KANSAS CITY (AP) –An 18-year-old was undergoing treatment for an eating disorder when she learned she was pregnant, already in the second trimester. A mom of two found out at 20 weeks that her much-wanted baby had no kidneys or bladder. A young woman was raped and couldn’t fathom continuing a pregnancy.

Abortions later in pregnancy are relatively rare, even more so now with the availability of medications to terminate early pregnancies.

Across large parts of the United States, they are also increasingly difficult to obtain.

Now, if the U.S. Supreme Court&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/supreme-court-abortion-draft-opinion-07439f9fc4542f1500ab78dfd34036b1">overturns</a>&nbsp;its 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion, women will face even more hurdles in some parts of the country, and may have to travel to another state to get an abortion.

That means more women could end up having the procedure later than they wish, and the burden falls more heavily on some groups, such as teens, poor, Black, Latino and Native American women and those who live in states where access to any abortion is limited.

“It’s not because people don’t want to have them sooner,” said Dr. Diane Horvath, an OB-GYN in Baltimore, Maryland, who has performed abortions for 16 years. “It’s because barriers and new information cause them to have to push it back to later in pregnancy.”

The Associated Press interviewed three women who had abortions later in their pregnancy. While their backgrounds and reasons for terminating their pregnancies were varied, none expressed doubt about their decision — or said they were traumatized by it — and all said they were grateful that they were able to do it.

Christina Taylor already had two kids when she became pregnant with her third. Everything was going well at the start and she was looking forward to welcoming a new baby into the family.

When she was 20 weeks pregnant, Taylor went for an ultrasound and basic anatomy scan that is normally done at this stage. For most people, this is a time to find out the baby’s sex. For some, it’s also when fetal abnormalities are detected.

“I laid down and the ultrasound tech was doing her thing and she was getting really quiet and was taking a really long time,” she recalled. “She left the room at one point, ‘I need to talk to the doctor.’”

When the tech returned, Taylor could see from the look on her face that something was wrong. When the doctor arrived, he told the couple that there was no amniotic fluid. There were also no kidneys. The baby would likely not survive the pregnancy, or if by some miracle made it to full term, he would die shortly after birth.

“I told the doctor, look, I’m not sure … I don’t buy the age of viability thing, but for my own mental health and for the health of my family I want to terminate my pregnancy as soon as possible,” Taylor recalled.

She got a second doctor’s opinion and an MRI, which not only confirmed that there were no kidneys present, but also no bladder.

Fortunately, in Colorado, abortion is legal, as it was at the time, with no gestational limits. In the U.S., nearly all abortions take place in the first trimester of pregnancy. Just over 6% of abortions were performed at 14 to 20 weeks’ gestation, the second trimester, in 2019 according to the Centers For Disease Control and Prevention. Less than&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cdc.gov/reproductivehealth/data_stats/abortion.htm" target="_blank">1% took place at 21 weeks or later,</a>&nbsp;in the third, based on the most recent data available.

Taylor’s story shows what getting an abortion with access to good health care, health insurance and no legal obstacles can look like.

“I had the option to wait it out and see when he passed and then, you know, you’d have a stillbirth. But I knew I couldn’t do that. Like, I couldn’t put my kids through that,” Taylor said.

On the way home from the MRI she called her insurance company and found that they covered both types of abortion procedures, dilation and evacuation, D&amp;E, and induction and dilation, or I&amp;D. She chose the latter, which essentially would mean inducing labor and going through delivery. This way, she could have the procedure in a maternity ward, with a team of midwives.

“There was a small chance that he could have been born still alive and we would have been able to hold him and say goodbye when he passed,” Taylor said.

She labored for a day and a half. Given the circumstances, she recalled it as an overall positive experience, knowing “how much worse it could have been” had they still lived in Texas, where even in 2017 the procedure would not have been legal. The state’s current ban of all abortions after 6 weeks makes no exceptions – Taylor would have had to travel out of state to receive care, or possibly wait until her baby died in her womb, putting her at increased risk of infections and even death.

Only eight states allow abortions at any time during a pregnancy. Twenty states have no specific time limits but prohibit abortions at the time of “fetal viability,” which is generally considered to be around 23 or 24 weeks but depends on a host of other factors besides gestational age.

“I still grieve to this day for the loss of my son and my husband does too,” Taylor, who has been sharing her abortion story to bring attention to experiences such as hers, said. “But you know, we accept that that’s something that happens sometimes. And especially because of the context of knowing how lucky we were to just not have laws in the way of just doing what felt right.”

“Everyone thinks you present pregnancies the same way. You miss a period, you throw up, you take a test and at five weeks, you know you’re pregnant. And that is just not how life shakes out for a lot of people,” said Erika Christensen, founder of PatientForward, a nonprofit that helps people access later abortions.

Jenn Chalifoux, now 30 and studying law at the University of Colorado in Boulder, became pregnant in 2010, when she was 18 years old and receiving inpatient care for an eating disorder in New York. Her story touches on popular myths — that women always know they are pregnant and that women in liberal states with laws that only ban rare late abortions can easily get them.

Chalifoux returned home from college in the summer before her sophomore year to receive treatment for restrictive eating. A common symptom of such eating disorders is the loss of one’s period. A common – though by no means fail-safe – sign of being pregnant is also the loss of one’s period.

“I had a medical team of doctors and psychiatrists and stuff that I was working with. And at no point did any of us think that the fact that I hadn’t gotten my period was because of a pregnancy,” Chalifoux said.

As she was starting to recover from the eating disorder, though, her period still hadn’t returned. She was on birth control, but just to rule it out, she took a home pregnancy test, which was positive. After confirming the pregnancy through a blood test, she reached out to Planned Parenthood, where she was told that it was too late for a medical abortion and she would need a surgical procedure.

“I spent probably at least two weeks thinking about the financials, going through the money that I had,” Chalifoux said. “And a week makes a difference.”

The cost of an abortion increases significantly as time goes on, from a few hundred dollars to thousands in the second trimester and even tens of thousands later on. For many women, financial barriers to abortion serve to push the procedure later, because it can take time to come up with money. Medicaid, which provides health care coverage to low-income Americans, does not pay for abortions except in the case of rape, incest or when the mother’s life is in danger.

“It’s really hard to get an abortion in this country,” Christensen said. “And the idea that people are able to seek care by a certain date is kind of based on the myths that we get all the information we need by a certain time and that we live in equitable environments with equal access to resources and health care. Neither of those are true.”

