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Kansas, Missouri bolster the boss
From airplane parts to a pair of glasses to shoes to handguns, 3-D production is predicted to mold our tomorrows.
The printable life
Backers say new laws will energize economy. Opponents say they will only hurt workers. By BRAD COOPER The Kansas City Star
TOPEKA | The balance of power between businesses and their workers shifted in Kansas and Missouri this year — in favor of the boss. The business lobby won passage of bills that curtail wages reKansas quired on lawmakers public jobs raced Saturday and make it night to bring harder for the legislative workers to session to an collect unend. | A4 employment if they get fired for a range of offenses as minor as tardiness or not wearing a name badge. Supporters say the changes foster a friendlier climate for creating jobs and could jolt the economy to life. Critics say the changes hurt the little guy. “This is a disastrous session for Charlie Lunchbucket,” said Kansas Senate Minority Leader Anthony Hensley, a Topeka Democrat. Kansas Sen. Julia Lynn, an Olathe Republican, countered that the new labor laws “are reflective of an unrelenting desire to get our economy working again.” Among the bills signed into law in Kansas this year: ❚ Employees fired for being late for work without good cause will be barred from unemployment benefits if they are warned first and if the employee is notified of the employer’s attendance requirements. The new law no longer requires the warning to be in writing. ❚ Laid-off workers can no longer collect a severance payment and unemployment simultaneously. An employee receiving a sixmonth severance, for instance, has to wait six months to draw unemployment. ❚ The length of unemployment benefits could be shortened. Currently, the unemployed in Kansas can draw benefits for 26 weeks.
ILLUSTRATION BY NEIL NAKAHODO | THE KANSAS CITY STAR
Missouri goes whole hog to destroy swine surplus planted, raise guns. Just in case the trap’s panels give way. It’s happened, but with bigger hogs. These are smaller, young and, most disappointingly, not nearly as many as the men want to find this recent morning. “Look here,” says James Dixon, a wildlife damage biologist for the Missouri Department of Conservation, which just wrapped up the first year of a five-year plan to eradicate feral hogs from the state. Dixon kneels in the mud. Signs of rooting and wallowing from the
By DONALD BRADLEY The Kansas City Star
TANEY COUNTY, Mo. (HOG COUNTRY) |
Dawn’s early light belongs to the fog and a whip-poor-will. A cool beginning to a spring mountain day. Only the bird’s call stirs the wooded quiet. Then, suddenly, a shrieking, frantic squeal. Hooves pound into the dirt. A wild hog races full speed across the makeshift enclosure and crashes headfirst into a wire panel. Like a stock car into a wall. Then another one. And one after that. They try to climb atop one another. Men nearby, their boots firmly
SEE SWINE | A10
By ERIC ADLER The Kansas City Star
T
im Middleton lives and breathes now, but the mind of the 42-year-old Eudora, Kan., dad often floats to the future, to what one might call the printable life. It is a time — with tangible signs popping up with increasing frequency around the globe — when nearly any product one needs is created by simply pushing a button and printing it out in usable three dimensions. A pair of glasses? Print it. A knee joint? Print it. Red taillight lens for a ’65 Mustang? Print it. A birthday cake, a prom dress, a full-size house for a family of four? Print away. “I have attempted printing my own shoes,” Middleton said, laughing.
SEE WORKERS | A16
INSIDE THE STAR DANGEROUS DECISION With the devastation from a May 20 tornado still on their minds, many people in Oklahoma unwisely chose to flee Friday night when another storm developed. | A2 A+E D1
CAREER BUILDER F1
ALLISON LONG | THE KANSAS CITY STAR
James Dixon (left) and Randy Farrar prepare to draw blood from wild hogs that were trapped and killed in Taney County, Mo.
CLASSIFIED F2
DEATHS A18-21
H+H C1 LOCAL A4
LOTTERIES A9
MOVIES D7
He is a graphic designer who over the last two years has instructed more than 60 people on the art and science of 3-D printing in Saturday classes at Hammerspace, a community workshop on 63rd Street in Brookside for builders, hobbyists and inventors. “They’re kind of hard,” Middleton said of his shoes. “The material is a little uncomfortable. But it is absolutely a possibility.” More than possible, such
OPINION A22-23
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specialty 3-D-printed shoes already exist, produced and sold along with 3-D-printed nylon bathing suits, jewelry and dresses by Continuum Fashion of New York. Cakes, cookies, sailboats, toys, architectural models, musical instruments, weapons, prosthetic hands and legs: All are items in recent years proved to be producible by 3-D printers. Interest is high enough
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A10
SUNDAY, JUNE 2, 2013
FROM THE COVER | THE KANSAS CITY STAR.
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SWINE: Despite aggressive measures, hog population has grown FROM A1
night surround the pen. “They were all here, but only these young ones went inside,” he says. “The older ones are too smart.” And big and fast and destructive and mean and ugly. Now factor in prolific and savvy. Despite years of aggressive kill measures, including aerial shooting, trapping, snares and “shoot on sight” requests to hunters, the U.S. Department of Agriculture refers today to the “expanding” problem of wild swine in America. An estimated 6 million feral hogs — up from 2 million 20 years ago — some with big heads and sharp tusks linked to Russian boars of generations past, roam the country in collective “sounders” of 15 or so, rooting up land and crops like four-legged diesel equipment. The hogs used to be mainly a rural Southern problem. But now they’re in Go to 38 states KansasCity.com and movfor video. ing north, even into New England. They’re encroaching on cities and treating parkland, gardens and golf courses like their own pigpens. Sounders are as close to Kansas City as Truman Reservoir. In Missouri and other states, conservation workers and farmers are constantly frustrated by people bringing in truckloads of the animals from other states and turning them loose. Kansas jumped on the problem early by banning sport hunting of hogs and is now a model for the rest of the country. Costs of feral swine annual damage and control efforts, nationally: more than $1 billion, according to the USDA. Jeremy Thomas is paying some of that. He farms bottom land along Indian Creek in McDonald County in the southwest corner of Missouri. On a recent day, he stood in a field and looked at a slight furrow running the length of a corn row. Perfectly straight, as if made by machinery. No, hogs. “Best I can tell, they put their snouts down and go to rooting,” Thomas said. “They get to the end of the row, turn around and come back.” They’re after the hybrid seed corn he’d just put in the ground. At $250 per bag, he’s reluctant to replant. “They could be anywhere, just watching,” Thomas said. And waiting. Wild hogs are like big rats. Three hundred pounds of nasty with sharp teeth. They kill small livestock and eat ground-nesting birds. They contaminate streams and cause erosion. They carry diseases, such as brucellosis and pseudorabies, both of which can be passed to domestic swine. They devastate hunting areas because they compete with deer and turkey for food. “They outsurvive other wildlife,” Dixon said. The rules on hunting these critters? Virtually none. Shoot on sight (in areas that allow hunting). As many as you want as often as you want. Out hunting and see a hog? Conservation officials say drop him, please. Drop two or three. Leave them for the sun to bake and coyotes to eat. Go on, treat the vultures. Nobody cares. “We’re not out to manage them,” Dixon said. “We want to wipe them out.” ❚ ❚ ❚ So what is it exactly that makes the feral hog the neoNazi of the animal kingdom? They have no friends. Nobody’s out waving signs to “Save the Feral Hog.” People who love wildlife and nature hate them. People who like them like them for one reason: to shoot them. Please, can somebody say something good about this animal?
@
PHOTOS BY ALLISON LONG | THE KANSAS CITY STAR
Corn farmer Jeremy Thomas and his daughter, Avery, 2, examine his field, which was mostly stripped of seed by wild hogs. “Best I can tell, they put their snouts down and go to rooting,” Thomas said. “They get to the end of the row, turn around and come back.” He farms bottom land along Indian Creek in McDonald County in the southwest corner of Missouri.
Wild hogs try to escape a trap before being shot. Wildlife workers had hoped to trap more, but the animals are known for being smart. Across the country, there is little love for feral hogs, which can destroy fields of crops.
James Dixon of the Missouri Conservation Department checks blood serum from dead wild hogs. The lightercolored serum helps in checking for diseases.
“They’re easier to train than puppies,” said John Mayer, who started studying wild hogs 40 years ago and tried to raise one in his house. “They’re cute when they’re little. Until they start to turn over furniture. “And they’re good eating. Except big boars stink when you cook them. I had a guy tell me once he had to bury a skillet in the backyard.” Really, that’s the good? You have to bury the skillet? The bad? “They are the worst, most invasive animal on the planet,” said Mayer, the manager of the environmental science group at the Savannah
Randy Farrar, a wildlife specialist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, draws blood from wild hogs. The animals can spread diseases.
River National Laboratory in Aiken, S.C. Mayer also coauthored “Wild Pigs in the United States: Their History, Comparative Morphology, and Current Status.” Feral swine are not native to the U.S. They can be traced to hogs brought to the country in the 1500s by Spanish explorers and al-
lowed to roam free. According to the USDA, the ranks of those early hogs multiplied over time by domestic hogs turned loose into the wild. At some point, hunters brought in Russian wild boars, which mixed bloodlines with existing sounders. Now we have gangs of
tusked feral hogs that can run 35 mph, jump 3 feet high and, somehow, manage to climb out of a pen with sides 6 feet high. A common saying: “If a fence won’t hold water, it won’t hold wild hogs.” They are highly intelligent, can live anywhere in any climate, and have sharp teeth and no natural predators. Now add in two litters a year, six to 10 to a litter, and you get a “national pig explosion” to the point that the USDA has asked for an additional $20 million in 2014 to fight the problem. In Missouri, the Conservation Department has teamed with the USDA, the Missouri Department of Natural Resources and the Army Corps of Engineers to kill more than a thousand hogs in the first year of the state’s eradication effort. No telling how many more have been killed by property owners and hunters. “No state has a good handle on this, but we don’t want to get like Texas, Florida and Georgia,” said Rex Martensen, the state’s feral hog coordinator for the Conservation Department. The biggest problem is people bringing hogs in for hunting. That’s what officials think, anyway. “Unless they’re born with a black tag in their ear, somebody is bringing them in,” Dixon said. ❚ ❚ ❚ It’s 4 a.m. when Dixon heads south out of Springfield to find some hogs. He’s the wildlife damage biologist for 17 counties in the southwest corner of the state. He typically would work on deer, beaver and coyotes. “But it’s all hogs now,” he says behind the wheel of a gray, four-wheel-drive Silverado pickup, loud enough to be heard over NPR on the radio. “I’m pretty much a hog damage biologist these days.” Not exactly a job he was born to do. He grew up East Coast, big city. “You know, back there you don’t wave or talk to strangers,” he says. “Here, I go into
a store to get a soda and end up having a half-hour conversation with a farmer.” After the Navy, he came to Springfield for college. Met a girl, got married, stayed. Now he’s been with the Conservation Department for 17 years, the past five almost exclusively with feral swine. He knows the animal and thinks this will be the morning they catch some. His “strike team” had been baiting a sounder for several days by putting out corn, gradually leading the hogs into a pen with a trapdoor. “There’s about 15 or so in this group,” Dixon says as he drives the hilly, winding blacktop. “Big boar, several sows and some younger ones. The landowner wants them gone. We’ll see. They get leery of traps. They know when some of their buddies go missing.” Dixon talks about tales of hogs attacking humans. Overblown, he says. Like other wild animals, hogs will almost always run from people. They can be scary, though, he adds. One day he walked through high Johnson grass and surprised a bunch of hogs. They surprised him, too. “Nothing but snouts and hooves,” he says. “That’ll make you jump.” After an hour drive or so, Dixon pulls off the blacktop onto a dirt road. The truck passes cabins and goes over creeks. The farther he goes, the rougher the ride. He pulls into a clearing. Cattle gather in the dark. He’s the first to arrive. “They’ll be getting antsy,” he says of any trapped pigs. “They don’t like to be out when the sun comes up. And it’s hard to keep them in if they want out bad enough. First light, we need to be there.” Two other trucks soon pull in. One is with the Conservation Department. The other is the USDA. It’s 5:30 a.m. The men load guns, then use flashlights to light a trail into the woods. After walking a quarter mile or so, Jason Larson with the Conservation Department stops. “We’ll let Randy get the dart gun ready,” he says with a hushed voice. Randy Farrar, a USDA wildlife specialist, loads a dart with enough Telazol, an animal tranquilizer, to knock out a good-size hog. The plan is to kill the others. Big boars first. They are most likely to topple the fence. “Quiet the rest of the way,” Larson says, rifle in hand. “Let’s don’t spook ’em.” On a hill above the trap, the group stops at a wellworn rounded area. “We put 50 pounds of corn here last night,” Dixon whispers. “It’s all gone.” Hopes rise. The team makes its way down through the trees to the trap. And find disappointment. Only four hogs, maybe 60-pounders, are inside. “Frustrating,” Larson says. Not exactly a joyous day for the hogs either. Their attempts to ram down the panel fail. The men shoot them as if squashing a tick. Then they draw blood from each to check for disease. The dart goes unused because no animal was big enough. Farrar gets an ATV to haul the dead hogs to the landowner, who wants them for smoking that weekend. Farrar puts two hogs in the ATV’s cargo box and mounts another on the rear. He drags the fourth behind with a rope. It bounces on rocks as the ATV splashes through a creek. Dixon turns to the trap. They’ll try again, he says. Put out more corn and wait. “Maybe we’ll get this bunch yet,” he says, sounding less than hopeful. The team gathers its equipment and heads back to the trucks in the clearing. The sun is up, the whippoor-will quiet, the fog gone. Hogs, too. Another day, free and smart. To reach Donald Bradley, call 816-234-4182 or send email to dbradley@kcstar.com.
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SUNDAY, JUNE 2, 2013
THE KANSAS CITY STAR.
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THE OUTDOORS
Remembering Garrett Young fishermen in southeast Kansas find a way to eulogize a friend who died of brain cancer.
SUBMITTED PHOTO
BRENT FRAZEE | THE KANSAS CITY STAR
Marion Kincaid, who has gained fame on the “Mudcats” television series showed off a big flathead. By BRENT FRAZEE The Kansas City Star
CANEY, Kan. | Garrett Battige would have loved this. One by one, pickup trucks rolled up to the Caney Valley Recreation Center, fishermen reached into tubs filled with water and pulled out huge catfish. The crowd cheered and rushed to take pictures. And Marion Kincaid and Mark Shull, the stars of the “Mudcats” television show that features Oklahoma noodling (hand fishing for catfish), posed for pictures and signed autographs after weighing in their fish. For months, Garrett, a 13-year-old from Copan, Okla., who was suffering from a rare form of brain cancer, had been looking forward to being a big part of this tournament fund-raiser set up by two of his friends. But he didn’t make it that long. Garrett died May 5, just 13 days before the two-day event took place. So the tournament that was set up to buoy Battige’s spirits and help his family pay his medical bills became more of a memorial. “Garrett was so excited about being here,” said Sid Smith, 14, who lives in Caney, a town in Kansas southeast KanCity sas near the OkSalina Topeka 70 lahoma state line. “He 35 Wichita couldn’t wait to Caney fish with the ‘Mudcats’ team, and he wanted to bring in a huge catfish. “We were shocked when he died before he could even make it here. It was really sad. “But we had to go on with the tournament in his honor. The family still has a lot of medical bills, and we wanted to help.” The tournament was the brainchild of Chance Brake, 16, and his close friend Sid. They live in the Caney area and are better known as the BS Boys. They became local celebrities when they got an unexpected response after posting videos of some of their hunting and fishing trips on YouTube. They got so many hits that they decided to set up an outdoors series on the Internet featuring everything from fishing for big cats to hunting for trophy whitetails. They heard about Garrett and contacted him through Facebook. When Chance and Sid found that Garrett had a passion for the outdoors just as they did, the three hit it off and started spending time together hunting and fishing. That came to an end when Garrett’s condition worsened and he was unable to get out anymore. But Chance and Sid wanted to do something to help. So they organized a benefit tournament in which each team could fish anywhere in the area and bring their four biggest catfish to the scales. By the time the weigh-in got started, spectators from several area towns had gathered to get a look at the big cats.
BRENT FRAZEE | THE KANSAS CITY STAR
Chance Brake (left with 4-year-old Justin Ryker) and Sid Smith (right) organized last month’s tournament to benefit the family of Garrett Battige (top, right). Josh Langley, whose catch included big flatheads, represented the winners.
Among them was Battige’s family, which showed up in support of the BS Boys’ kind gesture. “How many times do you see boys this age do something that is so caring?” asked Beth Battige, Garrett’s mother. “They set up everything from the weigh-in to the raffle. “They know we’re still grieving, but this means a lot to us. You’ll find very few young men who have the heart that they do.” The 19 teams of fishermen also were aware of the special purpose of this tournament. “We were really hoping to have Garrett along with us today,” said Kincaid, who lives in Peru, Kan. “But I think he’s with us in spirit.” Kincaid, Shull and Luke Fogarty
brought in 68 pounds of catfish and finished second in the tournament. But the team that attracted the most cheers – Josh, Rick and Nicole Langley of Dewey, Okla. – had a winning total of four cats weighing 126 pounds. The crowd oohed and aahed when they pulled a 32-pound flathead from the tank in the bed of their pickup. The response got even louder when they wrestled a 48-pound catfish out of the makeshift livewell. “We caught the big one on a trotline, the other one on rod and reel,” Josh Langley said. “We fish the Caney River quite a bit, and we knew it had some big cats in it. “We’ve caught bigger ones. But to bring two nice-sized flatheads in during a tournament, we knew that was going to give us a good shot at winning.”
In a region known for its big catfish, winning was no small task. Elk City, Fall River and Toronto lakes along with the Neosho River in southeast Kansas and Copan Lake and the Caney River just over the state line in Oklahoma all are known for their big catfish. “A lot of people down here love to go for catfish,” Sid said. “When we did a video on fishing for big cats, we got a lot of hits.” But for the moment, the big catfish and the BS Boys’ videos were only sidelights to what this event was all about. “We did this for Garrett,” Chance said. “I wish he could have been here with us today.” To reach Brent Frazee, The Star’s outdoors editor, call 816-234-4319 or send email to bfrazee@kcstar.com.
Small-town boys a big hit By BRENT FRAZEE The Kansas City Star
CANEY, Kan. | If ever there were a couple of overnight sensations, the BS Boys are it. Otherwise known as Chance Brake, 16 and Sid Smith, 14, of Caney, Kan., the duo started off as just a couple of close friends who loved to hunt and fish. Then they bought a video camera. “We just wanted to video some of our hunts to show our friends,” Brake said. “But once we posted them on the Internet, it just took off from there.” Today, the boys are dreaming big. Since they started with a video on hunting coyotes last winter, they have developed a following.
