Free Press
Colby
8 pages
75¢
Thursday
January 10, 2012
Volume 124, Number 6
Serving Thomas County since 1888
Cold front to move into area Friday
By Kayla Cornett
Colby Free Press
[email protected]
It was a nice day in Colby on Wednesday, but a front moving through the area
brought cooler temperatures today and
put western Kansas under winter weather
warnings for today and Friday.
Wednesday’s high in Colby was 50,
but the forecast called for freezing rain
this morning with several counties under
a hazardous weather advisory. Meteorologist Jesse Lundquist of the National
Weather Service in Goodland said the
temperatures and dew points were just
above freezing, 33 or 34 degrees, so that
prevented any freezing rain from developing.
“It was very close,” he said.
The forecasters wanted to be on the safe
side, Lundquist said, because it doesn’t
take much freezing rain to hamper travel.
The expected high today is 39 with areas of drizzle and fog before 1 p.m. The
forecast said isolated showers are expected between 1 and 2 p.m., with the chance
of precipitation at 20 percent.
Tonight, patchy fog is expected between 7 p.m. and 2 a.m. with a low of 28.
A hazardous weather advisory mentions
high winds from Friday through Wednesday.
The advisory says strong winds and
low relative humidity may create explosive conditions for fire growth for areas
generally south of a line from Kit Carson
and Cheyenne Wells in Colorado to Weskan and Leoti in Kansas.
Thomas, Sherman, Wallace, Logan,
Gove, Greeley and Wichita counties, as
well as Kit Carson and Cheyenne counties in Colorado, are under a high wind
watch from Friday morning to Friday af-
ternoon.
The Weather Service says a strong
low-pressure system will develop across
the area on Friday, forcing a warm front
across the area. To the south of this front,
the watch says, strong westerly winds of
25 to 40 mph with gusts to around 60 are
possible along and south of Interstate 70.
Winds will increase rapidly after 9
See “FRONT,” Page 2
New exhibit
focuses on
homesteaders
The Prairie Museum of Art
and History has a new traveling
exhibit on homesteaders, called
“Free Land Was the Cry!” on
display from now until Saturday, Feb. 16.
The exhibit details the history
of the Homestead Act, which
President John F. Kennedy
called the “single greatest stimulus to national development
ever enacted.”
From the day Daniel Freeman
submitted the first homestead
claim at midnight on Jan. 1,
1863, in Beatrice, Neb., to today, visitors will learn how the
“Great American Desert” became “The Breadbasket of the
World.”
The exhibit can be seen during regular museum hours until
Saturday, Feb. 16. In the winter,
the museum, at 1905 S. Franklin in Colby, is open from 9
a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through
Friday and 1 to 5 p.m. Saturday
and Sunday.
“Eleven educational panels illustrate the history of the
Homestead Act and (how) this
landmark piece of legislation
forever changed the complexion of the United States,” said
Educational Director Ann Miner. “This is a great opportunity
for adults and students to learn
about the role of the Homestead
Act in the United States settlement.
“In addition to the exhibit, we
also have developed a questionnaire and a claim-staking activity available to enhance the
visit for school classes. A 20minute video on the impact of
the Homestead Act is also available….”
Miner said the exhibit is on
loan from the Homestead National Monument in Beatrice,
which sits on the site of that first
filed homestead claim. Established in 1935, the monument
interprets “the history of the
Director Sue Taylor (above
left) and Education Director
Ann Miner put the finishing
touches on the last panel
of a homestead exhibit on
display through the middle
of February at the Prairie
Museum of Art and History.
Taylor gave a brief tour of
the exhibit (right) Tuesday
to Leon Volk of Commercial Sign, who stopped by
to deliver artwork for another exhibit, “The Way We
Work,” which will go on display Tuesday.
CHRISTINA BERINGER
Prairie Museum of Art and History
country resulting in and from
the Homestead Act and commemorates the people whose
lives were forever altered by the
(act) and the settlement of the
West.”
The offer of 160 acres of
free land encouraged millions
from around the world to create new homes in America, giving a boost to the “American
Dream” that continues today. It
expanded our country westward
and strengthened Abraham Lincoln’s political vision and strategy to modernize the West and
end slavery.