Horvath, a fellow with Physicians for Reproductive Health, said she’s already seeing patients from other states in her Maryland practice who have found themselves too far into the pregnancy to be able to have abortions in their state.

Realizing that she could not handle it alone, Chalifoux told her parents, who embraced her with support. By this point, weeks had passed since she learned she was pregnant and she started to experience physical symptoms of pregnancy. The experience of not having control over her body as it changed horrified her and she said she getting intrusive thoughts of performing an abortion on herself.

“I just remember feeling like I wanted to cut myself open or die. The experience of not having control over my body and feeling my body, feeling it change, noticing the changes and knowing that I was getting more pregnant every day was just … I mean, it was like horror,” she recalled.

After going for an initial appointment at a hospital to prepare for the procedure, another ultrasound revealed that she was further along than first thought. In all, Chalifoux said it took about a month from the time she learned she was pregnant until she was able to receive an abortion, a few days after she turned 19.

“It was such a long time ago that I’ve healed from a lot of it, but I’m able to recognize that where I used to think that my abortion was traumatic for me, I can realize now that it was the pregnancy that was traumatic. And that the abortion was actually very healing,” she said.

Today, Chalifoux is studying law, hoping to become a public defender or find work fighting against mass incarceration and speaks publicly about her abortion as part of her reproductive rights activism. Looking back, she says, she does not think she would have survived if she were forced to carry the pregnancy to term.

“I can remember having this fear that I would be forced to give birth,” she said. “And I can remember thinking that I would rather die.”

It was July 2020. The young woman decided to check out her friend’s stand-up comedy show in a downtown Houston comedy club. She wouldn’t know anyone in the audience, but that didn’t matter. Working in the service industry and being a social, responsible person who had lived on her own since she turned 18, she wasn’t worried. She met what seemed like “a group of really cool people.” She had some drinks with them and had a good time, she recalled. Looking back, she doesn’t recall any women being part of the group. But she trusted herself.

“Everything kind of happened really fast,” said the woman, 31, whom the AP is not identifying because she is the victim of sexual assault. “I’m pretty sure, pretty sure someone slipped something in one of my drinks. I ended up waking up the next morning in a rundown motel room somewhere in southwest Houston.”

She had nothing on her except her clothes and shoes. Her phone, wallet and underwear were missing. It was about 10:30 a.m. and the motel’s management was banging on her door. Instead of offering help, she recalled, they yelled at her and kicked her out. The woman, who is Black, thinks they might have thought she was a prostitute. She walked along the side of the highway until she found a gas station where she could call a family member to pick her up.

Time went on, and she didn’t tell anyone what happened except one close friend. She started dating someone.

In late October, early November of that year, she, took a home pregnancy test. She was on birth control, but she figured maybe it had failed. She was pregnant.

After an initial appointment with a doctor who gave her an incorrect gestational age, she followed up at a women’s clinic, where she learned that she was actually further along. She did the math, and traced back the start of her pregnancy to the time she was raped back in July.

“And that was just something that I was not … I would not have been able to live with,” she said.

The young woman said it took her more than a week to absorb the shock of learning that she became pregnant from a sexual assault. More time passed as she searched for an abortion provider, encountering crisis pregnancy centers that tried to steer her away from terminating the pregnancy. One of the centers, she said, was calling her daily at one point. The woman said she felt harassed.

There was also the cost. According to medical bills the woman provided to the AP, the cost of her procedure increased by $2,500 between the time she was examined in Austin before her abortion and the time she arrived in New Mexico for the procedure. PatientForward helped cover her costs.

She was in her third trimester by the time she got on an airplane, alone, to fly to New Mexico and terminate her pregnancy at 27 weeks of gestation. She hasn’t told her family what happened, or any other friends, still coping with feelings of shame and guilt from both the rape and the abortion. She does not know who raped her.

“I have no idea who did it. No idea,” she said. “I never went back and pursued it.”