A video on fishing for big catfish got more than 1,000 hits. And others among their series of six have also attracted viewers. They have covered everything from how to clean a shotgun to how to cook venison and spoonbill to how to catch and clean rabbits. They’re still learning. That means there are moments when the camera shakes, when the sound is muffled and when there is too little dialogue. But just the same, Brake and Smith have a following. “Our dream is to one day make the Outdoor Channel,” Smith said. “All I know is that we’re having fun with this.” To view some of the BS Boys’ work, go to bsboysoutdoors.webs.com.
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house and home
BLOOMIN’ BEAUTY As the rose season opens, experts offer their prickly favorites and explain the best options for care. By MARTY ROSS Special to The Star
V
oluptuous roses bring gardens truly to life, marking the transition between a tentative spring and the fullness of summer. Roses thrive in Kansas City’s challenging climate. They cover arbors and cascade over walls, stand tall against great tufts of ornamental grasses and bloom gracefully alongside the last silky-petaled peonies and first bright, trumpeting lilies. Many roses bloom through the summer and well into fall, when the colors and fragrance are even more intense and long lasting than in spring.
“Having roses is almost a requirement for a well-balanced and beautiful garden,” says Sandy Campuzano, past president of the Kansas City Rose Society. Campuzano’s perennial garden in Prairie Village includes dozens of different roses, “and I’m not through yet,” she says. There was a time when roses were the most delicate and pampered plants in the garden, but many great roses flourish without a lot of fuss, and more trouble-free roses are being introduced all the time. You can plant gorgeous, finicky roses, of course, “but most people don’t want roses that are going to need a lot of care,” says Judy Penner, rosarian and director of Loose Park. “Most people are going to look for shrub roses that are going to be lower maintenance.” In Campuzano’s garden, classic single-stem hybrid tea roses predominate. She keeps her roses healthy and vigorous by pruning regularly and carefully, watering during dry spells and mulching high around the crowns of plants over the winter. She uses organic fertilizers and doesn’t spray pesticides. “When you spray for the bad bugs, you spray the good ones, too,” Campuzano says, “and I’m happy to say my roses are looking fine.” Francie Wenner grows many old-time roses, especially climbers, in her garden in Leawood, where she has lived for more than 30 years. Wenner has grown about 50 different roses in her garden, she says, including “some favorites that have lasted through the years — and the ones that have stayed are the tough ones.” To earn a place in her garden, roses must be hardy and drought-tolerant. “I water only when they are new,” she says. “Otherwise I don’t have
The Hot Cocoa rose is a favorite of Betty Goodwin, a garden designer and photographer whose Mission Hills garden was open for the recent Westport Garden Club Tour. Find more recommendations from her and other rose experts on our list of Great Roses for Kansas City Gardens on C4.
SEE ROSES | C4
ALL-AMERICA ROSE SELECTIONS
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THE KANSAS CITY STAR.
SUNDAY, JUNE 2, 2013
Don Juan is a favorite of Francie Wenner of Leawood.
Iceberg is on Betty Goodwin’s list of favorites.
Sandy Campuzano recommends Just Joey.
WWW.KANSASCITY.COM
Queen Elizabeth is another favorite of Sandy Campuzano.
You can see the Raspberry Cream Twirl rose in Loose Park.
ROSES: They’re good in almost any garden FROM C1
time to water. But I try to get the whole garden mulched by June.” A summer mulch of compost, autumn leaves or wood chips from a garden shop helps preserve moisture in the soil and control weeds. Wenner is partial to Albertine, a rambling pink rose that blooms just once, in late spring, with a great flush of romantic, fragrant flowers. “It has the worst thorns in the world, but it’s just beautiful,” she says. She also likes American Pillar, another rambler, “and if you want to cover your house with small pink blooms,” this is the rose to do the job, she says. In her large garden, it has plenty of room to grow. Deep pink American Beauty is “the most fragrant of all my roses,” she says. Like Wenner and Campuzano, Betty Goodwin, a garden designer and photographer whose garden in Mission Hills was open for the recent Westport Garden Club tour, grows roses as centerpieces and as backdrops in her perennial garden. The roses Goodwin likes best are “roses I have had for a long time, through thick and thin, in all kinds of weather,” she says. William Baffin — a deep pink, disease-resistant, Canadianbred climbing rose, has claimed four spots in her garden. Goodwin grows Sally Holmes, “my most favorite climbing rose” on an arch over her garden gate. New Dawn, a shell-pink climber, is allowed to clamber through the branches of a native fringe tree (Chioanthus virginicus) and into a redbud. Before Goodwin moved to her present home, she had a classic rose garden with rose bushes in separate beds from other flowers and shrubs. “I like this so much better,” she says of her colorful mixed flowerbeds with roses, hardy geraniums, clematis and hydrangeas. “It’s a potpourri. It adds to the vitality of your perennial garden.” Getting to know roses is no work at all: they’re blooming now, all over town. Even at 35 mph you can recognize characteristic colors and interesting combinations. The knock out family of ever-blooming roses is especially distinctive and popular. But slow down and smell the many other great roses that grow in Kansas City, too. Public gardens are great places to experience roses in separate plantings or in combination with other flowers. The 3,000 roses (every bed is labeled) at the Laura Conyers Smith Rose Garden in Loose Park are expertly tended by Penner, garden staff and a stalwart group of Rose Society volunteers who put in almost 700 hours last year to keep the roses in tip-top shape. New roses are added every year. At Ewing and Muriel Kauffman Memorial Garden on Rockhill Road near the Country Club Plaza, many kinds of roses (also labeled) are woven into some of the city’s most imaginative and beautiful perennial beds. Garden shops are stocked with roses now, too — and this is the planting season. “A lot of times, the pictures on the label don’t really do the rose justice,” Penner says. Plant now, and see for yourself.
GREAT ROSES FOR KC GARDENS There are as many ideas for rose gardens as there are gardeners — and great roses to suit them all. These are local favorites: ❚ Sandy Campuzano: Evelyn climbing rose, Knock Out, the Fairy, Just Joey, Tahitian Sunset, Queen Elizabeth ❚ Judy Penner’s picks from roses in the Laura Conyers Smith Rose Garden in Loose Park: Polonaise, Quietness, Heritage, Gertrude Jekyll, Fourth of July, Carefree Beauty. New this year: Bull’s Eye, Raspberry Cream Twirl ❚ Francie Wenner: Alchymist, New Dawn, Don Juan, Eden, the Fairy ❚ Betty Goodwin: Flirtatious, Hot Cocoa, Iceberg, Dick Clark, Rainbow Knock Out ❚ Duane Hoover and Tracy Flowers of Ewing and Muriel Kauffman Memorial Garden, of those grown in the Kauffman garden: Carefree Wonder, Flower Carpet Pink, Bonica, Graham Thomas, Mary Rose, Frau Dagmar Hastrup
TESSELAAR PLANTS
Flower Carpet Pink roses are grown at the Ewing and Muriel Kauffman Memorial Garden and are on our list of great roses for Kansas City gardens.
“Having roses
❚ Earth-Kind Roses are rose varieties — old and new — known for exceptional vigor and tolerance to pests, heat and drought. The program was developed by Texas A&M University Extension. The Fairy, Carefree Beauty, New Dawn and other roses have earned Earth-Kind designation. For more about the program, go to aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu.
LOCAL RESOURCES ❚ The Laura Conyers Smith Rose garden in Loose Park is maintained in partnership with the Kansas City Rose Society, which is in the midst of a fundraising campaign to restore the garden’s stone pillars and replace the wooden pergolas. Find details and a map of the rose garden on kansascityrosesociety.org. ❚ Rose Day: the Kansas City Rose Society’s annual rose show is from 1 to 5 p.m. today at the Loose Park Garden Center. Rose Day activities include music and dance in the rose garden at 3 p.m. For more information, go to kansascityrosesociety.org.
is almost a requirement for a well-balanced and beautiful garden.” SANDY CAMPUZANO, PAST PRESIDENT OF THE KANSAS CITY ROSE SOCIETY
STAR ROSES AND PLANTS/CONRAD-PYLE
Rainbow Knock Out is a favorite of Betty Goodwin, a garden designer from Mission Hills.
GETTING STARTED
TROUBLESHOOTING
Garden shops are well stocked with roses in pots, which can be planted now. Here are some tips from local rose gardeners: ❚ Roses need sun: six to eight hours a day. Some roses (New Dawn and Heritage are two) will bloom without full sun, but “the more sun, the more blooms,” Francie Wenner says.
Two challenging diseases: Rose rosette disease is a virus, spread by a mite, that causes roses to produce weak shoots with lots of thorns and disfigured and contorted foliage. It weakens the bushes and eventually kills them. Any roses, even disease-resistant varieties, can be infected.
❚ Plant in well-drained soil, amended with compost. ❚ Water new plants well and pay attention to watering, especially during their first summer. ❚ A 3-inch layer of mulch will limit moisture loss from evaporation and keep soil temperature moderate. ❚ Fertilize: Sandy Campuzano starts her rose bushes off every spring by working one-fourth to one-half cup Epsom salts into the soil around each shrub. She fertilizes with Mushroom Stuff, which contains micronutrients and soil conditioners. Rosarians recommend fertilizing roses once a month from May through August. ❚ For more rose-care recommendations, check the monthly calendar on the Johnson County Rose Society website, rosesocietyjoco.org
“Any time I have a rose with a disease, I just dig it out,” Francie Wenner says. “I’m not going to start spraying things.” Heavy pruning — removing affected canes all the way down to the crown of the plant — may help. Removing infected rose bushes is the best solution, experts say. Plant another rose. Rosette disease is not a soil-borne disease, but, just to be cautious, plant in another area. Blackspot on rose leaves is caused by a fungus. The leaves develop black spots, turn yellow and drop. Blackspot is a soil-borne disease and picking up diseased leaves helps limit its spread. Many roses are highly resistant to blackspot. Healthy roses that develop blackspot can tolerate the disease. They will leaf out and bloom again. The best defense is to choose blackspot-resistant roses, plant them in a sunny spot with good air circulation and limit overhead watering. If you choose to treat roses for blackspot, regular treatment (every seven to 10 days) with a fungicide will control it.
❚ Johnson County Rose Society’s website, rosesocietyjoco.org, includes a rose-care calendar.
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Twin sisters Bethany and Brittany Iles bring their trick-riding act to the American Royal’s Youth Invitational Rodeo today and Friday.
A 6-0 loss to the Seattle Mariners, combined with results elsewhere Wednesday night, officially ended the Royals’ postseason chances. | B1
TODAY’S WEATHER: LOW 64, HIGH 84. SUNNY AND BREEZY. | B10
$1.00
GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN | Lawmakers face a Monday night deadline
FISCAL FEUD TAKES SHAPE After Cruz ends marathon speech, Senate moves toward vote that would send issue back to House. By DAVID LIGHTMAN and MARIA RECIO McClatchy Newspapers
W
ASHINGTON | After a
marathon day and night of talking, the Senate moved Wednesday toward a budget plan that would keep the government open past a Monday night deadline while maintaining funding for the new
health care law. The final vote by the Democratic-run Senate should come by Sunday, which then would send the plan back to the Republican-ruled House of Representatives. The House would have to decide whether to agree to keep the government and Obamacare running at least for a few
months or shut down parts of the government to try to force Democrats to accept some diminution of the Affordable Care Act. The move toward Senate approval of a short-term status quo spending plan came after Sen. Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican, sat down at noon Wednesday, ending a 21-hour, 19-minute talkathon that protested continued funding of the health care law. Despite his efforts, the Senate
voted 100-0 to move ahead with debate on the budget plan. Cruz and his allies might have other opportunities for protests this week, but few Democrats or Republicans were eager to see them. “We could finish this bill in a matter of hours,” said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat. “But instead we find ourselves being pushed SEE BUDGET | A10
PAPINVILLE, MO. | Residents persevere in fight to keep history alive
Minimum wage may return to the ballot Democrats see it as a chance to boost voter turnout in 2014 and lessen Missouri’s GOP majority. By JASON HANCOCK The Star’s Jefferson City correspondent
JEFFERSON CITY | Should Missouri bump up its minimum wage by a dollar? How about two bucks? Groups that backed a successful wage increase in 2006 are once again weighing whether to take on the long struggle to put the issue back on the statewide ballot next year. Merely landing the question on ballots would be a strategic win for Democrats. It would give voters power over an issue near and dear to the party. And it likely would get more Democratic voters to cast ballots in an off-year election — giving them a better chance to whittle away at historic Republican majorities in the General Assembly. “It could definitely help turnout among certain types of voters that typically support Democrats and tend to take a pass during off-year elections,” said David Robertson, professor of political science at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. The minimum wage in Missouri is $7.35 an hour, 10 cents higher than the federal level because of an automatic inflation escalator built into state law. Four different proposed ballot initiatives have been approved by the secretary of state’s office, allowing supporters to begin gathering SEE BALLOT | A7
ALLISON LONG | THE KANSAS CITY STAR
Beverly Sullins (left) and Phyllis Stewart, along with a handful of others, run the Papinville Cemetery and Historical Association. Among the association’s projects was restoring the town’s one-room school.
They won’t let go of this town The population may have dwindled, but there is much to celebrate at Saturday’s annual Papinville Picnic.
BUSINESS Buzz about a Sprint merger with T-Mobile is on again after comments made in New York by T-Mobile executives. | A8
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BUSINESS A8
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By DONALD BRADLEY The Kansas City Star
PAPINVILLE, Mo. | The river brought
everything to this town, and time has tried to wash it all away. Stores, the courthouse and schools, all long gone. Pretty much everything except a handful of people who cling like bottom mud to this land. They refuse to give in to the river, the weeds and the years. A while back, they noticed there sure was a lot of history sitting around. Stories of French explorers, steamboats, the burning of the town twice during the Civil War, a school for the Osage Indians and floods from the Marais des Cygnes.
COMICS PREVIEW 28-31
DEATHS A10-11
Only about 35 people now reside in Papinville, Mo., but history is in their blood.
So they built a museum. Yes, this tiny town — with no store, no church, no stop sign, grass streets and a population that would fit on a school bus — has a museum. Longtime resident Beverly Sullins stood on the old Papinville bridge on a recent day and
“Other little towns aren’t around anymore because they don’t have the history we do.” JERRY STANGEL, PAPINVILLE RESIDENT
FBI searches Kenya mall for potential threats to U.S. security Dozens of agents are sent to Nairobi as officials fear attacks elsewhere could presage an attack closer to home. By NICHOLAS KULISH and JEFFREY GETTLEMAN The New York Times
NAIROBI, Kenya | Viewing the deadly siege at a shopping mall in Kenya as a direct threat to its security, the United States is deploying dozens of FBI agents to investigate the wreckage. They hope to glean every piece of information possible to help prevent such a devastating attack from happening again, possibly even on U.S. soil. For years, the FBI has been closely watching al-Shabab, the Somali Islamist group that has claimed responsibility for the Nairobi massacre and recruited numerous Americans to fight and die — sometimes as suicide bombers — for its SEE KENYA | A3
SEE TOWN | A14
LOTTERIES A5
OPINION A12-13
PUZZLES B9, PREVIEW 30-31
TV PREVIEW 26
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THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 2013
THE KANSAS CITY STAR.
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TOWN: Papinville survived despite burning in Civil War, floods FROM A1
told how they also waged a long battle to get the preCivil War span onto the National Historic Register. “We practically had to count the rivets,” said Sullins, who took the fight to Jefferson City. This whole push started when a group got together and cleaned up the old cemetery, where stones date to the early 1800s, maybe earlier. That felt pretty good, so they formed the Papinville Historical and Cemetery Association. The group restored the one-room school, fought to get the town put back on the official state map and built that museum. Like a tour? The place doesn’t keep regular hours, but somebody will come let you in. Probably Sullins. She’s 72, president of the asPHOTOS BY ALLISON LONG | THE KANSAS CITY STAR sociation, lives a block away and will likely see you pull in. Jerry Stangel (from left), John Coffman and John Stewart helped refurbish the She’s feisty. But she needs Papinville bridge. The Papinville Cemetery and Historical Association fought for — to be. Towns this size don’t and won — a place on the National Historical Registry for the landmark. get a lot of help. She admits ger if this were an election that when she arrived to foot trafyear. Still, a few politicians plead the bridge case to a fic now may show up. Missouri Department of because Papinville “We don’t let them come Natural Resources panel, the counto the mic, but they can she went in with a chip on ty put in a work the crowd all they her shoulder. But she first new conwant,” Sullins said. had to listen to someone talk crete span a few years ago, She gives a lot of credit to but, still, people want it to for two hours about getting a woman named Pauline look good. And they wanted an entire neighborhood of Sheddrick, who played a key the work done in time for St. Louis onto the national role in getting the group Saturday’s picnic. register. started. At her funeral in “If that’s what it takes, They didn’t have money 1993, Sheddrick’s husband for new lumber, but learned we’re in trouble because I said to Sullins, “Beverly, about a wooden bridge elgot 10 minutes’ worth,” she The Papinville Cemetery don’t let it die.” whispered to an official. sewhere that was being reand Historical Sullins smiled when she placed. When those discardPapinville 1, St. Louis 0. Association created told that story recently. Money was a problem stepping stones that tell ed planks came off, the Pa“I’ve been living a promise pinville bunch loaded them early on. Then Sullins re- the town’s story. ever since,” she said. ceived a large, yellow, offiup and hauled them back to cial-looking envelope in the their bridge. ❚ ❚ ❚ mail. She thought the asso- sion, a school for the Osage How much did those As the tractor rounded the ciation, which includes Indians. Papinville served as curve on the dirt road com- 3-inch-thick, 12-inch-wide, many who don’t live there the first Bates County seat. ing from the bridge, the driv- 12-foot-long boards weigh? but have roots in Papinville, Steamboats put in at the er pushed the throttle to a “I just know they’re was getting sued. No, a landing. roar. John Coffman bounced heavy,” Jerry Stangel said But a rail line never came, along as old wooden planks while helping to lay the schoolteacher, Miss Mary Griffin, whose family oper- so the county seat moved in clattered behind on a wagon. planks on a recent hot day. ated the last store in town, 1856. Then came the war, the He grew up here, swimThis was a rush job. The had died and left the group burnings, a grasshopper historic bridge is just for ming and fishing in the river. plague and floods. All that $15,000. Now they hold regular would do most towns in. bean feeds and other fun- The population of Papinville, about 80 miles south of draisers to pay the bills. Kansas City, is now just 35. Why do they do all this? But this Saturday, 175 or so “Because nobody else is going to protect this history people, maybe 200, will and if we lose it, it’ll be gone gather at the museum for the forever, and we can’t let that association’s annual PapinEasy-Care Three-Button happen,” said Phyllis Stew- ville Picnic. There will be Shirt, Devon art, the association’s activ- music, wagon tours, a barbeAngle-Pocket Jacket, cue, a pie contest and the ities director. Pants Pencil Skirt Those French explorers auctioning of a quilt to comcame up the Marais des memorate General Order Cygnes, meaning “marshes No. 11 and the burning of the of the swans,” about 1715. In town 150 years ago. Every1820, President James Mon- body’s welcome. The crowd would be bigroe approved Harmony Mis-
County Museum, Director Peggy Buhr shook her head with amazement. “Most of the Papinvilles of the world are gone, but that bunch down there won’t let it go,” she said. “And here we think that’s great because that is where Bates County began. So much history is down there, and they tell that story in their museum. “Beverly and Phyllis and the others have kept it going. And people will never know how much time and work that took.” ❚ ❚ ❚ It rained last week, but the drops meant nothing to Sullins and Stewart as they walked through the Papinville cemetery. They know many of the family names on stones here. This is why they do what they do. To keep alive the stories of people who aren’t. And sometimes they wonder what will happen when they and others in the group are gone. Will somebody be there to pull the weeds and plan the picnics and run the museum? Who will take on the state if the unincorporated town is again taken off the map? Buhr wonders, too. “But I believe that in every generation somebody will step forward,” Buhr said. “A lot of those families are still down there. The young ones might be holding back because right now that town is in pretty good hands.” On Saturday, a crowd will gather again for the Papinville Picnic. They will eat, laugh and tell stories along the Marais des Cygnes, the river that set this stage 300 years ago. The river that brought everything here, and flows still.
