Stories from Friday, November 20, 2009

Battlefield Dispatches #189 During the Civil War, on October 25, 1864 three significant battles occurred in Kansas and the first of these has three names. In the pages of history, it was called the Battle of "The Mounds", the Battle of Trading Post and the Battle of the Marais des Cygnes. ...

My sister-in-law Susan handed me a cell phone ad that ran in a local newspaper. Titled "Perfect for Back to School," it showed a student texting while hiding her hand-held phone under her classroom desk. It should have been labeled "Defying Authority In One Easy Step." Sadly, this advice is being conveyed to our youth in more ways than just a newspaper ad. It often comes directly from parents...

What does it mean to be religious? According to Merriam-Webster, religion means the service and worship of God or the supernatural; commitment or devotion to religious faith or observance; a personal set or institutionalized system of religious attitudes, beliefs, and practices; or a cause, principle, or system of beliefs held to with ardor and faith...

Lila Mae Wood, 91, of Prescott, Kan., died Tuesday, Nov. 17, 2009 at Mercy Health Center, Fort Scott, Kan. She was born March 14, 1918 to Elias and Leona Bradley Bloomfield on a farm east of Prescott. She grew up on the farm and attended schools in the rural area and graduated from Prescott High School in 1935...

Wanda Lou Palmer, 81, of Emporia, Kan., died Wednesday, Nov. 18, 2009, at her home. She was born July 15, 1928 in Fort Scott, Kan., to WIlliam R. and Nellie Irene (Knotts) Watkins. She married Lawrence Palmer, Oct. 3, 1945 in Cherryvale, Kan. They were married 64 years...

PITTSBURG -- Learning about personal finance can never start early enough. That's the idea behind Gorilla Savings, a program sponsored by the Students in Free Enterprise (SIFE) group at Pittsburg State University. This semester, PSU students in the organization brought a series of lessons to Pittsburg's Lakeside Elementary School that focused on the concept of personal finance. ...

The decision has been made: The City of Fort Scott will no longer operate with a director of human resources. Fort Scott City Manager Joe Turner announced Friday that everything was finalized in the process of eliminating the director of human resources position from the city staff...

With the county's school population taken care of, the Southeast Kansas Multi-County Health Department will now focus on other priority groups to administer the H1N1 vaccine. Bourbon County Public Health Nurse Alice Maffett said the department is now planning to focus on individuals between the ages of 25 and 64 with medical conditions...

68-student St. Mary's Catholic School wins Governor's Achievement Award for Educational Excellence

There were a lot of disappointed deer hunters Sunday when the rain hit and slowed down the hunting. Traditionally, deer hunters harvest around 60 percent of the deer that first weekend, but the rain cut down the results and over the first weekend, hunters took 86,202 deer statewide, which was down considerably from previous years...