By BARBARA ORTUTAYKANSAS CITY (AP) –An 18-year-old was undergoing treatment for an eating disorder when she learned she was pregnant, already in the second trimester. A mom of two found out at 20 weeks that her much-wanted baby had no kidneys or bladder. A young woman was raped and couldn’t fathom continuing a pregnancy.Abortions later in pregnancy are relatively rare, even more so now with the availability of medications to terminate early pregnancies.Across large parts of the United States, they are also increasingly difficult to obtain.Now, if the U.S. Supreme Court&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/supreme-court-abortion-draft-opinion-07439f9fc4542f1500ab78dfd34036b1">overturns</a>&nbsp;its 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion, women will face even more hurdles in some parts of the country, and may have to travel to another state to get an abortion.That means more women could end up having the procedure later than they wish, and the burden falls more heavily on some groups, such as teens, poor, Black, Latino and Native American women and those who live in states where access to any abortion is limited.“It’s not because people don’t want to have them sooner,” said Dr. Diane Horvath, an OB-GYN in Baltimore, Maryland, who has performed abortions for 16 years. “It’s because barriers and new information cause them to have to push it back to later in pregnancy.”The Associated Press interviewed three women who had abortions later in their pregnancy. While their backgrounds and reasons for terminating their pregnancies were varied, none expressed doubt about their decision — or said they were traumatized by it — and all said they were grateful that they were able to do it.___WANTED BABY, MISSING ORGANSChristina Taylor already had two kids when she became pregnant with her third. Everything was going well at the start and she was looking forward to welcoming a new baby into the family.When she was 20 weeks pregnant, Taylor went for an ultrasound and basic anatomy scan that is normally done at this stage. For most people, this is a time to find out the baby’s sex. For some, it’s also when fetal abnormalities are detected.“I laid down and the ultrasound tech was doing her thing and she was getting really quiet and was taking a really long time,” she recalled. “She left the room at one point, ‘I need to talk to the doctor.’”When the tech returned, Taylor could see from the look on her face that something was wrong. When the doctor arrived, he told the couple that there was no amniotic fluid. There were also no kidneys. The baby would likely not survive the pregnancy, or if by some miracle made it to full term, he would die shortly after birth.“I told the doctor, look, I’m not sure … I don’t buy the age of viability thing, but for my own mental health and for the health of my family I want to terminate my pregnancy as soon as possible,” Taylor recalled.She got a second doctor’s opinion and an MRI, which not only confirmed that there were no kidneys present, but also no bladder.Fortunately, in Colorado, abortion is legal, as it was at the time, with no gestational limits. In the U.S., nearly all abortions take place in the first trimester of pregnancy. Just over 6% of abortions were performed at 14 to 20 weeks’ gestation, the second trimester, in 2019 according to the Centers For Disease Control and Prevention. Less than&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cdc.gov/reproductivehealth/data_stats/abortion.htm" target="_blank">1% took place at 21 weeks or later,</a>&nbsp;in the third, based on the most recent data available.Taylor’s story shows what getting an abortion with access to good health care, health insurance and no legal obstacles can look like.“I had the option to wait it out and see when he passed and then, you know, you’d have a stillbirth. But I knew I couldn’t do that. Like, I couldn’t put my kids through that,” Taylor said.On the way home from the MRI she called her insurance company and found that they covered both types of abortion procedures, dilation and evacuation, D&amp;E, and induction and dilation, or I&amp;D. She chose the latter, which essentially would mean inducing labor and going through delivery. This way, she could have the procedure in a maternity ward, with a team of midwives.“There was a small chance that he could have been born still alive and we would have been able to hold him and say goodbye when he passed,” Taylor said.She labored for a day and a half. Given the circumstances, she recalled it as an overall positive experience, knowing “how much worse it could have been” had they still lived in Texas, where even in 2017 the procedure would not have been legal. The state’s current ban of all abortions after 6 weeks makes no exceptions – Taylor would have had to travel out of state to receive care, or possibly wait until her baby died in her womb, putting her at increased risk of infections and even death.Only eight states allow abortions at any time during a pregnancy. Twenty states have no specific time limits but prohibit abortions at the time of “fetal viability,” which is generally considered to be around 23 or 24 weeks but depends on a host of other factors besides gestational age.“I still grieve to this day for the loss of my son and my husband does too,” Taylor, who has been sharing her abortion story to bring attention to experiences such as hers, said. “But you know, we accept that that’s something that happens sometimes. And especially because of the context of knowing how lucky we were to just not have laws in the way of just doing what felt right.”___‘I WAS FEELING SUICIDAL’“Everyone thinks you present pregnancies the same way. You miss a period, you throw up, you take a test and at five weeks, you know you’re pregnant. And that is just not how life shakes out for a lot of people,” said Erika Christensen, founder of PatientForward, a nonprofit that helps people access later abortions.Jenn Chalifoux, now 30 and studying law at the University of Colorado in Boulder, became pregnant in 2010, when she was 18 years old and receiving inpatient care for an eating disorder in New York. Her story touches on popular myths — that women always know they are pregnant and that women in liberal states with laws that only ban rare late abortions can easily get them.Chalifoux returned home from college in the summer before her sophomore year to receive treatment for restrictive eating. A common symptom of such eating disorders is the loss of one’s period. A common – though by no means fail-safe – sign of being pregnant is also the loss of one’s period.“I had a medical team of doctors and psychiatrists and stuff that I was working with. And at no point did any of us think that the fact that I hadn’t gotten my period was because of a pregnancy,” Chalifoux said.As she was starting to recover from the eating disorder, though, her period still hadn’t returned. She was on birth control, but just to rule it out, she took a home pregnancy test, which was positive. After confirming the pregnancy through a blood test, she reached out to Planned Parenthood, where she was told that it was too late for a medical abortion and she would need a surgical procedure.“I spent probably at least two weeks thinking about the financials, going through the money that I had,” Chalifoux said. “And a week makes a difference.”The cost of an abortion increases significantly as time goes on, from a few hundred dollars to thousands in the second trimester and even tens of thousands later on. For many women, financial barriers to abortion serve to push the procedure later, because it can take time to come up with money. Medicaid, which provides health care coverage to low-income Americans, does not pay for abortions except in the case of rape, incest or when the mother’s life is in danger.“It’s really hard to get an abortion in this country,” Christensen said. “And the idea that people are able to seek care by a certain date is kind of based on the myths that we get all the information we need by a certain time and that we live in equitable environments with equal access to resources and health care. Neither of those are true.”Horvath, a fellow with Physicians for Reproductive Health, said she’s already seeing patients from other states in her Maryland practice who have found themselves too far into the pregnancy to be able to have abortions in their state.Realizing that she could not handle it alone, Chalifoux told her parents, who embraced her with support. By this point, weeks had passed since she learned she was pregnant and she started to experience physical symptoms of pregnancy. The experience of not having control over her body as it changed horrified her and she said she getting intrusive thoughts of performing an abortion on herself.“I just remember feeling like I wanted to cut myself open or die. The experience of not having control over my body and feeling my body, feeling it change, noticing the changes and knowing that I was getting more pregnant every day was just … I mean, it was like horror,” she recalled.After going for an initial appointment at a hospital to prepare for the procedure, another ultrasound revealed that she was further along than first thought. In all, Chalifoux said it took about a month from the time she learned she was pregnant until she was able to receive an abortion, a few days after she turned 19.“It was such a long time ago that I’ve healed from a lot of it, but I’m able to recognize that where I used to think that my abortion was traumatic for me, I can realize now that it was the pregnancy that was traumatic. And that the abortion was actually very healing,” she said.Today, Chalifoux is studying law, hoping to become a public defender or find work fighting against mass incarceration and speaks publicly about her abortion as part of her reproductive rights activism. Looking back, she says, she does not think she would have survived if she were forced to carry the pregnancy to term.“I can remember having this fear that I would be forced to give birth,” she said. “And I can remember thinking that I would rather die.”___RAPE AND A DOCTOR’S MISCALCULATIONIt was July 2020. The young woman decided to check out her friend’s stand-up comedy show in a downtown Houston comedy club. She wouldn’t know anyone in the audience, but that didn’t matter. Working in the service industry and being a social, responsible person who had lived on her own since she turned 18, she wasn’t worried. She met what seemed like “a group of really cool people.” She had some drinks with them and had a good time, she recalled. Looking back, she doesn’t recall any women being part of the group. But she trusted herself.“Everything kind of happened really fast,” said the woman, 31, whom the AP is not identifying because she is the victim of sexual assault. “I’m pretty sure, pretty sure someone slipped something in one of my drinks. I ended up waking up the next morning in a rundown motel room somewhere in southwest Houston.”She had nothing on her except her clothes and shoes. Her phone, wallet and underwear were missing. It was about 10:30 a.m. and the motel’s management was banging on her door. Instead of offering help, she recalled, they yelled at her and kicked her out. The woman, who is Black, thinks they might have thought she was a prostitute. She walked along the side of the highway until she found a gas station where she could call a family member to pick her up.Time went on, and she didn’t tell anyone what happened except one close friend. She started dating someone.In late October, early November of that year, she, took a home pregnancy test. She was on birth control, but she figured maybe it had failed. She was pregnant.After an initial appointment with a doctor who gave her an incorrect gestational age, she followed up at a women’s clinic, where she learned that she was actually further along. She did the math, and traced back the start of her pregnancy to the time she was raped back in July.“And that was just something that I was not … I would not have been able to live with,” she said.The young woman said it took her more than a week to absorb the shock of learning that she became pregnant from a sexual assault. More time passed as she searched for an abortion provider, encountering crisis pregnancy centers that tried to steer her away from terminating the pregnancy. One of the centers, she said, was calling her daily at one point. The woman said she felt harassed.There was also the cost. According to medical bills the woman provided to the AP, the cost of her procedure increased by $2,500 between the time she was examined in Austin before her abortion and the time she arrived in New Mexico for the procedure. PatientForward helped cover her costs.She was in her third trimester by the time she got on an airplane, alone, to fly to New Mexico and terminate her pregnancy at 27 weeks of gestation. She hasn’t told her family what happened, or any other friends, still coping with feelings of shame and guilt from both the rape and the abortion. She does not know who raped her.“I have no idea who did it. No idea,” she said. “I never went back and pursued it.”___

