While the current situation in Ukraine has dominated domestic and
international headlines in recent weeks, one Fort Hays State University expert
said the conflict is less a standalone event and more of an escalation of hostilities.


Along with her academic expertise as a historian of central and eastern
Europe, Amber Nickell, associate professor of history, also spent time living in Ukraine as a Fulbright Scholar and has traveled
to and from the country for research since 2018.

While half a world away, she said there are parallels to the people
of Ukraine and those living in the area.

“Ukrainians are extremely resilient, very hard-working,”
Nickell said. “And it definitely reminds me of some of the hard-working folks
here in Kansas, that you know, are pulling themselves up and doing what it
takes to get things done. And we're definitely seeing that in Ukraine right
now, as Ukrainians are fighting against Russian aggression.”

And much like the Kansas farmers who help drive local economies,
Ukrainians also rely on agriculture, with corn, wheat and seed oils among their
top five exports.

“Ukraine has a large swath is what of what is known black
earth territory,” Nickell said. “And this is soil that is so nutrient-rich that it can give two crops per season as opposed to one. And so, for those
folks out there that are working in agriculture, know that there are many
Ukrainians out there just like you spending their days in the fields. This is
this is part of who they are.”

Now with the recent conflict escalation, those people are
fighting for their county, but she said current hostilities are only the most
recent in a long history of Russian interference in the county.

“For some time, Ukrainians have been trying to fight Russian
aggression,” Nickell said. “And we can really reach back pretty far in the
historical narrative, all the way back to the violent escalation inside of
independent Ukraine in the interwar and Bolsheviks, kind of forcibly placing
power over the Ukrainian population.

“But in the more recent memory, Ukraine has been illegally
occupied since 2014, in both Crimea and the Donbass region which is Luhansk,
and Donetsk. Here, Russians have backed so-called separatists and well over
4,000 Ukrainian citizens and soldiers have died in this conflict since 2014.”

While the conflict might be an old one, in the last week the
conflict has become decidedly more pronounced. 

“Things have definitely escalated exponentially in the past
five days,” Nickell said. “The emails and messages and Facebook messages that
I'm getting from my friends and colleagues in Ukraine are heartbreaking. Bombs dropping on their neighborhoods in their communities, children
doing kindergarten underground and bunkers, folks fleeing to the borders
looking for any chance to help their families survive. ... It's
heartbreaking to see the escalation these past few days.”

Along with the similarities of the people of Ukraine, she
said the country is like the U.S. — multiracial, with populations living in the
country from around the globe.

"It is, in very many ways, a civic nation, much like us here,
where you can be a citizen of the United States, regardless of where you come
from,” Nickell said. “And you can have that patriotism and sense of belonging
really, regardless of what languages you speak.”

And so, while Russian language and culture might remain prevalent
in Ukraine, the sense of self-determination is also a large part of the society.

“Much like me sitting here, I have family from Poland, but I
am an American citizen,” Nickell said. “And so that is something that I think
we need to think about a little closely when we're listening to some of the
media that is coming out of these places.”

The trend toward simplicity in reporting from the region,
she added, can create an understanding that does not fully reflect national
complexities. 

“I think often folks think that Ukraine is just this small
country out in the middle of nowhere,” Nickell said. “And I've definitely heard
those things said. But it isn't a small country. It isn't in the middle of
nowhere.”

The size of the nation itself is important for a good
understanding of the situation and relevant to the desire of Russia to increase
their sphere of influence in Ukraine.

“It is the largest country entirely in Europe. It's bigger
than Germany. It's bigger than France. It's bigger than Spain. It's bigger than
the UK. And so, we're talking about a very, very large swath of territory,
we're talking a couple Kansases, for those that are thinking about size relative
to where they are,” Nickell said. “It is geopolitically important for both the
Kremlin and for the European Union because of this relative size.”

The country is also a regional economic power, that despite
ongoing conflicts, has seen growth in recent years.

“(It’s a) massive economy,” Nickell said. “A very vibrant tech
sector is emerging from Ukraine, especially in the past six or so years. ...
They also have a very large education sector that they are building. They are
exporters of various raw materials, perhaps the most beautiful, and maybe I'm
biased, is amber. But this is something that they are building and they're
working very hard to build this economy, despite the fact that it was decimated
in 2014, in the wake of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euromaidan">Euromaidan</a>, and despite the fact that their former
president absconded with almost the entirety of the National Treasury when he
left in 2014.”

The size, location and economic value of Ukraine is a
primary driver of the desire of Russian to control the country, in part or in
whole, and she said is an important buffer between NATO-allied countries and Russia.

“One of my scholarly colleagues by the name of Serhii&nbsp;Plokhy, he has called Ukraine the gates of Europe,” Nickell said. “And I think this
is a really apt description, because it is the gates of Europe and Mr. Putin is
afraid that those gates will come flooding open and European ideas, and what
are perceived as Western ideas, like democracy will flood into Russian
territory.

“And so I think he sees this as strategically a place to try
to cut those ideas from flooding over,” she said. “So that location is very,
very important. And, of course, it is bordering several NATO countries.”

Putin’s invoking of NATO creeping into the area is also a misrepresentation
of the situation, Nickell said.

“I think it's important when we're listening to the news and
thinking about these things, you're going to hear several people say that Mr.
Putin is worried about NATO coming to his doorstep. I encourage you to open a
map of NATO. You will see that NATO is already on his doorstep in the Baltics
and Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, so he does have NATO countries already
bordering Russia. So much of this is just rhetoric.”

But while the rhetoric coming out of the Russian government
has been presented around the globe, Nickell said the situation has shown even
within the country Putin’s messaging has been increasing scrutinized.

“I think we're seeing definitely over the past five days
that some of our assumptions about some of these things are breaking down,” she
said. “If you would have asked me five days ago about the extent of Putin's
propaganda machine and its success, I might have thought it to be a little bit
more successful than we're finding out it actually is. The propaganda is
breaking down on the ground. Russians are coming out into the streets in the
thousands, despite the very literal threat to their personal livelihoods to
protest this. They're getting arrested. They're getting disappeared.”

Further, as those protests are occurring in the light of a “very
sophisticated propaganda machine” and the heavy clampdown on the public sphere,
showing complexity and divergence of thought within the region that highlights
potential threats to Putin.

“Much of this is also just kind of in rooted in an autocrats' attempt to maintain power,” Nickell said. “And, really, I think he's afraid
right now.”

Specifically, she said he seems to fear a growing trend
toward democracy on Russia’s doorstep.

While Ukraine continues the fight to fend off Russian
forces, Nickell said the Ukrainian response has come as
surprising to Putin and his allies.

“We have evidence, empirical evidence at this point, he
thought that this was going to go very differently,” she said. “He was under
the impression that Russia would arrive and then Ukraine would capitulate
within three days. We know these to be facts, because the Wayback Machine, which
Putin tried to prevent from having access to Russian media outlets, caught
something that was supposed to go out 48 hours ago, with pictures and
everything, announcing that Ukraine had capitulated. And that is not what
happened.

“So here we are. We're two days after that (and) Ukraine is
fighting hard. And the world is seeing the propaganda machine for what it is.”

A large part of that propaganda perpetuated by Putin, is
based on “entangled history,” Nickell said. But is not actually rooted in
historical fact.

He often tries to use the shared history “as a way to depict
both entities as the same thing, when in fact, they are different, but related
things and the true heirs to Kievan Rus’ are not only Russians, but also Bella
Russians and Ukrainians, all distinct separate national identities and now
distinct sovereign nation states,” Nickell said.

While, historically, borders have shifted as the result of conflicts
and wars in Europe, Ukrainian borders as they are now formed after World War
Two.

“It's important that we understand that all of this rhetoric
coming from the Kremlin, that Ukraine was always part of Russia is just that
Ukraine is composed of parts of several different empires, be it Polish, be it Ottoman,
be it Russian, be it Austrian,” Nickell said. “And so, it really is this place
for many places, and not necessarily something that was Russian, and then
became something else after.

While the lines were formalized in more recent history, they
stem from movements in the 17th to 20th centuries.

“There's an independent Ukraine that emerges in 1917-1918,”
Nickell said. “There's a brief moment in which they are kind of put down or
pacified. And then they emerge as an independent Ukraine again shortly after
that. This is short-lived, because unlike our war for independence, where we
succeeded in gaining our independence from an imperial power, they did not
succeed in gaining their independence from an imperial power. The Bolsheviks
violently pacified Ukraine, they murdered millions in the process of doing
this and incorporated Ukraine into the Soviet Union. And so that's how Ukraine
gets into the Soviet Union.”

Ukraine would function as a part of the Soviet Union until
1991.

“But there was always kind of an undercurrent or demand for
Ukrainian independence,” Nickell said. “This is hard to do in a totalitarian
state, to come out and be like 'I want to independent state,' but there were
always those ideas and cultures of Ukrainian independence. And as they steadily
marched closer and closer to the collapse of communism, you saw them become
more overt in these calls.”

After the collapse of the USSR, Ukrainians voted for
their independence.

But in doing so, they found themselves in a precarious situation
that was the impetus behind a meeting in Budapest in 1994.

“It's here that Yeltsin, that leaders of the United States,
leaders of the U.K., and leaders of Ukraine all came together to discuss one of
the biggest issues facing independent Ukraine,” Nickell said. “And that was the
fact that they were sitting on top of the third largest nuclear arsenal in the
world. And we wanted to denuclearize. We were moving away from the Cold War
world, and that we put full faith in Russia and full faith in ourselves that
we would begin this process of disarming our nukes.

“As a Colorado girl,” she continued, “I watched that process
unfold at home. ... Ukraine agreed to this, that they
would give up their nuclear weapons in exchange for one thing — that Russia and
the United States acknowledged their territorial sovereignty and promise to
protect it. So, we are right now contractually obligated to protect Ukrainian
sovereignty, though much of our conversation has been about NATO. And Russia is
also contractually obligated to do so. And this is kind of a little bit of a
lesson and Putin's promises.”

As elections in Ukraine yielded pro-Russian and more pro-democratic
leaders, tensions with Russia would come to a head in 2014 with the
Euromaidan.

“Maidan is just the word for Square in Ukrainian, which is
why Ukrainians call this the Revolution of Dignity, because this was the moment
that they claimed back their dignity from the state,” Nickell said. “And they
demanded democratic policies.”

Despite the desire of the people to live in a democratic
system, the president at the time desired to bring Ukraine closer to Russia.

“And so, he essentially sicced the secret police on the
population that was protesting,” Nickell said. "(A) little over 100 individuals
were murdered ruthlessly in the streets of Kiev protesting. And today
Ukrainians call them the Heavenly 100.”

The timing of those deaths corresponds with the Russian annexation
of Crimea, something she attributes to Putin, or at least on his behalf. Soon
after as a democratic election was underway, he took advantage of the situation
to invade Crimea.

It was at this time he “also began the process of backing so-called separatists in eastern Ukraine in two regions called Donetsk and Luhansk,”
Nickell said. “And they're kind of the equivalent to states here in the United
States. And this has been ongoing since 2014. Well, over 4,000 Ukrainians have
died in this war and war has been part of their everyday lives since."

Until recently, military action has been confined to those
two regions.

“And Mr. Putin has at least maintained the facade of nonintervention
in the eastern kind of crisis in Luhansk and Donetsk, the war of aggression
there,” Nickell said. “However, over the past five days, we've seen this rapid
escalation there. ... There is no more facade. Mr. Putin is
sending in troops, he is sending in tanks, he is sending in planes, he is using
weapons that even here we consider violations of human rights. And so, this is
a violent, violent escalation that most of us hoped that we would not be coming
to.”

And while allegiances in those regions created complex international
relations, Ukrainian borders had been clearly set, she said.

As a historian, Nickell said she has no ability to predict
what the outcome of the conflict might be, but fears the situation will not be
quickly resolved.