Kids used to throw sticks in the current — a race to see whose stick got to the bridge first. “When I was little, this place didn’t mean much,” said Stangel, who still lives on the farm where he grew up. “But when you get older, you think about it and it all starts to mean something. “Other little towns aren’t around anymore because they don’t have the history we do.” Most everybody here knows Harmony Mission didn’t last long because young Native American men didn’t want to learn to be farmers. They know, too, that on a fall day in 1861, Gen. Jim Lane led his Kansas Brigade into Papinville and burned the town, including the bridge and the courthouse. Two years later, General Order No. 11 burned anything Lane’s men had left standing. And everybody here has flood stories. The high-water marks are painted high on the bridge iron. The big one was 1986; 2007 came close. “I delivered mail to town by coming across pastures on a Mule,” Marcelle Marquardt remembered, referring to a Kawasaki fourwheeler. History is in books, yes. But around here, it’s also in blood. Nearly everyone has the old home place. “My grandpa and grandma owned that farm right over there,” Stewart said, pointing. “That’s where we live now.” Sullins would be a newcomer. She and her husband came in 1960. Widowed now, she zips around in her Ford Taurus, usually doing something for Papinville. “I don’t have any money,” she said. “So with me, it has to be through service.” In Butler at the Bates
To reach Donald Bradley, call 816-234-4182 or send email to dbradley@kcstar.com.
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THE KANSAS CITY STAR.
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 2013
WWW.KANSASCITY.COM
Smash-up on Seventh Police said a man was taken to the hospital with serious injuries after his vehicle struck a parked pickup truck about 9:15 a.m. Wednesday in the 2000 block of North Seventh Street in Kansas City, Kan. The unoccupied pickup burst into flames. KEITH MYERS | THE KANSAS CITY STAR
Ryan says GOP wants reforms in bill Congressman tells area residents that any measure to raise debt ceiling must include policy changes. By DAVE HELLING The Kansas City Star
House Republicans will attach a series of budget reforms to any bill raising the nation’s borrowing limit, Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin said in the Kansas City area on Wednesday. The House Budget Committee chairman and former GOP vice presidential candidate said he does not expect a government shutdown next
Missouri pushes for AP courses
week, when the federal government’s spending authority expires, or a default on the nation’s debt later in October. But Ryan said Republicans will unveil a package of tax reforms, energy policy changes and entitlement reforms later this week that they want attached to the debt ceiling bill before it comes up for a vote. “It’s been very clear to us that President Obama will not do this on his own,” Ryan said.
President Barack Obama has said repeatedly he will not negotiate over raising the nation’s borrowRyan ing capacity. Wednesday, the Treasury Department said the government could run out of cash by mid-October. Ryan was in the area to help raise money for Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback’s re-election campaign. The pair stopped in
Wichita earlier in the day. Brownback said his state tax cuts were beginning to show results. “It is not an experiment,” he said. “This is a known route to go.” Democratic state Rep. Paul Davis has announced plans to seek Brownback’s job in 2014. Libertarians Keen Umbehr and Tresa McAlhaney also have announced their candidacies for Kansas governor. To reach Dave Helling, call 816-234-4656 or send email to dhelling@kcstar.com.
CHEERS OF A CLOWN
coming in from Wichita
PENGUINS ARRIVE TODAY AT KC ZOO By MATT CAMPBELL The Kansas City Star
T
he first penguins for the Kansas City Zoo’s new exhibit will arrive today. Zoo staffers will drive to Wichita to collect three birds of the Humboldt species from the Sedgwick County Zoo. The zoo will update their progress on its operation #penguinwatch2013 all day on Twitter, Facebook, Intsagram and Vine, making these birds the zoo’s first true social media stars. The penguins will be among a few dozen that will populate the $15 million Helzberg Penguin Plaza scheduled to open in late October. The rest of the birds, representing four species in all, will come from animal parks across the country. Humboldts are temperate-climate penguins that nest along the Pacific Ocean coasts of Peru and Chile. The other species coming to the Kansas City Zoo will be coldclimate birds. Friends of the Zoo board members got a fresh look at the exhibit Wednesday, shortly after muralists had finished painting an Antarctic sky on the wall and ceiling of the display behind a “rocky” shoreline crafted with formed concrete. The part of the exhibit that will house the cold-weather species must be chilled by the time those birds start arriving in early October. The construction contract calls for the work to be substantially completed by Oct. 21. The zoo tentatively plans to show off the exhibit at the Friends of the Zoo board’s annual meeting Oct. 23 and then open it to the general public. Even the unfinished penguin exhibit drew compliments from many of the roughly 2,000 zoo professionals representing 16 countries who came to Kansas City earlier this month for the Association of Zoos and Aquariums’ annual conference. It was the second largest attendance the conference had ever had and gave the zoo a chance to burnish its reputation by displaying its progress in recent years. “It was the best thing that could have happened to this zoo at this point in time,” said zoo Director Randy Wisthoff.
By JOE ROBERTSON The Kansas City Star
SEE TEST | A5
NEW EXHIBIT | Birds will be
The march of the three additions from Kansas to their new home can be tracked on social media.
State ranks 48th in percent of students in class of ’12 who scored 3 or higher on tests.
More Missouri high school students need to take Advanced Placement courses and pass the tests to earn college credit, state Education Commissioner Chris Nicastro said Wednesday. Missouri ranks 48th out of 50 states and the District of Columbia in the percentage of students in the class of 2012 who scored a 3 or higher on an AP exam. The tests are scored on a scale of 1 to 5, with a score of 3 or better usually earning a student college credit. Kansas fared little better, tied for 41st in the nation. The rigorous AP courses and the advantages of college credit fit well with the missions in both states and the nation to prepare students for college or a career in a competitive global market. “AP classes are one way schools can offer students experience with the kinds of courses they will encounter in college and the increasingly higher expectations of the workplace,” Nicastro said. Both states have been increasing the number of students in AP programs, and they also have more students taking dual-credit courses at community colleges while in high school. The number of students taking college-credit courses in high school is not clear, but Kansas Deputy Commissioner Dale Dennis said he believed it draws away many students who might otherwise take AP courses and tests. Both paths are giving students a head start on college, he said. The College Board, which administers the AP program, released its report earlier this year showing that 19.5 percent of the nation’s graduating class in 2012 earned a passing score on at least one AP exam. That percentage has increased steadily since 2002, when 11.6 percent of the graduating class earned a passing score. Over the same decade, Missouri saw its percentage of students passing an AP test grow from 4.7 percent to 9.6 percent. Kansas’ rate grew from 5.5 percent to 11.1 percent. Nationwide, 56.8 percent
Local
QUICK ACTION KEITH MYERS | THE KANSAS CITY STAR
The American Royal Youth Rodeo continues through Friday at the American Royal complex. On Wednesday, 10-year-old Koltin Hevalow of Smithville finished his winning steer ride and got a big congratulatory hug from rodeo clown Dalton Morris.
Woman charged in boy’s abduction Grandmother allegedly lived all over Missouri with him. The teen has been reunited with his father. The Associated Press
CHILLICOTHE, Mo. | A
60-year-old woman and her young grandson moved around Missouri for years while she took jobs at residential care facilities until a suspicious school official called authorities, putting an end to their itinerant life. Sandy Hatte is now charged with felony child abduction, accused of taking the boy from his Florida home nearly 13 years ago. The boy, now a teenager, has been reunited with his father, who lives in Alabama.
Hatte appeared, disheveled, in Livingston County court Wednesday morning, shackled at the waist, wrist and ankles. Judge Paul Valbracht set a preliminary hearing for Oct. 23 for Hatte, who’s being held on $25,000 bond. Her public defender, Melinda Troeger, declined to comment after the hearing. Livingston County sheriff’s detective Eric Menconi would not release the names of the boy or the father, nor did he give details about the alleged abduction. Menconi speaks daily with the father, who he said is “ecstatic.” In the probable cause statement, Menconi wrote the father reported his son missing or abducted in Florida “on or about February
2001.” Larry Jones, a Kansas City-area private investigator hired by the family earlier this year to find the boy, said the father recalled his mother parking a moving truck outside their Florida home in December 2000. “The dad said there had been a moving truck sitting outside the house for a couple days, and when he asked his mom about it and she said, ‘Well, I bought some new furniture and I need to move the furniture.’ “And when he came home, the truck and everything else in the house were gone,” Jones said. Menconi said the father was SEE ABDUCT | A6
TAMMY LJUNGBLAD | THE KANSAS CITY STAR
Kansas City fire crews worked Wednesday on an abandoned house in the 3000 block of Lister Avenue. The fire, first reported from a police helicopter, was quickly contained.
FOR PHOTO ALBUMS OF EVENTS ACROSS KANSAS CITY, SEE COMMUNITY FACES AT WWW.KANSASCITY.COM
THE KANSAS CITY STAR.
WWW.KANSASCITY.COM
DAILY DATA
FISHING REPORT
BRENT’S BEST BET As the water has started to cool, the fishing has heated up at Stockton Lake. Guides rate the fishing as very good for three species — largemouth bass, crappies and white bass.
Missouri ❚ STOCKTON: 73 degrees, clear, 3 1 ⁄2 feet high. Outlook: Stockton Lake Guide Service reports: crappies very good on minnows in 17 feet of water in brush piles; walleyes fair on jigs with night crawlers in 12 to 18 feet of water on the flats or trolling crankbaits in 15 feet of water; bass very good on spinnerbaits off points and in pockets; white bass very good trolling crankbaits on the flats. ❚ TANEYCOMO: clear, two units running from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. daily. Outlook: White River Lodge reports: Trophy Area: trout excellent on No. 14 or No. 16 zebra midges under strike indicators. Below Fall Creek: trout excellent on 1 ⁄100th-ounce microjigs 5 feet under strike indicators. ❚ BULL SHOALS: 77 degrees, clear, one-half foot low. Outlook: 125 Marina reports: smallmouth bass good on topwater lures, Hot’N Tots early in the morning and trick worms later in 8 to 10 feet of water; catfish good on juglines with cut bait. ❚ NORFORK: 79 degrees, clear, 2 feet high. Outlook: Bink’s Guide Service reports: stripers good on Bink’s Many Shad spoons in 95 feet of water. ❚ SMITHVILLE: 76 degrees, clear, one-half foot low. Outlook: Burton’s Bait and Tackle reports: crappies good on minnows in 10 feet of water in main-lake brush piles; bass good on plastic creature baits, spinnerbaits, square-bill crankbaits near woody cover in the shallows; channel catfish good on a variety of baits off main-lake points; white bass fair on Pepper Spoons, Rat-L-Traps, Road Runners where fish are surfacing early and late. ❚ TRUMAN: 78 degrees, clear, 1 1⁄2 feet high. Outlook: Cody’s Bait and Tackle reports: crappies fair on minnows 15 to 20 feet down in 30 feet of water around brush; hybrids fair on jigs, spoons, live shad in 15 to 20 feet of water; catfish fair on a variety of baits. Below: all species poor. ❚ POMME DE TERRE: 74 degrees, clear, 1 1⁄2 feet high. Outlook: Pomme Muskie Guide Service: bass good, walleyes poor to fair on crankbaits; crappies fair on minnows, jigs in 12 feet of water in brush piles; muskies poor. ❚ TABLE ROCK: 79 degrees, clear, one-half foot low. Outlook: White River Lodge reports: black bass poor to fair (a few are being caught on football jigs off secondary points or shelf-rock points). ❚ JACOMO: 74 degrees, clear, normal. Outlook: Forty Woods Bait and Tackle reports: channel catfish good on large minnows off points; bluegills fair on crickets; crappies fair on minnows, jigs in deep water on the main lake. ❚ REED AREA: 66 degrees, clear, 1 foot low. Outlook: Department of Conservation reports: crappies fair on jigs under bobbers over deep brush; bass fair on topwater lures, jigs early and late along weed lines; channel catfish fair on chicken liver, cut bait. ❚ LONGVIEW: 72 degrees, 43-inch clarity, 3 feet low. Outlook: Longview Lake Marina reports: crappies fair on minnows, jigs in 25 feet of water in brush piles; bass fair on spinnerbaits, crankbaits. ❚ BLUE SPRINGS: 73 degrees, clear, normal. Outlook: 40 Woods Bait and Tackle reports: channel catfish fair on liver, shad sides. Blue Springs Buddy Bass reports: bass good on spinnerbaits in the timber and over the vegetation. ❚ LAKE OF THE OZARKS: 78 degrees, stained, 1 1⁄2 feet low. Outlook: Gier’s Bass Pro reports: crappies fair on minnows 15 to 17 feet down in 30 feet of water in the brush; bass fair on plastic worms, Brush Hogs in brush piles.
Kansas ❚ MILFORD: 76 degrees, clear, 1 1⁄2 feet high. Outlook: Rick Dykstra reports: wipers fair on topwater lures early and late where gulls are concentrated; white bass good on jigging spoons on the flats in School Creek; blue catfish good on cut shad; bass good early on spinnerbaits. ❚ GLEN ELDER: 79 degrees, clear, 2 feet low. Outlook: Wayne’s Sporting Goods reports: white bass good to excellent on jigging spoons, jigs on main lake; crappies fair on minnows in 18 feet of water in the brush; walleyes fair to good on night crawlers drifting in 15 to 22 feet of water on the flats.
B7
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 2013
❚ WILSON: 76 degrees, clear, 4 feet low. Outlook: Knothead’s reports: catfish good on dip bait in areas that have been baited with soybeans. ❚ MELVERN: 75 degrees, clear, 2 feet low. Outlook: Melvern Marina reports: walleyes fair on jigs with night crawlers in 15 feet of water on the flats; crappies fair on jigs, minnows in 12 to 20 feet of water in the brush; catfish fair on a variety of baits in shallows. ❚ PERRY: 76 degrees, clear, 1 foot high. Outlook: Bait Hut reports: white bass good on white Bubbas in 10 feet of water off points and in Devil’s Gap; crappies poor to fair in the timber and brush; channel catfish fair on dip bait in the Hog Trough. ❚ EL DORADO: 74 degrees, clear, normal. Outlook: Wildlife, Parks and Tourism reports: crappies, white bass fair. ❚ TUTTLE CREEK: 77 degrees, clear, 2 feet high. Outlook: Guide Vic Oertle reports: white bass fair on jigging spoons on the main lake; catfish fair on live shad on the upper end. ❚ HILLSDALE: 74 degrees, clear, 2 feet low. Outlook: Jayhawk Marina reports: crappies fair on minnows in the brush (many small fish are being caught); catfish fair on cut shad along windy banks and points). ❚ POMONA: 76 degrees, fairly clear, 1 1⁄2 feet low. Outlook: Lighthouse Marina reports: channel catfish fair on a variety of baits lakewide. ❚ CLINTON: 76 degrees, clear, 2 feet low. Outlook: Clinton Lake Marina reports: white bass fair early and late on jigs, spinners on the main lake. ❚ COFFEY COUNTY: 72 degrees midlake, clear, normal. Outlook: Coffey County reports: smallmouth bass fair on plastic baits. ❚ WYANDOTTE: 74 degrees, very clear, normal. Outlook: Wildlife, Parks and Tourism reports: channel catfish fair at night on liver, night crawlers off main-lake points; crappies fair early and late on jigs in 25 feet of water; bass fair early and late on plastic baits off main-lake points. ❚ SHAWNEE MISSION: 74 degrees, murky, normal. Outlook: Johnson County Park and Rec reports: catfish fair on night crawlers late in the evening along the dam and near the marina; bass and wipers fair on plastic baits along the south shore and on live bluegills near the spillway; crappies fair on jigs along the handicap pier. ❚ HERITAGE: 72 degrees, murky, low. Outlook: Johnson County Park and Rec reports: catfish fair late in the day on liver along the dam and near the marina; bass fair on jigs, plastic baits near the marina. ❚ KILL CREEK: 74 degrees, murky, normal. Outlook: Johnson County Park and Rec reports: crappies fair on minnows near the marina; bass fair on spinnerbaits along the dam and on the north end; catfish fair on a variety of baits in the late evening near the boat ramp and the island on the north side. ❚ LA CYGNE: high 80s, clear, normal. Outlook: Wildlife, Parks and Tourism reports: low fishing pressure; all species poor.