Limits on early abortion drive more women to get them later

Joyce Elaine (Hulse) Harkness, 81, of Wichita, Kansas, passed away 
Wednesday, June 1, 2022, at her home with her husband and daughter by her
 side.

Joyce was born August 15, 1940, in Plainville, Kansas.&nbsp; She was one of
 five children born to Ray and Helen (Martin) Hulse.&nbsp; At the age of two,
 her family moved to Russell, Kansas where she grew up and attended 
school.

Joyce was united in marriage to Clarence Wayne Harkness on October 
14, 1956, in Russell.&nbsp; Wayne was in the military so they moved around to 
several Air Force bases before returning to Wichita after his 
retirement.

Joyce enjoyed knitting, crocheting and collecting Teddy Bears, but was very proud to be an Air Force Officer’s wife.

Joyce’s surviving family include her husband of 65 years, Wayne of 
the home; daughter, Linda Dudley; son, Stephen Harkness, Michael 
Harkness and Shaun Harkness; brother, Joe Hulse; nine grandchildren and 
19 great grandchildren.

Joyce was preceded in death by her parents, three infants and brothers, Jerry Hulse and Donald Hulse; sister, Kathy McDonald.

Celebration of Joyce’s Life will be held at 1:00 PM, Monday, June 6, 
2022, at the Otterbien United Methodist Church.&nbsp; Burial will follow at 
the Russell City Cemetery.&nbsp; Visitation will be held from 9:00 AM to 
11:30 AM, Monday, June 6, 2022, at Pohlman-Varner-Peeler Mortuary.&nbsp; 
Pohlman-Varner-Peeler Mortuary of Russell, is in charge of these 
arrangements.

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2022/6/1654371021747.png" alt="" />
 <figcaption></figcaption>
 </figure>Joyce Elaine (Hulse) Harkness, 81, of Wichita, Kansas, passed away 
Wednesday, June 1, 2022, at her home with her husband and daughter by her
 side.Joyce was born August 15, 1940, in Plainville, Kansas.&nbsp; She was one of
 five children born to Ray and Helen (Martin) Hulse.&nbsp; At the age of two,
 her family moved to Russell, Kansas where she grew up and attended 
school.Joyce was united in marriage to Clarence Wayne Harkness on October 
14, 1956, in Russell.&nbsp; Wayne was in the military so they moved around to 
several Air Force bases before returning to Wichita after his 
retirement.Joyce enjoyed knitting, crocheting and collecting Teddy Bears, but was very proud to be an Air Force Officer’s wife.Joyce’s surviving family include her husband of 65 years, Wayne of 
the home; daughter, Linda Dudley; son, Stephen Harkness, Michael 
Harkness and Shaun Harkness; brother, Joe Hulse; nine grandchildren and 
19 great grandchildren.Joyce was preceded in death by her parents, three infants and brothers, Jerry Hulse and Donald Hulse; sister, Kathy McDonald.Celebration of Joyce’s Life will be held at 1:00 PM, Monday, June 6, 
2022, at the Otterbien United Methodist Church.&nbsp; Burial will follow at 
the Russell City Cemetery.&nbsp; Visitation will be held from 9:00 AM to 
11:30 AM, Monday, June 6, 2022, at Pohlman-Varner-Peeler Mortuary.&nbsp; 
Pohlman-Varner-Peeler Mortuary of Russell, is in charge of these 
arrangements.

Joyce E. Harkness

Gerald “Jerry” 
Lynn Karst, 83, of Greeley, died peacefully on May 17, 2022, surrounded 
by his family at Medical Center of the Rockies in Loveland, CO.&nbsp; He was 
born on July 18, 1938, in Russell, KS to Paul and Emma (Ochs) Karst.&nbsp; 


Jerry grew up in the Galatia, KS area and attended a one-room school 
with the same teacher for seven years.&nbsp; He was fond of this teacher and 
appreciated her extra help with his studies when he had polio in 1946.&nbsp; 
He graduated from Wilson High School in 1956 where he had been an active
 member of various clubs such as 4-H, Future Farmers of America, Glee 
Club, band, and participated in several sports including football and 
basketball.&nbsp; Following high school, he attended Fort Hays Kansas State 
College from 1956-58.&nbsp; His family then moved to Estes Park and purchased
 a motel and Jerry worked at Rocky Mountain National Park for eight 
seasons.&nbsp; Jerry also served in the U.S. Army Reserves for the 244th
 Engineer Battalion in Boulder, CO receiving an honorable discharge in 
October of 1965 holding the rank of Staff Sergeant (E-6).&nbsp;

In 1966, Jerry 
met Karen Koch while attending Colorado State College (now University of
 Northern Colorado).&nbsp; They were married on October 15, 1966, in Loveland,
 CO.&nbsp; Jerry received his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1967 and his Master 
of Education degree from Colorado State University in 1969.&nbsp; He taught 
at Northeastern Junior College in Sterling, CO 1969-70.&nbsp; He then became a
 sociology professor at Aims Community College in 1970 until he retired 
in 2001 and was awarded Emeritus Status for his outstanding 
contributions to Aims Community College.&nbsp; During his 31 years of 
teaching at Aims, he was President of the Faculty Association, State 
Chairman of Sociology for the Core Curriculum Task Force, a member of 
Team Octagon and on the Shared Governance Origination Team.&nbsp; In 1999, 
Jerry was the recipient of the Aims Faculty Senate Award for Excellence 
in teaching and in 2000 he received the Faculty of the Year Award from 
the Colorado Community Colleges and Vocational Education System.

