Marion County residents had a potpourri of Labor Day events to choose from over the weekend. On Sunday, a concert by rising country music star Candy Coburn (left) capped a day of family activities, fireworks and food at the Marion County Fire Chiefs Association fundraiser at Marion County Lake. About 600 people came to the concert, which included a preliminary performance by the band Justus. Ben Steketee, Hillsboro fire chief, said the concerts and the overall event was well received, but did not draw the size of crowd the organization had hoped.
Florence Labor Day Celebration drew people again for its weekend of activities. In the left photo below, the Wichita Caledonian Pipes and Drums Corps marches in the parade on Monday morning before giving an hour-long concert to several hundred listeners gathered across from the stage in front of Cottonwood Valley Bank. In the right photo, Donna McClure of the “Pretty Damn Tasty” barbecue team checks on the brisket cooking in a smoker designed by Burns resident Ron Goodwin during Monday’s competition. The McClures have attended the Florence event every year since its inception, and have been bringing their savory stylings to such gatherings since 1982.
Marion Mayor Mary Olson came to the Marion County Commission payday meeting Monday to say she expects to receive soon a petition against locating a proposed new county corrections center in Batt Industrial Park.
She arrived just as commissioners were in conference with David Arteberry, bond counsel with George K. Baum & Co. of Overland Park, and in teleconference with Tony Rangel, architect with Law/Kingdon of Wichita, to discuss wording on the November ballot question whether to allow bond issuance for the proposed corrections center.
Olson said she has no idea how many signatures will be on the petition, but she understands it will protest the jail’s location because of the potential lowering of adjacent property values.
Linda Cantwell has accepted the position of vice president of enrollment management and marketing at Tabor College.
Cantwell, who has taught at the college since 1999, replaces Rusty Allen, who will assume the role of vice president of athletics.
Both changes are effective Sept. 1.
“Dr. Cantwell has brightened the classroom of Tabor and impacted students for the past nine years,” President Jules Glanzer. “She will now be using her skills and expertise in leading the enrollment management and marketing efforts of Tabor.”
Cantwell brings a background of business, communcication and marketing to her new position.
“I am excited and humbled to continue the legacy of excellence Rusty Allen and his team have established at Tabor,” Cantwell said. “I am passionate about this place. My vision includes partnering with my great admissions and marketing teams to continue to tell Tabor’s story. ”
The hospital and long-term care operation known as Hillsboro Community Medical Center officially became two entities Aug. 31 with the closing of the sale of hospital assets to HMC/CAH Consolidated Inc. The hospital is now named Hillsboro Community Hospital while the long-term care facility has adopted its original name, Salem Home, and has a new mailing address: 704 S. Ash.
Divorce is hardly the proper analogy because this separation, by all accounts, has been as amicable as they come—even though multiple attorneys have been involved and there has been a division of assets.
A better analogy might be the surgical separation of conjoined twins. But while it took some creativity to determine how to reassign some shared internal organs, the process has been relatively painless with no anticipation of long-term scarring or disability.
Whatever you call it, Hillsboro Community Medical Center and the HCMC Long Term Care Unit, together in some form since the first medical services were performed in 1915 as “Salem Home and Hospital,” are now legally separate entities.
Finding that “there are no factual issues to be decided and the case is ripe for summary judgment,” District Court Judge Steven Hornbaker ruled Tuesday, Aug. 19, in favor of USD 410 in the lawsuit filed by patron Raymond Brandt.
The decision clears the way for the district and Tabor College to move ahead on constructing and jointly owning a new football and track facility on the private college campus.
Brandt has until Sept. 18 to appeal the decision.
The lawsuit contested an agreement made between the district and Tabor College to be equal owners of a proposed football and track facility. The district and the college would each commit half of the $4.03 million cost of the new facility.
Kansas Sen. Pat Roberts (left, photo) chats with Tabor College President Jules Glanzer during the senator’s hour-long visit in Hillsboro on Monday. His appearance in Marion County was the 102nd stop on a 105-county listening tour. The noon luncheon at the Wohlgemuth Music Education Center on the Tabor campus was hosted by the Marion County Republican Committee and drew about 80 people. During his remarks, the two-term senator barely alluded to his reelection campaign against Democratic challenger Jim Slattery. Instead Roberts talked about his contributions toward a national energy policy that would expand offshore drilling, Medicare reform and rural health care, tax relief and educational issues such as additional federal funding for special education and college students and reforms to No Child Left Behind. He fielded three questions from the public: one about mandatory health insurance, one about tax reform through the “fair tax” and “flat tax” initiatives, and one about the future of Social Security. “These are tough times,” Roberts said about the diversity of serious issues facing the country.