Other area waters ❚ GRAND (OKLA.): 75 degrees, fairly clear, 2 feet high. Outlook: Guide Tony Coatney reports: black bass good on Biffle Bugs on the main lake; white bass very good on Silver Rainbow Minnow jigging spoons on humps; crappies good on Bobby Garland jigs in deep brush. ❚ WHITE RIVER (ARK.): clear, variable power generation. Outlook: Gaston’s White River Resort reports: Fly fishing: trout good on sculpin patterns, stimulators and olive wooly buggers. In low water, zebra midges have been best. Spin fishing: when generators are running, red worms and night crawlers have been the best bet. Trout also are being caught on red and gold Thomas Buoyant and Little Cleo spoons and PowerBait. ❚ BEAVER (ARK.): 76 degrees, clear, 1 foot low. Outlook: Bailey’s Beaver Lake Guide Service reports: stripers good early and late trolling with down lines with live shad, umbrella rigs with white grubs, or downriggers with Rapalas, Bomber crankbaits off secondary points.
| Brent Frazee, bfrazee@kcstar.com
MU BASKETBALL TV SCHEDULE Date Opponent Time TV or online Oct. 25 Oklahoma City (exh.) 7 Mizzou Sports Network Nov. 1 Central Missouri (exh.) 7 Mizzou Network (online) Nov. 8 Southeastern Louisiana 7 Mizzou Sports Network Nov. 12 Southern Illinois 8 Fox Sports KC/Midwest Nov. 16 vs. Hawaii* 6 Mizzou Sports Network Nov. 23 Gardner Webb 4:30** Mizzou Sports Network Nov. 25 IUPUI 7 Mizzou Sports Network Nov. 28 vs. Northwestern*** 9:30 ESPNU Nov. 29 vs. Nevada*** 7:30 ESPN3 (online) Dec. 5 West Virginia 6 ESPN2 Dec. 7 UCLA 11:30 a.m. CBS Dec. 15 Western Michigan 6 ESPNU Dec. 21 vs. Illinois# 4:30 ESPN2 Dec. 28 at North Carolina State 7 ESPN2 Jan. 4 Long Beach State 4 Mizzou Sports Network Jan. 8 Georgia 7 SEC Network^ Jan. 11 at Auburn 1 ESPNU Jan. 16 at Vanderbilt 6 ESPN or ESPN2 Jan. 18 Alabama 1 ESPN or ESPN2 Jan. 21 at LSU 6 ESPNU Jan. 25 South Carolina 3 SEC Network^ Jan. 28 at Arkansas 6 ESPNU Feb. 1 Kentucky Noon CBS Feb. 4 at Florida 8 ESPN Feb. 8 at Mississippi 4 Fox Sports KC/Midwest Feb. 13 Arkansas 6 ESPN or ESPN 2 Feb. 15 Tennessee 3 ESPN or ESPN2 Feb. 19 Vanderbilt 7 SEC Network^ Feb. 22 at Alabama 7 ESPN2 Feb. 25 at Georgia 8 ESPNU March 1 Mississippi State 12:30 SEC Network^ March 5 Texas A&M 7 ESPN3 (online) March 8 at Tennessee 3 ESPN All times p.m. unless noted. *at the Sprint Center **Subject to change depending on kickoff for MU football game at Mississippi. ***at Orleans Arena, Las Vegas #at Scottrade Center, St. Louis ^ SEC Network affiliate channels are TBA
ATHLETES OF THE WEEK
Sam Guinn
Alexis Reid
❚ SCHOOL: Blue Valley Northwest ❚ YEAR: Senior ❚ SPORT: Cross country Guinn is a late starter, but a quick bloomer. He wasn't introduced to cross country until his freshman season. Two years later, he finished in second place at the Kansas Class 6A state meet. Now a senior, Guinn is gunning for the top spot. He won the Baldwin Invitational on Saturday, completing the 5-kilometer run at Baldwin Golf Course in 15 minutes and 50.89 seconds.
❚ SCHOOL: Blue Springs ❚ YEAR: Junior ❚ SPORT: Softball The Wildcats continued their hot start, winning the Blue Springs South softball tournament Saturday. Reid, a junior pitcher, was 4-0 on the mound. She struck out 40 batters and allowed only eight hits. At the plate, she batted .400 with six RBIs during the tournament. Blue Springs is 16-1.
| Sam McDowell, smcdowell@kcstar.com
NFL
COLLEGES
Standings American Conference West
W L T
Denver Kansas City Oakland San Diego South
3 3 1 1 W
0 0 2 2 L
01.000 01.000 0 .333 0 .333 T Pct
127 71 57 78 PF
71 34 67 81 PA
Houston Indianapolis Tennessee Jacksonville North
2 2 2 0 W
1 1 1 3 L
0 0 0 0 T
.667 .667 .667 .000 Pct
70 68 60 28 PF
82 48 56 92 PA
Cincinnati Baltimore Cleveland Pittsburgh East
2 2 1 0 W
1 1 2 3 L
0 0 0 0 T
.667 .667 .333 .000 Pct
75 71 47 42 PF
64 64 64 76 PA
3 3 2 1
0 0 1 2
01.000 01.000 0 .667 0 .333
59 74 55 65
34 53 50 73
New England Miami N.Y. Jets Buffalo
Pct PF PA
National Conference West
W L T
Pct PF PA
Seattle 3 0 01.000 86 St. Louis 1 2 0 .333 58 San Francisco 1 2 0 .333 44 Arizona 1 2 0 .333 56 South W L T Pct PF
27 86 84 79 PA
New Orleans 3 Carolina 1 Atlanta 1 Tampa Bay 0 North W
0 2 2 3 L
01.000 0 .333 0 .333 0 .000 T Pct
70 68 71 34 PF
38 36 74 57 PA
Chicago Detroit Green Bay Minnesota East
3 2 1 0 W
0 1 2 3 L
01.000 0 .667 0 .333 0 .000 T Pct
95 82 96 81 PF
74 69 88 96 PA
2 1 0 0
1 2 3 3
0 0 0 0
83 79 54 67
55 86 115 98
Dallas Philadelphia N.Y. Giants Washington
.667 .333 .000 .000
WEEK 4 Today’s game San Francisco at St. Louis, 7:25 p.m. Sunday’s games N.Y. Giants at Kansas City, noon Seattle at Houston, noon Baltimore at Buffalo, noon Arizona at Tampa Bay, noon Indianapolis at Jacksonville, noon Cincinnati at Cleveland, noon Chicago at Detroit, noon Pittsburgh vs. Minnesota, at London, noon N.Y. Jets at Tennessee, 3:05 p.m. Washington at Oakland, 3:25 p.m. Dallas at San Diego, 3:25 p.m. Philadelphia at Denver, 3:25 p.m. New England at Atlanta, 7:30 p.m. Open: Carolina, Green Bay Monday, Sep. 30 Miami at New Orleans, 7:40 p.m.
Injury report Today ❚ SAN FRANCISCO at ST. LOUIS — 49ERS: QUESTIONABLE: CB Nnamdi Asomugha (knee), T Anthony Davis (shoulder), TE Vernon Davis (hamstring), S Bubba Ventrone (concussion), WR Kyle Williams (rib, knee), LB Patrick Willis (groin). PROBABLE: LB NaVorro Bowman (wrist), C Jonathan Goodwin (elbow), RB Frank Gore (knee), G Mike Iupati (shoulder), DT Ray McDonald (anlke), CB Carlos Rogers (knee), DT Justin Smith (shoulder). RAMS: OUT: DE William Hayes (knee), T Rodger Saffold (knee). PROBABLE: T Joe Barksdale (not injury related), WR Chris Givens (knee), LB James Laurinaitis (foot), T Jake Long (foot), S T.J. McDonald (knee), TE Mike McNeill (chest), RB Daryl Richardson (foot), G Chris Williams (foot).
Sunday ❚ NEW YORK GIANTS at KANSAS CITY — GIANTS: DNP: C David Baas (neck), TE Adrien Robinson (foot), G Chris Snee (hip), CB Corey Webster (hip), LB Jacquian Williams (knee). LIMITED: T David Diehl (thumb), LB Spencer Paysinger (hip), S Cooper Taylor (shoulder), CB Terrell Thomas (knee). CHIEFS: DNP: G Jeff Allen (groin), TE Anthony Fasano (ankle, knee), CB Brandon Flowers (knee), TE Travis Kelce (knee), S Kendrick Lewis (ankle). LIMITED: T Branden Albert (shoulder), DE Mike DeVito (neck). FULL: RB Anthony Sherman (knee), LB Frank Zombo (elbow). ❚ BALTIMORE at BUFFALO — RAVENS: OUT: WR Jacoby Jones (knee). DNP: WR Marlon Brown (neck), NT Terrence Cody (knee), RB Shaun Draughn (ankle), C Ryan Jensen (foot), LB Pernell McPhee (knee). LIMITED: LB Arthur Brown (chest), DT Chris Canty (thigh), RB Ray Rice (hip), WR Deonte Thompson (foot), DT Brandon Williams (toe). BILLS: DNP: CB Ron Brooks (foot), CB Stephon Gilmore (wrist), WR Marquise Goodwin (hand), K Dustin Hopkins (right groin), WR Stevie Johnson (hamstring), CB Leodis McKelvin (hamstring), G Kraig Urbik (knee), DT Kyle Williams (Achilles), DE Mario Williams (ankle). LIMITED: S Jairus Byrd (foot), DT Marcell Dareus (ankle). FULL: G Doug Legursky (knee), RB C.J. Spiller (quadriceps). ❚ ARIZONA at TAMPA BAY — CARDINALS: DNP: S Rashad Johnson (finger), LB Kevin Minter (hamstring), DT Dan Williams (not injury related). LIMITED: RB Rashard Mendenhall (toe). FULL: WR Larry Fitzgerald (hamstring), DE Ronald Talley (wrist). BUCCANEERS: OUT: CB Michael Adams (knee). DNP: G Gabe Carimi (illness), DT Gary Gibson (back), WR Vincent Jackson (ribs), DT Derek Landri (knee), WR Mike Williams (hamstring). LIMITED: TE Tom Crabtree (ankle). FULL: DT Gerald McCoy (ankle), CB Rashaan Melvin (hamstring). ❚ PITTSBURGH at MINNESOTA — STEELERS: DNP: DE Brett Keisel (hamstring). FULL: CB Cortez Allen (ankle), RB Le’Veon Bell (foot), NT Steve McLendon (hamstring). VIKINGS: DNP: CB Chris Cook (groin), RB Rhett Ellison (knee), CB A.J. Jefferson (ankle), S Jamarca
Sanford (hamstring). LIMITED: RB Matt Asiata (hamstring), QB Christian Ponder (rib), DT Kevin Williams (knee). FULL: LB Erin Henderson (heel), C Cullen Loeffler (neck). ❚ INDIANAPOLIS at JACKSONVILLE — COLTS: DNP: S Antoine Bethea (toe), RB Ahmad Bradshaw (neck), DT Ricky Jean Francois (groin), S LaRon Landry (ankle). LIMITED: LB Pat Angerer (knee), C Samson Satele (elbow). JAGUARS: DNP: DE Jason Babin (not injury related), CB Alan Ball (groin), WR Mike Brown (back), WR Stephen Burton (head), CB Dwayne Gratz (ankle), RB Maurice Jones-Drew (ankle), S Dwight Lowery (head), C Brad Meester (not injury related), DT Roy Miller (elbow, knee). LIMITED: CB Will Blackmon (head), TE Marcedes Lewis (calf), G Uche Nwaneri (knee), LB J.T. Thomas (hamstring). FULL: QB Blaine Gabbert (right hand). ❚ SEATTLE at HOUSTON — SEAHAWKS: DNP: DE Michael Bennett (groin), DE Red Bryant (back), T Breno Giacomini (knee), S Jeron Johnson (hamstring), WR Jermaine Kearse (ankle), C Max Unger (arm), RB Spencer Ware (ankle). LIMITED: DT Jordan Hill (biceps), G J.R. Sweezy (back). FULL: CB Brandon Browner (hamstring), LB Malcolm Smith (hamstring). TEXANS: DNP: LB Tim Dobbins (hamstring), CB Kareem Jackson (illness), WR Andre Johnson (shin), CB Johnathan Joseph (toe), LB Darryl Sharpton (hip, foot), G Wade Smith (knee). LIMITED: T Duane Brown (toe), TE Owen Daniels (not injury related), TE Garrett Graham (hip, groin), S Ed Reed (hip). FULL: LB Brian Cushing (knee, ankle), RB Arian Foster (thumb), CB Brice McCain (knee), C Chris Myers (back), T Derek Newton (knee, calf), WR DeVier Posey (Achilles), QB Matt Schaub (ankle), RB Ben Tate (shoulder). ❚ CINCINNATI at CLEVELAND — BENGALS: DNP: CB Leon Hall (hamstring), CB Dre Kirkpatrick (hamstring), S Reggie Nelson (hamstring), G Mike Pollak (knee). LIMITED: RB BenJarvus Green-Ellis (ankle), CB Terence Newman (knee). FULL: T Anthony Collins (knee), CB Brandon Ghee (concussion). BROWNS: DNP: K Billy Cundiff (right thigh), LB Quentin Groves (ankle), LB Jabaal Sheard (knee), QB Brandon Weeden (right thumb), DE Billy Winn (quadriceps). LIMITED: T Oniel Cousins (chest), G Shawn Lauvao (ankle). FULL: DE Desmond Bryant (wrist), WR Josh Gordon (ankle), DE Ahtyba Rubin (calf). ❚ CHICAGO at DETROIT — BEARS: OUT: DT Henry Melton (knee). DNP: CB Sherrick McManis (quadriceps), CB Charles Tillman (knee, groin). LIMITED: CB Zack Bowman (knee). LIONS: DNP: WR Nate Burleson (forearm), S Louis Delmas (knee), WR Calvin Johnson (knee), G Rob Sims (shoulder). LIMITED: DE Ziggy Ansah (abdomen), S Don Carey (hamstring), WR Patrick Edwards (ankle), T Jason Fox (groin), LB DeAndre Levy (abdomen), LB Ashlee Palmer (ankle). FULL: RB Reggie Bush (knee). ❚ NEW YORK JETS at TENNESSEE — JETS: DNP: T Oday Aboushi (knee), RB Chris Ivory (hamstring), DT Sheldon Richardson (shoulder). LIMITED: LB Quinton Coples (ankle), DT Kenrick Ellis (back), WR Clyde Gates (knee), WR Santonio Holmes (foot), CB Dee Milliner (hamstring), TE Kellen Winslow (knee). FULL: G Willie Colon (elbow), CB Antonio Cromartie (hip), WR Stephen Hill (knee), LB Garrett McIntyre (shoulder), QB Geno Smith (ankle). TITANS: DNP: LB Patrick Bailey (hamstring), WR Kenny Britt (neck, ribs), RB Shonn Greene (knee), DT Sammie Hill (ankle), T David Stewart (calf), TE Delanie Walker (toe). LIMITED: LB Moise Fokou (neck), CB Blidi Wreh-Wilson (hamstring). FULL: LB Zaviar Gooden (ankle). ❚ WASHINGTON at OAKLAND — WASHINGTON: DNP: K Kai Forbath (right groin), LB Brandon Jenkins (ankle), TE Jordan Reed (thigh). LIMITED: TE Fred Davis (ankle). FULL: WR Leonard Hankerson (hamstring), LB Ryan Kerrigan (knee), S Brandon Meriweather (shoulder). RAIDERS: DNP: S Tyvon Branch (ankle), DE Jason Hunter (quadriceps), QB Terrelle Pryor (concussion), T Menelik Watson (knee). LIMITED: LB Sio Moore (concussion), G Lucas Nix (ankle), RB Jamize Olawale (ankle), CB Tracy Porter (concussion). ❚ PHILADELPHIA at DENVER — EAGLES: DNP: S Patrick Chung (shoulder). FULL: T Jason Peters (finger). BRONCOS: DNP: CB Tony Carter (ankle), S Duke Ihenacho (ankle), LB Paris Lenon (thigh). LIMITED: CB Champ Bailey (foot), TE Joel Dreessen (knee). FULL: RB C.J. Anderson (knee), S Omar Bolden (shoulder), LB Aaron Brewer (rib), S David Bruton (neck), WR Eric Decker (shoulder), T Orlando Franklin (shoulder), G Chris Kuper (ankle), WR Demaryius Thomas (ankle), WR Wes Welker (ankle). ❚ DALLAS at SAN DIEGO — COWBOYS: DNP: WR Miles Austin (hamstring), WR Dwayne Harris (hip). LIMITED: DE DeMarcus Ware (neck). FULL: CB Morris Claiborne (shoulder), LB Ernie Sims (groin). CHARGERS: DNP: G Jeromey Clary (clavicle), T King Dunlap (concussion), WR Malcom Floyd (neck), G Chad Rinehart (toe), CB Shareece Wright (hamstring). LIMITED: LB Dwight Freeney (not injury related), C Nick Hardwick (shin). FULL: LB Donald Butler (groin), T D.J. Fluker (concussion), LB Manti Te’o (foot). ❚ NEW ENGLAND at ATLANTA — PATRIOTS: DNP: WR Matthew Slater (wrist), T Sebastian Vollmer (foot). LIMITED: WR Danny Amendola (groin), CB Kyle Arrington (groin), RB Brandon Bolden (knee), CB Marquice Cole (hamstring), S Nate Ebner (ankle), TE Rob Gronkowski (back, forearm), LB Jerod Mayo (ankle), T Will Svitek (knee), RB Leon Washington (thigh). FULL: TE Zach Sudfeld (hamstring), DT Vince Wilfork (foot). FALCONS: DNP: T Sam Baker (foot, knee), RB Steven Jackson (hamstring), WR Roddy White (ankle). LIMITED: WR Julio Jones (knee), G Peter Konz (knee), G Garrett Reynolds (knee). FULL: CB Robert McClain (knee), RB Josh Vaughan (ankle).
MLS
Football Big 12 Team Texas Tech Oklahoma Texas Baylor Oklahoma State Kansas Iowa State Kansas State West Virginia TCU
Conf.
All
1-0 1-0 1-0 0-0 0-0 0-0 0-0 0-1 0-1 0-1
4-0 3-0 2-2 3-0 3-0 2-1 0-2 2-2 2-2 2-2
Saturday’s games SMU at TCU, 11 a.m. Okla. St. at W. Virginia, 11 a.m. Okla. at Notre Dame, 2:30 p.m
SEC North Florida Georgia South Carolina Missouri Kentucky Tennessee Vanderbilt South LSU Alabama Ole Miss Auburn Arkansas Texas A&M Mississippi State
Conf.
All
1-0 1-0 1-1 0-0 0-0 0-1 0-2
2-1 2-1 2-1 3-0 1-2 2-2 2-2
Conf.