After 
retirement, Jerry volunteered for the Union Colony Civic Center and 
North Colorado Medical Center. He was an active member of Immanuel 
Lutheran Church for 51 years and he enjoyed woodworking, college sports,
 reminiscing, and sharing jokes and stories. &nbsp;He especially loved 
reunions and large family gatherings where his aunts played the banjo 
and piano, his dad played the guitar and harmonica, and Jerry played the
 accordion. Jerry was a kind, honorable, generous, humble man and he had
 a way of filling a room with smiles and laughter. He will be dearly 
missed.

Jerry is 
survived by his wife of 55 years, Karen Karst of Greeley; daughters Amy 
Herold (Mike) of Greeley and Becky Lewus (Paul) of Newbury Park, CA; and
 his grandchildren, Abigail Herold of Fort Collins, Aidan Herold of 
Greeley, and Kalyna and Kylie Lewus of Newbury Park, CA. He was preceded
 in death by his parents and sister, Aletha DeLeo.

A memorial service will be held on Wednesday, June 15, at 10:00am at Immanuel Lutheran Church – 1865 14th
 Avenue, Greeley with inurnment following at Sunset Memorial Gardens. 


Memorial contributions may be made to Immanuel Lutheran Church or to the
 Weld County Food Bank in care of Adamson Life Celebration Home, 2000 
West 47th Avenue, Greeley, CO 80634.&nbsp; Family and friends may send 
condolences to the family at adamsoncares.com.

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2022/6/1654265290851.png" alt="" />
 <figcaption></figcaption>
 </figure>Gerald “Jerry” 
Lynn Karst, 83, of Greeley, died peacefully on May 17, 2022, surrounded 
by his family at Medical Center of the Rockies in Loveland, CO.&nbsp; He was 
born on July 18, 1938, in Russell, KS to Paul and Emma (Ochs) Karst.&nbsp; 
Jerry grew up in the Galatia, KS area and attended a one-room school 
with the same teacher for seven years.&nbsp; He was fond of this teacher and 
appreciated her extra help with his studies when he had polio in 1946.&nbsp; 
He graduated from Wilson High School in 1956 where he had been an active
 member of various clubs such as 4-H, Future Farmers of America, Glee 
Club, band, and participated in several sports including football and 
basketball.&nbsp; Following high school, he attended Fort Hays Kansas State 
College from 1956-58.&nbsp; His family then moved to Estes Park and purchased
 a motel and Jerry worked at Rocky Mountain National Park for eight 
seasons.&nbsp; Jerry also served in the U.S. Army Reserves for the 244th
 Engineer Battalion in Boulder, CO receiving an honorable discharge in 
October of 1965 holding the rank of Staff Sergeant (E-6).&nbsp;In 1966, Jerry 
met Karen Koch while attending Colorado State College (now University of
 Northern Colorado).&nbsp; They were married on October 15, 1966, in Loveland,
 CO.&nbsp; Jerry received his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1967 and his Master 
of Education degree from Colorado State University in 1969.&nbsp; He taught 
at Northeastern Junior College in Sterling, CO 1969-70.&nbsp; He then became a
 sociology professor at Aims Community College in 1970 until he retired 
in 2001 and was awarded Emeritus Status for his outstanding 
contributions to Aims Community College.&nbsp; During his 31 years of 
teaching at Aims, he was President of the Faculty Association, State 
Chairman of Sociology for the Core Curriculum Task Force, a member of 
Team Octagon and on the Shared Governance Origination Team.&nbsp; In 1999, 
Jerry was the recipient of the Aims Faculty Senate Award for Excellence 
in teaching and in 2000 he received the Faculty of the Year Award from 
the Colorado Community Colleges and Vocational Education System.After 
retirement, Jerry volunteered for the Union Colony Civic Center and 
North Colorado Medical Center. He was an active member of Immanuel 
Lutheran Church for 51 years and he enjoyed woodworking, college sports,
 reminiscing, and sharing jokes and stories. &nbsp;He especially loved 
reunions and large family gatherings where his aunts played the banjo 
and piano, his dad played the guitar and harmonica, and Jerry played the
 accordion. Jerry was a kind, honorable, generous, humble man and he had
 a way of filling a room with smiles and laughter. He will be dearly 
missed.Jerry is 
survived by his wife of 55 years, Karen Karst of Greeley; daughters Amy 
Herold (Mike) of Greeley and Becky Lewus (Paul) of Newbury Park, CA; and
 his grandchildren, Abigail Herold of Fort Collins, Aidan Herold of 
Greeley, and Kalyna and Kylie Lewus of Newbury Park, CA. He was preceded
 in death by his parents and sister, Aletha DeLeo.A memorial service will be held on Wednesday, June 15, at 10:00am at Immanuel Lutheran Church – 1865 14th
 Avenue, Greeley with inurnment following at Sunset Memorial Gardens. 
Memorial contributions may be made to Immanuel Lutheran Church or to the
 Weld County Food Bank in care of Adamson Life Celebration Home, 2000 
West 47th Avenue, Greeley, CO 80634.&nbsp; Family and friends may send 
condolences to the family at adamsoncares.com.

Gerald 'Jerry' Lynn Karst

HUTCHINSON, Kan. — The defendant in a double homicide has been bound over for trial following more than six hours of testimony during his preliminary hearing in Reno County District Court.

Kyle Hardwick was bound over on two counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of 58-year-old Phillip Anstine and 56-year-old Marion “Ed” Bates in August of 2021. He is also charged with theft and had a fourth count of solicitation of perjury for trying to convince a friend, Sherry Reed, to lie on the witness stand or not show for the hearing at all.&nbsp;

Testimony Thursday morning came from friends of Bates and Anstine. Both Cathy Havell and Dawnita Joe Hartung testified they tried to get a hold of Bates over a period of two days. They testified that they drove out to a place called the "compound" east of Hutchinson where they met a man who ended up being Hardwick. He told the two women that the pair of victims had gone to town to buy cigarettes.