“What I can say is based off of what has been occurring so
far and the ratcheting up of violence, I do think this will be a very long and
protracted — like very long — conflict,” Nickell said. “And given Putin's general
approach to Ukraine over the past 15 years or so, I do think that he will continue to fight&nbsp; (and) Ukrainians will continue to resist. This is something I
can say, I think, with some level of certainty.”

But she is encouraged by internal action to stop Russian
aggression.

“Some of the rhetoric inside of us inside of the Russian
Federation is really starting to break down his grip on power, I think
protests out of Belarus in 2020 and again, this week, protests in Kazakhstan,
all of these areas surrounding the Russian Federation, as well as inside where
there are calls for democracy calls for an open public sphere calls for
transparency,” Nickell said. “I think this is where our best hope lies, this
would be the most ideal outcome, that democratic ideas overturn autocratic
ideas.”

“But other than that,” she continued “I don't I don't know
what comes next. I do know that the people of Ukraine need our support, they
need our voices, they need anything that we can send their way. Call your
congresspeople, do what you can do your bit. And this is a place that does
their bit. So do your bit and make change.”

Nickell is scheduled to speak on this topic at the Hays
Public Library at 10 a.m. Thursday. The public is invited to attend.

The meeting is also scheduled to live stream on the library Facebook page,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.facebook.com/hayspubliclibrary">facebook.com/hayspubliclibrary</a>.

<div><iframe title="Area Ukraine expert shares insights into situation; history" allowtransparency="true" height="300" width="100%" style="border: none; min-width: min(100%, 430px);" scrolling="no" data-name="pb-iframe-player" src="https://www.podbean.com/player-v2/?i=d3fid-11bd71a-pb&from=pb6admin&square=1&share=1&download=1&rtl=0&fonts=Arial&skin=3267a3&font-color=ffffff&btn-skin=3267a3&size=300" allowfullscreen=""></iframe></div>By JAMES BELL Hays PostWhile the current situation in Ukraine has dominated domestic and
international headlines in recent weeks, one Fort Hays State University expert
said the conflict is less a standalone event and more of an escalation of hostilities.
Along with her academic expertise as a historian of central and eastern
Europe, Amber Nickell, associate professor of history, also spent time living in Ukraine as a Fulbright Scholar and has traveled
to and from the country for research since 2018.While half a world away, she said there are parallels to the people
of Ukraine and those living in the area.“Ukrainians are extremely resilient, very hard-working,”
Nickell said. “And it definitely reminds me of some of the hard-working folks
here in Kansas, that you know, are pulling themselves up and doing what it
takes to get things done. And we're definitely seeing that in Ukraine right
now, as Ukrainians are fighting against Russian aggression.”And much like the Kansas farmers who help drive local economies,
Ukrainians also rely on agriculture, with corn, wheat and seed oils among their
top five exports.“Ukraine has a large swath is what of what is known black
earth territory,” Nickell said. “And this is soil that is so nutrient-rich that it can give two crops per season as opposed to one. And so, for those
folks out there that are working in agriculture, know that there are many
Ukrainians out there just like you spending their days in the fields. This is
this is part of who they are.”Now with the recent conflict escalation, those people are
fighting for their county, but she said current hostilities are only the most
recent in a long history of Russian interference in the county.“For some time, Ukrainians have been trying to fight Russian
aggression,” Nickell said. “And we can really reach back pretty far in the
historical narrative, all the way back to the violent escalation inside of
independent Ukraine in the interwar and Bolsheviks, kind of forcibly placing
power over the Ukrainian population.“But in the more recent memory, Ukraine has been illegally
occupied since 2014, in both Crimea and the Donbass region which is Luhansk,
and Donetsk. Here, Russians have backed so-called separatists and well over
4,000 Ukrainian citizens and soldiers have died in this conflict since 2014.”While the conflict might be an old one, in the last week the
conflict has become decidedly more pronounced. “Things have definitely escalated exponentially in the past
five days,” Nickell said. “The emails and messages and Facebook messages that
I'm getting from my friends and colleagues in Ukraine are heartbreaking. Bombs dropping on their neighborhoods in their communities, children
doing kindergarten underground and bunkers, folks fleeing to the borders
looking for any chance to help their families survive. ... It's
heartbreaking to see the escalation these past few days.”<h2>A civic nation</h2>Along with the similarities of the people of Ukraine, she
said the country is like the U.S. — multiracial, with populations living in the
country from around the globe."It is, in very many ways, a civic nation, much like us here,
where you can be a citizen of the United States, regardless of where you come
from,” Nickell said. “And you can have that patriotism and sense of belonging
really, regardless of what languages you speak.”And so, while Russian language and culture might remain prevalent
in Ukraine, the sense of self-determination is also a large part of the society.“Much like me sitting here, I have family from Poland, but I
am an American citizen,” Nickell said. “And so that is something that I think
we need to think about a little closely when we're listening to some of the
media that is coming out of these places.”The trend toward simplicity in reporting from the region,
she added, can create an understanding that does not fully reflect national
complexities. “I think often folks think that Ukraine is just this small
country out in the middle of nowhere,” Nickell said. “And I've definitely heard
those things said. But it isn't a small country. It isn't in the middle of
nowhere.”The size of the nation itself is important for a good
understanding of the situation and relevant to the desire of Russia to increase
their sphere of influence in Ukraine.“It is the largest country entirely in Europe. It's bigger
than Germany. It's bigger than France. It's bigger than Spain. It's bigger than
the UK. And so, we're talking about a very, very large swath of territory,
we're talking a couple Kansases, for those that are thinking about size relative
to where they are,” Nickell said. “It is geopolitically important for both the
Kremlin and for the European Union because of this relative size.”The country is also a regional economic power, that despite
ongoing conflicts, has seen growth in recent years.“(It’s a) massive economy,” Nickell said. “A very vibrant tech
sector is emerging from Ukraine, especially in the past six or so years. ...
They also have a very large education sector that they are building. They are
exporters of various raw materials, perhaps the most beautiful, and maybe I'm
biased, is amber. But this is something that they are building and they're
working very hard to build this economy, despite the fact that it was decimated
in 2014, in the wake of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euromaidan">Euromaidan</a>, and despite the fact that their former
president absconded with almost the entirety of the National Treasury when he
left in 2014.”<h2>Why it matters</h2>The size, location and economic value of Ukraine is a
primary driver of the desire of Russian to control the country, in part or in
whole, and she said is an important buffer between NATO-allied countries and Russia.“One of my scholarly colleagues by the name of Serhii&nbsp;Plokhy, he has called Ukraine the gates of Europe,” Nickell said. “And I think this
is a really apt description, because it is the gates of Europe and Mr. Putin is
afraid that those gates will come flooding open and European ideas, and what
are perceived as Western ideas, like democracy will flood into Russian
territory.“And so I think he sees this as strategically a place to try
to cut those ideas from flooding over,” she said. “So that location is very,
very important. And, of course, it is bordering several NATO countries.”Putin’s invoking of NATO creeping into the area is also a misrepresentation
of the situation, Nickell said.“I think it's important when we're listening to the news and
thinking about these things, you're going to hear several people say that Mr.
Putin is worried about NATO coming to his doorstep. I encourage you to open a
map of NATO. You will see that NATO is already on his doorstep in the Baltics
and Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, so he does have NATO countries already
bordering Russia. So much of this is just rhetoric.”But while the rhetoric coming out of the Russian government
has been presented around the globe, Nickell said the situation has shown even
within the country Putin’s messaging has been increasing scrutinized.“I think we're seeing definitely over the past five days
that some of our assumptions about some of these things are breaking down,” she
said. “If you would have asked me five days ago about the extent of Putin's
propaganda machine and its success, I might have thought it to be a little bit
more successful than we're finding out it actually is. The propaganda is
breaking down on the ground. Russians are coming out into the streets in the
thousands, despite the very literal threat to their personal livelihoods to
protest this. They're getting arrested. They're getting disappeared.”Further, as those protests are occurring in the light of a “very
sophisticated propaganda machine” and the heavy clampdown on the public sphere,
showing complexity and divergence of thought within the region that highlights
potential threats to Putin.“Much of this is also just kind of in rooted in an autocrats' attempt to maintain power,” Nickell said. “And, really, I think he's afraid
right now.”Specifically, she said he seems to fear a growing trend
toward democracy on Russia’s doorstep.<h2>The conflict</h2>While Ukraine continues the fight to fend off Russian
forces, Nickell said the Ukrainian response has come as
surprising to Putin and his allies.“We have evidence, empirical evidence at this point, he
thought that this was going to go very differently,” she said. “He was under
the impression that Russia would arrive and then Ukraine would capitulate
within three days. We know these to be facts, because the Wayback Machine, which
Putin tried to prevent from having access to Russian media outlets, caught
something that was supposed to go out 48 hours ago, with pictures and
everything, announcing that Ukraine had capitulated. And that is not what
happened.“So here we are. We're two days after that (and) Ukraine is
fighting hard. And the world is seeing the propaganda machine for what it is.”A large part of that propaganda perpetuated by Putin, is
based on “entangled history,” Nickell said. But is not actually rooted in
historical fact.He often tries to use the shared history “as a way to depict
both entities as the same thing, when in fact, they are different, but related
things and the true heirs to Kievan Rus’ are not only Russians, but also Bella
Russians and Ukrainians, all distinct separate national identities and now
distinct sovereign nation states,” Nickell said.While, historically, borders have shifted as the result of conflicts
and wars in Europe, Ukrainian borders as they are now formed after World War
Two.“It's important that we understand that all of this rhetoric
coming from the Kremlin, that Ukraine was always part of Russia is just that
Ukraine is composed of parts of several different empires, be it Polish, be it Ottoman,
be it Russian, be it Austrian,” Nickell said. “And so, it really is this place
for many places, and not necessarily something that was Russian, and then
became something else after.While the lines were formalized in more recent history, they
stem from movements in the 17th to 20th centuries.“There's an independent Ukraine that emerges in 1917-1918,”
Nickell said. “There's a brief moment in which they are kind of put down or
pacified. And then they emerge as an independent Ukraine again shortly after
that. This is short-lived, because unlike our war for independence, where we
succeeded in gaining our independence from an imperial power, they did not
succeed in gaining their independence from an imperial power. The Bolsheviks
violently pacified Ukraine, they murdered millions in the process of doing
this and incorporated Ukraine into the Soviet Union. And so that's how Ukraine
gets into the Soviet Union.”Ukraine would function as a part of the Soviet Union until
1991.“But there was always kind of an undercurrent or demand for
Ukrainian independence,” Nickell said. “This is hard to do in a totalitarian
state, to come out and be like 'I want to independent state,' but there were
always those ideas and cultures of Ukrainian independence. And as they steadily
marched closer and closer to the collapse of communism, you saw them become
more overt in these calls.”After the collapse of the USSR, Ukrainians voted for
their independence.But in doing so, they found themselves in a precarious situation
that was the impetus behind a meeting in Budapest in 1994.“It's here that Yeltsin, that leaders of the United States,
leaders of the U.K., and leaders of Ukraine all came together to discuss one of
the biggest issues facing independent Ukraine,” Nickell said. “And that was the
fact that they were sitting on top of the third largest nuclear arsenal in the
world. And we wanted to denuclearize. We were moving away from the Cold War
world, and that we put full faith in Russia and full faith in ourselves that
we would begin this process of disarming our nukes.“As a Colorado girl,” she continued, “I watched that process
unfold at home. ... Ukraine agreed to this, that they
would give up their nuclear weapons in exchange for one thing — that Russia and
the United States acknowledged their territorial sovereignty and promise to
protect it. So, we are right now contractually obligated to protect Ukrainian
sovereignty, though much of our conversation has been about NATO. And Russia is
also contractually obligated to do so. And this is kind of a little bit of a
lesson and Putin's promises.”<h2>The conflict heats up</h2>As elections in Ukraine yielded pro-Russian and more pro-democratic
leaders, tensions with Russia would come to a head in 2014 with the
Euromaidan.“Maidan is just the word for Square in Ukrainian, which is
why Ukrainians call this the Revolution of Dignity, because this was the moment
that they claimed back their dignity from the state,” Nickell said. “And they
demanded democratic policies.”Despite the desire of the people to live in a democratic
system, the president at the time desired to bring Ukraine closer to Russia.“And so, he essentially sicced the secret police on the
population that was protesting,” Nickell said. "(A) little over 100 individuals
were murdered ruthlessly in the streets of Kiev protesting. And today
Ukrainians call them the Heavenly 100.”The timing of those deaths corresponds with the Russian annexation
of Crimea, something she attributes to Putin, or at least on his behalf. Soon
after as a democratic election was underway, he took advantage of the situation
to invade Crimea.It was at this time he “also began the process of backing so-called separatists in eastern Ukraine in two regions called Donetsk and Luhansk,”
Nickell said. “And they're kind of the equivalent to states here in the United
States. And this has been ongoing since 2014. Well, over 4,000 Ukrainians have
died in this war and war has been part of their everyday lives since."Until recently, military action has been confined to those
two regions.“And Mr. Putin has at least maintained the facade of nonintervention
in the eastern kind of crisis in Luhansk and Donetsk, the war of aggression
there,” Nickell said. “However, over the past five days, we've seen this rapid
escalation there. ... There is no more facade. Mr. Putin is
sending in troops, he is sending in tanks, he is sending in planes, he is using
weapons that even here we consider violations of human rights. And so, this is
a violent, violent escalation that most of us hoped that we would not be coming
to.”And while allegiances in those regions created complex international
relations, Ukrainian borders had been clearly set, she said.As a historian, Nickell said she has no ability to predict
what the outcome of the conflict might be, but fears the situation will not be
quickly resolved.“What I can say is based off of what has been occurring so
far and the ratcheting up of violence, I do think this will be a very long and
protracted — like very long — conflict,” Nickell said. “And given Putin's general
approach to Ukraine over the past 15 years or so, I do think that he will continue to fight&nbsp; (and) Ukrainians will continue to resist. This is something I
can say, I think, with some level of certainty.”But she is encouraged by internal action to stop Russian
aggression.“Some of the rhetoric inside of us inside of the Russian
Federation is really starting to break down his grip on power, I think
protests out of Belarus in 2020 and again, this week, protests in Kazakhstan,
all of these areas surrounding the Russian Federation, as well as inside where
there are calls for democracy calls for an open public sphere calls for
transparency,” Nickell said. “I think this is where our best hope lies, this
would be the most ideal outcome, that democratic ideas overturn autocratic
ideas.”“But other than that,” she continued “I don't I don't know
what comes next. I do know that the people of Ukraine need our support, they
need our voices, they need anything that we can send their way. Call your
congresspeople, do what you can do your bit. And this is a place that does
their bit. So do your bit and make change.”Nickell is scheduled to speak on this topic at the Hays
Public Library at 10 a.m. Thursday. The public is invited to attend.The meeting is also scheduled to live stream on the library Facebook page,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.facebook.com/hayspubliclibrary">facebook.com/hayspubliclibrary</a>.