The exhibit shows the role of
the act and how it helped shape
the agricultural revolution. Visitors will learn how the act redefined gender roles and helped
pave the way for universal suffrage, points out the devastating effects on American Indian
tribes across the nation and details how only 40 percent of the
homesteaders were successful
in holding their claim.
Miner said a tour is available
to all Thomas County students
in middle and high school classes at no charge. Classes from
outside the county can see the
exhibit for $1 per person.
People can help maintain the
historical records of America’s
homesteaders by sharing their
untold homesteading story with
the National Monument’s museum. Free postcards are available
at the front desk of the museum
for anyone interested in participating.
To schedule your group or
classroom visit, contact Miner
at 460-4590 or at museumed@
st-tel.net. For information about
the museum and other exhibits,
go to www.prairiemuseum.org.
Information about the traveling exhibit and the monument
can be found at www.nps.gov/
home.
State’s
budget
shortfall
narrows
Duplexes should help ease
Rexford housing shortage
By Sam Dieter
Colby Free Press
[email protected]
the architect has six weeks to get project prepared,
and contractors will break ground on the project in
perhaps two months, with a year at most to finish
the units.
“We’re hoping to start filling them up in the
fall, like in September.” she said. “Sooner would
probably be better, because I think we need them
now.”
The agency will own the duplexes, which will
be open for any farm workers, including the disabled or retired. McCarty, the main employer in
Rexford, donated the land.
Christy Rocca, executive director of the Thomas
County Economic Development Alliance, said the
dairy hopes to add up to 100 employees in the next
two years.
She said she wrote the application for the project
A Hill City-based nonprofit will get $1,865,223
in federal money to build duplexes in Rexford,
helping fill a housing shortage caused mostly by
the booming McCarty Family Dairy.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture Rural Development agency announced Tuesday that has
awarded a $965,223 grant, along with a loan of
$500,000, to Northwest Kansas Housing Inc. The
Kansas Housing Resources Corp. said Oct. 12 it
would send the agency a $400,000 grant as long as
it got the federal money.
The money will be used to build five duplexes
by the football field west of town with a gravel
road leading to them, said Loyce Schamberger, executing director for the Hill City group. She said See “HOUSING,” Page 2
By John Hanna
The Associated Press
TOPEKA – Kansas is seeing its
projected budget shortfall shrink
because of better-than-expected
revenue collections last month,
according to a new estimate released today by the Legislature’s
research staff.
The new projection of $267
million represents the gap between anticipated revenues and
current spending commitments
for the fiscal year that begins July
1. The state expects to have a little
less than $6 billion in revenues to
finance education, social services
and other government programs
during the next fiscal year.
The end-of-November projection for the shortfall had been
$295 million, but the state saw
a $31 million bulge in revenues
in December, particularly in in-
dividual income tax collections.
Legislative researchers shared the
new shortfall projection with the
Associated Press before distributing their report to most legislators
and making it public.
Researchers said it’s not clear
yet whether the unanticipated revenue collections signal continuing
economic growth. Senate Majority
Leader Terry Bruce, a Hutchinson
Republican, suggested the bulge
could have resulted from people
selling assets and other economic
activity ahead of the new year,
with the hope of avoiding higher
taxes associated with the federal government’s averted “fiscal
cliff.”
“Every little bit helps, but we
probably need to treat that bulge
as one-time money,” Bruce said.
“I’m going to proceed cautiously.”
The shortfall results from mas-
sive income tax cuts approved last
year to stimulate the economy.
Republican Gov. Sam Brownback and other supporters of the
tax cuts have acknowledged that a
boost in economic activity would
lag, possibly causing budget issues.
The state’s sales tax also is
scheduled to decrease in July
from its current rate of 6.3 percent
to 5.7 percent under a law enacted
in 2010. Lawmakers and Brownback’s predecessor as governor
boosted the tax that year to avoid
deeper cuts in education, social
services and other programs but
promised the bulk of the increase
would be temporary.
Keeping the sales tax at its current rate would provide at least an
additional $250 million annually.