The two men were eventually found, Bates in a ditch covered in tree limbs and Anstine in a pit used for burning trash, his body consumed by a fire in the pit. Forensic evidence showed that Bates had been shot twice in the face while Anstine had been shot at least once in the back. The barrel of a shotgun was also found in the burn pit.

Detectives and deputies of the Reno County Sheriff’s Department also took the stand testifying about the amount of evidence they collected. DNA samples taken from items found in a camper were connected to Hardwick. DNA testing was also done on the two victims to identify them. Evidence collected from the scene included 12-gauge shotgun shells, two where Bates was allegedly shot and one more about 75 feet away near the burn pit where Anstine was found. Also found were a debit card, a receipt, a bus ticket and social security card, all belonging to the defendant.&nbsp;

The additional count of solicitation to commit perjury was added after a phone call between the defendant and Reed was played in court. Reed had just finished testifying but could not remember much about phone calls she got from Hardwick or much of anything else other than she drove him to a bus station in Kansas City. In the recorded FaceTime conversation, Hardwick repeatedly tells Reed not to show up for the hearing and, if she did testify, to tell the court she was mentally unstable and on drugs. At one time he said, “Please don’t come,” and repeatedly said, “you don’t have to show up.”

There was also testimony about a red Ford truck that was taken from the crime scene. That truck, which belonged to Anstine, was found at Pretty Prairie Road and Victory Road in October. Fingerprints tested from the truck belonged to Hardwick, although Detective Matthew Franklin with the Reno County Sheriff's Department could not say that the prints were put there during the murder and could have been placed there at any time. The defense for Hardwick asked few questions during the hearing, but did say during the testimony from Reed that Hardwick had said he was drugged and raped by the two victims. He is also quoted as saying that “Bates was a friend and he dropped like a martyr.”&nbsp;&nbsp;

Hardwick was arrested in Maize Sept. 1 near a Dollar General store where he had allegedly made purchases. The clerk at the store told detectives that Hardwick said to her that his truck had broken down near Hutchinson and that he walked to Maize. Detectives were able to locate Hardwick from a ping on a cell phone. He was found in an abandoned grain elevator.

Hardwick will be arraigned July 5 before Judge Keith Schroeder.

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2021/8/1630432406794.png" alt="Hardwick-photo Reno Co." />
 <figcaption>Hardwick-photo Reno Co.</figcaption>
 </figure>By ROD ZOOK Hutch PostHUTCHINSON, Kan. — The defendant in a double homicide has been bound over for trial following more than six hours of testimony during his preliminary hearing in Reno County District Court.Kyle Hardwick was bound over on two counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of 58-year-old Phillip Anstine and 56-year-old Marion “Ed” Bates in August of 2021. He is also charged with theft and had a fourth count of solicitation of perjury for trying to convince a friend, Sherry Reed, to lie on the witness stand or not show for the hearing at all.&nbsp;Testimony Thursday morning came from friends of Bates and Anstine. Both Cathy Havell and Dawnita Joe Hartung testified they tried to get a hold of Bates over a period of two days. They testified that they drove out to a place called the "compound" east of Hutchinson where they met a man who ended up being Hardwick. He told the two women that the pair of victims had gone to town to buy cigarettes.The two men were eventually found, Bates in a ditch covered in tree limbs and Anstine in a pit used for burning trash, his body consumed by a fire in the pit. Forensic evidence showed that Bates had been shot twice in the face while Anstine had been shot at least once in the back. The barrel of a shotgun was also found in the burn pit.Detectives and deputies of the Reno County Sheriff’s Department also took the stand testifying about the amount of evidence they collected. DNA samples taken from items found in a camper were connected to Hardwick. DNA testing was also done on the two victims to identify them. Evidence collected from the scene included 12-gauge shotgun shells, two where Bates was allegedly shot and one more about 75 feet away near the burn pit where Anstine was found. Also found were a debit card, a receipt, a bus ticket and social security card, all belonging to the defendant.&nbsp;The additional count of solicitation to commit perjury was added after a phone call between the defendant and Reed was played in court. Reed had just finished testifying but could not remember much about phone calls she got from Hardwick or much of anything else other than she drove him to a bus station in Kansas City. In the recorded FaceTime conversation, Hardwick repeatedly tells Reed not to show up for the hearing and, if she did testify, to tell the court she was mentally unstable and on drugs. At one time he said, “Please don’t come,” and repeatedly said, “you don’t have to show up.”There was also testimony about a red Ford truck that was taken from the crime scene. That truck, which belonged to Anstine, was found at Pretty Prairie Road and Victory Road in October. Fingerprints tested from the truck belonged to Hardwick, although Detective Matthew Franklin with the Reno County Sheriff's Department could not say that the prints were put there during the murder and could have been placed there at any time. The defense for Hardwick asked few questions during the hearing, but did say during the testimony from Reed that Hardwick had said he was drugged and raped by the two victims. He is also quoted as saying that “Bates was a friend and he dropped like a martyr.”&nbsp;&nbsp;Hardwick was arrested in Maize Sept. 1 near a Dollar General store where he had allegedly made purchases. The clerk at the store told detectives that Hardwick said to her that his truck had broken down near Hutchinson and that he walked to Maize. Detectives were able to locate Hardwick from a ping on a cell phone. He was found in an abandoned grain elevator.Hardwick will be arraigned July 5 before Judge Keith Schroeder.

