Treasure Hunt space

Space is still available at the stone barn at the fairgrounds if anyone wants to set up for the US Highway 36 Treasure Hunt next weekend. I have three spaces together and one by itself. These spaces are 8x10 feet each and they are free, first come first serve. Contact me if you're interested.

Friday Night Lights

Click on the Friday Night Lights headline to see the score updates under the comments thread, as they happened, in tonight's games:

Final scores
Linn 38, Lakeside 0
B&B 20, Hanover 12
Solomon 44, Washington County 32
Clifton-Clyde 34, Axtell 24

Friday night updates

I am going to be stuck at home tonight getting ready for next week's garage sale, but I am going to try to find contacts for each of the games so I can post score updates on this blog. I will start with a main post and then post the updates as comments under the main entry. To see the comments, all you have to do is click on the title of the main message. Feel free to post comments, predictions or smack, as the game is going on too.

Friday night football

The Topeka Capitol-Journal has the line on local games and a couple local teams show up in the rankings too.
First the CJ's predictions:
Linn over Lakeside - 53.2 point spread
Clifton-Clyde over Axtell - 48.7
B&B over Hanover - 23.5 (The human said the computer would be wrong and he picked Hanover.
Washington County over Solomon - 10.1

My predictions? A Friday night sweep for Washington County's local teams.

Rankings:
8-man I
1. Jetmore
2. Madison
3. St. John
4. Goessel
5. Clifton-Clyde

8-man II
1. Hanover
2. Sharon Springs
3. Pawnee Heights
4. Quivira Heights
5. South Haven

Color template change

I changed the template for my blog to make it easier to read the polls in the sidebar. I'm currently working with a different program where I might be able to do a blog/web site so that I can better post stories and features of the WC News print edition. So there may be another change coming.

Businesses closing

Howdy's will be closing in Washington later this month.
I also recently heard the Sale Barn Cafe will close at the end of the month.

Sarah Palin doesn’t need a gun to hunt. She has been known to throw a bullet through an adult bull elk.

For a good laugh, check out www.palinfacts.com. She's awesome.

Correction

In the USD223 school board story in this week's paper, it was stated that two Hanover students may be requesting that the district pay for airplane flights back from the national FFA competition in Indianapolis. Actually, they were possibly going to request permission to fly back from the FFA event on their own expense - not with any district funds. At this time, however, no request has been made.

Downtown renovations

Dr. Dennis and Angie Portenier are putting new windows in the front of their Portenier Chiropractic building. It looks really nice and saves energy, while still keeping the downtown commercial look.
Jerry Ouellette is doing the carpentry work and Mike and Blanche Graham did the windows. Jerry seems to be almost solely responsible for all the downtown renovations that have occurred over the last couple years. And he does very good work. Let's hope people continue to be inspired to upgrade their buildings and Jerry stays busy for a long time.
I think we have a very nice downtown and we should try to keep it looking attractive and inviting. I would love to put my building's facade back to brick, but that would also include new windows, so I'm trying to build up some reserves to do that.

The rest of the story?

I received a call this morning from a convenience store employee who thought the comment in the Lizzy's Lines column might have been from an experience this person had. Evidently, a couple kids came in and wanted to cash in their pennies but instead of outright denying them, the employee worked with them for a while stacking them in piles of 10 and cashed in the pennies for dollars, but then the kids took the dollars to go see what they could buy at Duckwall's. They didn't spend any money at the convenience store.
The story in the column was a bit different, so maybe it was a different situation.

Other eco devo projects deserving of time

Instead of our county business coordinator and county commission spending time and money on the airport, I think we should develop a list of other specific needs for our county that need to be addressed. So here are some of my ideas (mostly retail), some of which are already in the works:
A theater in Washington
Farm & ranch supply store for the county
Cafe for Linn (reminiscent of the Bulldog Inn/Summit)
Car wash for Washington
More bed and breakfasts in the county
Quilt shop
Mexican restaurant
Something to fill Mayberry's
Mayor of Oz museum and gift shop (such a waste that this isn't happening)

And a little more complicated:
A public lake south of Highway 36 (State lake is nice, but too inconvenient)
Nine more holes for the golf course and residential development
Greenlinton with awesome pool (as described by smart-alec Brian Shaw)

Theater poll

The problem with the poll vote feature included in this blog is that there is no opportunity to comment on the responses. So I'm wondering what people think of the concept of a theater in Washington.
At first, poll results showed most people were for the idea and would either attend shows occasionally or all the time. Lately, there's been quite a few "I'd go to a different theater" votes. I'm just curious why. Are these folks from Hanover and just don't want to have anything to do with Washington? Are they folks recruited by a different town's theater to try to discourage enthusiasm for a Washington theater. Or are they folks from Clifton area who could go to Concordia just as easily? I'm curious what people think and why they respond the way they do.

