TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) Two top military officers from the republic of Armenia are in Kansas this week to meet with senior National Guard leaders in Topeka and observe training in Salina. The visit comes as Armenia’s military transitions from a conscripted force to one with a professional noncommissioned officer corps. The Kansas National Guard has been joined with the former Soviet republic in a partnership program since 2003. The program’s director, Lt. Col. Brent Salmans, says the Armenian delegation will receive briefings in Topeka on the roles and responsibilities of noncommissioned staff officers. On Wednesday and Thursday, the Armenians will…
Author: KMAN Staff
PITTSBURG, Kan. (AP) Pittsburg State University is replacing the turf its football team has played on for nearly a decade. Work at Carnie Smith Stadium is expected to last until early August. Private donations will cover the $500,000 cost. Director of athletics Jim Johnson says the field has “certainly seen its share of champions.” The school says the old turf has been home to eight national playoff games and two MIAA conference championships. Plus, one NCAA Division II National Championship runner-up and the 2011 NCAA Division II National Champion have played on it. The school says almost all of the…
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) An inmate at the Shawnee County Jail alleges in a lawsuit that officials removed more than $1,600 from his inmate account that he didn’t owe. The Topeka Capital-Journal reported that inmate Gary Lee Baker is acting on his own attorney. In his hand-written lawsuit, he asks the county to repay him. At issue is money removed from his account to cover medical services. The county says the services were provided while he was a jail inmate in 2005 and 2008. Baker was booked into the jail in March and charged with felony theft and misdemeanor driving while…
WINFIELD, Kan. (AP) A box truck that two inmates used to escape from the Winfield Correctional Facility in south-central Kansas has been found abandoned about 15 miles away. The Kansas Department of Corrections said in a news release that the truck sustained a blowout northeast of Rock and was found Sunday morning. The discovery was made one day after corrections officials identified 52-year-old Robert Cook and 48-year-old Frank Crutchfield as missing. Now, officials say a truck belonging to the nearby city of Douglass is missing and that the fugitives are suspected of taking it. The vehicle is described as a…
HUTCHINSON, Kan. (AP) Tourists are flocking to sign up for vacation packages filled with storm chasing. For them it’s a trip of a lifetime, but some emergency workers find the tour groups a nuisance during what can be life and death situations. Rush County Emergency Management Director Jim Fisher recalled what happened in early May, the night a tornado wrapped in a wall of rain was about to flow through LaCrosse. When he needed to move some storm spotters down a county road, it was blocked by a tour van and a group of sightseers with tripods set up in…
WICHITA, Kan. (AP) Hundreds of Kansas inmates sentenced before new guidelines took effect in 1993 are serving prison terms that would have been much shorter under today’s law. The Wichita Eagle reported that the news guidelines generally called for shorter sentences for property crimes and longer ones for crimes of violence. The Kansas Legislature decided to apply the guidelines retroactively to more than 2,000 inmates who were serving time for relatively minor offenses. But more than 4,000 inmates convicted of more serious crimes were left to serve out their original sentences. The sentencing guidelines law in effect created two classes…
WICHITA, Kan. (AP) Efforts to take World War II veterans to see the war’s memorial in Washington are in flux in Kansas. The Wichita Eagle reported that one organization that conducted the free flights is on the verge of disappearing, and another is trying to replace it. Problems came to a head after Springfield, Ohio-based Honor Flight decided it no longer wanted Great Bend-based Central Prairie Honor Flights to help organize trips for the national network. Issues included a veteran breaking a rib after falling out of a top bunk bed in April 2011 and reports being filed late. Two…
Members of the nominating commission called in each of the eight attornies one by one to be interviewed for the 21st District Judicial Judge position. Individuals interviewed for the position were Grant Bannister, Amy Bipes, John Bosch, Sheila Hochhauser, Kendra Lewison, Kassie McEntire, and Phylemon Chuen-Man Yau. As they each stood before the panel of commissioners, they were asked to give an opening statement and a little bit of their background. After sharing their prepared speeches, the commissioners then asked them questions. All 8 interviews were completed by 1:00 p.m. and the commissioners then went into executive session. By 2:00…
MANHATTAN, Kan. – The capital murder trial of Luis Aguirre, accused of killing his ex-girlfriend and infant son, began on Monday inside Riley County District Court. In his opening statement, Riley County Attorney Barry Wilkerson said that the state will attempt to prove that Aguirre premeditated the murders of 18-year old Tanya Maldonado and the couple’s 13-month old son Juan in the Fall of 2009. The first man to the stand was Terry Lee Berrent, a 10-year Manhattan resident who first discovered the remains of Tanya and Juan in a shallow grave just east of Ogden, Kan., on Oct. 25, 2009. Berrent testified…
On Friday, Sal Tucker, 47, was driving his green, 1991, Ford F150 with a trailer, westbound on Fort Riley Boulevard. At one point, one of the wheels on the trailer left the road and got stuck in mud and clay causing the trailer and truck to flip over and block both lanes of traffic. Tucker was transported to Mercy Regional Health Center with shoulder and torso pain. He was treated and released. The Riley County Police Department believe alcohol is to be a factor.