Suspect bound over for trial in Kansas double-murder case

Ralph Hansen, 83, of Colby, died Tuesday, May 31, 2022, at Hays Medical 
Center, in Hays, KS. He was born October 26, 1938, to Ernest and Eunice 
Hansen, Otis, Colorado. Ralph was the third of eight children. He 
graduated from Lone Star High School in 1956. He then attended 
Northeastern Junior College, Sterling, Colorado, where he met Betty 
Einspahr in 1958. He then went on to Colorado State University and 
married Betty on December 29, 1959. Their son Craig was born November 
1960. Ralph graduated with a degree in Agriculture from Colorado State 
University in December 1961. The young family moved to Colby, Kansas for
 his first post college job working as a Loan Officer for Production 
Credit Association where he worked for 10 years. During that time, they 
had a son Rod in August 1963, and adopted their daughter Lynae in May 
1968. In 1972 Ralph began working for the State of Kansas where he 
dedicated 30 years of his career. 
Throughout his life he devoted 25 years of service to the Boy Scouts of 
America as a volunteer Scout Master, District Executive and numerous 
other roles. He was recognized for his service with the rare Silver 
Beaver award. As a role model for the boys, he guided numerous young men
 to the rank of Eagle Scout. 
He dedicated countless hours of service to many organizations associated
 with the Lutheran Church, to include the local congregation, and the 
International Lutheran Laymen’s league. 
Ralph was preceded in death by his father and mother; older brother 
Roscoe; older sister Mary Evelyn and younger brother Ronnie. 
Ralph is survived by his sister Caroine, and brothers Kenneth, Donnie 
and wife Twila, and Dwain. He is also survived by his wife Betty; son 
Craig and wife Renae, their daughter Leshia and husband Matt Bruneel and
 their daughters Eleanor and Genevieve; son Rodney and wife Kalie and 
their son Ryan; daughter Lynae and her husband T.J. Douthit and their 
sons Jacob, James, and Justin. Also survived by numerous nieces, 
nephews, and their families. 
Ralph will be remembered as a hardworking, honest, Christian man, who 
cared deeply for those who were part of his life, always placing the 
needs of others first in his priorities. 
Visitation will take place from 5-7:00 p.m. Friday, June 3, 2022, at 
Baalmann Mortuary, Colby. Funeral Service is at 10:30 a.m. Saturday, 
June 4, 2022, at Trinity Lutheran Church, Colby, with burial in Beulah 
Cemetery, Colby. Memorials may be made to the Lutheran Hour Ministries, 
NWKS Foundation for Hope or Trinity Lutheran Church and sent in care of 
Baalmann Mortuary, PO Box 391, Colby, KS 67701. For information or to 
leave condolences visit www.baalmannmortuary.com&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2022/6/1654192048088.png" alt="" />
 <figcaption></figcaption>
 </figure>Ralph Hansen, 83, of Colby, died Tuesday, May 31, 2022, at Hays Medical 
Center, in Hays, KS. He was born October 26, 1938, to Ernest and Eunice 
Hansen, Otis, Colorado. Ralph was the third of eight children. He 
graduated from Lone Star High School in 1956. He then attended 
Northeastern Junior College, Sterling, Colorado, where he met Betty 
Einspahr in 1958. He then went on to Colorado State University and 
married Betty on December 29, 1959. Their son Craig was born November 
1960. Ralph graduated with a degree in Agriculture from Colorado State 
University in December 1961. The young family moved to Colby, Kansas for
 his first post college job working as a Loan Officer for Production 
Credit Association where he worked for 10 years. During that time, they 
had a son Rod in August 1963, and adopted their daughter Lynae in May 
1968. In 1972 Ralph began working for the State of Kansas where he 
dedicated 30 years of his career. 
Throughout his life he devoted 25 years of service to the Boy Scouts of 
America as a volunteer Scout Master, District Executive and numerous 
other roles. He was recognized for his service with the rare Silver 
Beaver award. As a role model for the boys, he guided numerous young men
 to the rank of Eagle Scout. 
He dedicated countless hours of service to many organizations associated
 with the Lutheran Church, to include the local congregation, and the 
International Lutheran Laymen’s league. 
Ralph was preceded in death by his father and mother; older brother 
Roscoe; older sister Mary Evelyn and younger brother Ronnie. 
Ralph is survived by his sister Caroine, and brothers Kenneth, Donnie 
and wife Twila, and Dwain. He is also survived by his wife Betty; son 
Craig and wife Renae, their daughter Leshia and husband Matt Bruneel and
 their daughters Eleanor and Genevieve; son Rodney and wife Kalie and 
their son Ryan; daughter Lynae and her husband T.J. Douthit and their 
sons Jacob, James, and Justin. Also survived by numerous nieces, 
nephews, and their families. 
Ralph will be remembered as a hardworking, honest, Christian man, who 
cared deeply for those who were part of his life, always placing the 
needs of others first in his priorities. 
Visitation will take place from 5-7:00 p.m. Friday, June 3, 2022, at 
Baalmann Mortuary, Colby. Funeral Service is at 10:30 a.m. Saturday, 
June 4, 2022, at Trinity Lutheran Church, Colby, with burial in Beulah 
Cemetery, Colby. Memorials may be made to the Lutheran Hour Ministries, 
NWKS Foundation for Hope or Trinity Lutheran Church and sent in care of 
Baalmann Mortuary, PO Box 391, Colby, KS 67701. For information or to 
leave condolences visit www.baalmannmortuary.com&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;

Ralph Hansen

OLATHE, Kan. (AP) — A Missouri man has been convicted of killing a woman he was accused of stalking and faces life in prison when he's sentenced in October. 

The Kansas City Star reports that a Johnson County jury found 44-year-old Clyde James Barnes Jr., of Kansas City, guilty Tuesday of first-degree murder and other counts in the July 2020 killing of 42-year-old Jessica Smith in her Olathe home. 

Barnes was also found guilty of aggravated burglary, unlawful tampering with electronic monitoring, criminal threat and violation of a protection order. Olathe police who were responding to a burglary call at Smith's home found her body inside and arrested Barnes hours later. At the time, Barnes was out on bond for a stalking charge involving Smith, but the charge was later dismissed.

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2020/7/1594330565958.png" alt="Barnes-photo Johnson County" />
 <figcaption>Barnes-photo Johnson County</figcaption>
 </figure>OLATHE, Kan. (AP) — A Missouri man has been convicted of killing a woman he was accused of stalking and faces life in prison when he's sentenced in October. The Kansas City Star reports that a Johnson County jury found 44-year-old Clyde James Barnes Jr., of Kansas City, guilty Tuesday of first-degree murder and other counts in the July 2020 killing of 42-year-old Jessica Smith in her Olathe home. Barnes was also found guilty of aggravated burglary, unlawful tampering with electronic monitoring, criminal threat and violation of a protection order. Olathe police who were responding to a burglary call at Smith's home found her body inside and arrested Barnes hours later. At the time, Barnes was out on bond for a stalking charge involving Smith, but the charge was later dismissed.

