News

Kansas Department of Transportation

The Kansas Department of Transportation has begun an emergency bridge repair on the U.S. Highway 83 bridge over the Cimarron River, located north of Liberal in Seward County.

KDOT crews will be performing an emergency concrete patch on the northbound lane on the U.S. 83 bridge over the Cimarron River.

Traffic on U.S. 83 will be reduced to a single lane for the duration of the emergency bridge repair. Until temporary traffic lights are installed, flaggers will be present around the clock to direct traffic through the work zone.

Special to the Leader & Times

A judge has sentenced Tifany Adams for the murders of Veronica Butler and Jilian Kelley.

Monday, a judge sentenced her to life without parole.

In 2024, Adams orchestrated the murders of the two Kansas women during a custody exchange.

Butler and Kelley were last seen March 30, 2024. Their car was later found abandoned in rural Texas County, Okla.

ELLY GRIMM

   • Leader & Times

The Pancake Day festivities will be taking place in just a couple weeks, and one of the big events of the day is the annual breakfast.

Attendees to the breakfast will be in for a special treat as Annika Wooton will be putting on a speed-painting presentation to commemorate the annual tradition. As Wooton tells it, art has been part of her life for a long time.

ELLY GRIMM

   • Leader & Times

Super Bowl Sunday will have an extra special element for the Liberal community with the return of John Earle as a guest speaker.

Earle said it was an easy decision to come back to the area.

“I remember talking with Pastor Rex Petty last year, and we had such a good time speaking in the schools and visiting with all the FCA individuals who helped put this on, and many of the donors who brought me in,” Earle said. “We’d left it at more or less, if they wanted to bring me back, that’s great, if not, that’s also fine. I had a great time. This year, they were going to bring in one of my good friends, Steve Grant, who’s been there a few times, but he had a prior engagement, so Pastor Rex called me up and asked if I would want to come back, and I decided I would. I’ll do some schools, but my main ministry is working in prisons, and when everything was getting organized, I said, ‘When I’m there, try to get me in a couple of jails and places like that.’ So we’re going to do schools in the morning, and we’re going to be doing jails in the afternoons. I’ll also be doing a church service at Faith Tabernacle Church Sunday, Feb. 8, and then that afternoon, before the Super Bowl, I’ll do two jails, and then Monday through Thursday, the schedule is going to be schools in the morning and jails in the afternoon. I think one of one or two of the other days, we’re also going to be doing some FCA rallies at night. It’s going to be a packed week.”