All
1-0 1-0 1-0 1-1 0-0 0-1 0-1
4-0 3-0 3-0 3-1 3-1 3-1 1-2
Saturday’s games Arkansas St. at Missouri, 6:30 p.m. S. Carolina at UCF, 11 a.m. S. Alabama at Tennessee, 11:21 a.m. LSU at Georgia, 2:30 p.m. Mississippi at Alabama, 5:30 p.m. Florida at Kentucky, 6 p.m. Texas A&M at Arkansas, 6 p.m. UAB at Vanderbilt, 6:30 p.m.
Heart of America Team
Conf.
All
1-0 1-0 1-0 1-0 1-0 0-1 0-1 0-1 0-1 0-1
3-0 3-0 2-1 1-1 1-1 2-1 2-1 1-2 0-2 0-3
Benedictine Peru State Central Methodist Evangel Missouri Valley Avila Baker Graceland MidAmerica Nazarene Culver-Stockton
Saturday’s games Mo. Valley at Culver-Stockton, 1 p.m. Benedictine at Peru State, 6 p.m. Avila at Baker, 6 p.m. Graceland at Cen. Methodist, 6 p.m. MidAmer. Naz. at Evangel, 6 p.m.
MIAA Team
Conf.
All
3-0 3-0 3-0 3-0 2-0 2-0 2-1 1-2 0-2 0-2 0-3 0-3 0-3 0-3
3-0 3-0 3-0 3-0 3-0 3-0 2-1 1-2 1-2 0-3 0-3 0-3 0-3 0-3
Emporia State Missouri Southern Pittsburg State Washburn Missouri Western Northwest Missouri Lindenwood Central Missouri Lincoln Southwest Baptist Central Oklahoma Fort Hays State Nebraska Kearney Northeastern State
Saturday’s games NE State at Emporia State, 1 p.m. NE Kearney at NW Missouri, 1 p.m. Pittsburg St. at Lincoln, 2 p.m. Cen. Okla. at Washburn, 2:37 p.m. MO Southern at SW Baptist, 6 p.m. Fort Hays St. at MO Western, 6 p.m. Missouri S&T at Lindenwood, 6 p.m. Central Missouri at Truman, 7 p.m.
Missouri-Kansas Saturday’s games Haskel at Bacone (Okla.), 6 p.m. Bethel at Ottawa, 1 p.m. Bethany at St. Mary, 1 p.m. SD Mines at William Jewell, 1 p.m.
Women’s golf DOANE INVITATIONAL Tuesday, at Wilderness Ridge GC, par 72 Team scores: 1. Bellevue, 657; 2. (tie) Wm. Penn, 671; SCAD-Atlanta, 671; 4. Dakota Wesleyan, 674; 5. Wayland Baptist, 678; 6. Grand View, 680; 7. Mount Mercy B, 696; 8. Oklahoma Baptist, 703; 9. Baker, 724; 10. Morningside, 755; 11. Peru State, 765. Top individuals: 1. (tie) Ugalde, WB, 157; Fitts, DW, 157; 3. Santoyo, BV, 158; 4. Coertze, WP, 159; 5. McDonald, GV, 160; 11. Dillingham, BU, 165.
Men’s soccer MidAmerica Nazaene 3, Park 1. MNU (Morales, Souza, Norest). PARK (Sousa). Records: MNU 8-2-1, PARK 1-4. William Jewell 2, Southwest Baptist 0. WJ, (Souder, Newman; shutout by Van Hoosner). Records: WJ 3-4, SWB 0-8.
Women’s soccer MidAmerica Nazaene 5, Park 2. MNU (Marquis 2, Mihajlovic, Reid, Farrar). PARK (Steiner, Briscoe). Records: MNU 8-1-1, PARK 1-5.
Women’s volleyball Central Methodist 3, Avila 0 (25-21, 25-10, 25-19) Central Missouri 3, Truman St. 3 (12-25, 10-25, 25-17, 25-22, 20-18) Drury 3, Missouri Southern 2 (27-25, 23-25, 25-15, 27-29, 15-13) Kansas City Kansas CC 3, Allen County CC 2 (17-25, 26-28, 25-11, 25-12, 15-13)
NHL PRESEASON
Eastern
W L T Pts GF GA
New York Sporting KC Montreal Houston New England Chicago Philadelphia Columbus Toronto FC D.C. United
15 9 14 9 13 9 12 10 11 11 11 12 10 10 11 14 4 15 3 20
Western
W L T Pts GF GA
Seattle Real Salt Lake Portland Los Angeles Colorado Vancouver San Jose FC Dallas Chivas USA
15 14 11 13 12 11 11 10 6
8 10 5 10 9 10 11 9 16
6 6 6 7 7 6 9 5 11 6
5 6 13 6 9 8 8 10 8
51 48 45 43 40 39 39 38 23 15
50 48 46 45 45 41 41 40 26
47 43 46 37 41 36 37 36 25 19
38 53 45 46 37 42 31 40 29
36 28 42 36 33 43 39 39 44 48
28 39 31 36 31 38 41 42 54
Friday’s game Philadelphia at Sporting KC, 7 p.m. Saturday’s games D.C. United at Toronto FC, noon Real Salt Lake at Vancouver, 6 p.m. Houston at New England, 6:30 p.m. Montreal at Chicago, 7:30 p.m. Sunday’s games Los Angeles at Portland, 2:30 p.m. Columbus at FC Dallas, 7:30 p.m. New York at Seattle FC, 8 p.m. San Jose at Chivas USA, 10 p.m.
WNBA PLAYOFFS
Conference Finals (Best-of-3)
Eastern Conference INDIANA VS. ATLANTA Today: Indiana at Atlanta, 6 p.m. Sunday: Atlanta at Indiana, 2 p.m. x-Oct. 1: Indiana at Atlanta, TBA
Western Conference PHOENIX VS. MINNESOTA Today: Phoenix at Minnesota, 8 p.m. Sunday: Minnesota at Phoenix, 4 p.m. x-Oct. 1: Phoenix at Minnesota, TBA (x-if necessary)
All-WNBA team FIRST TEAM Player Maya Moore Candace Parker Sylvia Fowles Diana Taurasi Lindsay Whalen
Team Minn. LA Chicago Phoenix Minn.
Pos F F C G G
Pts 161 119 167 162 143
SECOND TEAM Player Tamika Catchings Elena Delle Donne Tina Charles Angel McCoughtry Seimone Augustus
Team Pos Pts Indiana F 116 Chicago F 105 Conn. C 52 Atlanta G 97 Minn. G 62
PRO TENNIS
WTA Toray Pan Pacific Open Wednesday, in Tokyo; at Ariake Colosseum THIRD-ROUND SINGLES ❚ Agnieszka Radwanska (2), Poland, d. Dominika Cibulkova (16), Slovakia, 6-3, 6-4. ❚ Caroline Wozniacki (4), Denmark, d. Magdalena Rybarikova, Slovakia, 6-1, 6-1. ❚ Angelique Kerber (5), Germany, d. Ana Ivanovic (11), Serbia, 6-4, 6-2. ❚ Eugenie Bouchard, Canada, d. Jelena Jankovic (6), Serbia, 7-5, 6-2. ❚ Lucie Safarova, Czech Republic, d. Sam Stosur (12), Australia, 6-4, 6-4. ❚ Venus Williams, United States, d. Simona Halep (13), Romania, 4-6, 7-5, 6-3.
ATP World Tour Thailand Open Wednesday, in Bangkok; At Impact Arena FIRST-ROUND SINGLES ❚ Mikhail Youzhny (5), Russia, d. Paolo Lorenzi, Italy, 6-3, 6-2. ❚ Yen-hsun Lu, Taiwan, d. Evgeny Donskoy, Russia, 6-3, 6-2. ❚ Denis Istomin, Uzbekistan, d. Jeong Suk-young, South Korea, 6-3, 6-0. SECOND-ROUND SINGLES ❚ Tomas Berdych (1), Czech Republic, d. Roberto Bautista Agut, Spain, 6-3, 6-3. ❚ Feliciano Lopez (6), Spain, d. Go Soeda, Japan, 7-6 (7-5), 6-3. ❚ Igor Sijsling, Netherlands, d. Robin Haase, Netherlands, 6-7 (7-9), 6-4, 7-6 (7-2).
ATP World Tour Malaysian Open Wednesday, in Kuala Lumpur; At Putra Stadium FIRST-ROUND SINGLES ❚ Julien Benneteau (5), France, d. Michal Przysiezny, Poland, 7-6 (6), 6-4. ❚ Dmitry Tursunov (6), Russia, d. Rajeev Ram, United States, 7-5, 6-0. ❚ Joao Sousa, Portugal, d. Ryan Harrison, United States, 6-3, 6-2. ❚ Marcos Baghdatis, Cyprus, d. Carlos Berlocq, Argentina, 7-6 (7-3), 6-3. SECOND-ROUND SINGLES ❚ David Ferrer (1), Spain, d. Matteo Viola, Italy, 6-2, 6-3. ❚ Adrian Mannarino, France, d. Nicolas Almagro (3), Spain, 6-4, 6-3. ❚ Federico Delbonis, Argentina, d. Vasek Pospisil (7), Canada, 7-6 (7-2), 7-6 (7-1).
HIGH SCHOOLS
Football Today’s games BV Northwest at BV West, 6:30 p.m. Leavenworth at SM Northwest Northeast at Lincoln Prep Raytown South at Liberty North Friday’s games Baldwin at Spring Hill Basehor-Linwood at Lansing Bishop Miege at Gardner Edgerton Bishop Ward at Turner Blue Springs South at Rockhurst Blue Valley at Blue Valley North Center at St. Pius X Christ Prep at Oskaloosa De Soto at Louisburg Drexel at Midway Excelsior Springs at Harrisonville Fort Osage at Raytown Grain Valley at Pleasant Hill Grandview at Park Hill South Harmon at Washington Lafayette County at Richmond Lansing at Basehor-Linwood Lathrop at Lawson LS North at LS West Liberty at Blue Springs Odessa at Oak Grove O’Hara at Clinton Olathe East at SM North Olathe Northwest at Lawrence Olpe at McLouth Paola at Eudora Park Hill at Ruskin Piper at Bonner Springs Platte County at Kearney Pleasant Ridge at Immaculata Raymore-Peculiar at Lee’s Summit St. James Academy at Ottawa St. Joseph Lafayette at Smithville St. Paul Lutheran at Lone Jack St. Thomas Aquinas at BV Southwest Schlagle at Sumner Academy SM East at Olathe North SM South at Olathe South SM West at Lawrence Free State Southwest ECC at East Staley at Belton Sweet Springs at Orrick
Tonganoxie at Mill Valley Trenton at Pembroke Hill Truman at St. Joseph Central Van Horn at African Centered Wellsville at Osawatomie West Platte at North Platte Winnetonka at Oak Park Wyandotte at Atchison Saturday’s games Hogan Prep at University Academy, 2 p.m. North Kansas City at William Chrisman, 1 p.m.
Girls golf Blue Springs 172, Pembroke Hill 204. Medalist: Mariah Peters, BSP, 38. At Blue Springs CC par 36. Fort Osage 231, Winnetonka 243. Medalist: Iloilo, FO, 51. At Hodge Park GC, par 36. Raytown 231, William Chrisman 237, Grandview DNF. Medalist: Secarya Webb, RAY, 52. At Drumm Farm GC par 36. Richmond 186, Lawson 229, Excelsior Springs 238. Medalist: Westbrook RICH, 45; Propst, LAW, 45. At Shirkey GC par 38. Smithville 203, Platte County 229 . Medalist: Ashleigh Beamer, PC, 45. At Shilo Springs GC par 37. Staley 215, Truman 233. Medalist: Farnan, ST, 45. At Staley Farms GC par 36.
Boys soccer Bishop LeBlond 2, Pembroke Hill 1. BL (Robertson, Jarrett), PH, (Blevins). Records: BL 5-1, PH 4-7. Blue Springs South 5, Blue Springs 1. BSS, (Childers 3, Findley, Gowan), BS, (Miller). Records: BSS 5-2-1. Lee’s Summit North 2, Lee’s Summit 1, OT. LSN, (Gillord, Willard), LS, (Gordan). Records: LSN 8-2-1, LS 7-3. Lee’s Summit West 5, Truman 0. LSW, (Mok 2, Visconti 2, Arcum;
shutout by Gerdes). Records: LSW 9-2, TRU 0-8. Liberty 2, Raymore-Peculiar 1. LIB (Bass, Raasch), RP, (Alleman). Records: LIB 4-3. Park Hill South 3, Park Hill 2, OT. PHS, (Hall 3), PH, (Barnard, Zdvorak). Records: PHS 9-2, PH 6-3. TOP DOG TOURNAMENT Championship: BV Northwest 1, BV North 0. BVNW (Brown; shutout by Glass). Records: BVNW 6-1-1, BVN 5-3-1. Saint Thomas Aquinas 1. Rockhurst 0. STA, (Stoecklein; shutout by Engel). Records: STA. 3-2-2, Rockhurst. 8-4. Tuesday's results BV Southwest 5, Turner 0. SM North 0, Lawrence Free State 0, 2 OT. SMN (shutout by Honn and Herron). LFS (shutout by Bryant). Records: SMN 2-2-2; LFS 2-2-2.
Softball Belton 8, Fort Osage 5 Blue Springs 9, Park Hill South 2 Lawson 16, St. Pius X 5 Oak Grove 9, Warrensburg 3 Staley 5, Raytown 4 St. Joseph Benton 3, St. Teresa’s Academy 2 William Chrisman 2, Grandview 1, 8 inn. Winnetonka 5, St. Joseph Central 2
Boys swimming NORTH KANSAS CITY DUEL Tuesday, at Platte County HS Team places: 1. LS North; 2. Staley; 3. Platte County; 4. Kearney; 5. North Kansas City; 6. Oak Park; 7. Winnetonka. Duel scores Platte County 160, Kearney 116 Platte County 199, Oak Park 70
Platte County 222, NKC 55 Platte County 230, Winnetonka 35 LS North 215, Platte County 93 Staley 196, Platte County 86
Girls tennis Blue Springs South 6, Lee’s Summit 3. No. 1 singles: Herder, LS, d. Davenport, BLSS, 6-0, 6-0. No. 1 doubles: Herder/Gooch, LS, d. Bell/Bowling, BLSS, 6-1, 6-0. Grandview 9, Lincoln 0. No. 1 singles: Williams, GV, d. Svay, LA, 8-0. No. 1 doubles: Williams/Gould, GV, d. Svay/Nguyen, LA, 8-1. O’Hara 7, Center 2. No. 1 singles: Murray, CEN, d. Franklin, OH, 8-2. No. 1 doubles: Murray/Bennett CEN, d. Blankinship/Ryan OH, 8-0. Olathe South 9, Olathe North 0. No. 1 singles: Stout, OS, d. Gooden, ON, 8-5. No. 1 doubles: Dunkak/Barb OS, d. Gooden/Haney, ON, 8-0. Park Hill South 9, Fort Osage 0. No. 1 singles: Royle, PHS, d. Church, FO, 10-1. No. 1 doubles: Royle/Jackson, PHS, d. Church/Harris, FO, 10-2. Shawnee Mission East 9, Olathe East 0. No. 1 singles: Sneed, SME, d. Chang OE, 8-0. No. doubles: Wilcox/Epstein, SME, d. Chang/Magee, OE, 8-5. St. Teresa’s Academy 7, St. Joe Central 2. No. 1 singles: Zimbelman, SJC, d. Ferro, STA, 10-5. No. 1 doubles: Zimbelman/Johnston, SJC, d. Bredar/Campbell, STA, 10-7.
Volleyball Belton 2, Center 0 (25-5, 25-8) BV North 3, SM East 0 (25-7, 25-13, 25-9) Liberty North 2, Smithville 1 (17-25, 25-12, 25-23) Tuesday's result Lee’s Summit 2, LS North 1 (27-25, 20-25, 25-16)
Wednesday’s results Buffalo 3, Columbus 0 Washington 4, Nashville 1 Ottawa 5, Montreal 2 Pittsburgh 5, Detroit 1 Minnesota 3, St. Louis 1 Phoenix 3, Calgary 2 Today’s games Philadelphia at New Jersey, 6 p.m. Carolina at Columbus, 6 p.m. Ottawa at Montreal, 6:30 p.m. Florida vs. Tampa Bay at Estero, FL, 6:30 p.m. Boston at Winnipeg, 6:30 p.m. Colorado at Dallas, 7:30 p.m. N.Y. Rangers at Vancouver, 9 p.m. Tuesday’s results Ottawa 3, Toronto 2 New Jersey 2, Philadelphia 1 Nashville 2, Tampa Bay 1 Dallas 5, Colorado 3 Edmonton 5, N.Y. Rangers 3 Los Angeles 2, Anaheim 1 San Jose 5, Vancouver 0
CFL West
W L T PTS PF PA
Calgary 9 3 0 18 373 301 B.C. 8 4 0 16 325 302 Saskatchewan 8 4 0 16 376 282 Edmonton 3 9 0 6 294 328 East W L T PTS PF PA Toronto Hamilton Montreal Winnipeg
8 4 6 6 4 8 2 10
0 0 0 0
16 12 8 4
354 315 316 329 285 349 251 368
Friday’s game B.C. at Winnipeg, 7 p.m. Saturday’s games Calgary vs. Hamilton, at Guelph, Ontario, 5 p.m. Toronto at Edmonton, 8 p.m.
AREA GOLF STATELINE AMATEUR TOUR At Falcon Ridge Golf Club, par 72 Open: 1. Mark Terranova, Overland Park, 37-33--70; 2. Luke Lutgen, Blue Springs, 38-33--71; T3. Ben David Kimminau, Raymore, 35-37--72; T3. Brent Mertz, Overland Park, 36-36--72. Senior: 1. John Samples, Kansas City, 32-35--67; T2. George Watermann, Leawood, 36-36--72; T2. Steve Groom, Raytown, 38-34--72. Legends: 1. Don Kuehn, Kansas City, 36-34--70; 2. Jim Lodes, Lenexa, 35-36--71; 3. Jim Archer, Prairie Village, 36-38--74. Players: 1. Jamie Lyndes, Kansas City, 37-34--71; T2. Dale Nash, Kearney, 36-37--73; T2. Jeff Mott, Stilwell, 38-35--73; T2. Kurt Lorenzen, Olathe, 36-37--73; T2. Tom Pickert, Overland Park, 36-37--73. SUNFLOWER SENIOR LEAGUE At Sunflower Hills, par 72 Indiv. low net, flight winners A flight: Jorge Prieto, 65. B flight: Ron Medley, 63. C flight: John Smarekar, 66. D flight: Don Giannotti, 69. E flight: Charlie Barth, 68. F flight: Rick Paulsen, 66; Jim Templin, 66. G flight: Everett Jennings, 61. H flight: Don Schultz, 66. HOLES IN ONE ❚ AT HALLBROOK: Bill Knoth, No. 13, 181 yards, 6-iron. ❚ AT THE GOLF CLUB OF KANSAS: John Prince, No. 12, 145 yards, 8-iron. ❚ AT PAINTED HILLS GOLF CLUB: Tim Francis, No. 13, 150 yards, 8-iron. ❚ AT PRAIRIE HIGHLANDS GOLF COURSE: Craig Ahrens, No. 14, 14 yards, 9-iron.
