive these doors, and it’s really amazing to think about this, but the electronic circuit board that they can’t get parts for, can’t fix is almost the size of a piece of paper and it’s only 128 MB of information,” Puett said. “So we have very antiquated technology that’s been opening and driving the electronics in the doors and all those things in the correctional facility and so now, 30 some years later, we’re going to get all that upgraded.” 

Puett said the project should take approximately three months. Puett said another change will be hours, including visitation hours for the general public. 

“The reason is some internal issues to assist staff but it also is going to be a win-win, it’s going to be a win for staff, it’s going to be a win for the public,” Puett said. “And currently, when people need to bring property in for inmates or they need to have that property released if somebody goes to prison or whatever the case is, they have a really short time on Saturday and they do it once during the week in the evenings.” 

Puett said in an effort to make things easier for people with busy schedules, they’re going to go to a Saturday and Sunday visitation schedule. This will allow an extra day for visitation. 

Puett said they will also require people to call in to schedule when they are going to pick up or drop off property. According to Puett, those changes will be implemented on July 25th.

In a news release issued Friday, foresters with the Missouri Department of Conservation confirmed the presence of the emerald ash borer (EAB) in Andrew County. 

The pest has now been detected in 38 Missouri counties and the City of St. Louis. 

EAB is a small, metallic green beetle native to Asia that only attacks ash trees. The adult beetle does very little damage—it is actually the larval stage that causes tree death. EAB larvae bore into the vascular layer beneath the bark of ash trees, creating distinct S-shaped galleries that slowly cut off the flow of water and nutrients from roots to the rest of the tree. Unfortunately, EAB kills over 99 percent of the ash trees it attacks within 3-4 years of infestation. 

The pest was found in Buchanan County in 2015 and DeKalb County in 2016. 

Local outdoorsman Kyle Carroll said he’s heard that EAB could eventually impact every ash tree in the United States. 

“That’s hard to believe when you look around and just how many ash trees are out there and every spring there’s a gazillion of them coming up from seed,” Carroll said. “So it’s hard to imagine and I don’t mean that they’re going to go extinct, I’ve never heard anybody say that, but it is going to affect all the trees.” 

Carroll said there are some options for treatment. According to the MDC, insecticides available at home improvement stores work best on trees smaller than 20-inches in trunk diameter (measured 4.5-feet from the ground). Trees larger than that size require insecticides available only to licensed applicators. 

For more information on protecting your ash tree from EAB, click here. 

For a map of EAB’s spread across Missouri and detailed information on identification, visit eab.missouri.edu.

Atchison’s 21st annual Amelia Earhart Festival is going on this weekend.

Lakefest featuring Big & Rich, Cam and Erik Dylan takes place beginning at 7 p.m. on Friday at Warnock Lake.

Events continue into Saturday beginning with a 7 a.m. 2K/8K Fun Run-Walk at the YMCA located at 317 Commercial.

Here are some events on the schedule for Saturday:

Fly-In at Amelia Earhart Airport – 8 a.m. to noon, 16701 286th Road

Muriel 1935 Lockheed Electra L-10-E – 9 a.m. to noon, 16701 286th Road

Pioneering Achievement Award Luncheon – 12:30 p.m., Benedictine College, 1020 N. 2nd

Food, crafts and Music – 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., 500, 600 and 700 blocks of Commercial

Music on the Riverfront – 4:30 p.m. – 11:30 p.m., Riverfront Park

“Concert in the Sky” Fireworks Show – After dark, on the banks of the Missouri River

For more information, click here.

A 52-year-old St. Joseph man died in an attic after attempting to hide from deputies.

According to Buchanan County Sheriff Bill Puett, at 4:20 p.m. Thursday, deputies responded to an uninhabited house on MacKenzie Drive after receiving a call from the realtor assigned to the house who noticed two men on the property. 

Puett said the men appeared to be attempting to burglarize the house. 

When deputies arrived, they made contact with one of the men in the front yard. After discovering he had an arrest warrant, they took the man into custody. 

The other man went back into the house. After calling for additional units, deputies entered the house and discovered the man in a crawl space attic above the garage. 

Puett said the man was unresponsive when deputies found him and later determined to be deceased. 

Puett said they are awaiting autopsy results and the incident is still under investigation.

Missouri Western’s search for a new athletics director to replace Kurt McGuffin is now down to four candidates. The finalists to be the next director of athletics at Missouri Western State University will visit campus beginning July 17. All four of the candidates are currently athletic directors at other NCAA Division II universities.

The four candidates will spend the day meeting with a number of groups on campus, and each will give a public presentation on their vision for the future of Missouri Western athletics.

“We have an amazing pool of candidates to choose from, reflecting the current strength and future potential of our Department of Athletics,” said Dr. Jeanne Daffron, provost and vice president for academic affairs and chair of the search committee. “The committee is excited to enter the next phase of the search process, and we believe others on campus and in the community will be as impressed as we have been by the quality of these individuals.”

