Music has played a big role in Southwestern Heights senior Lacie Banman’s life since elementary school and recently, she reached a big milestone in her scholastic musical career.
Banman recently auditioned for and was selected for the Kansas Music Educators (KMEA) Conference All-State 1234A Band for the fourth year in a row, meaning she has participated all four years of high school. She took part in the band activities late last week in Wichita.
As Banman tells it, her inspiration for joining band was sparked in part by her older sister.
“I started in fifth grade, and I've been in band ever since then. But I remember I was very excited to start because I got to watch my sister be in band, and she played flute,” Banman said. “I discovered I was pretty good at it, so I kept at it, and I absolutely fell in love with making music and being able to create something beautiful and to put emotions into something.”
Those in the area looking to learn more about different careers in aviation will soon have just that chance.
Mid-America Air Museum (MAAM) and the Liberal Municipal Airport, along with KDOT's Aviation Division, will be hosting Cockpit & Beyond Career Possibilities Day from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Wednesday, April 1 in order to showcase the wide variety of aviation-related careers to students of all ages. This is a free event for any schools or homeschool students who wish to attend.
Plans for such an event were started a few months ago, according to MAAM Director Bob Immell.
EDITOR’S NOTE — This is a writing project by a local student working on a community project.
While the city’s attention lately has focused on the proposed repairs coming soon to Adventure Bay, Airport Manager Brian Fornwalt has been overseeing an airport with a hangar much older then Adventure Bay and in much greater need of either repair or removal.
The World War 2 Hangar just north of the Air Museum stands out as not only one of the largest structures on the entire airport but also as the most deteriorated. Unfortunately, action may be slow.
“The city is trying to figure out what to do with it,” Fornwalt said. “It’s just that we don’t know what yet.”
A step in the process of getting a second overpass officially moved forward thanks so action by the Liberal City Commission at its most recent meeting Tuesday evening.
“As you all know, the City of Liberal issued a request for proposals with service cost bids for technical assessments, public engagement, and project planning services required for the successful execution of our Railroad Crossing Elimination (RCE) grant project for a secondary railroad overpass. Two profiles and bids were received as a result of the competitive bid process to complete the following tasks: Task 1 – Technical Assessments; Task 2 – Community Engagement; Task 3 – Preferred Alternative Analysis; and Task 4 – Project Planning Package,” Chief Communications Officer Keeley Young said. “The budgeted cost for these consulting services under our grant agreement with the Federal Railroad Administration is $416,320. The Railroad Crossing Elimination grant will reimburse 80 percent of costs up to $333,056, with additional funding match from the State of Kansas’ Build Kansas providing up to $62,500 in additional reimbursements. Service cost bids were received from the following consulting companies: Professional Engineering Consultants (PEC) for $400,000; and JEO Consulting Group, Inc. for $470,400. We are recommending going with PEC not just because they’re the lower bid, but also because they’re extremely familiar with our project and have a lot of professional experience with this type of work. They’ve also been with us basically since the very beginning – they came up with initial concept plans, referred us to grant opportunities and helped us with those application processes, which we are very grateful for. With all of that in mind, we’re asking for the mayor and city manager to negotiate and enter into contract terms, pending legal counsel review, with Professional Engineering Consultants for the completion of RCE Project Planning tasks in an amount not to exceed $410,000. Project funding will come from the Capital Improvements portion of the 1-Cent Sales Tax with matching reimbursement grant funds from the Federal Railroad Administration and State of Kansas. The civic engagement is going to take the longest amount of time, and with the package we’re proposing, we look to have all of that wrapped up later this year, probably around September or so.”
The Kansas Department of Transportation has begun phase one of a multi-phase project starting 2.5 miles north of the Haskell/Finney county line and extending 12.7 miles north to the bridge over the Arkansas River.
This project will reconstruct and realign U.S. Highway 83 into a super two highway, featuring side-by-side passing lanes. Phase one will begin with grading and drainage work, with traffic remaining on the existing roads.
To help enhance safety, highway access points will be consolidated, intersection angles will be improved, new turn lanes will be constructed and lighting will be installed along U.S.-83.