THE LATEST LINE
Major-league baseball AMERICAN LEAGUE Favorite Line Underdog Kansas City -115 @Chicago @Baltimore -135 Toronto @New York -110 Tampa Bay @Texas -175 Los Angeles Cleveland -165 @Minnesota
Line +105 +125 +100 +165 +155
NATIONAL LEAGUE Favorite LineUnderdog Line @San Diego -105 Arizona -105 @New York -135 Milwaukee +125 @Atlanta -175 Philadelphia +165 @San Francisco -115 Los Angeles +105
NCAA football Today’s games Favorite O T O/U Underdog @Georgia Tech 71⁄2 7 43 Virginia Tech @Tulsa 4 21⁄2 54 Iowa St. Friday’s games Favorite O T O/U @BYU 22 22 591⁄2 Utah St. 10 10 61
Underdog Middle Tenn. @San Jose St.
Saturday’s games Favorite O T O/U Underdog @Missouri 21 21 621⁄2 Arkansas St. @Alabama 131⁄2 16 551⁄2 Mississippi @UCF S. Carolina 81⁄2 7 53 Florida 121⁄2 13 46 @Kentucky @Tennessee 21 20 531⁄2 S. Alabama @Georgia 3 3 611⁄2 LSU @Vanderbilt 23 20 541⁄2 UAB @Arkansas OFF OFF OFF Texas A&M Oklahoma St. 17 19 57 @W. Virginia Oklahoma 21⁄2 31⁄2 49 @N. Dame @TCU 191⁄2 191⁄2 521⁄2 SMU Virginia @Pittsburgh 61⁄2 61⁄2 511⁄2 N. Illinois 21⁄2 31⁄2 58 @Purdue @Duke 91⁄2 101⁄2 67 Troy @Buffalo UConn 21⁄2 Pk 481⁄2 @Ball St. Pk 21⁄2 671⁄2 Toledo @NC State 24 24 52 C. Michigan Kent St. @W. Michigan Pk 21⁄2 511⁄2 @N. Carolina 10 12 60 E. Carolina Florida St. 23 211⁄2 52 @Bost. Coll. @Illinois 24 241⁄2 501⁄2 Miami (Ohio) Iowa +31⁄2 1 47 @Minnesota UTEP @Colorado St. 11 131⁄2 511⁄2 @Washington 7 10 64 Arizona 1 @Oregon 31 36 ⁄2 84 California @Arizona St. 5 6 501⁄2 Southern Cal Army-x +1 11⁄2 551⁄2 La.-Tech @Boise St. 281⁄2 28 551⁄2 South. Miss. Miami 20 181⁄2 481⁄2 @S. Florida @Clemson 281⁄2 281⁄2 581⁄2 Wake Forest @Idaho Temple 101⁄2 71⁄2 561⁄2 @La.-Monroe 101⁄2 131⁄2 57 Tulane 1 @UTSA Houston 3 2 ⁄2 63 @BGSU 14 15 521⁄2 Akron @Oregon St. 101⁄2 11 60 Colorado Stanford-y 10 10 48 Wash. St. Wyoming 101⁄2 111⁄2 561⁄2 @Texas St. Navy Pk 3 571⁄2 @W. Kent. @Rice 14 131⁄2 521⁄2 FAU @Nevada 7 7 63 Air Force 1 1 @Ohio St. 7 ⁄2 7 54 ⁄2 Wisconsin UNLV Pk 21⁄2 54 @N. Mexico San Diego St. 17 171⁄2 54 @N.M. State Fresno St. 171⁄2 181⁄2 581⁄2 @Hawaii x-@Dallas; y-@Seattle
NFL Today’s game Favorite O T O/U San Francisco 3 3 42
Underdog @St. Louis
Sunday’s games Favorite O T O/U Underdog N.Y. Giants @Kansas City 41⁄2 41⁄2 441⁄2 Pittsburgh-x Pk 11⁄2 42 Minnesota @Buffalo Baltimore 31⁄2 31⁄2 44 Cincinnati 6 41⁄2 42 @Cleveland Indianapolis 71⁄2 8 421⁄2 @Jacksonville Seattle 3 3 42 @Houston Arizona @Tampa Bay 3 21⁄2 401⁄2 @Detroit 2 3 471⁄2 Chicago N.Y. Jets @Tennessee 5 31⁄2 39 Dallas 21⁄2 2 47 @San Diego Washington 21⁄2 3 44 @Oakland @Denver 11 101⁄2 57 Philadelphia @Atlanta 11⁄2 2 491⁄2 New England Monday’s game Favorite O T O/U Underdog Miami @New Orleans 51⁄2 61⁄2 48 x-@London @home Copyright World Features Syndicate
★
www.kansascity.com
SEPT. 26 - OCT. 2, 2013
DARING FEATS Sisters bring their trick-riding act to the American Royal this week. Page 7
THE KANSAS CITY STAR. | WWW.KANSASCITY.COM | THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 2013 7
Cover story They’re daredevils on horseback The Iles sisters are galloping into the American Royal this week, their latest stop on the way to fame as accomplished trick riders.
L
EXINGTON, Mo. | The school bus that
bumps down this dusty gravel lane occasionally stops so the kids can watch what’s going on in the horse arena next to the road. Sometimes, the kids see a young girl standing on top of a galloping palomino, one hand holding the reins, LGUTIERREZ@KCSTAR.COM the other high above her head like one of those music-box ballerinas. They might see another girl hanging by one foot off the side of a running horse, both hands skimming the ground, head bouncing a breath away from a 911 call. It’s enough to make a mother’s heart stop. It very nearly did the first few times that Andrea Iles saw her firstborns throw themselves around, off and under horses running at full speed. “I would stand behind the fence and just pray to God that nothing happened to them,” she says. “I hated it. I hated every minute of it.” That was just four years ago. Now 15-year-old twins Bethany and Brittany Iles are the Double Trouble Trick Riders, an act performing today and Friday during the American Royal’s Youth Invitational Rodeo. Their sweet-faced little sister, Libby, is part of the show, too.
LISA GUTIERREZ
SEE SISTERS | 8
Double trouble plus one: Twins Bethany (left) and Brittany Iles, 15, perform at rodeos with their little sister Libby, 10. ALLISON LONG | THE KANSAS CITY STAR
8
THE KANSAS CITY STAR. | WWW.KANSASCITY.COM | THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 2013
Cover story
Brittany practices the ancient move called Roman riding, with each foot atop a different horse. But the Iles sisters have added their own, more dangerous twist by performing it with three horses.
SISTERS FROM PAGE 7
She yodels and has a few tricks of her own. For her signature “Liberty Special,” she hitches one tiny foot in the stirrup, dangles upsidedown off the side of her horse and lifts her free foot up beside her ear. Yes, 10-year-old Libby does the splits hanging from a horse running 20 miles an hour. The home-schooled sisters travel year-round with their mom, and sometimes grandma, performing at rodeos and Wild West shows from Wisconsin to Wyoming. They’re booked every weekend through the end of October and have engagements into next year. Rodeo crowds recognize them now. People want au-
tographs. Media want to interview the girls in glitzy costumes with the Olympian biceps. Just wait until they perfect the Death Drag, the only trick their adult coach can do but they can’t. Yet. It involves hanging off the back end of the horse and hoping two things — that the horse doesn’t buck and that your neck doesn’t snap off. “Everybody, I think, believes that they are destined to change the face of our industry,” says their coach, Jennifer Gatrel of Cowgill, Mo., a former trick rider herself. “They’re young. They’re doing something different. They have a very loyal fan base already, and they haven’t even gotten started. “They’re about to outlearn my ability to teach. What it took me my whole life to
When Bethany does tricks like these, her horse is galloping at full speed, about 20 miles an hour. Her mom freaked out the first time she her daughters do stunts like this.
learn, they are now masters at.” It took only a handful of riding lessons for the Iles sisters to know that they couldn’t sit still in the saddle. “I knew I had to do it,” says Brittany, the twin of few words whose shyness belies a daredevil’s heart. Someday,
she says, she’s going to train zebras for Ringling Brothers. Zebras, it should be noted, are strong-necked, strongwilled and famously difficult to train. But you kind of believe a girl who has been known to ride her horse until her fingers bleed. With their YouTube videos and Facebook updates,
the girls are introducing their generation to oldschool entertainment. “There are tons of kids who maybe would have done barrel racing who are getting into trick riding … probably because of social media,” Gatrel says. “Because people forgot about it or don’t know what it looked
like. So now trick riders are online, and people see that it looks really fun … this old, old, ancient act.” The girls perform Roman riding, named, very obviously, after ancient Romans who raced this way — riding standing with feet on two horses. The girls recently added their own spin: Three
THE KANSAS CITY STAR. | WWW.KANSASCITY.COM | THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 2013 9
Cover story
Trick riding isn’t all fun and games. Brittany and her sisters feed and groom all 10 of their horses. The home-schooled girls practice for hours every day.
American Royal Youth Invitational Rodeo What: Top student athletes from around the Midwest compete in matinee performances of traditional rodeo events, including bareback riding, barrel racing and mutton bustin’. The Double Trouble Trick Riders also perform. When: Noon Thursday and Friday Where: Hale Arena, 1701 American Royal Court Tickets: $5 at the box office; $10.50 through Ticketmaster.com; free for children 3 and younger. Info: 816-513-4000 or americanroyal.com
PHOTOS BY ALLISON LONG | THE KANSAS CITY STAR
Yes, that’s Bethany doing a handstand between two horses while Brittany guides the animals.
riders, three horses, which apparently no one else is doing. Trick riding is pure Wild West. American cowboys and cowgirls started doing it in the early 1900s, competing for money at rodeos and Wild West shows. But the sport was banned in the 1940s when the tricks
became too close to deathdefying. Trick riding today is for entertainment purposes only. What the twins and other modern-day practitioners do is often referred to as gymnastics on horseback. Their coach borrows moves from gymnastics and partner lifts from ice dancing.
“In trick riding, you’re tying yourself to a running horse, and the horse is running free. No one is driving,” Gatrel says. “Twenty miles an hour, so it’s pretty clearly not something you want to just go out and try on your own.” Gatrel usually works with the twins once a week, but
the girls train every day, in summer’s heat and winter’s cold. Horse work is sandwiched between homework. They use the neighbor’s horse arena across the road from their house. “What sets them apart,” Gatrel says, “is that they will outwork anyone. They ride so much in the winter they literally ride the hair off the horse … it doesn’t hurt the horse.” The discipline, the coach says, is their mother’s influence. But the girls didn’t inherit their horse sense from Mama, who only recently learned to ride. The twins thought their
mom was going to die four years ago when a mysterious ailment that stole her energy led to months of tests, biopsies and hospital stays. Cancer, doctors said at first. “We went through several months of not knowing,” Andrea remembers. “It took me quite a while to get my strength back and get better. We still have no idea what it was.” As she struggled, so did Bethany, who stopped eating anything but a container of yogurt every day. Bethany will talk about that time, but she can’t explain it. “I was terrified that she was going to die, be-
cause she’s like my best friend,” she says of her mom. Then one day it was just too hard for Bethany to put food in her mouth, or go to the grocery store, or go out to eat with the family. It was hard on Brittany, too, who would desperately try to force-feed her sister. “She couldn’t stand the thought of her not eating,” their mom says. “She would literally put it in her mouth and say, ‘You have to eat.’ ” The twins were 11 at the time. After four or five months of eating very little, Bethany had dropped to a scary 47 pounds. She hated visiting the counselor in Kansas City. She refused to follow meal plans. But the counselor had a trick of her own, suggesting that Andrea find an activity, something, anything, for Bethany. Grandma came to the rescue with a flier from the post office advertising a ranch nearby that offered horse lessons. The girls took to the horses so quickly that Andrea finally had a carrot to dangle in front of her SEE TRICKS | 10
THE KANSAS CITY STAR. | THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 2013
10
TRICKS FROM PAGE 9
5th ANNUAL SLOVENEFEST SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 28, 2013 • Authentic Slovenian Dinner • Music • Dancing • Silent Auction • Children & Adult Games • Potica, Apple Strudel & Sausage Booths • Cultural Booth • Souvenirs HOLY MASS • 4:00 PM
September 28, 9:45 a.m. Downtown KC - Grand Boulevard
HOLY FAMILY CATHOLIC CHURCH Celebrating over 100 years of Slovenian Culture on Strawberry Hill 274 Orchard St., Kansas City, Kansas FESTIVITIES • 5:00-10:00 PM Msgr. Mejak Hall, Gym, & School Grounds 513 Ohio, Kansas City, Kansas MUSIC & DANCING FEATURING: The Don Lipovac Orchestra with Brian McCarty Band Hrvatski Običaj
JOIN US FOR A STAR-SPANGLED SALUTE TO THE BRAVE MEN AND WOMEN OF OUR ARMED FORCES. FUN FOR KIDS AND ADULTS OF ALL AGES! • Patriot Guard Riders • Military technology • Gold Star families • Clydesdale horses • Marching bands
daughter: You eat, you ride. The girls trained for almost a year before first performing in June 2010. Quickly, they picked up the real trick of trick riding: the horse-whisperer thing. “What the girls have is really an intricate partnership with the horse, particularly in Roman riding,” Gatrel says. “What you have is two horses that can think independently and two girls who, of course, think independently. And that all has to work perfectly to be safe enough for them to reach down and pick up Libby. “They’re doing lifts that some ballroom dancers find difficult.” The girls have never been injured. But if they ever find themselves in a scary spot, they know what to do. “In anything that we do, before
To reach Lisa Gutierrez, call 816-234-4987 or send email to lgutierrez@kcstar.com.
KAUFFMAN CENTER PRESENTS
Contact the Church office at 913-371-1561 or holyfamilychurchkck.com for more information. All proceeds to benefit Holy Family Church.
The
Blanche Gangwere Organ Series
• Decked-out floats • Drill teams • Vintage cars • Flyover
FEATURING
Dr. Carol Williams “JazzTalk” pre-concert interview at 7 p.m. with Gretchen Parlato & special guest host Doreen Maronde
Parade begins at Pershing and Grand. Full route at www.AmericanRoyal.com Special Offer! BOGO 2013 American Royal is Presented by
we ever move on the horse, we plan for the worst-case scenario,” Gatrel says. When they perform the picture-postcard move called the Hippodrome — where the rider stands up on a galloping horse without holding on — Gatrel has taught the girls that if the horse bucks or starts to fall, they pop their feet out of the stirrups, quick, to avoid being dragged. As if their mother didn’t already have enough to worry about, the girls are learning how to drive now, too, as of their 15th birthday last week. “Brittany and Bethany both passed their driving test and now have their permits to drive,” Andrea posted on Facebook. “Hopefully they drive safer then they ride!!!!”
STAR
with Promo Code KC
– America’s Sweetheart Organist –
2013 American Royal Parade is Presented by
Sunday, September 29 | 4:00 p.m. 816-474-4444
Presented thanks to the generosity of:
www.follytheater.org Additional support generously provided by Mrs. Paul H. Henson. Richard J. Stern Foundation for the Arts— Commerce Bank Trustee
TICKETS (816) 994-7222 or kauffmancenter.org
KANSAS CITY EDITION
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SUNDAY, OCTOBER 27, 2013
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TODAY’S WEATHER: LOW 35, HIGH 62. SUNNY AND MILD. | B16
Voters weigh an unusual tax pitch
SMALL-TOWN
STRONG
Against the odds, our towns endure
Turnout will be key for issue on Nov. 5 ballot that would pay for medical research. By MIKE HENDRICKS The Kansas City Star
Never have Jackson County voters considered anything like this. If approved, the half-cent sales tax proposal on the Nov. 5 ballot would raise $800 million over 20 years not for parks, public safety INSIDE or other pro- Opposing jects normally views on funded with the sales sales taxes. tax for Instead, the medical tax would un- research. derwrite med- | A29 ical research at two private hospitals and the health professional schools at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, all collaborating under a new umbrella organization: the Jackson County Institute for Translational Medicine. The last time county residents were asked to approve a tax approaching this amount was in 2006. That SEE TAX | A22
Island life shaped Chiefs lineman
Spectators lined the main drag to enjoy a parade that is held each summer at the conclusion of the Overbrook Osage County Fair in Overbrook, Kan. The town has survived despite its small size.
W
e’ve been hearing about the slow death of small towns all our lives. And it’s true, if you weigh the percentages: 36 percent of Americans lived outside of urban areas back in 1950; fewer than 19 percent do today. Experts had been forecasting a slight resurgence of retiring baby boomers migrating from cities and suburbs to quieter, calmer places — after all, small towns remain deeply ingrained in our DNA. But then the economic crash kept everyone frozen in place. And small towns suffered even further. Main Street businesses struggled against big-box stores. Schools closed. Yet, somehow, small-town America keeps hanging on. Just look at a place called Overbrook, Kan., population 1,000. They keep throwing parades. They go to the grocery store for hunting licenses and leave trucks parked with keys in the ignition. And they’re willing to raise an insane amount of money to build a better library. In a three-part series beginning today, The Star looks at how life in one small town is threatened, how it’s changing and why it still matters.
Story by RICK MONTGOMERY Photos by RICH SUGG The Kansas City Star
VAHE GREGORIAN
The story of Overbrook, Kan., a four-page special report
COMMENTARY
HOG HAMMOCK, Ga. | With an escort of dolphins on this crisp, bright morning, the ferry ride from the mainland to Sapelo Island lasts perhaps 20 minutes, a span that might as well have been spent in a time machine. This simple, peaceful and lush but complicated island was once a slave colony. Now it has a dwindling and aging permanent population of fewer than 50 “Saltwater Geechee” descendants in Hog Hammock, the one remaining community on the 10-mile by 2-mile barrier island — a community that improbably nurtured
| A13-16
Topeka
70
Lawrence 335
75
59 56
Overbrook THE KANSAS CITY STAR
@Go to projects.KansasCity.com/overbrook for more photos and videos from Overbrook.