🎙 'Democratic ideas overturn autocratic ideas': FHSU professor shares insights into Ukraine

On this episode of the Post Podcast, Hays Convention and Visitor's Bureau executive director Melissa Dixon along with Kurt Martin from Canterbury Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery share information about the upcoming Kansas Mission of Mercy free dental clinic in Hays.&nbsp;

<div><iframe title="Upcoming free dental clinic benefits area in variety of ways" allowtransparency="true" height="300" width="100%" style="border: none; min-width: min(100%, 430px);" scrolling="no" data-name="pb-iframe-player" src="https://www.podbean.com/player-v2/?i=53zj3-11bbc8b-pb&from=pb6admin&square=1&share=1&download=1&rtl=0&fonts=Arial&skin=3267a3&font-color=ffffff&btn-skin=3267a3&size=300" allowfullscreen=""></iframe></div>On this episode of the Post Podcast, Hays Convention and Visitor's Bureau executive director Melissa Dixon along with Kurt Martin from Canterbury Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery share information about the upcoming Kansas Mission of Mercy free dental clinic in Hays.&nbsp;

🎙Post Podcast: Upcoming free dental clinic benefits area in variety of ways

After being impacted by the pandemic last year, the annual
Downtown Hays Development Corporation fundraiser Brews on the Bricks is set
to return to downtown Hays this spring.

“It's going to be on May 7, back to the first Saturday of May,
where it's supposed to be, back where it belongs, when it's not too hot, not
too cold,” said Executive Director Sara Bloom. “We won't be ice skating and we
won't be melting.”

The event features breweries from around the region, allowing
local residents to sample a diverse range of styles of beer from across the
U.S.

“We are hoping to get different brewers in this year,” said
Allie Glidewell, director of events and operations. “We're reaching out to all
the usual cohorts.”

She said they are working with local brewers as well to help
generate an expanded interest for the event.

“Gella’s and Defiance are setting up at a Beer Expo at the
beginning of March,” Glidewell said. “And so we'll be passing out information
about Brews on the Bricks, then to all the brewers in the hope that we keep
things fresh, keeps some new things in there. So that should be really fun and
exciting to see who that brings out.”

But a special effort to reach out to Kansas brewers is ongoing
as well.

“There's almost 70 breweries in Kansas alone, which is
pretty incredible,” Bloom said. “We also sent out save the date postcards to
every single one of them last week, we're sending emails out to every single
one of them trying to get them to register early.

“We're working really hard to get as many breweries here
into downtown Hays as possible,” she said.

With the event now back to a spring date, Bloom also said
finding food vendors should also be easier, providing even more to offer during
the event.

“When we when we had it last year, August is just a really
busy time (when) we had it,” Bloom said. "School was already back in session. ... Fairs were happening across the area, so that really hindered food trucks.”

While the shift last year had caused a shift in the event, one
positive outcome was a better balance was found in ticket sales, she said.

“We're selling the exact same amount of tickets that we sold
last year, which is around the 1,500 mark,” Bloom said. During “the event from
2019, before the pandemic, we sold closer to 2,500. So, there's 1,000 less
tickets available.”

Last year, the drop in tickets was an effort to reduce COVID
risks, but it was accepted positively overall.

“We had such great feedback. ... This is
the perfect size. These were the perfect line lengths. It just felt really good,”
Bloom said. “So, we're going to maintain that at around 1,500 tickets this year.
So that means there's not very many tickets. ... They're going to go very fast.”

Tickets are set to go on sale Tuesday at 7 a.m.., both online and in the office.

She said general admission tickets are likely to sell out before
the event, but VIP are expected to sell out in hours.

“There's only 250 VIP tickets. So again, VIP is going to go
very quickly,” Bloom said. “It sells out within that those first couple of
hours of tickets going on sale. So, you need to be ready to purchase at 7 a.m.”

VIP tickets allow the participants are a variety of extras during
the event and run $80.

“That gets you nice swag,” Bloom said. “It gets you in an
hour and a half early, so you don't have to fight the crowds and no lines. It
gets you a very nice spread of food that we bring in for you from restaurants
all over downtown.”

General admission tickets run $40 and will run from 2 p.m.
to 5 p.m.

“So, you still get three hours of tasting, there will still
be some food available, and we'll have a DD booth for those that don't want to
drink or if you need some water or you need to take a break from the beer while
you're there,” Bloom said. “We'll have all that for you. We'll have some music
playing. We'll have some games that up. Lots of fun happening.”

While planning continues, she said the DHDC is also
continuing the search for event sponsors.

“Even as low as I think $20 is our lowest sponsorship level,”
Bloom said.

“It is great exposure,” Glidewell said. “So, all the way up
to the $600 level and anywhere in between we always find a way to make it worth
your while whether it's signage or what have you.”

<a href="https://www.brewsonthebricks.info/">For more about Brews on the Bricks, visit brewsonthebricks.info.</a>

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2022/2/1645822231687.jpeg" alt="" />
 <figcaption></figcaption>
 </figure><div><iframe title="Brews set to once again flow on the Bricks this spring" allowtransparency="true" height="300" width="100%" style="border: none; min-width: min(100%, 430px);" scrolling="no" data-name="pb-iframe-player" src="https://www.podbean.com/player-v2/?i=kp22b-11b8485-pb&from=pb6admin&square=1&share=1&download=1&rtl=0&fonts=Arial&skin=3267a3&font-color=ffffff&btn-skin=3267a3&size=300" allowfullscreen=""></iframe></div>By JAMES BELL Hays PostAfter being impacted by the pandemic last year, the annual
Downtown Hays Development Corporation fundraiser Brews on the Bricks is set
to return to downtown Hays this spring.“It's going to be on May 7, back to the first Saturday of May,
where it's supposed to be, back where it belongs, when it's not too hot, not
too cold,” said Executive Director Sara Bloom. “We won't be ice skating and we
won't be melting.”The event features breweries from around the region, allowing
local residents to sample a diverse range of styles of beer from across the
U.S.“We are hoping to get different brewers in this year,” said
Allie Glidewell, director of events and operations. “We're reaching out to all
the usual cohorts.”She said they are working with local brewers as well to help
generate an expanded interest for the event.“Gella’s and Defiance are setting up at a Beer Expo at the
beginning of March,” Glidewell said. “And so we'll be passing out information
about Brews on the Bricks, then to all the brewers in the hope that we keep
things fresh, keeps some new things in there. So that should be really fun and
exciting to see who that brings out.”But a special effort to reach out to Kansas brewers is ongoing
as well.“There's almost 70 breweries in Kansas alone, which is
pretty incredible,” Bloom said. “We also sent out save the date postcards to
every single one of them last week, we're sending emails out to every single
one of them trying to get them to register early.“We're working really hard to get as many breweries here
into downtown Hays as possible,” she said.With the event now back to a spring date, Bloom also said
finding food vendors should also be easier, providing even more to offer during
the event.“When we when we had it last year, August is just a really
busy time (when) we had it,” Bloom said. "School was already back in session. ... Fairs were happening across the area, so that really hindered food trucks.”While the shift last year had caused a shift in the event, one
positive outcome was a better balance was found in ticket sales, she said.“We're selling the exact same amount of tickets that we sold
last year, which is around the 1,500 mark,” Bloom said. During “the event from
2019, before the pandemic, we sold closer to 2,500. So, there's 1,000 less
tickets available.”<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2022/2/1645822219569.jpeg" alt="" />
 <figcaption></figcaption>
 </figure>Last year, the drop in tickets was an effort to reduce COVID
risks, but it was accepted positively overall.“We had such great feedback. ... This is
the perfect size. These were the perfect line lengths. It just felt really good,”
Bloom said. “So, we're going to maintain that at around 1,500 tickets this year.
So that means there's not very many tickets. ... They're going to go very fast.”Tickets are set to go on sale Tuesday at 7 a.m.., both online and in the office.She said general admission tickets are likely to sell out before
the event, but VIP are expected to sell out in hours.“There's only 250 VIP tickets. So again, VIP is going to go
very quickly,” Bloom said. “It sells out within that those first couple of
hours of tickets going on sale. So, you need to be ready to purchase at 7 a.m.”VIP tickets allow the participants are a variety of extras during
the event and run $80.“That gets you nice swag,” Bloom said. “It gets you in an
hour and a half early, so you don't have to fight the crowds and no lines. It
gets you a very nice spread of food that we bring in for you from restaurants
all over downtown.”General admission tickets run $40 and will run from 2 p.m.
to 5 p.m.“So, you still get three hours of tasting, there will still
be some food available, and we'll have a DD booth for those that don't want to
drink or if you need some water or you need to take a break from the beer while
you're there,” Bloom said. “We'll have all that for you. We'll have some music
playing. We'll have some games that up. Lots of fun happening.”While planning continues, she said the DHDC is also
continuing the search for event sponsors.“Even as low as I think $20 is our lowest sponsorship level,”
Bloom said.“It is great exposure,” Glidewell said. “So, all the way up
to the $600 level and anywhere in between we always find a way to make it worth
your while whether it's signage or what have you.”Event volunteers are also needed.<a href="https://www.brewsonthebricks.info/">For more about Brews on the Bricks, visit brewsonthebricks.info.</a>

🎙 Brews set to once again flow on the Bricks this spring

By JAMES BELL 
Hays Post

It might only be the second month of the calendar year, but the first
steps to enrolling kindergarteners into USD 489 for the 2022-23 school year soon will be underway.