Hannah McCarter leads the pack down Lincoln Avenue toward the finish line of the International Pancake Race earlier today. McCarter won Liberal’s leg in her first attempt. L&T photo/Earl Watt
By EARL WATT
• Leader & Times
With wind gusts reaching as high as 65 miles per hour hitting right in the face of the women running the Liberal leg of the International Pancake Race, Hannah McCarter was able to maintain a pace ahead of the pack and earn the Liberal title.
While this was the 77th running of the International Pancake Race, a friendly competition between the women of Olney, England and Liberal, the real number of the day was three.
The Liberal City Commission has new yet familiar leadership after the commission selected a new mayor and vice mayor Tuesday evening.
Jeff Parsons and Janeth Vazquez were ultimately unanimously voted as mayor and vice mayor, respectively, and both said they are excited to get to work.
“I feel really good. The responsibilities of the mayor really aren’t too much different from a commissioner,” Parsons said. “I’m excited about being able to continue being part of this commission and working with everyone.”
“I absolutely agree with Jeff – yes, we have the official titles, but at the end of the day, I feel like each of us commissioners contributes in our own unique way,” Vazquez added. “I feel like we’re a really strong team all together, and we were able to accomplish a lot in 2025, so I’m looking forward to continuing the great work we have on the agenda for 2026. Our commission is definitely headed in the right direction.”
Kansas families feel the squeeze. Prescription drugs are expensive. Credit card balances are heavy. Rents and groceries are up. When people are hurting, it’s understandable that lawmakers reach for a simple-sounding fix: cap the price.
But that’s where good intentions collide with bad economics. Milton Friedman’s warning applies perfectly here: don’t judge policy by its stated goal, judge it by its results. And Frédéric Bastiat’s “seen and unseen” is the cheat code every legislator should keep on their desk: the “seen” is the lower posted price; the “unseen” is the shortage, the quality drop, the access loss, and the costs pushed into other corners of the economy.
GUEST COLUMN, Kristen Osenga, Austin E. Owen Research Scholar
The Justice Department has fired a shot across Big Tech’s bow. In a recent speech, Dina Kallay, a deputy assistant attorney general in the department’s antitrust division, criticized Big Tech for using supposedly “free” patent-licensing initiatives to poach smaller competitors’ technologies.
Her remarks come at a pivotal moment. The Alliance for Open Media — a consortium led by Amazon, Meta, Google, and other tech giants — announced a new video-streaming format that could soon be embedded in televisions and tablets.
The group claims the technology will be “royalty-free.” But such promises often come with strings attached.
Kallay didn’t mention the Alliance for Open Media by name, but her message was clear. Under the Trump administration, the Justice Department will defend small businesses from Big Tech’s anticompetitive depredations.
What Leader Thune is pulling right now isn’t just politics as usual — it’s strategic brilliance in a moment when checkers players think they’re playing chess. Senate Majority Leader John Thune has committed to forcing a vote on the SAVE America Act — legislation that would require proof of U.S. citizenship to register and voter ID at the polls — and in doing so he’s exposing the absurdity of Democratic obstruction in the face of overwhelming bipartisan public support.
On Fox News, Thune said bluntly: “We will put the Democrats on the record! … And we will make sure the Democrats are on the record opposing the most basic requirement: ensuring only American citizens vote in our elections.”
That is not only political tempo — that is bold constitutional leadership.
Immediately after His baptism, where the Holy Spirit descended as a dove and the Father spoke, Jesus was led by the same Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil (Matthew 4:1). After forty days and nights of fasting, the tempter came. The next ten verses reveal Satan's strategy and Jesus' responses.
Far from a mere psychological struggle or inner conflict, this was a real confrontation between the Son of God and a personal adversary whose aim is and always has been to derail God’s redemptive plan. The temptations targeted Jesus’ identity as Son of God, challenging His mission and His dependence on the Father.
There’s a routine to spring calving season based on numbers. Once tiny hooves start hitting the cold ground, a rhythm takes over until the last mama cow has delivered her baby. Each day is different, but they’re all based on counting.
I can still picture being sandwiched in the middle of the bench seat between my grandparents as we made the rounds through pastures to check on the progress. My grandfather kept one hand on the steering wheel with a pair of binoculars ready in the other.
We would slowly roll through the field, stopping abruptly for my grandfather to take a closer look at a cow. He’d raise the binoculars and quickly read off the number on the ear tag as my grandmother dutifully recorded the information in a spiralbound notebook.