SEE ISLAND | A20
A+E D1
CAREER BUILDER F1
CLASSIFIED F2
DEATHS A23-26
H+H C1 LOCAL A4
LOTTERIES A5
MOVIES D7
OPINION A27-29
SPORTS DAILY B1
SUNDAY HOMES E1
134TH YEAR | NO. 40 | 9 SECTIONS
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THE KANSAS CITY STAR.
WWW.KANSASCITY.COM
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 27, 2013
SMALL-TOWN
STRONG
DAY ONE OF A THREE-DAY SERIES
A way of life in Overbrook, Kan.
O
VERBROOK, Kan. | Kids are passing around a baby Story By RICK MONTGOMERY Photos by RICH SUGG
raccoon at the wedding reception. The groom’s mother, Cathy Sowers, rolls her
The Kansas City Star
eyes. “That’s Rascal,” she explains. “I came home
one day to see a Styrofoam box in the kitchen. Opened it up and
there he was. I was, like, ‘What the…?’ ” Her husband, David, who had found the orphaned raccoon, really was not intending to bring Rascal to the wedding party until he learned The Star was showing up to look at life in a small town. “There you have it,” his wife says. “Small town.” Then she asks me: Why pick us? They’ve been asking that a lot. “Not much goes on here,” they point out. No breaking stories, I agree. There’s life, death, but few headlines. The Star wondered, though, how a small town endures in 2013. So the newspaper suggested I find one sleepy speck on the map and spend plenty of time there this year. Pundits have been writing America’s small-town obituaries for decades, and the recent recession delivered more trouble. Yet towns hang on for reasons that seem hazy from a distance. Many of us have connections to small towns and want them to last if they can, even though more than 80 percent of Americans today dwell in the cities and suburbs. SEE SMALL | A14
At top, nearly a fifth of the local population attended the June wedding reception of Madison Swisher and Derrick Sowers at the Overbrook Fairgrounds. Above, flower girl Trysten Sowers, 4, kept a rescued raccoon named Rascal company at the event.
A13
A14
THE KANSAS CITY STAR.
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 27, 2013
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SMALL: Residents won’t let go of town FROM A13
Still, the Sowers family and others want to know, why pick Overbrook? For starters, the town’s century-old motto — emblazoned on two water towers — darned near demands it: “Don’t Overlook Overbrook.” The town is neither idyllic nor backward. It isn’t booming. It’s not busting, either, and its heartbeat is strong. Roughly 1,000 people choose this place 30 miles southwest of Lawrence, and some families have stayed through parts of three centuries. And in almost every way, it’s a small town that feels like one, offering scenes that hardly ever play out in the city. Laundry tumbles unattended in the dryers at W & W Laundromat. Often a customer will forget and return the next day to find the clean load on a shelf, folded. As dawn broke before the Sowers wedding, dozens flocked into town for a “poultry swap,” which is exactly what it sounds like. And the nuptials of Derrick Sowers and Madison Swisher reflected even more about the rhythms of small-town life (beyond Rascal being on the guest list). The bride didn’t wait to finish college to get married. The groomsmen had been tight since early grade school — so tight they called the groom’s father Dad, even if he wasn’t theirs. The newlyweds climbed into Derrick’s all-terrain Razr to drive from the church to the reception at the fairgrounds, which would’ve gotten them pulled over in the burbs. Also, where else can couples claim their wedding was attended by nearly a fifth of the local population? The dancing goes on as darkness consumes the water tower at the party’s edge. The motto fades to black for another evening. “Don’t Overlook Overbrook.” Next morning, many residents will rise before the sun. They know what I’ve learned: In times that seem to be against them, small towns stay alive only because people want them to.
Well, it’s home So there’s Pat Martin, 78, climbing aboard her John Deere mower to ride to the four-block stretch that passes for downtown Overbrook. The mower pulls a 55-gallon barrel in a homemade cart. Martin fills the barrel with water from the volunteer fire station spigot and motors to each flower pot on the main drag to soak the petunias. Cliff O’Bryhim, around sun-up, starts butchering meat at Overbrook’s only grocery. The town needs him to show. Residents talk of how O’Bryhim’s Thriftway, a third-generation fixture, almost single-handedly keeps the business district afloat. What a shame that Cliff’s sons don’t want to take it over. Rotary meetings start at 7 a.m. every Tuesday. For retired banker Max Friesen — longtime town treasurer, fire chief, Scoutmaster, church choir director and unofficial patriarch — one more notable achievement was to be notched this summer: Sixty years of perfect Rotary attendance. Another group, Overbrook Pride, meets at 7 a.m. monthly, on third Saturdays. Eight or nine stalwarts show, including Martin. At the May gathering, she reported on her neighbors’ tasks in planning the Santa Fe Trail Festival in September: “Carol Baughman is showing off quilts. Bill Shipp is doing bingo. The Girl Scouts are doing funnel cakes. Ed Harmison will talk about the Santa Fe Trail.” The mayor will serve biscuits and gravy. These, of course, aren’t professional event planners. No paid staff handles the details of procuring 12 gallons of gravy to go with the mayor’s biscuits. It takes work to keep a little town ticking in 2013. Businesses here struggle. Schools consolidate and disappear, off to other communities. Fuel costs for driving to a job 30 miles away keep climbing. The locals have long prayed for a physician to settle in and replace Doc Ruble, who retired in 1993. Fundraising is a constant: The 4-H, the Scouts, Overbrook Pride, high school band, Christmas displays — to be an Overbrookian means getting hit up. And don’t think it goes unknown if you say no. Still, one sunrise after another, they put in the work and choose to stay. For many, it’s because the parents live just down the road, or a sibling lives next door. For second-grade teacher Angie Portlock, working in the same school that she attended — and where her mother also taught, and a son is now enrolled — has real meaning. Or consider Allene Hesseltine, known as “Pug” throughout her 91
years. Her great-grandfather co-founded Overbrook in the 1880s. Her 93-year-old sister — Doris Marshall, or “Tommie” — resides at the Brookside Retirement Community, the largest employer in town. The distant relatives of Pug and Tommy, by bloodline or marriage, might be any longtime resident of Osage County. Pug has lived nowhere else but for a few years in Kansas City, where she worked for a wholesaler during World War II. When I ask what has kept her here, she flashes a quizzical look I found common when asking that question. “Well, it’s home,” Pug says. “It’s family.” Besides, “People from all over remember that slogan, ‘Don’t Overlook Overbrook,’ ” she says. They do? “They sure do. You mention where you’re from to people in the cities ... and that’s the first thing they’ll say: ‘Don’t Overlook Overbrook.’ ” Certainly, the townsfolk have done yeoman’s work trying to pitch it. The message is on a mural splashed across a machine shed that commuters to Topeka pass every day on U.S. 56, an undulating, two-lane blacktop. When Wade Sisson launched a “Don’t Overlook Overbrook” Facebook page in 2009, it drew more than 300 friends in 10 days. Unfortunately, scores of them were expatriots who had moved on, and today the motto serves as much as a plea to Overbrook’s own: Don’t take your hometown for granted, or it’s apt to shrivel over time. The older residents say they won’t allow it. Many of them worry, though, that future generations might. “Younger people aren’t into joining clubs and attending meetings,” says Gerry Coffman, one of Overbrook’s most active volunteers. Small-town life is not for everybody. Growing up in Overbrook, Kelly Lehman’s family was as close as any. Close enough to include “double relatives.” Her mother’s brother had married her father’s sister. “Double aunt, double uncle,” she said. “Their offspring are my double cousins.” It was hard to leave them all, including her sisters, who stayed to pass their upbringing on to their children. But as Lehman, 35, explained to me in an email from Denver, she wanted to live around big-city amenities, “different foods, ethnicities, religions, people of a different mindset ... “Diversity was just not something found in Overbrook.” Although that’s changed a bit since she left.
Pat Martin, 78, regularly rises with the sun to ride her mower along Overbrook’s main drag, watering all the flower pots.
Lois Harris, 93, is known around Overbrook as the pie lady. She spends many a Saturday morning making pies from scratch then placing them on racks to cool. Her delicacies are sold at the livestock sale barn, where a popular community lunch is held Mondays.
Tradition in flux A lot has changed about small towns since perhaps you left your own. The main streets don’t look very main anymore. The retail action for many small communities is out at the interstate exits. Which Overbrook doesn’t have. And yet, about 13,300 out-of-the-way towns nationwide survive with populations of fewer than 5,000. In Kansas, 80 percent of the incorporated cities have just 2,000 people or fewer. The tiniest has a population of five. Princeton University sociologist Robert Wuthnow suggests small-town people share a simple reason not to be where the economic and cultural clamor is. “They hate sitting in traffic,” said Wuthnow, a Lyons, Kan., native and author of “Small-Town America,” a new examination of the lifestyle they favor. Many prefer tradition over change — not that the latest technology has overlooked Overbrook. In some cases, the digital age helps them live there. From his office computer, Kevin Stone, pastor of Overbrook Bible Church, can answer for online readers from around the globe questions about faith via his side job with GotQuestions .org International. At the BP, where the ol’ boys gather for coffee with their biscuits and gravy, retiree Larry Woodson thumbs his smartphone to prove his talking points. Joggers here wear earbuds, like anywhere. Students at Santa Fe Trail High School, 6 miles west of town, sit on the hallway floors during breaks with their heads down, tweeting. Not that everything’s gone digital. Landline numbers are easy to jot down, because almost all begin with the same four numerals: 665-7.... That means you only need to memorize the last three digits to phone your neighbors. Conrad’s Bar and Grill has a jukebox that can take requests from cellphones. But the restaurant still won’t take credit cards. Nor will the barber, who rings up $11 haircuts on a hand-cranked register that goes ka-ching and displays the price on tiles.
Ben Winans got a haircut by town barber Paul Mohler, while Dustin Brownlee and his two sons, Dorian Schallock, 13, and Dalan Brownlee, 4, wait their turns.
@Go to projects.Kansas City.com/overbrook for more photos and videos from Overbrook.
COMING THIS WEEK Monday: An auto mechanic gambles on moving to town and making a living on main street.
People from throughout the area come to Overbrook to take part in the poultry swap, which is held two Saturdays a month, from May through October. Most early mornings, the ol’ boys of Overbrook gather at the BP to drink cups of coffee and chat about current events and goings on about town.
Tuesday: Residents rally to build a gathering place after receiving a $1 million surprise.
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At the livestock sale barn, ladies take Turns out that safety, according to cash only to serve a popular communi- polls by the University of Minnesota’s ty lunch on Mondays. Extension Center for Community VitalThat’s where I first heard about the ity, is among the big reasons families patriarch. still choose small towns. “You ought to talk to Max,” said Rita, “The No. 1 reason is slower pace of the cashier. “Max Friesen.” life,” said Ben Winchester, a research She pointed him out when Friesen fellow there. walked in — a man in a purple K-State “No. 2, safety and security. No. 3, lowsweatshirt, stooped at 85, with short er cost of housing.” white hair and rosy cheeks. Religion is a mighty draw, too. He ordered a slice of made-fromOn Sundays, about 600 people from scratch pie baked two days earlier in several counties flock to Overbrook for the kitchen of Lois Harris, 93, known a contemporary service at Grace Comaround here as the pie lady. munity Church. Friesen could’ve boasted of his own They include a large contingent of achievements. motorcyclists, the “Prairie Fire Riders” Running the Kansas State Bank for 30 of the Osage County Christian Motoryears. Co-founding the retirement cen- cyclists Association, many of whom ter. So devoted to perfect attendance serve as ushers in their riding vests. with Rotary International, on vacation When worship is underway, more he’d pull into meetings in Europe and people fill the Grace sanctuary and not understand a word. Overbrook’s two other churches than He didn’t mention that at the lunch. occupy the rest of the town. Instead, Friesen, the consummate booster, spoke of how wonderful Over- Class dismissed brook is to commuters who covet a Census numbers from 2010 tell a stoquiet, country life on the greener edges ry, but not the whole one. of the Flint Hills. Ninety-seven percent of the residents And he introduced me to others. are white — typical for little Kansas “Butch Foster, come on over and talk towns. About a quarter are age 65 or olto The Kansas City Star,” Friesen said to der. a man in coveralls at the counter. Median home value was $115,000, and “Butch’s family goes back to the Civil 10 percent of residents received food War.” stamps, both slightly lower than the Foster, 63, maintains roads for the statewide average. county. As he stepped from the counter, The black population, well, tripled he said: between 2000 and 2010 — from one “Max, you’ve been calling me Butch person to three, because of white famsince I was 10. My real name is Jim. Or ilies adopting youngsters of color. James.” Eleven people in 2010 reported being Friesen slapped a hand on the table- of mixed race. top: “I didn’t know your name was Jim!” Now there are at least 12. Ashley Nor did some others in Overbrook. Fischer, who is white and grew up in Jim Foster later would attribute the Overbrook, in 2011 delivered a daughter staying power of his childhood nick- named Taegyn, whose father is black name to the nature of small towns: and lives elsewhere. Traditions die hard. “Honestly, (Taegyn’s acceptance) “That nickname,” he said, “wouldn’t hasn’t been an issue, since I’m from go away if I held a funeral for it.” here and everyone knows my family,” said Fischer, a teacher engaged to marAround town ry a local man. Head west into town on U.S. 56. Also, she believes, small-town mores Hang a left at a sign that reads “Jack’s have evolved with the larger culture, inCafe: Food & Fuel,” serving breakfast tertwined as we are by mass entertainbut not run by a Jack in a quarter-centu- ment and satellite news. ry. No fuel pumps anymore, either. “I don’t think the kids really notice Slow to 20 mph. that she’s darker,” she said. You’re on Maple Street, though the When I sought to pick the brains of locals don’t usually call it that. young people, the Santa Fe Trail School To most it’s “main street,” or the main District could not have been more weldrag. It is a wide, sun-soaked avenue coming of my request to visit some boasting two of Overbrook’s most sa- classes. cred possessions — the municipal It was the opinion of Kristy Dekat’s swimming pool and a library under ex- journalism students that social standpansion. ing is not much of an issue in small Another huge point of pride: Only towns. It’s in the larger cities that the three banks in all of Osage County rich and poor live separately. weathered the Great Depression (14 “Small towns,” one student said, failed), and two of them still do busi- “really don’t appreciate snobs.” ness on main in Overbrook. A longtime teacher said the wealthMain also features an ancient City iest person in Overbrook “might be the Hall, post office, Conrad’s, farmer’s co- guy in the dirtiest coveralls sitting in op, O’Bryhim’s Thriftway and the Quilt the barber chair.” Connection, which attracts out-ofI brought this up with the barber, and towners on Saturdays. he suspected that could be true. But it Nothing stays open 24/7. Not even was hard to know, he said, because few fast-food chains have found Overbrook. are fool enough to crow about their Casey’s General Store is the only joint riches in a town of 1,000. serving pizza. While working on a customer, MohThe business district is pretty much ler said people are wise to be humble dead all afternoon, save for the grocery and get along with their fellow Overstore, because most residents of work- brookians because they can’t avoid living age commute to city jobs. ing with them: “It’s not like people are walking up “Let’s say Bob has a flat tire. So you and down buying ice cream sodas, I tell stop and help. Well, I might be telling you,” says the town barber, Paul Moh- myself, ‘I thought I didn’t like Bob.’ And, ler. really, I don’t.” Just one barber chair. In a back room, But still Mohler helps, knowing he’ll he keeps a couple dozen wheelchairs be seeing Bob at the grocery store. and walkers for customers to take home Even disagreements about politics if they ever need them. are treated with humor by the ol’ boys One commemorative signpost dubs at the BP. Maple, or main, “Pat Martin Blvd.,” a “Jon here just went to his proctolonod to the woman who drives the flow- gist, and they found his head,” said Reer-watering cart. publican Woodson about the guy Street names are seldom spoken, across the table, Jon Wilhite, a former though, in places this size. Democratic state legislator. “I know where everybody lives,” says Elk Township, where Overbrook is Mary Rappard Anderson. “I’ll just tell located, votes about 65 percent with the you to go three blocks that way, turn left GOP. and Wade’s house is the second one But among the eight ol’ boys drinking down. coffee, there is common ground in dis“Why do I need to know the street liking their own parties’ leadership: names?” The Dems don’t care for President Ba(Incidentally, it was outside the home rack Obama, and the Republicans gripe of Wade Sisson — author of a book on about Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback. the Titanic — where residents last winter awed over a giant snow sculpture of Know thy neighbor the doomed luxury liner. It sunk as it You hear it a lot in small towns — melted.) “Everyone knows each other’s busiOn many front yards, households dis- ness,” people say. play family names carved into stone But it’s not all true. markers. The first names of all six The ol’ boys at the BP, for example, members of the Fleming family are reached for their smartphones after I burned onto wood shingles dangling mentioned that a state website lists at out front. least six housing units in town occuUnthinkable in the city, for fear of pied by ex-convicts registered as sex offlim-flammers and abductors. fenders. Also unthinkable: Doors on some On main, florist Linda Kennison rehouses haven’t been locked in decades, called the goof she made when assumthe homeowners swear. ing to know somebody, a local, who At least one Elm Street home built in stepped into Overbrook Floral shortly the 1920s, lovingly cared for and loaded after Kennison and mother Ilo Downs with valuables, has two ground-floor launched the shop in 1986. windows that open and shut but can’t The Overbrook man bought flowers lock. for Valentine’s Day. A few weeks later, No latches — maybe none in 90 when his wife walked in, Kennison years, far as the owner knows. asked: “Did you like the flowers your He shrugged at the thought of an in- husband got?” truder slipping in: “The neighbors will Well, the wife hadn’t received flowlook out for us” when the family is away ers. And their marriage didn’t last. on vacations. “I learned then and there — never, On weekday mornings at the Casey’s, never again,” said Kennison. commuters grab energy drinks while Others were curious to learn that, actheir cars idle outside, unlocked. cording to a 2010 study, small-town resLock a car in town and the locals know you are from a city. SEE TOWN | A16
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SUNDAY, OCTOBER 27, 2013
THE KANSAS CITY STAR.