The annual Kindergarten Roundup is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. Monday in
Gym A on the Hays High campus, giving parents an opportunity to meet with
district officials, set up school tours, choose the child’s preferred school
and enroll children for the upcoming school year.

“There are a few reasons why it's important for parents to
attend,” said Roosevelt Elementary principal Keri Petersen. “No. 1, the event is for all parents who
student enrolling in kindergarten.”

But she said for parents with students already in the district, the
night could be a refresher for the first year.

To enroll in the district next year, children must be five
years of age on or before Aug. 31.

While many of the in-person functions of the roundup remain
the same, this year the district is moving to an online enrollment system.

“We've already had our pre-enrollment paperwork sent out to
families who are already in our district,” Petersen said. “We will send out an online enrollment link following our
Roundup time that evening at 6:30 p.m. So that parents can take care of all of
that online this year, so there won't be any of the paperwork involved in it.”

During the Roundup, Superintendent Wilson and Assistant Superintendent Shanna
Dinkel will speak, as well as each one of the principles about school-year
topics.

“You just take a seat in the gym. We will probably likely
have a slideshow that you can view while we're doing our talking and, at the
end, you'll have an opportunity to speak with us if you'd like,” Petersen said.
“It's not a long timeframe, it's just a nice time for you to actually get to
be introduced to each one of us.

“And it's a great time if you have questions to get some
answers, especially after the presentation, which is pretty brief,”
she said. “So that gives parents time to speak with each one of us or
whoever they feel like they need to have a discussion with. ... That's what we're there for.”

Along with the information, a part of the process is deciding a family's first, second and third choice of elementary schools in the district.

School placement will be decided by the district later, and
parents will be informed as to their child’s school in late April, Petersen said.

School tours can be arranged for those looking to view the individual
schools before making a decision.

“The dates are not officially set hour tours in some of our
buildings,” Petersen said. “So, if you'd like, if you're undecided about which
building you'd like your child to attend, you can certainly call the buildings
and set up a time to tour.”

The meeting also is an opportunity to learn about parent
groups in the district.

“Each one of our buildings has great parent groups who are
involved in trying to make our buildings the best place they can be for all of
our students,” Petersen said. 

“We're looking forward to meeting new students to meeting
parents who are coming in. And of course, if you're a repeat parent, and you
already have kids in our buildings or in the district, we'd love to see you on
that same evening on Feb. 28,” she said.

<div><iframe title="489 readies for Kindergarten Round-up" allowtransparency="true" height="300" width="100%" style="border: none; min-width: min(100%, 430px);" scrolling="no" data-name="pb-iframe-player" src="https://www.podbean.com/player-v2/?i=36txk-11b3e35-pb&from=pb6admin&square=1&share=1&download=1&rtl=0&fonts=Arial&skin=3267a3&font-color=ffffff&btn-skin=3267a3&size=300" allowfullscreen=""></iframe></div>By JAMES BELL 
Hays PostIt might only be the second month of the calendar year, but the first
steps to enrolling kindergarteners into USD 489 for the 2022-23 school year soon will be underway.The annual Kindergarten Roundup is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. Monday in
Gym A on the Hays High campus, giving parents an opportunity to meet with
district officials, set up school tours, choose the child’s preferred school
and enroll children for the upcoming school year.“There are a few reasons why it's important for parents to
attend,” said Roosevelt Elementary principal Keri Petersen. “No. 1, the event is for all parents who
student enrolling in kindergarten.”But she said for parents with students already in the district, the
night could be a refresher for the first year.To enroll in the district next year, children must be five
years of age on or before Aug. 31.While many of the in-person functions of the roundup remain
the same, this year the district is moving to an online enrollment system.“We've already had our pre-enrollment paperwork sent out to
families who are already in our district,” Petersen said. “We will send out an online enrollment link following our
Roundup time that evening at 6:30 p.m. So that parents can take care of all of
that online this year, so there won't be any of the paperwork involved in it.”During the Roundup, Superintendent Wilson and Assistant Superintendent Shanna
Dinkel will speak, as well as each one of the principles about school-year
topics.“You just take a seat in the gym. We will probably likely
have a slideshow that you can view while we're doing our talking and, at the
end, you'll have an opportunity to speak with us if you'd like,” Petersen said.
“It's not a long timeframe, it's just a nice time for you to actually get to
be introduced to each one of us.“And it's a great time if you have questions to get some
answers, especially after the presentation, which is pretty brief,”
she said. “So that gives parents time to speak with each one of us or
whoever they feel like they need to have a discussion with. ... That's what we're there for.”Along with the information, a part of the process is deciding a family's first, second and third choice of elementary schools in the district.School placement will be decided by the district later, and
parents will be informed as to their child’s school in late April, Petersen said.School tours can be arranged for those looking to view the individual
schools before making a decision.“The dates are not officially set hour tours in some of our
buildings,” Petersen said. “So, if you'd like, if you're undecided about which
building you'd like your child to attend, you can certainly call the buildings
and set up a time to tour.”The meeting also is an opportunity to learn about parent
groups in the district.“Each one of our buildings has great parent groups who are
involved in trying to make our buildings the best place they can be for all of
our students,” Petersen said. “We're looking forward to meeting new students to meeting
parents who are coming in. And of course, if you're a repeat parent, and you
already have kids in our buildings or in the district, we'd love to see you on
that same evening on Feb. 28,” she said.Cover image courtesy Pixabay

🎙 Hays USD 489 readies for Kindergarten Roundup

On this episode of the Post Podcast, Hays Middle School principal Tom Albers shares information about this week's parent-teacher conferences.

<div><iframe title="Student led conferences planned at Hays Middle School" allowtransparency="true" height="300" width="100%" style="border: none; min-width: min(100%, 430px);" scrolling="no" data-name="pb-iframe-player" src="https://www.podbean.com/player-v2/?i=9qn2u-11b3589-pb&from=pb6admin&square=1&share=1&download=1&rtl=0&fonts=Arial&skin=3267a3&font-color=ffffff&btn-skin=3267a3&size=300" allowfullscreen=""></iframe></div>On this episode of the Post Podcast, Hays Middle School principal Tom Albers shares information about this week's parent-teacher conferences.

🎙Post Podcast: Student led conferences planned at Hays Middle School

On this episode of the Post Podcast, Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams discusses workforce shortages in the area.

<div><iframe title="Enticing workforce back to the market relies on diverse factors" allowtransparency="true" height="300" width="100%" style="border: none; min-width: min(100%, 430px);" scrolling="no" data-name="pb-iframe-player" src="https://www.podbean.com/player-v2/?i=zxibh-11ae55a-pb&from=pb6admin&square=1&share=1&download=1&rtl=0&fonts=Arial&skin=3267a3&font-color=ffffff&btn-skin=3267a3&size=300" allowfullscreen=""></iframe></div>On this episode of the Post Podcast, Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams discusses workforce shortages in the area.

🎙Post Podcast: Enticing workforce back to the market relies on diverse factors

On this episode of the Post Podcast, Hays Chamber and CEO Sarah Wasinger, along with intern Reece Leiker, shares ways the chamber works to connect the community.

<div><iframe title="Hays Chamber works to create stronger community through networking" allowtransparency="true" height="300" width="100%" style="border: none; min-width: min(100%, 430px);" scrolling="no" data-name="pb-iframe-player" src="https://www.podbean.com/player-v2/?i=vi79w-11aa04f-pb&from=pb6admin&square=1&share=1&download=1&rtl=0&fonts=Arial&skin=3267a3&font-color=ffffff&btn-skin=3267a3&size=300" allowfullscreen=""></iframe></div>On this episode of the Post Podcast, Hays Chamber and CEO Sarah Wasinger, along with intern Reece Leiker, shares ways the chamber works to connect the community.

🎙Post Podcast: Hays Chamber works to create stronger community through networking

On this episode of the Post Podcast Noelle Husmann, Fort Hays State University Alumni Association marketing program specialist along with alumni engagement strategist, Carolyn Tatro share information about upcoming association activities.

Fort
Hays State University Alumni stay connected through the area through a variety
of events. Noelle Husmann, marketing program specialist along with alumni
engagement strategist, Carolyn Tatro from the Alumni Association stopped by to
talk to us about some of those upcoming events on this episode of the Post
Podcast.

The MIAA
tournament coming up and we're really excited about that because we get to go
in you know, not just watch some really cool basketball and really awesome team
events but meet some alumni out there as well in the Kansas City area. Yeah.

Yeah,
there are you know, I love that I see that frequently with you guys. You do
these events. They're not always just here. They're in Kansas City. You do
events in Denver or, or whatever meetups across the nation you?

Oh,
yeah. We have a lot of events in the Kansas City area, because that's where a
lot of our alumni live. We have some in Wichita, sometimes we'll do some in
Oklahoma and Texas, and then a lot in Colorado, like you said.

Yeah,
it's crazy. The reach that Fort Hays has, but you know, I wonder how important
and how, I don't know if importance, the word but you know, how much does it
help to have like a, you know, the basketball team doing well to get people
together? Because I just imagine a lot of folks are like, Yeah, I want to go
watch that my home, you know, my team's doing well, and then they just kind of
naturally come together.

Oh,
yeah. Recently, we've actually worked with our building partners. The
foundation, one of their staff members is located in Kansas City. And she has
been hosting some basketball watch parties at a brewery in Kansas City. And one
of the owners is a Fort Hays grad is called Red crow brewing, I believe. And
she's had to watch parties there and they've been really successful. I think
the alumni in that area just look for any opportunity whether they're a
basketball fan or not to get together and enjoy each other's company.

Yeah,
Tiger athletics really brings people together and I think it's just a really
easy excuse for Tiger alumni to get together and Tiger fans in general. And I
think it's just a really great time everybody enjoys you know, year round you
know, if you if you go out to Clarks Park and watch a baseball game, you know,
those are those are usually packed and you know, football games are usually
packed. I mean, there are our athletic teams are just, you know, they're not
just really fun to watch. It's a really great opportunity to get with other
Tiger fans. Mm hmm.

Yeah,
absolutely. You know, and that's to speak to that point. That's almost exactly
why I go to the football games. I love watching the football games. Always have
I was in the marching band. This is how much how sports and athletic I am, I
was in the band. But I was you know, I was in the marching band. So I go to
those Fort Hays games and is from the from year one. When I came to Fort Hays,
I was involved. So I, you know, got that early look. And it just it sticks with
me. But now, you know, I still like to watch the play. But I love to bump into
people and what a great way to do so.

Yeah.
And the atmosphere, they experience the community. It's just all great. Good
feels.

Absolutely.
So you know, if someone's listening right now, they're thinking like, oh, man,
you know, I didn't know that the Alumni Association did events like this? How
do people like find out more or get involved in them?

You
know, we update our social media constantly. If you're not following us at fhsu
Alumni Association on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or LinkedIn, we always
update our channels. And I know you guys are on those platforms, probably every
day, at least one of them. And that's the easiest way to stay up to date on the
events that we're doing.