Half color

The color part of the press at Marysville was down again this week (different problem from last week) so we got B section in full color before it broke down (I'm glad I ran the festival pictures in B instead of A) but the front section was in black and white. I apologize for not being in color. The press problems are out of my hands and I know the press guy at Marysville is working as hard as he can to get things running smoothly.
I had a really nice blue background for the Zachary Leiszler story, but had to go to a shade of gray after losing color.
Hopefully things will be back to normal by next week.

Vice presidential debate predicton

GOP vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin wowed voters with her initial speech in Ohio when she was named McCain's running mate and was widely praised for her speech at the Republican National Convention, but since then, we've been hearing a lot of the same quotes as part of her stump speech.
The worry wart in me wondered if she could continue to bring in new material to bolster the GOP bump she provided.
After watching her speech at an Alaskan welcome back rally tonight, I'm confident she will be able to hold her own. I don't know if she uses speech notes or a teleprompter, but she looks like her speeches are all off the top of her head. She's very good.
She was also very good in a gubenatorial debate in in 2006 in a video I found on the web.
I'm starting to think she will go all Sarah Barracuda on Biden's butt!
The vice presidential debate is scheduled for Oct. 2 at Washington University in St. Louis.

"Hotshot" airport

I was open to the idea of the county commissioners helping an airplane mechanic establish a business out at the airport. Doing lease-purchase agreements on a new building or some version of business assistance is not uncommon for governmental entities. I figured this was a better idea than just spending a lot of money on an airport plan with no promise of any benefit from the improvements.
So needless to say, I was a little shocked today to hear that the commission is still listening to suggestions for airport development projects beyond just assisting a business. The plan that was proposed to the commission today would cost $3.6 million over 20 years and the county's share would be $1.8 million.
Say what?
This plan would include a terminal building, more hangars, a runway extension, the rerouting of the county road to the north, easement and land acquisitions (the plan shows a building restriction line connected to the back side of Ralph and Pat Holsch's house so I don't know that they would be able to continue to live there).
People have called me a dreamer in the past and that probably is a fair description of me, but even I can't fathom why this county would ever want to spend that kind of money on the airport. This is a facility that has almost no activity outside of a couple crop spraying operations. There are occasional touch and go activities, a few leisure landings and takeoffs and I suppose a few people show up to conduct some business. But seriously, I can't see any reason to go after the "hot shot" completed facility (as the consultant referred to it) that is being proposed.
This isn't a project like a swimming pool where almost anyone could use it. The general use of an airport would be by a very small, select group of people. (And don't let them tell you this would be used for medical emergencies - Lifestar lands at the hospitals.)
The commissioners have not committed to anything yet. As citizens of this county, you all need to get ahold of them and tell them to stop this ridiculousness now. Don't just talk about it over coffee at the local convenience store, call the commissioners or show up at a meeting and tell them they need to commit their resources to other efforts. Otherwise they will say nobody has talked to them about the subject.
By having county business development director Christy L'Ecuyer work on it, we are already spending money on the project. It's a waste. It is time to cease and desist.

Homecoming football games

Just an FYI on area homecoming football games:
Sept. 19 - WCHS homecoming vs. Immaculata
Oct. 3 – Linn homecoming vs. Hope
Oct. 3 – Hanover homecoming vs. Blue Valley
Oct. 3 – Clifton-Clyde homecoming vs. Southern Cloud

Game vs. meeting

Pretend you are a huge and fanatic K-State football fan... and they play Nebraska on Saturday. You can't make it to the game, but it is the featured game on ESPN and the Gameday crew is in town. K-State is predicted to win, but it should be a good game and you absolutely despise Nebraska. This is the game you look forward to every year and you wouldn't miss it for the world! But you find out when you look at your calendar that you have a meeting to go to that night. Do you skip the meeting or do you feel guilty and go?
Well, I feel really guilty, but I will not be covering the USD 108 school board meeting tonight. I am a huge Minnesota Vikings fan and they are playing tonight on Monday Night Football in their first game of the season against the hated Green Bay Packers. This is the game I look forward to every year and it is only better when it is the season opener and it is against Green Bay. I just feel bad that it landed on a night with a school board meeting. Sorry. I'm a bad newspaper guy, but I hope fanatic sports fans understand my dilemma.