JOHNSTON, Iowa – AgVenture brand dealer and farmer Kelby Ross from Plains won the state title in the 2023 National Corn Growers (NCGA) National Corn Yield Contest for achieving the highest corn yield in the Kansas no-till, irrigated land class.
Ross’s winning entry of 301.7986 bu/A was with AgVenture brand AV8614AM™ corn planted on a 125-acre irrigated circle in a continuous wheat-corn rotation.
Despite challenges like excessive rain, wind and hail, Kelby’s contest plot mostly escaped damage, showcasing the resilience of his cropping system and the favorable conditions provided by Mother Nature.
Statistics show nationally, about 437,000 youth are in foster care and in Kansas, 6,895 youth are in foster care as of April 2021 according to the Kansas Department for Children and Families. As those numbers increase, the need for loving foster parents is greater than ever and earlier this week, the State of Kansas took some action regarding just that.
Monday, Gov. Laura Kelly signed House Bill 2536, establishing the Support, Opportunity, Unity, and Legal (SOUL) family legal permanency option, a fourth pathway for children 16 years or older in foster care to obtain legal permanency via a custodian of their choice, according to a release from the State of Kansas.
As of Monday, the Kansas Department of Transportation had not announced what projects would be funded under the state’s High Risk Rural Roads (HRRR) program.
That was the news from C.W. Harper of Kirkham Michael, the firm hired by Seward County to address road issues in the county. Harper did say, though, there will likely be seven projects funded under the program this year, one in each district, and he felt one of Seward County’s projects stood a good chance of beng funded.
“They’re larger projects, which would be a good indicator for us, as ours is a larger project,” he said at Monday’s county commission meeting. “Seward County has not used HRRR funds in the past, and pretty much all the other district’s six counties have. I’m holding out strong hope we have a good chance of being the selected project.”
Tucker Road Storage has been a fixture in Liberal and helping people store their belongings and recently, due to demand, a second location was opened.
The ribbon was cut on the new location at 733 E. Pancake Blvd. April 9 and as owner Tim Dieker tells it, the decision to open a second location has been in the works for a little while.
The Liberal Bee Jays season will be starting soon, and the team is excited to announce an addition to the coaching lineup with Keith Schulz Jr.
As Schulz tells it, he got his start in baseball a little late.
“I actually didn't start playing baseball until I was about 12 or 13 years old. I grew up in Louisiana and was around the game since my grandfather was a statistician for Delgado Community College team and the New Orleans Zephyrs, which was an affiliate team with the Houston Astros and Florida Marlins at that time,” Schulz said. “My grandparents on both my mom and dad's sides had also played college and professional baseball, and I just ultimately went after it. I wasn't the biggest guy ever, and football in Texas can really wear you down, so I ended up sticking with baseball, and here I am. I got my start in coaching by giving lessons, and that was with a youth team down in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, and I'd also played some college baseball. After I finished with that team, I was working with a guy who was the hitting coach for the Texas Rangers at the time, so that's how I got into the coaching and giving lessons and all of that. I played baseball at Tyler Junior College, Richmond College, Arlington Baptist University, and I also played while I was in high school. I was a coach at Oklahoma Panhandle State University (OPSU) for six years, where I worked with Jared Mayeda, he was actually my first baseman for a couple of years. I also coached in the Ripken Collegiate League in Myrtle Beach, S.C., and The DBats of Amarillo and Fort Worth, Texas, and I've also coached other travel teams and school teams throughout the years. This is my fifth year at Sunray High School in Gruver, Texas, where I'm the assistant baseball coach.”