LinkedIn
Hmm, do you have a job but I've never really got LinkedIn? I don't know. I have
an account. But it just seems weird to me.

Yeah.
Well, we I guess we don't post as many events on our LinkedIn, but we post the
majority of our updated information on our Facebook because that's where a lot
of our alumni are.

I was
gonna say, I think that's a it's circles that I I'm in. That's like the number
one thing everybody's on Facebook.

Yeah.
Everybody's on Facebook. Yeah, so true.

Yeah, so
our events are there. And if there's ever an event to register for that
requires registration as opposed to an event that you can just show up to. And
we'll post those links on our website and you know, we send out for events like
like this will send out invitations and people can find more information from
the invitations but our website are brand new, I brand, my anxiety clean
looking website, which Noel worked very hard with our our team and the
Foundation team to work together to put together here in the last couple of
months. Our brand new fhsu alumni.com website is where you can find some
information about these events. And that's where we'll post information about,
you know, other events that we've got coming up and it links directly to our
homecoming site as well. So again, your round we just, we just really try to
make things a little more smooth for people to Find out what we're doing and
how to connect with us.

All
right, cool. Yeah, speaking of that website, I was on there earlier, I was
pulling, you're pulling the titles for you guys. And I noticed this story this
uh, I forget the name. Oh, Sara Allen right there on top. There's some cool
stories on there as well. If you're you want to keep up with some of the
happenings and the folks from Fort Hays and all the cool things that they're
doing. You guys do a pretty good job of keeping that up there as well. Right?

Yeah, we
try in doing alumni spotlight every week, every week, every week we try. Maybe
every other week, might be more realistic. But yeah, we just get alumni who
share some short stories about their experience at Fort Hays and kind of what
they're doing now we post those also on our social media. And on our website,
we have a whole library of alumni, if you want to learn about them, you can
visit fhsu alumni.com.

And if
you guys are still ignore the minutes listening and wants to do it a little bit
more old school used to that your magazine, right?

Oh,
yeah. Oh, yeah, that is directly from the University Marketing Department. And
they have done a fantastic job. We have some alumni articles in there. And then
they usually have some more in depth stories on a couple of different alumni
too. You can access those online through our website. And if you're a paid
Alumni Association member, you can get a hardcopy mailed to your house twice a
year.

And
actually just read a story yesterday about how a lot of alumni magazines went
digital, during, you know, certain times of the pandemic, and a lot of people
are really appreciating that the hard copies of those magazines are coming
back, even if we do have the opportunity to see them online. There are a lot of
people who really like having that, that magazine in their hand. And like she
said, we do a really good job. Our our University Marketing Department does a
great job of putting that together. It's nice, clean, you know, feels good in
your hand kind of thing. I mean, it's a really great, it's a really great
publication. 

Yeah,
as, as everything transitions to online, you know, and obviously, I work, you
know, most of my job is online, you know, as a digital writer, but you're
right, that the feel of it, sometimes picking it up. It just it hits different,
you know, yeah, a modern expression. And I don't think that it's ever going to
truly, fully go away.

No,
especially if your name is in the magazine, too. We've had people contact our
office saying my daughter was featured in the magazine, can I get a copy? So
yeah, nothing feels the same, like a hardcopy you can keep in show your friends
and family. 

Keep
your kids you know, hold on to it in a scrapbook or something. I mean, they
definitely, yeah, people really appreciate it. And again, that's why we're
excited to bring people back together to a lot of our events just for the same
or the same kind of thing. You know, people want to they're they're ready to
celebrate Tiger family. And yeah, together.

And
especially with basketball being on hold. We have done an event at Boulevard
Brewing in Kansas City, and this will be our third time there. We weren't there
last year. We weren't there in 2020. So we're really excited to be back there
before the EMI double A tournament. Our Boulevard Brewing event will be on
March 1. And the registration for that is next week. It closes on February 15.
And that's one of our more popular events in Kansas City because it's a very
fun atmosphere like we've talked about kinda like a pre EMI double A tournament
kickoff party. So if you're interested in that, and you're heading to Kansas
City to watch the tournament, that will be on March 1, and then we will have
pregame and postgame parties during the tournament. Starting on Thursday, March
3, I believe it is the women's team is currently tied for the number one seed
and the men's team. They're ranked third. So we're kind of planning the parties
around the times that they'll play based on those seeds.

Very
cool. Although you plan something like that and you're gonna curse it. No, no,
we're not I yeah everybody listening. You heard it if if things don't go well
to tournament it's all Noel.

Don't
curse me like that, James. But if you are interested in going to the
tournament, you can buy tickets at a discount at the remaining Fort Hays home
games, which Carolyn said there's one tonight.

There's
one tonight there's a couple coming up. I think there's three or four more home
games. And you can buy tickets at those games. You can also go through the
athletic athletics office. And like Noel said, a pretty significant discount if
you do that versus walking up to the door and buying them at the arena in
Kansas City on the day of the tournament. So $50 I think is what they are if
you buy them through athletics,

Wow.
Yeah, that's a substantial discount. Very cool. Yeah. Well already Guys, we've
got just about a minute or so left. Anything else we want to hit on or last
thoughts where we go.

I think
we would just love to see everybody out there. And again, come to the games
tonight and join us in Kansas City. Check out our website, see what other
events we've got coming up over the next few months and go Tigers. 

<div><iframe title="The Alumni Association plans MIAA Tourney meet up in KC" allowtransparency="true" height="300" width="100%" style="border: none; min-width: min(100%, 430px);" scrolling="no" data-name="pb-iframe-player" src="https://www.podbean.com/player-v2/?i=6863b-11a4b9c-pb&from=pb6admin&square=1&share=1&download=1&rtl=0&fonts=Arial&skin=3267a3&font-color=ffffff&btn-skin=3267a3&size=300" allowfullscreen=""></iframe></div>On this episode of the Post Podcast Noelle Husmann, Fort Hays State University Alumni Association marketing program specialist along with alumni engagement strategist, Carolyn Tatro share information about upcoming association activities.<h2>Transcript</h2>James Bell&nbsp;
Fort
Hays State University Alumni stay connected through the area through a variety
of events. Noelle Husmann, marketing program specialist along with alumni
engagement strategist, Carolyn Tatro from the Alumni Association stopped by to
talk to us about some of those upcoming events on this episode of the Post
Podcast.Carolyn Tatro&nbsp;
The MIAA
tournament coming up and we're really excited about that because we get to go
in you know, not just watch some really cool basketball and really awesome team
events but meet some alumni out there as well in the Kansas City area. Yeah.James Bell&nbsp;
Yeah,
there are you know, I love that I see that frequently with you guys. You do
these events. They're not always just here. They're in Kansas City. You do
events in Denver or, or whatever meetups across the nation you?Noelle Husmann&nbsp;
Oh,
yeah. We have a lot of events in the Kansas City area, because that's where a
lot of our alumni live. We have some in Wichita, sometimes we'll do some in
Oklahoma and Texas, and then a lot in Colorado, like you said.James Bell&nbsp;
Yeah,
it's crazy. The reach that Fort Hays has, but you know, I wonder how important
and how, I don't know if importance, the word but you know, how much does it
help to have like a, you know, the basketball team doing well to get people
together? Because I just imagine a lot of folks are like, Yeah, I want to go
watch that my home, you know, my team's doing well, and then they just kind of
naturally come together.Noelle Husmann&nbsp;
Oh,
yeah. Recently, we've actually worked with our building partners. The
foundation, one of their staff members is located in Kansas City. And she has
been hosting some basketball watch parties at a brewery in Kansas City. And one
of the owners is a Fort Hays grad is called Red crow brewing, I believe. And
she's had to watch parties there and they've been really successful. I think
the alumni in that area just look for any opportunity whether they're a
basketball fan or not to get together and enjoy each other's company.Carolyn Tatro&nbsp;
Yeah,
Tiger athletics really brings people together and I think it's just a really
easy excuse for Tiger alumni to get together and Tiger fans in general. And I
think it's just a really great time everybody enjoys you know, year round you
know, if you if you go out to Clarks Park and watch a baseball game, you know,
those are those are usually packed and you know, football games are usually
packed. I mean, there are our athletic teams are just, you know, they're not
just really fun to watch. It's a really great opportunity to get with other
Tiger fans. Mm hmm.James Bell&nbsp;
Yeah,
absolutely. You know, and that's to speak to that point. That's almost exactly
why I go to the football games. I love watching the football games. Always have
I was in the marching band. This is how much how sports and athletic I am, I
was in the band. But I was you know, I was in the marching band. So I go to
those Fort Hays games and is from the from year one. When I came to Fort Hays,
I was involved. So I, you know, got that early look. And it just it sticks with
me. But now, you know, I still like to watch the play. But I love to bump into
people and what a great way to do so.Noelle Husmann&nbsp;
Yeah.
And the atmosphere, they experience the community. It's just all great. Good
feels.James Bell&nbsp;
Absolutely.
So you know, if someone's listening right now, they're thinking like, oh, man,
you know, I didn't know that the Alumni Association did events like this? How
do people like find out more or get involved in them?Noelle Husmann&nbsp;
You
know, we update our social media constantly. If you're not following us at fhsu
Alumni Association on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or LinkedIn, we always
update our channels. And I know you guys are on those platforms, probably every
day, at least one of them. And that's the easiest way to stay up to date on the
events that we're doing.James Bell&nbsp;
LinkedIn
Hmm, do you have a job but I've never really got LinkedIn? I don't know. I have
an account. But it just seems weird to me.Noelle Husmann&nbsp;
Yeah.
Well, we I guess we don't post as many events on our LinkedIn, but we post the
majority of our updated information on our Facebook because that's where a lot
of our alumni are.James Bell&nbsp;
I was
gonna say, I think that's a it's circles that I I'm in. That's like the number
one thing everybody's on Facebook.Noelle Husmann&nbsp;
Yeah.
Everybody's on Facebook. Yeah, so true.Carolyn Tatro&nbsp;
Yeah, so
our events are there. And if there's ever an event to register for that
requires registration as opposed to an event that you can just show up to. And
we'll post those links on our website and you know, we send out for events like
like this will send out invitations and people can find more information from
the invitations but our website are brand new, I brand, my anxiety clean
looking website, which Noel worked very hard with our our team and the
Foundation team to work together to put together here in the last couple of
months. Our brand new fhsu alumni.com website is where you can find some
information about these events. And that's where we'll post information about,
you know, other events that we've got coming up and it links directly to our
homecoming site as well. So again, your round we just, we just really try to
make things a little more smooth for people to Find out what we're doing and
how to connect with us.James Bell&nbsp;
All
right, cool. Yeah, speaking of that website, I was on there earlier, I was
pulling, you're pulling the titles for you guys. And I noticed this story this
uh, I forget the name. Oh, Sara Allen right there on top. There's some cool
stories on there as well. If you're you want to keep up with some of the
happenings and the folks from Fort Hays and all the cool things that they're
doing. You guys do a pretty good job of keeping that up there as well. Right?Noelle Husmann&nbsp;
Yeah, we
try in doing alumni spotlight every week, every week, every week we try. Maybe
every other week, might be more realistic. But yeah, we just get alumni who
share some short stories about their experience at Fort Hays and kind of what
they're doing now we post those also on our social media. And on our website,
we have a whole library of alumni, if you want to learn about them, you can
visit fhsu alumni.com.James Bell&nbsp;
And if
you guys are still ignore the minutes listening and wants to do it a little bit
more old school used to that your magazine, right?Noelle Husmann&nbsp;
Oh,
yeah. Oh, yeah, that is directly from the University Marketing Department. And
they have done a fantastic job. We have some alumni articles in there. And then
they usually have some more in depth stories on a couple of different alumni
too. You can access those online through our website. And if you're a paid
Alumni Association member, you can get a hardcopy mailed to your house twice a
year.Carolyn Tatro&nbsp;
And
actually just read a story yesterday about how a lot of alumni magazines went
digital, during, you know, certain times of the pandemic, and a lot of people
are really appreciating that the hard copies of those magazines are coming
back, even if we do have the opportunity to see them online. There are a lot of
people who really like having that, that magazine in their hand. And like she
said, we do a really good job. Our our University Marketing Department does a
great job of putting that together. It's nice, clean, you know, feels good in
your hand kind of thing. I mean, it's a really great, it's a really great
publication. James Bell&nbsp;
Yeah,
as, as everything transitions to online, you know, and obviously, I work, you
know, most of my job is online, you know, as a digital writer, but you're
right, that the feel of it, sometimes picking it up. It just it hits different,
you know, yeah, a modern expression. And I don't think that it's ever going to
truly, fully go away.Noelle Husmann&nbsp;
No,
especially if your name is in the magazine, too. We've had people contact our
office saying my daughter was featured in the magazine, can I get a copy? So
yeah, nothing feels the same, like a hardcopy you can keep in show your friends
and family. Carolyn Tatro&nbsp;
Keep
your kids you know, hold on to it in a scrapbook or something. I mean, they
definitely, yeah, people really appreciate it. And again, that's why we're
excited to bring people back together to a lot of our events just for the same
or the same kind of thing. You know, people want to they're they're ready to
celebrate Tiger family. And yeah, together.Noelle Husmann&nbsp;
And
especially with basketball being on hold. We have done an event at Boulevard
Brewing in Kansas City, and this will be our third time there. We weren't there
last year. We weren't there in 2020. So we're really excited to be back there
before the EMI double A tournament. Our Boulevard Brewing event will be on
March 1. And the registration for that is next week. It closes on February 15.
And that's one of our more popular events in Kansas City because it's a very
fun atmosphere like we've talked about kinda like a pre EMI double A tournament
kickoff party. So if you're interested in that, and you're heading to Kansas
City to watch the tournament, that will be on March 1, and then we will have
pregame and postgame parties during the tournament. Starting on Thursday, March
3, I believe it is the women's team is currently tied for the number one seed
and the men's team. They're ranked third. So we're kind of planning the parties
around the times that they'll play based on those seeds.James Bell&nbsp;
Very
cool. Although you plan something like that and you're gonna curse it. No, no,
we're not I yeah everybody listening. You heard it if if things don't go well
to tournament it's all Noel.Noelle Husmann&nbsp;
Don't
curse me like that, James. But if you are interested in going to the
tournament, you can buy tickets at a discount at the remaining Fort Hays home
games, which Carolyn said there's one tonight.Carolyn Tatro&nbsp;
There's
one tonight there's a couple coming up. I think there's three or four more home
games. And you can buy tickets at those games. You can also go through the
athletic athletics office. And like Noel said, a pretty significant discount if
you do that versus walking up to the door and buying them at the arena in
Kansas City on the day of the tournament. So $50 I think is what they are if
you buy them through athletics,Noelle Husmann&nbsp;
Yep. James Bell&nbsp;
Wow.
Yeah, that's a substantial discount. Very cool. Yeah. Well already Guys, we've
got just about a minute or so left. Anything else we want to hit on or last
thoughts where we go.Carolyn Tatro&nbsp;
I think
we would just love to see everybody out there. And again, come to the games
tonight and join us in Kansas City. Check out our website, see what other
events we've got coming up over the next few months and go Tigers. Noelle Husmann&nbsp;
Yeah, go
Tigers.

