After 33 months as Commander of the Dragon Brigade (4IBCT), Colonel Joseph Wawro stepped down from his post and passed the colors to Colonel Peter Minalga, on Friday at Fort Riley. COL Wawro’s time at Fort Riley included a nine month deployment to RC-E in Afghanistan. His next stop is the nation’s capital where he’ll serve as an Army Senior Fellow at the Washington Institute of Near East Policy. He’ll be joined by his wife, LTC Christiane Ploch, who will be in charge of senior leader development. Colonel Minalga comes to Fort Riley from Washington, D.C. where he worked for the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff…
Author: KMAN Staff
GARDEN CITY, Kan. (AP) A first court appearance is scheduled for a well-known freelance photographer who was charged with misdemeanor trespassing after he flew a paraglider over a Kansas feedlot while shooting pictures. George Steinmetz, of Glenn Ridge, N.J., and his assistant, Wei Zhang, of Beijing, China, are set for a first appearance hearing Aug. 29 in Finney County. Steinmetz was on assignment for National Geographic magazine when he flew above Brookover Feed Yard last June 28. The feedlot owners say he did not seek permission for the flight. A National Geographic spokeswoman says the magazine hired a Garden City…
MINNEAPOLIS, Kan. (AP) Residents of a central Kansas town are watching with sadness as a 125-year-old building is demolished. Workers on Thursday began demolishing the former Parker House Hotel in Minneapolis. The building partially collapsed last month, forcing the evacuation of the downtown area. The building’s owners had said they wanted to save it but the Minneapolis City Council voted to pay $76,800 to demolish the structure because of concerns that it could collapse. The Salina Journal reports the building was erected in 1888 as the Corn State Bank and became the Parker House in 1899. For years it was…
GARDEN CITY, Kan. (AP) A Garden City man has been found not guilty of attempted murder and other charges in a shooting after a confrontation between people in two vehicles. A jury deliberated into Friday morning before finding Miguel Herrera not guilty in the June 2012 shooting of Frankie Garcia of Garden City. Western Kansas Broadcast reports Herrera was charged with attempted murder, aggravated use of a weapon by a convicted felon and causing intentional bodily harm with a dangerous weapon. Garcia was riding in a car when altercation began after someone in the car threw a beer can at…
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) The man who planned a burglary that led to the murder of a Topeka woman and the wounding of her partner has been sentenced to 18 years in prison. Bayate Rayshawn Covington was sentenced Thursday in the July 2011 death of Natalie Gibson and the wounding of Lori Allison at their home. Covington pleaded no contest in July to reckless second-degree murder, aggravated battery and conspiracy to commit aggravated robbery. Chief Judge Nancy Parrish said Covington played a major role in planning and coordinating the nine defendants who planned to burglarize the victims’ home. The women were…
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) A state regulatory agency is requiring a Salina water utility to make some improvements. The Topeka Capital-Journal reports that the Kansas Corporation Commission voted Thursday to require Howison Heights to buy a new computer to monitor water pressure in its lines and to install new equipment to keep chlorination at the right level. The improvements are required in the next 60 days. Howison Heights serves about 60 customers in suburban Salina. More than a third of its customers submitted comments opposing a more than 100 percent rate hike the utility requested in April. Some of those customers…
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) Kansas is shutting down a Topeka nursing home, saying that it failed to comply with state and federal health and safety regulations. The Topeka Capital-Journal reports the Kansas Department for Aging and Disability Services’ revocation of the Topeka Community Healthcare Center’s license will require its 55 residents to find new homes by September. The department says the center consistently failed to achieve “substantial compliance” with standards since September 2010. Spokeswoman Angela de Rocha says it’s the first time since September 2011 that the state’s aging agency has shut down a nursing home. Attorney Meredith Duncan says in…
On today’s InFocus, Cathy talks with Jennifer Wilson, Riley County Extention Director, 4-h King Garrison Olds, 4-H King, and Emily Kelly, 4-H Queen, followed by Susan Peterson, Assistant Director of the Riley County Senior Service Center, and Brad Claussen, Manhattan Building official. [mp3-jplayer]
For the past five months, the Manhattan Ogden school district and the NEA have been working to come up with their agreed upon contract for the 2013-2014 school year and as of Thursday, they have a tentative agreement. A few of the points within the contract are a 2.5 % compensation package increase, an increase of $750 on the base salary, with a starting salary of a teacher to be $35,650, continued coverage of the basic health insurance premium, an increase of 1.5 % supplemental contract compensation for coaches and sponsors, continued longevity increment increase for this year, but limited…
Unemployment numbers for the Manhattan metropolitan area remained the same, according to figures just released by the Kansas Department of Labor. The 5.7 percent rate for June is the same as May of this year, but up just a little from last year’s June number of 5.6 percent. The metro area includes Riley, Pottawatomie and Geary Counties. The city of Manhattan shows a 4.8 percent rate, down a tenth of a percentage from May but the same as last year. The city of Manhattan continues to compare favorably to others in the state in terms of unemployment rates. The Manhattan…