ROBERT PIERCE

   • Leader & Times

Amy Ricks’s career in education began as a paraeducator in the 1990s at the former Garfield Elementary School in Liberal.

In the early part of the 21st century, Ricks went to work as a classroom teacher at what is now Cottonwood Elementary School. She continued to work her way up through the USD 480 district through 2007, and following the death of her husband in a vehicle accident, she would take a break from education for about a year.

Following that break, Ricks continued to work for USD 480 until 2014, and she would later work for the Moscow school district. She would later work from 2016 to 2023 in Garden City, where she added district and building leadership endorsements to her license.

ROBERT PIERCE

   • Leader & Times

The Liberal Area Coalition for Families’s food pantry got help from local Girl Scouts in two ways this month.

First, Troop 60129 took money collected in excess of cookie sales to purchase some of the troop’s remaining cookies to donate to the pantry.

“We sold cookies back in February,” troop leader Sarah McIntyre said. “Whenever someone tells us to keep the change at cookie sales, we then use that change as a donation, and we use that as what we call a care and share donation. We add that up and divide it by six, which is how much a package of cookies costs.”

McIntyre said these packages were collected and brought to the food pantry.

L&T staff report

Liberal can yet again celebrate its own Leader & Times as an award-winning community publication.

The awards were officially announced in April, and the convention took place earlier this month. Publisher Earl Watt said he is pleased with how this year turned out for the awards.

“We ended up with a total of 23 awards, and I know we’ve had more in the past, but it seemed very well balanced this year,” Watt said. “There were a lot more papers receiving a lot of awards, although I felt like it was a little more actually competitive this year. The Sweepstakes Award came down to us and the Harvey County newspaper again – we won it two years ago and they won it last year, so it’s been close between us. They were able to get back years on sweepstakes, but the awards we received, I feel really good about. A lot of them were for the strong writing, and the writing is still the strength of the paper, and I think that’s important because in the end it’s about the reporting we’re doing, so I’m proud of that.”

ELLY GRIMM

  • Leader & Times

For some children, getting food on the weekends during the summer months while their parents are working can be tough, and the Liberal Area Coalition for Families (LACF) wants to help with just that with the Summer Weekends Backpack Food Program.

The program will run every Friday throughout the summer through Crosspoint Church at 204 N. Sherman Ave. and is available for children 1 to 18 years old. Coordinator Sarah Mersdorf-Foreman said the idea has been percolating for a while.

“The funding is through the City of Liberal nonprofit application. As a coalition, we work to try to determine needs within the community,” Mersdorf-Foreman said. “So when it was written last summer, the goal was to assist the food pantry in whatever way. In talking with Susanna [Hernandez], we knew there were a few schools who didn't do the backpack food program, and so we decided to fill that gap of getting kids and families food for the weekend, especially over the summer, since the summer food program through the district does not run on the weekends during the summer.”