🎙Post Podcast: The Alumni Association plans MIAA Tourney meet up in KC

On this episode of the Post Podcast, Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams stops by to recap the February 2022 Imagine Ellis County Town Hall meeting.

The
Imagine Ellis County town hall meeting this week solicited feedback from area
residents about what they'd like to see in the future in Ellis County, Grow
Hays executive director Doug Williams stopped by to talk a little bit about
that. And more on this episode of the Post Podcast.

Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams&nbsp;

We had
our Imagine Ellis County town hall meeting last Monday night at the Hilton
Garden Inn, we had about 83 people that attended, which was great. A lot of
good feedback from the community, the intent of these town hall meetings is
to get down to kind of the grassroots level, we have interviewed the business
community, we had all of the business community and organizations come in and
kind of give their plans for the next 510 20 years as best they could. And we
heard what their challenges are. Now we're trying to get the community involved
in here, what other ideas they have in terms of challenges, but also ideas and
what they would like to see our community look like in the future.

Yeah,
and I know the for my understanding, they're going to compile what kind of came
out of that meeting. And we'll see that soon, what the idea is, you know, like
a list of the ideas that came out, but anything big that you think that came
out of that that was kind of unexpected, or something that hadn't been already
discussed or talked about. 

You
know, that we've kind of got the big three that come up in all
conversations that being housing, childcare, and schools. But then other ideas
come up with, you know, what, what people would like to see for entertainment,
you know, more entertainment for youth, parks, those type of things,
quality of life type of things. And so we are compiling those lists, we are
scheduling town halls in Victoria Nellis over the next I think 30 to 45 days,
because we want to get input from those communities as well. And so you get a
you know, there were lots and lots of ideas and comments, and, and that kind of
thing. And, and what we're doing is, is putting together these amount of even
know what they're called, these charts where it everything that was mentioned,
is on the chart, but some are bigger than others if they were mentioned more
than once, and there's a name, there's a term for it, but it escapes me.

But you
know, I'm saying yeah, I don't know, either.

It's an
eight and a half by 11 sheet of paper with all kinds of words on it. But the
ones that came up time and time again, are big, and the ones that didn't come
up much are small. And we're going to circulate those and, and Nina summer,
we're going to be doing a community survey that the docking Institute is going
to do for us, that will go out to we're trying to get a minimum of 500
respondents that we'll talk about will ask a series of questions and about the
community and things they'd like to see. And, and so all this is
information gathering, to then we can start laying some plans in place as to
what we need to do to make some of this stuff a reality and make our community
a more attractive place to live. And it already is a great place to live. But
we obviously have some shortcomings. We want to identify those and take
advantage of some opportunities.

Yeah,
absolutely. And, you know, we've talked about the big ones you mentioned, like
housing specifically. You know, that's, that's the base of it. And I think
there's so much talk and activity going on there that to me, the there's
conversations that you know, about, like, for example, the parks, you know, the
the some of the parks in Hays are getting a little dated, and we could use a
refresh on them. But those get lost because of the massive housing problem in
childcare and etc, etc.

The big
issues always take top billing, you know, that that goes without saying, and
then that's understandable. I mean, if we don't resolve those, all the others
really don't matter that much. So we've got to focus our attention on
those big issues, but we can't forget about the other things. They're important too. And they're those, a lot of those little things are important to
the quality of life that we have in our community and, and affect our ability
to from an economic development standpoint, they affect our ability to recruit
businesses as well as people to our community.

Yeah.
You know, I think about the diversity of retail was one of the things that was
talked about, I think, pretty heavily there. And, yeah, if you're a retailer,
maybe one to come to haste, but you know that there's no houses for your
workforce, no way to recruit a workforce because we have such low unemployment
historically, this is going to you're going to be looking at maybe moving on
down the road to the next time.

And
we're obviously we're not alone with some of these challenges we face other
communities having as well, but that's exactly right. I mean, if you had an
employer, a company that was wanting to come to Hays right now and they wanted
300 people, they would have a real challenge in finding 300 people, the only
place they could really find them is in the existing workforce, from the
existing businesses that are employing those people. And that's a problem
because obviously, Those people need those employees, those businesses depend on
those people. And so, you know, it just presents some unique challenges that we
have to figure out answers to and, and housing is absolutely one of them. We
can't recruit people to our community if we don't have housing. 

And
there's lots of efforts going on to vote or underway to kind of address that
already.

There
are, you know, we've got a lot of things going on. Unfortunately, we've I've
said this before, you know, housing issues are not quickly resolved, it takes
time to build homes to build apartments, and, but be that as it may, we've got
to get started and get that stuff going. Or, because six months from now, it's
going to take the same amount of time to build something as it takes now, and
you know, we've got to get with the program.

You
know, another thing at this meeting that was discussed pretty heavily and and I
thought it was interesting, the the kind of the self awareness in the
community. And that was to put it in a nice way, the sometimes the tendency of
the city of Hays or residents in the city of Hayes to cling on to, you know,
again, I'm trying to think of a nice way to say it, but you know, the way the
town has been historically, you know, they live the history of it, that the
community, the pride, it's there, and that's great. But it also, I think,
sometimes hampers our ability to do change. And this is something that you've
talked a little bit about as well we enter the changes, it's necessary, right?

Well,
change is inevitable, and it absolutely is necessary, we have it, you know, we
live in a hyper-change world, things don't stay the same for very long. And
admittedly rural areas tend to accept change a little bit slower in most cases
than maybe an urban area might, and our community maybe even more than others,
because we are stubborn, and we are we do like the quality of life that we
have. And we may view some different types of changes threatening that. But,
you know, we, we really need to convert to that embracing change and promoting
change. And, and that's a hard transition to go through, you know, it's not
easily done by any of us, we all like our comfort zones, and we don't want to
get out of those. But as a community, in the world we live in today, we really
have to think beyond that and look at things a little differently than we have
in the past.

Yeah,
and you're going to talk a little bit about this, and an article that's
probably coming up on Hays posts in the next few days. But the growth piece,
because you know, we've talked a little bit about this in the past as well, you
know, the surrounding area where we're real economic pull factor comes from is
shrinking. Haze is growing, but it's not growing fast enough to keep up with
that. So if we want to even maintain the quality of life, we have here, the
economic dollar flowing in, we have to grow a little bit.

We do
you know, I, as I say in the article, we have to grow to stay the same. And
while it while it's and that goes back to that concept of we like Hayes just
the way it is, and I get that, you know, it's a great community and faith why
we're all here, exactly. But again, our pull factor from the surrounding
area, that area is shrinking in population. So there's fewer customers to
come to Hays to go to movies to buy cars to go to school here, to go to the,
you know, the grocery store, all that is shrinking. And we've got to make that
up. Because I in my opinion, a lot of that is irreversible. You know, if you
look at the demographics and the shifts going on, and in small rural
communities, the youth are not staying farms are getting larger and more
mechanized. There's just less to keep those people there. And yes, we do get
some of those people moving to our community, but some of them leave
permanently. And so we've got to have some growth within Ellis County, in order
to maintain the quality of life that we have, and it needs to be at better than
point one 7% per year or 400. And some people over 10 years, you know, I
don't think 1% per year growth should be out of the question at all, but we
sure haven't experienced it for a long, long time.

Yeah.
And so I mean, population-wise, I think some of the numbers that were thrown
around at that meeting, you know, talking by 2030 30, 35, there are some people
that thought it might be even higher up into 40, 45. Do you think that's
realistic? Or do you think the tendency is going to be that we just end up kind
of losing some of the population across the region?

Well, I
don't think those are realistic. You know, when you talk about 30 would be a
huge stretch 40 or 45. I maybe I don't have sufficient division, but I just
don't see how you do it. You know, to grow to 30 would be what three or 4% growth
per year. Just to give you an example of what that would take at 1% growth.
Recent housing study indicated that we would need about 50 To 60 houses per
year, and 30 to 40 new apartments per year to simulate that kind of growth,
we've been building 20 to 25 houses, and virtually no apartments or very few.
So we would really have to ramp things up even to get to 1%. And that's okay, I
think we need to, but to get to 30,000 would take, you know, 150 200 new homes
a year. And at least currently, we're not in a position to be able to do that.
But in terms of land, in terms of contractors, in terms of all the
infrastructure that goes with it, you know, that would be an exceptional effort
to try and get that done.