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TOWN: Filling the shoes of a community leader FROM A14
idents fall into three broad categories, each with distinct perspectives and backgrounds. In her Ph.D. dissertation, “Habits of the Heartland: Small-Town Life in Modern America,” sociologist Lyn C. Macgregor zeroed in on the community of Viroqua, Wis., population 4,000, about 90 miles outside Madison. There, she identified the Regulars, the Alternatives and the Main Streeters. They dwell in Overbrook, too. The Regulars include the Goodyear twins, Todd and Tadd, lifelong residents who help when something needs excavating. Police Chief Ed Harmison — “Hard-ass Harmison” to some, “Harmless Harmie” to others — qualifies as a Regular because he knows local history and which residents are plain trouble. He’ll bolt from a nice dinner with his wife when duty calls. A fellow Regular said of Harmison: “In small towns, you get only two choices in law enforcement — Andy or Barney. Those are the only two. We’re lucky to have Andy.” The Regulars are blue collar, mostly. And, as a rule, they aren’t wild about change. “Butch” Foster (or Jim) sees the push for growth as threatening something special. “Small-town people typically treat land as an acquisition, not an investment. That’s a whole different philosophy from the city, where everything is seen as an investment.” So what if Overbrook’s population stays around 1,000, Foster asks. Is that a problem? It’s already beginning to feel to him, and to many other Regulars, not as tight-knit as the place they knew 40 years ago. “When I graduated from Overbrook High in 1968, I knew at least two-thirds of the people who lived around here,” he told Friesen at the sale barn lunch. “Now I might know … 25 percent?” The people Foster is least likely to know are the Alternatives. Cheryl Miller is one. She moved to town last year. Having grown up in Michigan cities, Miller came to Kansas to work a state job. Budget cuts presented an early-retirement option, and Miller left Lawrence to follow “my quiet voice,” to downsize and escape the traffic. “I never lived in a small town in my life,” she says. But with the Internet and the phone headset she wears, she can teach “teleclasses” in marketing and social media. She bought a house built in 1875, planted 13 fruit trees, started canning tomatoes and growing beans. She has a dream of turning the threecar garage into a community theater, showing documentaries. Miller didn’t plan on this, but it feels right — sustainability, back to nature: “I’m hoping there’s going to be a resurgence of those simpler values, and we’ll see people move back to places like Overbrook.” Hoping for the same are the Main Streeters — the third small-town group identified by sociologist Macgregor.
Newlyweds Madison Swisher and Derrick Sowers drove to their wedding reception in Sowers’ all-terrain Razr — a ride that surely would have gotten them pulled over in the burbs.
Growth is good, the Main Streeters believe, but it requires a lot of teamwork. Many of the Main Streeters, including Friesen, weren’t born here. So some have to overcome the “newbie” tag. “Oh, yes, I’m still a newbie,” says Marilyn Anderson, active in Friends of the Library. “And I’ve lived here since 1976.” Main Streeters put in the long hours of planning that a community needs to keep things from sliding. Those who sit on the town council, which meets monthly, know that sessions can drag for upward of five hours. Five hours, unpaid, to almost midnight — talk given to tedious things like alley drainage, sewer-line issues and backflow regulations. Or to critical things such as the swimming pool. Who’s going to teach the kids to stay safe at the pool? That would be the Rotary Club, a weekly assemblage of Overbrook’s Main Streeters. Mayor Don Schultz — an ex-Marine, smart, drawling, dry-as-dust funny — took time along with six other Rotarians to visit Overbrook’s K-2 school and get the pool safety message across. “Do you all know what’s down there on the corner, that hole in the ground?” Schultz asks a group of 20 kindergartners. “The swimming pool!” they reply. “And, hey,” Schultz says. “Have any of you been out to City Lake Park to fish?” A boy’s hand shoots up. “My family went fishing there. We caught a dolphin,” the boy says. “You did? You know, I wondered where that dolphin went.” But on to pool safety. Ol’ boy Wilhite is Josh the Baby Otter. In a locker room, he sweats in a woolly costume with enormous feet and an otter head the size of a beanbag chair. Wilhite is 78. Josh the Baby Otter will serve as a lesson to stay with adults in water, to learn to float with your mama and papa otters. But while kindergartners love being high-fived by a huge dancing otter, Wilhite doesn’t quite know why he volunteered for this gig.
After the first of his four performances of the day, he unzipped the costume and stripped off his Rotary Tshirt. “Man, that’s hot out there,” a dripping Wilhite told his spotter, Vic Robbins, a fellow Rotarian who took time off his engineering job to help with the suit. Still, the kids learn something that might spare them from a tragedy. That’s why the Main Streeters are here.
Once booming One other time a newsman picked Overbrook and gave it a fleeting 90 minutes of national fame. October 1957. That’s when NBC’s Dave Garroway, host of TV’s “Wide Wide World,” arrived to report on efforts to modernize medical care in small towns. The star of the show was Overbrook’s new young doctor, James Ruble. The main drag boasted Doc Ruble’s new clinic, car dealerships, a newspaper, clothier, hardware store and one of the oldest family-run pharmacies in Kansas. Overbrook had only 500 folks then, and it boomed for a while. Farm couples came dressed up on Saturday nights to dine and dance. On weeknights, they rooted for the basketball team. They were Gophers. The high school bonded everybody, and it set intense rivalries with the Colts of nearby Scranton and the Vikings of Carbondale. But state budget pressures and tiny class sizes could not be overlooked. The three districts reluctantly consolidated in 1969 and a new high school, home of the Chargers, arose from a cornfield west of Overbrook. “Yes. There are still some hard feelings about that,” says Wilhite, who served on the school board at the time. The population began to idle at about 1,000 in 1980. Then longtime shops, including the pharmacy, started to fold. The closings coincided with the rise of bigbox stores in Topeka, Lawrence and Ottawa, each just a 30-minute drive. Four years ago, consolidation advanced further. Overbrook lost its middle school, and the Gophers vanished
altogether. “Basically, we were going broke,” says Santa Fe Trail district Superintendent Steve Pegram. The children now start schooling at Overbrook’s K-2, then hop buses to attend third and fourth grades in Scranton, fifth through eighth in Carbondale and finish up in the high school that sits all alone in between. Now, from kindergarten through graduation, they’re the Chargers. “The kids are fine with it,” Pegram says. “A number of the parents, not so.” Some moved. Some switched to home-schooling. Other things have changed, too. Former resident John Shepard of rural Osage County, back in town one Saturday for a community-wide garage sale: “When I grew up here, this was the most wonderful place in the world.” On a bench at the fairgrounds, longtime resident Kathy Coffman listened as Shepard continued. “Then you had these people from Topeka and Lawrence moving in, these commuters,” he said. “For them, it probably seemed like they were out on the farm! “But those people brought their city rules with them. They come here and say, ‘We’re going to zone you.’ You need to fix up your property. Well, I live where I want. I’ll zone you.” Coffman let him vent. “Things change,” she said. “You either adjust to change or, I guess, you get out.” Shepard threw up his arms. “Hello? That’s me. Got out.” Things do change. In recent years, town leaders even tweaked the motto: “Don’t Overlook Overbrook — A Town with a Great Future Built on a Trail of Past Success.” True, there’s been success. The consolidated school district every year meets federal Adequate Yearly Progress requirements. And the Brookside Retirement Community recently won its third-straight nursing home award, given annually by the state of Kansas to just a few facilities. And that’s about as big as the news gets here. (Strike that. Just this month, a false story on a sa-
tirical website placed an annual Gourmet Dog Meat Festival in “the modest hamlet of Overbrook, KS.” The bogus post went viral, prompting calls from around the nation.) One day in 1991, some real news hit. “You ought to read Max Friesen’s autobiography,” a local librarian suggested. “He writes about that day.” Sure enough, Friesen invited me to his split-level home to lend me his last copy of “To the Max,” the 85-page story of his life. It is a three-ring binder of memories, describing his warm friendship with Doc Ruble’s family, the hunting trips and profitable investments they made together. Chapter 17 is titled “Attempted Bank Robbery.” It tells of how two men wearing ski masks slipped into the Friesen home — it was unlocked — and tied up Max and wife Dee. They demanded a code for entering the vault at the local bank where Friesen was president. Friesen told them the vault was programmed not to open at certain hours. Frustrated, the home invaders rooted around the house and didn’t find much of value. They took the couple’s car. Turns out that one of the culprits was an acquaintance of the Friesen family who had figured that a businessman of Max’s caliber must be oozing in valuables. In small towns, that is a miscalculation. All he had was junk, one man told the court that sent him to prison. Friesen wrote: “I always thought that (the robber he knew) would look me up after he got out, to apologize in person, but he never did … “This ends the robbery story, but I want to repeat again and again how much admiration I have for our law enforcement people who were able to crack this case!” The consummate booster.
Dying famous “Everybody dies famous in a small town,” sings country artist Miranda Lambert. It’s true. Outside O’Bryhim’s grocery, a marble bench memorializes LeOra Woodruff, who worked there well into her 80s, in addition to cleaning the post office and First Security Bank, just to stay active. This summer, town Councilman Jon Brady and his son donated time at City Lake Park to install a bench in memory of Blair Flynn, who fed the geese each morning. A plaque at the swimming pool honors Nina L. Schlink: “Life-long resident, rural school teacher, farmer and lover of children.” In 1957, she willed $50,000 to get the pool started. Each loss leaves a hole. Some leave a crater. In July — just before he was to be honored for 60 years of perfect Rotary attendance — Max Friesen fell on a farm field he owned. Medical technicians from the volunteer Fire Depart-
ABOUT THE STAFF Rick Montgomery joined The Star in 1986 and has spent most of his career covering national issues. In 2007 he co-authored “Fatal Failures,” an investigative project that revealed hundreds of cases of front air bags not inflating in fatal, front-end crashes. That work netted several awards. Montgomery also helped write “Kansas City: An American Story,’’ an awardwinning book on local history. Montgomery is a native of Des Moines, Iowa, and graduate of Iowa State University. Photojournalist Rich Sugg started his career with The Star in 1985. He is the Star’s principal photographer for the coverage of NCAA basketball. His work on and off the basketball court has garnered many awards. Sugg recently documented the construction of a major art project in the form of a Pakistani-style truck built in Kansas City. The photos were published in Star Magazine, and photos and video appeared on kansascity.com He is a native of Hutchinson, Kan., and a graduate of the University of Kansas School of Journalism.
ment came to his aid. At the hospital, Friesen seemed to be on the mend with a new pacemaker in his chest. But he took a turn. He died a few days after calling a fellow Rotarian from the hospital to say he wouldn’t make the Tuesday meeting. “The closeness we have in a small community, it hurts when you lose someone,” said Mayor Schultz. “It really hurts.” Hundreds attended Friesen’s funeral at the United Methodist Church, built in 1983 on land he donated. Two fire pumpers waited outside to lead the procession to the Overbrook cemetery, where Friesen had served a half-century as treasurer. Pickups wedged in the parking lot or on the grass belonged to laborers taking time off their landscaping and construction jobs. Not many mourners showed up wearing neckties. A grave was dug next to Friesen’s wife of 60 years, and just a few gravesites north of his good friend, Doc Ruble. Speaking at the funeral, his son Stan broached the subject on everyone’s mind. Who will be the go-to people to tackle the things that give a community purpose? “We can all help to fill those shoes,” he said. And the crowd stood to applaud. To reach Rick Montgomery, call 816-234-4410 or send email to rmontgomery@kcstar.com.
COURTESY OF STAN FRIESEN |
Max Friesen in his 1928 Chevrolet truck.
Hundreds attended the funeral of Max Friesen, a retired banker and Overbrook’s unofficial patriarch. He was heavily invested in the community, serving as the longtime town treasurer, fire chief, Scoutmaster and choir director. He was buried next to his wife of 60 years.
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THE KANSAS CITY STAR.
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 27, 2013
WWW.KANSASCITY.COM
THE OUTDOORS MISSOURI OPENER
Placing a call to the ducks Hunter knows how to carry on a conversation with waterfowl near Squaw Creek refuge. By BRENT FRAZEE The Kansas City Star
MOUND CITY, Mo. | As the sun peeked over the horizon, Dusty Banner placed a long-distance call. Moments after spotting a small flock of pintails speeding across a marsh near the Squaw Creek National Wildlife Refuge, he blew into the duck call he designed and pleaded with the birds to fly closer. When the squadron turned and headed toward Banner’s decoys, he got ready, and his black Labrador retriever, Teal, began to whimper with excitement. The pintails dipped down, and Banner raised up, fired two shots and hit one of his targets. And for both man and dog, another Missouri duck season was off to a successful start. “I love it when the ducks react to a call like that,” said Banner, 27, of Blue Springs. “They definitely wanted in.” For Banner, duck hunting is definitely a calling. Since he learned to carry on a conversation with waterfowl when he was in his early teens, he has been obsessed with imitating the sounds ducks make. Not only does he make duck calls through his Pin Oak Call Co., he has advanced to the World’s Championship Duck Calling Contest eight times. He finished third in the 2011 competition and is looking forward to competing in this year’s contest in November. In the meantime, though, he is content to compete for the attention of creatures far less tough to please than the human judges that assign scores. “A hen mallard would never win a calling contest,” he said as he sat in a blind on the marsh he leases. “Ducks make terrible noises out here. “Their voices will crack. Their feed calls will sound gravelly. They shriek. … They aren’t perfect. “In a calling contest, you can’t make a mistake — not at Worlds anyway. Everything has to be very smooth.” On Saturday, opening day of the duck season in the Missouri North Zone, Banner was trying to appeal to the feathered judges. With his buddy Teal at his side, he watched as the ducks put on a show just moments before shooting hours started at 7:14 a.m. Flock after flock of ducks swept down on the decoys and some even landed, almost as if to taunt the hunters. Once shooting time finally arrived, Banner took a second to admire the sunrise and said, “Opening day 2013. It’s great to be back.” Then he watched as the inevitable happened. All of those ducks that had swarmed the sky only minutes before seemingly disappeared. “That’s the way it always happens,” he said with a smile. But the ducks did show up again, although not in the same numbers
BRENT FRAZEE | THE KANSAS CITY STAR
Dusty Banner called a distant flock of ducks as his retriever, Teal, kept watch during the Missouri hunting opener Saturday.
BRENT FRAZEE | THE KANSAS CITY STAR
Teal, a black Lab ownd by Dusty Banner, paused after retrieving a duck Saturday during a hunt in northwest Missouri.
as they had in the predawn moments. Banner pulled the trigger, Teal bounded out to make retrieves and all was well. In a matter of minutes, Banner added two bluewinged teal to his total and lamented the shots he missed. “I could have a limit (six ducks daily) if I had been shooting well,” Banner said. “Still, it’s just fun being out here on opening day. “This is when it all starts.” Banner, a waterfowl-hunting fa-
natic, figures he is out on the marsh 60 to 65 days a year, between his time in Missouri, Canada and Arkansas. He spent the past week in Canada, hunting a variety of ducks. But that didn’t diminish his enthusiasm over taking part in Missouri’s opener. He has been a part of that opening day since he was 4 years old and he would tag along with his dad to the blind. He still remembers the excitement of watching the adult hunters use their calls to bring the ducks in. “I still remember how my parents got me my first duck call for my 13th birthday,” he said. “They bought a call from Mike Keller (the late World Champion caller from North Kansas City). “Mike would have calling lessons every Wednesday night, and I would go. We got to be friends, and he taught me everything.” Now Banner has become an expert in his own right. He practices year-round, seldom missing a day. And he dreams of cold days when flights of mallards flock to the Squaw Creek area and react to hunters’ calls. “Those days when you get 100, 150 mallards to commit, those are the ones I look forward to,” he said. To reach outdoors editor Brent Frazee, call 816-234-4319 or send email to bfrazee@kcstar.com.
CALLING ALL DUCKS Dusty Banner of Blue Springs knows a thing or two about carrying on a conversation with ducks. He has qualified for eight World Championship Duck Calling Contests and spends as many as 40 days in his blind during the Missouri hunting season.
BRENT FRAZEE | THE KANSAS CITY STAR
Pelicans paddled through a pool at Squaw Creek on Friday.
SQUAW CREEK: A MISSOURI TREASURE ❚ WHAT/WHERE: Squaw Creek is a national wildlife refuge about 100 miles northwest of Kansas City. ❚ AGE: Squaw Creek was established as a national refuge in 1935 as a refuge primarily for migrating waterfowl, but for other wildlife as well. ❚ SIZE: Squaw Creek covers 7,350 acres. It centers on wetlands, but also includes wooded areas and grasslands. ❚ WILDLIFE: Squaw Creek is one of the most significant migratory rest stops on the Mississippi Flyway. It can attract as many as 100,000 ducks in the fall and up to 1 million snow geese during the spring migration. ❚ HUNTING: No waterfowl hunting is allowed on the refuge, but many private duck clubs are located along Squaw Creek’s borders. Hunters also flock to private crop fields in late winter for the Conservation Order snow-goose season. ❚ BIRDING: It is a popular birding spot, with as many as 300 species known to either inhabit or visit the refuge. Rare species such as trumpeter swans stop at the refuge and attract plenty of attention. Bald eagles also gather in large numbers in winter, and Eagle Days presentations draw large numbers of participants. ❚ OTHER WILDLIFE: Many visitors visit the refuge to see white-tailed deer. Turkeys, pheasants, coyotes, foxes, minks, raccoons, beavers, bobcats and other species also inhabit the refuge.
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Here are a few of his tips for calling in the ducks.
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❚ “Ninety percent of the battle is reading the ducks, finding out what they’re reacting to,” Banner said. “You can’t just go out and blow your call the same way every day and expect them to come in. You have to speak their language.” ❚ And just what is that language? Listen. Sometimes, Banner said, the ducks will be calling to each other aggressively. “Those are the days you have to talk right back to them in an aggressive tone,” Banner said. But Banner turns down the volume when the ducks seem to be less talkative. ❚ When the ducks are far out, Banner will use a midrange hail call. “I’m trying to reach out and touch some ears,” he said. “It’s like a greeting call.” When the ducks turn, he will continue to talk to them, but not as loudly. As they get closer, he will go to softer calls “like you’d hear when they’re on the water,” he said.
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BRENT FRAZEE | THE KANSAS CITY STAR
Dusty Banner knows that reading the ducks is the key to successful calling.
❚ If there is more than one caller in the blind, Banner likes to mix it up. One hunter may imitate feeding chuckles, another will do some louder calls and another will do a series of intermittent quacks. “When you have a lot of decoys out, you want to make some noise,” Banner said. “You want it to sound natural.” ❚ Practice makes perfect. Banner blows his duck call almost every day. ❚ But perfection isn’t required to call in a duck, Banner said. “If you listen to them, they’ll make a lot of mistakes,” he said. “If you make a call that cracks or shrieks, it doesn’t mean you’ll scare them off.” | Brent Frazee, bfrazee@kcstar.com
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