News

On May 6, the Washington County Community Foundation is participating in Match Madness+, a national day of giving to celebrate the 100th anniversary of community foundations. For one day only, donors can make contributions to any of 11 local charitable endowed funds held at the Foundation and the donation will be matched by a local match pool of $5,000. Matching grants will be distributed on a proportional basis. If total donations amount to more than $5,000, the matching percentage will decrease proportionally to ensure every donation made on May 6 is matched. Matching grants will be distributed in the form of a cash grant back to the charity or charity’s endowed fund.

Roxanne Schottel, Washington, has accepted the position of CEO of the Washington County Hospital, effective by the end of June. Schottel is currently the clinic manager at Clay County Family Physicians, a position she has held for the last 10 years. “I’m excited about the change,” she said. The basic overall operations between a medical clinic and a hospital should be similar, she said, so transitioning into her new position should be relatively easy. But, she added, “ask me again in three months.”

BY TOM PARKER/ Staff writer.

 

If Washington Counties subscribe to the adage of “where there’s smoke, there’s fire,” then on Saturday evening there must have been a tremendous amount of fire somewhere. There was—in the northern Flint Hills, the Arkansas River Lowlands, the Glaciated Region, the Smoky Hills (made smokier), the Red Hills and the Osage Cuestas—pretty much all across the Sunfl ower State. But controlled prairie burns, while being a catalyst for what followed, were only part of the story.

BY CHRIS PANNBACKER/Special to the WC News.

 

Shifting money budgeted this year for more work on B Street to other projects was considered Monday night when the Washington City Council met at City Hall. Present were Mayor Ryan Kern and council members Gene Martin, Melanie Bryant, Don Imhoff, Jim Dodds and Roxanne Schottel. Imhoff asked City Administrator Carl Chalfant to come up with a list of priority projects for the May meeting.

BY DAN THALMANN/ Publisher.

 

WASHINGTON – A major renovation project at KSDS will add additional training space and other amenities in what was the organization’s original offi ce building in Washington on the south edge of Highway 36. Work has been ongoing over the last several weeks on the building which will include a large open training area, a gift shop, kitchen and new bathrooms. The facility is expected to be completed later this year.

If you put a bunch of Kansas boys in the midst of Rocky Mountain National Park, they’re going to be impressed with the view. How could they not be? The terrain is foreign to any fl atlander from Kansas. Deep pine-spruce forests dissected by cold clear creeks carrying snowmelt from the mountaintops. And the mountaintops, stretching above 14,000 feet, high enough trees don’t even grow.

CLIFTON – Community Care, Inc., a nursing home in Clifton that is home to 17 residents, will be closing its doors by the end of May. The nursing home’s board of directors announced the decision to staff and residents on March 27 and acting-administrator Mary Sue Stimatze said it was a decision they did not come to lightly.

Washington County’s inclusion in the Kansas Flint Hills Quilt Trail grew recently with the addition of a pair of new barn quilt blocks, one traditional and one not-so traditional. The former is an eight-foot by eight-foot block on the Jerry Howell property near Palmer and the latter a small, four-foot by four-foot block on the west side of the Hometown Cafe in Barnes.

During the spring burning season when farmers burn off vegetation, it’s not unusual to hear fi re bells wailing from tornado sirens. This year, however, weather patterns seem intent on creating perfect conditions for extreme fi re danger, and the result is a surge of activity for volunteer fi refi ghters. Warm, calm days—ideal for controlled prairie burns, the iconic rite of spring in rural Kansas—interspersed with days of high winds and dry conditions are keeping firefighters busy throughout the county.

When Jack Barley walked through the curtains separating Mayberry’s main dining hall from the middle reserved section, what he thought was going to happen was nowhere near what actually did. As far as he was concerned—indeed, what he had been led to believe by his wife, Jenne—he was there to attend a birthday party for a friend. Instead, he was there to be honored for his service to the Washington County Historical Society after his retirement in January.