Well,
hopefully, there's some contractors out there listening if they can, oh, man,
sounds like a goldmine can be made in haste as build analysis.

Well, of
course, as I say, all the time, it's easy for me to say we want this growth in
these houses, but those are the guys who have to do it and have to sign the
banknotes and that kind of thing to make it happen and basically take the
risk. And so it's a different situation for them. And
we are ramping up, we're doing better, you know, we have increased the number
of homes that are being built, and we've got the 10 underway in the Tall Grass addition and another 12 are going to be underway in the next 30 days. But
we that that's not enough, we need more than that. And so those are the
challenges.

You
know, I think times like these, and obviously, we're coming out of the
pandemic, and things are going to be impacted by that for who knows the
foreseeable future. And I think that's caused some of the headaches that we're
looking at today. But, you know, at this point, I think it's probably fair to
say that we're also looking back while we're looking ahead, we're looking at
what is went, what has caused the situation that we're in. And I wonder if you
have any insight on that, especially around the housing piece, you know, how
we've gotten into this situation was Sandy mentioned earlier on the show here,
I think it was a number that came from you the the number of houses available
is it's under 10. At this point. 

And
this, this hasn't happened overnight. You know, as you note, this has been a
cumulative deal we have not built enough over the last 10 years. In the housing
report, we're going to be putting out we have a chart that shows the number of
permits for new construction and for multifamily units in Hays over the last 10
years or 12 years actually goes back to 2010. And it's been a steady decline in
the numbers. Why that is, you know, Haze is where oil is a huge part of our
economy. And there was a little blip in the mid-2015 2016 area where the price
really went down. And so our economy dipped a little bit. And also, the
contractors, we have built homes, primarily one at a time. They don't go in and
put in, you know, four or 510 15 at a time, like they do in a lot of other
places. And we kind of got into that mode. And it worked for them. They were
successful at it. So it's hard to change what's working for you. And it just
got us into a situation where we didn't build enough new inventory. And that's
part of what is the problem that we run into now. You know, supply and demand
has not been the demand has been greater than supply over the last 10 years. We
kind of met it, but we haven't met it at all in the last couple of years. We've
had some growth as I allude to in that in that article that, you know, we've
had some growth when you go from over 100 homes for sale to nine, you go from a
fair amount of vacancies and apartments to virtually none. And then you add all
at the same time you've gone down in enrollment at Fort Hays State, clearly, we've had an influx of people, and we just haven't kept up with sufficient
housing to meet that need. And so we're, we're kept playing catch up.

You
know, I wonder anything else at that meeting that you want to talk about? Or
that was kind of something of note, you think?

You
know, I think just the overall enthusiasm and energy from the meeting was I
think very positive. You know, obviously, schools were brought up and then
there's a lot of positive energy around this the school bond who knows what
will happen but it absolutely is something that we need we need improvements on
our schools and but I just felt like the energy and the attitudes were
very positive and very optimistic. And I thought that was really good
particularly, you know, given the world we kind of life in right now where
things aren't always so positive.

Yeah,
absolutely. And you mentioned there they're going to do these in Ellison
Victoria but you see another one here in Hays coming up in the near future.

No, I
don't know if we're gonna do anything in Hays in the near future we may look at
doing another if depending on what comes out of the ones in Ellison Victoria,
we could potentially could do another one this summer. You know, we're hoping
for this survey sometime in mid-July. Late summer so that'll give us some
additional information but we're always open for input. We've got our Facebook
page where we're going to have a website sometime here in the next couple of
weeks, I believe a website up and displaying our videos that we have for
the community you know, the testimonials that we put together, we're going to
start this campaign on getting that word out on the eastern slope of Colorado
because we believe a lot of people are looking to get out of that mess. And
let's hope I know I would be well you know, I talked to some people who went to
a wedding out there last week and they just you know, us Flatlanders are not
used to that kind of traffic and, and that kind of hustle bustle but people are
looking to relocate from those areas. remote workers are more prevalent now
than they've ever been. So we've got some opportunities. We just need to make
sure we put all the pieces in place to be able to attract them.

<div><iframe title="Imagine Ellis County town hall provides insight into county’s future" allowtransparency="true" height="300" width="100%" style="border: none; min-width: min(100%, 430px);" scrolling="no" data-name="pb-iframe-player" src="https://www.podbean.com/player-v2/?i=dwxex-11a4b34-pb&from=pb6admin&square=1&share=1&download=1&rtl=0&fonts=Arial&skin=3267a3&font-color=ffffff&btn-skin=3267a3&size=300" allowfullscreen=""></iframe></div>On this episode of the Post Podcast, Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams stops by to recap the February 2022 Imagine Ellis County Town Hall meeting.<h2>Transcript</h2>James Bell&nbsp;
The
Imagine Ellis County town hall meeting this week solicited feedback from area
residents about what they'd like to see in the future in Ellis County, Grow
Hays executive director Doug Williams stopped by to talk a little bit about
that. And more on this episode of the Post Podcast.Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams&nbsp; We had
our Imagine Ellis County town hall meeting last Monday night at the Hilton
Garden Inn, we had about 83 people that attended, which was great. A lot of
good feedback from the community, the intent of these town hall meetings is
to get down to kind of the grassroots level, we have interviewed the business
community, we had all of the business community and organizations come in and
kind of give their plans for the next 510 20 years as best they could. And we
heard what their challenges are. Now we're trying to get the community involved
in here, what other ideas they have in terms of challenges, but also ideas and
what they would like to see our community look like in the future.James Bell&nbsp;
Yeah,
and I know the for my understanding, they're going to compile what kind of came
out of that meeting. And we'll see that soon, what the idea is, you know, like
a list of the ideas that came out, but anything big that you think that came
out of that that was kind of unexpected, or something that hadn't been already
discussed or talked about. Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams&nbsp; You
know, that we've kind of got the big three that come up in all
conversations that being housing, childcare, and schools. But then other ideas
come up with, you know, what, what people would like to see for entertainment,
you know, more entertainment for youth, parks, those type of things,
quality of life type of things. And so we are compiling those lists, we are
scheduling town halls in Victoria Nellis over the next I think 30 to 45 days,
because we want to get input from those communities as well. And so you get a
you know, there were lots and lots of ideas and comments, and, and that kind of
thing. And, and what we're doing is, is putting together these amount of even
know what they're called, these charts where it everything that was mentioned,
is on the chart, but some are bigger than others if they were mentioned more
than once, and there's a name, there's a term for it, but it escapes me.James Bell&nbsp;
But you
know, I'm saying yeah, I don't know, either.Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams&nbsp; It's an
eight and a half by 11 sheet of paper with all kinds of words on it. But the
ones that came up time and time again, are big, and the ones that didn't come
up much are small. And we're going to circulate those and, and Nina summer,
we're going to be doing a community survey that the docking Institute is going
to do for us, that will go out to we're trying to get a minimum of 500
respondents that we'll talk about will ask a series of questions and about the
community and things they'd like to see. And, and so all this is
information gathering, to then we can start laying some plans in place as to
what we need to do to make some of this stuff a reality and make our community
a more attractive place to live. And it already is a great place to live. But
we obviously have some shortcomings. We want to identify those and take
advantage of some opportunities.James Bell&nbsp;
Yeah,
absolutely. And, you know, we've talked about the big ones you mentioned, like
housing specifically. You know, that's, that's the base of it. And I think
there's so much talk and activity going on there that to me, the there's
conversations that you know, about, like, for example, the parks, you know, the
the some of the parks in Hays are getting a little dated, and we could use a
refresh on them. But those get lost because of the massive housing problem in
childcare and etc, etc.Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams&nbsp; The big
issues always take top billing, you know, that that goes without saying, and
then that's understandable. I mean, if we don't resolve those, all the others
really don't matter that much. So we've got to focus our attention on
those big issues, but we can't forget about the other things. They're important too. And they're those, a lot of those little things are important to
the quality of life that we have in our community and, and affect our ability
to from an economic development standpoint, they affect our ability to recruit
businesses as well as people to our community.James Bell&nbsp;
Yeah.
You know, I think about the diversity of retail was one of the things that was
talked about, I think, pretty heavily there. And, yeah, if you're a retailer,
maybe one to come to haste, but you know that there's no houses for your
workforce, no way to recruit a workforce because we have such low unemployment
historically, this is going to you're going to be looking at maybe moving on
down the road to the next time.Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams&nbsp; And
we're obviously we're not alone with some of these challenges we face other
communities having as well, but that's exactly right. I mean, if you had an
employer, a company that was wanting to come to Hays right now and they wanted
300 people, they would have a real challenge in finding 300 people, the only
place they could really find them is in the existing workforce, from the
existing businesses that are employing those people. And that's a problem
because obviously, Those people need those employees, those businesses depend on
those people. And so, you know, it just presents some unique challenges that we
have to figure out answers to and, and housing is absolutely one of them. We
can't recruit people to our community if we don't have housing. James Bell&nbsp;
And
there's lots of efforts going on to vote or underway to kind of address that
already.Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams&nbsp; There
are, you know, we've got a lot of things going on. Unfortunately, we've I've
said this before, you know, housing issues are not quickly resolved, it takes
time to build homes to build apartments, and, but be that as it may, we've got
to get started and get that stuff going. Or, because six months from now, it's
going to take the same amount of time to build something as it takes now, and
you know, we've got to get with the program.James Bell&nbsp;
You
know, another thing at this meeting that was discussed pretty heavily and and I
thought it was interesting, the the kind of the self awareness in the
community. And that was to put it in a nice way, the sometimes the tendency of
the city of Hays or residents in the city of Hayes to cling on to, you know,
again, I'm trying to think of a nice way to say it, but you know, the way the
town has been historically, you know, they live the history of it, that the
community, the pride, it's there, and that's great. But it also, I think,
sometimes hampers our ability to do change. And this is something that you've
talked a little bit about as well we enter the changes, it's necessary, right?Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams&nbsp; Well,
change is inevitable, and it absolutely is necessary, we have it, you know, we
live in a hyper-change world, things don't stay the same for very long. And
admittedly rural areas tend to accept change a little bit slower in most cases
than maybe an urban area might, and our community maybe even more than others,
because we are stubborn, and we are we do like the quality of life that we
have. And we may view some different types of changes threatening that. But,
you know, we, we really need to convert to that embracing change and promoting
change. And, and that's a hard transition to go through, you know, it's not
easily done by any of us, we all like our comfort zones, and we don't want to
get out of those. But as a community, in the world we live in today, we really
have to think beyond that and look at things a little differently than we have
in the past.James Bell&nbsp;
Yeah,
and you're going to talk a little bit about this, and an article that's
probably coming up on Hays posts in the next few days. But the growth piece,
because you know, we've talked a little bit about this in the past as well, you
know, the surrounding area where we're real economic pull factor comes from is
shrinking. Haze is growing, but it's not growing fast enough to keep up with
that. So if we want to even maintain the quality of life, we have here, the
economic dollar flowing in, we have to grow a little bit.Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams&nbsp; We do
you know, I, as I say in the article, we have to grow to stay the same. And
while it while it's and that goes back to that concept of we like Hayes just
the way it is, and I get that, you know, it's a great community and faith why
we're all here, exactly. But again, our pull factor from the surrounding
area, that area is shrinking in population. So there's fewer customers to
come to Hays to go to movies to buy cars to go to school here, to go to the,
you know, the grocery store, all that is shrinking. And we've got to make that
up. Because I in my opinion, a lot of that is irreversible. You know, if you
look at the demographics and the shifts going on, and in small rural
communities, the youth are not staying farms are getting larger and more
mechanized. There's just less to keep those people there. And yes, we do get
some of those people moving to our community, but some of them leave
permanently. And so we've got to have some growth within Ellis County, in order
to maintain the quality of life that we have, and it needs to be at better than
point one 7% per year or 400. And some people over 10 years, you know, I
don't think 1% per year growth should be out of the question at all, but we
sure haven't experienced it for a long, long time.James Bell&nbsp;
Yeah.
And so I mean, population-wise, I think some of the numbers that were thrown
around at that meeting, you know, talking by 2030 30, 35, there are some people
that thought it might be even higher up into 40, 45. Do you think that's
realistic? Or do you think the tendency is going to be that we just end up kind
of losing some of the population across the region?Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams&nbsp; Well, I
don't think those are realistic. You know, when you talk about 30 would be a
huge stretch 40 or 45. I maybe I don't have sufficient division, but I just
don't see how you do it. You know, to grow to 30 would be what three or 4% growth
per year. Just to give you an example of what that would take at 1% growth.
Recent housing study indicated that we would need about 50 To 60 houses per
year, and 30 to 40 new apartments per year to simulate that kind of growth,
we've been building 20 to 25 houses, and virtually no apartments or very few.
So we would really have to ramp things up even to get to 1%. And that's okay, I
think we need to, but to get to 30,000 would take, you know, 150 200 new homes
a year. And at least currently, we're not in a position to be able to do that.
But in terms of land, in terms of contractors, in terms of all the
infrastructure that goes with it, you know, that would be an exceptional effort
to try and get that done.James Bell&nbsp;
Well,
hopefully, there's some contractors out there listening if they can, oh, man,
sounds like a goldmine can be made in haste as build analysis.Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams&nbsp; Well, of
course, as I say, all the time, it's easy for me to say we want this growth in
these houses, but those are the guys who have to do it and have to sign the
banknotes and that kind of thing to make it happen and basically take the
risk. And so it's a different situation for them. And
we are ramping up, we're doing better, you know, we have increased the number
of homes that are being built, and we've got the 10 underway in the Tall Grass addition and another 12 are going to be underway in the next 30 days. But
we that that's not enough, we need more than that. And so those are the
challenges.James Bell&nbsp;
You
know, I think times like these, and obviously, we're coming out of the
pandemic, and things are going to be impacted by that for who knows the
foreseeable future. And I think that's caused some of the headaches that we're
looking at today. But, you know, at this point, I think it's probably fair to
say that we're also looking back while we're looking ahead, we're looking at
what is went, what has caused the situation that we're in. And I wonder if you
have any insight on that, especially around the housing piece, you know, how
we've gotten into this situation was Sandy mentioned earlier on the show here,
I think it was a number that came from you the the number of houses available
is it's under 10. At this point. Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams&nbsp; And
this, this hasn't happened overnight. You know, as you note, this has been a
cumulative deal we have not built enough over the last 10 years. In the housing
report, we're going to be putting out we have a chart that shows the number of
permits for new construction and for multifamily units in Hays over the last 10
years or 12 years actually goes back to 2010. And it's been a steady decline in
the numbers. Why that is, you know, Haze is where oil is a huge part of our
economy. And there was a little blip in the mid-2015 2016 area where the price
really went down. And so our economy dipped a little bit. And also, the
contractors, we have built homes, primarily one at a time. They don't go in and
put in, you know, four or 510 15 at a time, like they do in a lot of other
places. And we kind of got into that mode. And it worked for them. They were
successful at it. So it's hard to change what's working for you. And it just
got us into a situation where we didn't build enough new inventory. And that's
part of what is the problem that we run into now. You know, supply and demand
has not been the demand has been greater than supply over the last 10 years. We
kind of met it, but we haven't met it at all in the last couple of years. We've
had some growth as I allude to in that in that article that, you know, we've
had some growth when you go from over 100 homes for sale to nine, you go from a
fair amount of vacancies and apartments to virtually none. And then you add all
at the same time you've gone down in enrollment at Fort Hays State, clearly, we've had an influx of people, and we just haven't kept up with sufficient
housing to meet that need. And so we're, we're kept playing catch up.James Bell&nbsp;
You
know, I wonder anything else at that meeting that you want to talk about? Or
that was kind of something of note, you think?Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams&nbsp; You
know, I think just the overall enthusiasm and energy from the meeting was I
think very positive. You know, obviously, schools were brought up and then
there's a lot of positive energy around this the school bond who knows what
will happen but it absolutely is something that we need we need improvements on
our schools and but I just felt like the energy and the attitudes were
very positive and very optimistic. And I thought that was really good
particularly, you know, given the world we kind of life in right now where
things aren't always so positive.James Bell&nbsp;
Yeah,
absolutely. And you mentioned there they're going to do these in Ellison
Victoria but you see another one here in Hays coming up in the near future.Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams&nbsp; No, I
don't know if we're gonna do anything in Hays in the near future we may look at
doing another if depending on what comes out of the ones in Ellison Victoria,
we could potentially could do another one this summer. You know, we're hoping
for this survey sometime in mid-July. Late summer so that'll give us some
additional information but we're always open for input. We've got our Facebook
page where we're going to have a website sometime here in the next couple of
weeks, I believe a website up and displaying our videos that we have for
the community you know, the testimonials that we put together, we're going to
start this campaign on getting that word out on the eastern slope of Colorado
because we believe a lot of people are looking to get out of that mess. And
let's hope I know I would be well you know, I talked to some people who went to
a wedding out there last week and they just you know, us Flatlanders are not
used to that kind of traffic and, and that kind of hustle bustle but people are
looking to relocate from those areas. remote workers are more prevalent now
than they've ever been. So we've got some opportunities. We just need to make
sure we put all the pieces in place to be able to attract them.