The finalists are:
· Josh Looney, director of athletics at East Stroudsburg University in Pennsylvania. Looney previously worked for the NCAA, the Kansas City Chiefs and the Orlando Magic. He will be on campus Monday, July 17, with a public presentation at 2 p.m. in the Hearnes Center, room 102.
· David Miller, director of athletics at Upper Iowa University. Miller was previously athletic director at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, and has worked at Southern Methodist University, Ohio University, Truman State University and the U.S. Air Force Academy. He will be on campus Thursday, July 20, with a public presentation at 2 p.m. in the Hearnes Center, room 102.
· Marty Bell, vice president for intercollegiate athletics/director of athletics and men’s basketball coach at Quincy University in Illinois. Bell was previously an assistant basketball coach at Drake University, Indiana University of Pennsylvania and Lock Haven University and a graduate assistant at the University of South Carolina. He will be on campus Monday, July 24, with a public presentation at 1:30 p.m. in the Hearnes Center, room 102.
· Todd Thurman, director of athletics at Southwestern Oklahoma State University. Thurman was previously head men’s basketball coach at Southwestern and at Wayland Baptist University, and assistant coach at Southern Nazarene University, Oklahoma Christian University and the University of Central Oklahoma. He will be on campus Wednesday, July 26, with a public presentation at 2 p.m. in the Hearnes Center, room 102.

“I think that we have an exceptional list of candidates,” said Dr. Robert Vartabedian, Missouri Western’s president. “In fact, I don’t know if I’ve ever had a more qualified and experienced group of candidates as finalists for a cabinet-level position like this. To have four successful sitting Division II athletic directors as finalists is pretty remarkable. I look forward to getting to know them better during the interview process.”

Missouri Western seeks to replace Kurt McGuffin, who left last month after five years at the helm to become director of athletics at the University of Tennessee at Martin.

A former judge in the Fifth Judicial Circuit has passed away. 

Buchanan County Sheriff Bill Puett said he received an email Thursday morning with the news that Judge Weldon Judah passed away.

“He just was a really caring individual and it’s a tragic and shocking loss to think he just retired and all the years he served,” Puett said.

Judah retired in December 2016. He was first elected to serve in the Municipal Division of the Buchanan County Circuit Court in April of 1986. He served in that capacity until November, 1988, when he was elected an Associate Division Judge. In 1995, he was appointed by the Governor as Circuit Judge, Division 2, of the Fifth Judicial Circuit. He was elected to that position in 1996 and re-elected in 1998, 2004 and 2010. 

A 22-year-old St. Joseph woman was sentenced to five years probation Thursday for a pair of burglaries in February, and will take part in a 120-day drug treatment program. Shannon Schremser pleaded guilty on June 1 to two class-d felony counts of 2nd degree burglary.

Prosecutors say Schremser and a co-defendant broke into the garage of a home on Mansfield Road belonging to Western District Commissioner Ron Hook in February.

Assistant Prosecuting Attorney Joshua Bachman told the judge that while the Hook family slept, the suspects took tools, sporting equipment, and a vehicle, among other items.

Schremser also took part in a break in at a home near Gower. Bachman said they ransacked the home, taking medications, decorative items, book cases, and some paintings which the owner said had great sentimental value. This burglary happened within about 24 hours of the first one. Hook said that some of the property from the second break in was found in the stolen car recovered after the break-in at his home.

Bachman said property from these and other burglaries was found in Schremser’s home on Paseo Drive in south St. Joe. Police called it “a drug house and a menace to the neighborhood,” adding neighbors are in “…constant fear of what will happen next.”

As we reported, Schremser jumped bail in both cases, but was taken back into custody within about a month.

In court on Thursday, Bachman asked for a five-year sentence on each count. Bachman said a lot more was stolen than was found in her house, much of it apparently sold. He also said they found stolen property throughout the Paseo Drive home, including items from burglaries which have not been reported. Backman said the crimes caused fear and insecurity in the community.

Schremser’s lawyer asked for a chance at drug court or a treatment program. Schremser told Judge Daniel Kellogg once again that drugs made her commit the crimes. She said she was sorry for her actions. The judge told Schremser she was lucky to be alive, that she could easily have been shot during a burglary. Kellogg suspended imposition of sentence and placed Schremser on five years probation, to include 120 days in a Dept. of Corrections drug treatment program.

This month’s Parties on the Parkway event will feature a country band from Kansas City.

State Line Drive will perform at Parties on the Parkway, which takes place from 5 to 8 p.m. on Thursday, July 13, at S.W. Noyes and Messanie, Parkway A.

The event is free and open to the public and will also include food, drinks and a balloon artist. Everyone is encouraged to bring their own lawn chairs or blankets.

The rain date is July 20.

The event is hosted by the St. Joseph Chamber of Commerce and the City of St. Joseph and is presented by Nodaway Valley Bank.