🎙Post Podcast: Imagine Ellis County town hall looks into county's future

By JAMES BELL 
Hays Post

A new Fort Hays State University initiative is set to make
Hays a bit more enticing to students at Hays Academy of Hair Design by giving
students the opportunity to take advantage of student services at the
university as well as creating access to courses relevant to the beauty industry.

“The goal of this is a community partnership,” said Dennis
King, FHSU associate vice president of student affairs. "(It's) something to make
the community better.”

Through the partnership, academy students will have access to
a variety of FHSU offerings.

"One of the benefits of having this certificate program is
that the students are on campus, they get to experience other students," King
said. "They also are eligible for a Tiger Card. So it means that now they can
go to the sporting events, they can go
do tutoring, they can go to our Wellness Center for physical, mental
health. There's lots of different options and all of the services that are
available on campus they can then get around and get to use as well."

But the program also extends to academy students an
educational opportunity.

“What makes this really exciting is we feel like Fort Hays
bent over backward to make this a customizable approach for our students,”
said Len Melvin, Hays Academy of Hair Design owner. “We offer business training
at our school, however, we're just a 1,500 clock hour program. So that's a lot
to cram in in a short amount of time.”

Students that participate in the educational component will
take four one-credit-hour classes, culminating in a Business Essentials
certificate.

“With this customized four series of classes, our students
are now able to get what they need to go into the salon with the background of
business skills to be successful,” Melvin said. “So yeah, very excited about
this.”

The once-a-week classes will run late Monday afternoons and
will include courses on management practices, personal finance, accounting basics
and taxes and social media marketing for eight weeks each.

“I really want to get this business certificate,” said academy
student Brylee Rupp in a press release announcing the program “and I am so
thankful this is available now.”

Participants will also have the added benefit of utilizing
student housing, giving access to short-term students who otherwise might struggle
to find a place to stay in Hays.

“I think one of the big challenges that our students face is
his housing,” Melvin said. “The reason for that is our students might be here
for 11 months, or if they do the nail program, three and a half or four months.
And that's a really difficult living situation in Hays, Kansas, being that it's
a college town. So the housing opportunity for our students to fit into a dorm
and fit their contract with us is really exciting. And I think another
opportunity for our students to get into that college atmosphere feel like
they're a college student.”

And as a student-led initiative and a good first semester turnout, King said the idea is good for the students and the community.

<div><iframe title="New program extends FHSU student benefits to Hays Academy of Hair Design" allowtransparency="true" height="300" width="100%" style="border: none; min-width: min(100%, 430px);" scrolling="no" data-name="pb-iframe-player" src="https://www.podbean.com/player-v2/?i=2592m-11a00f9-pb&from=pb6admin&square=1&share=1&download=1&rtl=0&fonts=Arial&skin=3267a3&font-color=ffffff&btn-skin=3267a3&size=300" allowfullscreen=""></iframe></div>By JAMES BELL 
Hays PostA new Fort Hays State University initiative is set to make
Hays a bit more enticing to students at Hays Academy of Hair Design by giving
students the opportunity to take advantage of student services at the
university as well as creating access to courses relevant to the beauty industry.“The goal of this is a community partnership,” said Dennis
King, FHSU associate vice president of student affairs. "(It's) something to make
the community better.”Through the partnership, academy students will have access to
a variety of FHSU offerings."One of the benefits of having this certificate program is
that the students are on campus, they get to experience other students," King
said. "They also are eligible for a Tiger Card. So it means that now they can
go to the sporting events, they can go
do tutoring, they can go to our Wellness Center for physical, mental
health. There's lots of different options and all of the services that are
available on campus they can then get around and get to use as well."But the program also extends to academy students an
educational opportunity.“What makes this really exciting is we feel like Fort Hays
bent over backward to make this a customizable approach for our students,”
said Len Melvin, Hays Academy of Hair Design owner. “We offer business training
at our school, however, we're just a 1,500 clock hour program. So that's a lot
to cram in in a short amount of time.”Students that participate in the educational component will
take four one-credit-hour classes, culminating in a Business Essentials
certificate.“With this customized four series of classes, our students
are now able to get what they need to go into the salon with the background of
business skills to be successful,” Melvin said. “So yeah, very excited about
this.”The once-a-week classes will run late Monday afternoons and
will include courses on management practices, personal finance, accounting basics
and taxes and social media marketing for eight weeks each.“I really want to get this business certificate,” said academy
student Brylee Rupp in a press release announcing the program “and I am so
thankful this is available now.”Participants will also have the added benefit of utilizing
student housing, giving access to short-term students who otherwise might struggle
to find a place to stay in Hays.“I think one of the big challenges that our students face is
his housing,” Melvin said. “The reason for that is our students might be here
for 11 months, or if they do the nail program, three and a half or four months.
And that's a really difficult living situation in Hays, Kansas, being that it's
a college town. So the housing opportunity for our students to fit into a dorm
and fit their contract with us is really exciting. And I think another
opportunity for our students to get into that college atmosphere feel like
they're a college student.”And as a student-led initiative and a good first semester turnout, King said the idea is good for the students and the community.“This really started with students, which I think is really
a cool thing to talk about,” King said. “One of our leadership classes, who had
some friends that were taking classes at the Hays Academy, got together with us
and called the administration together really and said, 'We have a gateway
partnership with NCK Tech, but we don't have one with the Hays Academy.' "That conversation three years ago started the ball rolling
on the development of the program.“And so that kind of launched the discussions about what we
can do together,” King said. “How we can help the community and help each
other? And I think that that's been a great part of this is that we get value
added to each other. … And so, I think it's just really neat that it started
with students with the idea of improving the community. And I think it's done
just that.”And students like Rupp, along with her grandmother Roxie
Patterson, are already finding the program beneficial.“I’m going to be my own contractor at 19 years old,” Rupp
said. “I don’t know how to budget a business, so I really want to gain more
education about dealing with all the finances with my business. I am excited
about learning all I can.”Patterson said after 42 years in the industry, she thinks
the courses will be of use to the students as they enter the field.Course instructor Andy Cutright “has been so good at opening
these students’ eyes about what to expect with a business and even their
personal finances,” Patterson said. “It’s a very good opportunity for these
young people to be able to take these cases. I’ve even learned some things
already.”And Rupp already sees the value as well.“I really want to get this business certificate,” she said,
“and I am so thankful this is available now.”Cover image courtesy Pixabay