Man guilty of killing Kan. woman he was accused of stalking

Marion Lavonne Reeder,&nbsp;age&nbsp;91,&nbsp;passed away on&nbsp;Tuesday, May&nbsp;31, 2022,&nbsp;in Springfield, Missouri.&nbsp;She was born February 15, 1931, in Hill City, Kansas, to Clark and Jessie (Wallace) Pierson.&nbsp;

Lavonne graduated from Salina High School in 1949 and attended Kansas Wesleyan.&nbsp;She married Carl&nbsp;Reeder on October 8, 1950, in Salina, Kansas&nbsp;and they moved to the WaKeeney area shortly thereafter.&nbsp;He preceded her in death September 12, 1978.&nbsp;

Music was a big part of&nbsp;Lavonne’s&nbsp;life.&nbsp;She sang many solos and duets in church and for weddings and funerals.&nbsp;She directed both the children's and adult church choirs&nbsp;for the Methodist Church, the latter for over 50 years. Lavonne was a member of the First United Methodist Church, participated in Harmony Club and EHU, was a former board member of Keeney Village and the Senior Center,&nbsp;former co-director of the Trego County Food Pantry,&nbsp;and&nbsp;crusade chairperson and former president of the Trego County Cancer unit,&nbsp;all in WaKeeney.

Survivors include four daughters, Cheri Watson and husband Gary, Springfield, MO; Joleen Nimz and husband Mark, WaKeeney, KS; Jeanine Welli and husband Mike, Wichita, KS; and Rhonda York and husband Dave, Leavenworth, KS; a sister, Ilene Jones, Springfield, MO; 9 grandchildren and 13 great-grandchildren.&nbsp;

She was preceded in death by her parents, husband,&nbsp;and son,&nbsp;Darryl Reeder.

Visitation will&nbsp;be&nbsp;held&nbsp;from 5:00-7:00 PM Sunday,&nbsp;June&nbsp;5, 2022, at Schmitt Funeral Home, 336 N. 12th St., WaKeeney, KS.&nbsp;

A celebration of Lavonne’s life will be held at 10:30 AM on&nbsp;Monday,&nbsp;June 6&nbsp;at&nbsp;the First United Methodist Church, 500 Summit Avenue,&nbsp;with burial following at the WaKeeney Cemetery.

Memorials may be made to the&nbsp;WaKeeney&nbsp;First United Methodist Church&nbsp;or the American Cancer Society. Donations to the organizations may be sent to Schmitt Funeral Home, 336 N 12thSt. WaKeeney, KS, 67672.

Condolences may be left for the family by visiting www.schmittfuneral.com

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2022/6/1654111341193.jpeg" alt="" />
 <figcaption></figcaption>
 </figure>Marion Lavonne Reeder,&nbsp;age&nbsp;91,&nbsp;passed away on&nbsp;Tuesday, May&nbsp;31, 2022,&nbsp;in Springfield, Missouri.&nbsp;She was born February 15, 1931, in Hill City, Kansas, to Clark and Jessie (Wallace) Pierson.&nbsp;Lavonne graduated from Salina High School in 1949 and attended Kansas Wesleyan.&nbsp;She married Carl&nbsp;Reeder on October 8, 1950, in Salina, Kansas&nbsp;and they moved to the WaKeeney area shortly thereafter.&nbsp;He preceded her in death September 12, 1978.&nbsp;Music was a big part of&nbsp;Lavonne’s&nbsp;life.&nbsp;She sang many solos and duets in church and for weddings and funerals.&nbsp;She directed both the children's and adult church choirs&nbsp;for the Methodist Church, the latter for over 50 years. Lavonne was a member of the First United Methodist Church, participated in Harmony Club and EHU, was a former board member of Keeney Village and the Senior Center,&nbsp;former co-director of the Trego County Food Pantry,&nbsp;and&nbsp;crusade chairperson and former president of the Trego County Cancer unit,&nbsp;all in WaKeeney.Survivors include four daughters, Cheri Watson and husband Gary, Springfield, MO; Joleen Nimz and husband Mark, WaKeeney, KS; Jeanine Welli and husband Mike, Wichita, KS; and Rhonda York and husband Dave, Leavenworth, KS; a sister, Ilene Jones, Springfield, MO; 9 grandchildren and 13 great-grandchildren.&nbsp;She was preceded in death by her parents, husband,&nbsp;and son,&nbsp;Darryl Reeder.Visitation will&nbsp;be&nbsp;held&nbsp;from 5:00-7:00 PM Sunday,&nbsp;June&nbsp;5, 2022, at Schmitt Funeral Home, 336 N. 12th St., WaKeeney, KS.&nbsp;A celebration of Lavonne’s life will be held at 10:30 AM on&nbsp;Monday,&nbsp;June 6&nbsp;at&nbsp;the First United Methodist Church, 500 Summit Avenue,&nbsp;with burial following at the WaKeeney Cemetery.Memorials may be made to the&nbsp;WaKeeney&nbsp;First United Methodist Church&nbsp;or the American Cancer Society. Donations to the organizations may be sent to Schmitt Funeral Home, 336 N 12thSt. WaKeeney, KS, 67672.Condolences may be left for the family by visiting www.schmittfuneral.com

Marion Lavonne Reeder

WASHINGTON — The Internal Revenue Service is encouraging taxpayers 
who have yet to file their 2021 tax return – including those who 
requested an extension of time – to file a complete and accurate return 
electronically as early as possible once they have all their information
 together. There's no need to wait until the October deadline.

Taxpayers who requested an extension have until October 17 this year 
to file their tax return. However, if a taxpayer has all the necessary 
information to file an accurate return, filing before summer vacation 
can be a win-win.

"IRS employees continue working hard to process tax returns and 
address our inventory issues," said IRS Commissioner Chuck Rettig. "We 
continue to urge people to file electronically and do it as soon as 
possible. Even if people have an extension to file until October, 
sending the tax return as soon as possible can either help get them a 
refund quicker or it can save them money if they owe by avoiding 
additional interest and penalties."

Filing electronically as soon as possible can also help taxpayers who
 did not file an extension and missed the April deadline to avoid 
further penalties and interest if they owe taxes.

File electronically and choose direct deposit

Generally, people who choose not to file a tax return because they 
didn't earn enough money to be required to file won't receive a penalty 
if they are owed a refund. But they may miss out on receiving a refund 
if they don't file. The IRS advises individuals who still need to file a
 2021 tax return to <a href="https://www.irs.gov/filing/e-file-options">file electronically</a> and, if due a refund, to choose <a href="https://www.irs.gov/refunds/get-your-refund-faster-tell-irs-to-direct-deposit-your-refund-to-one-two-or-three-accounts">direct deposit</a>.

Filing electronically is fast, accurate and secure, and when an 
individual chooses direct deposit, their refund goes directly from the 
IRS into their bank or financial account getting them their refund in 
the fastest time possible. If they have a prepaid debit card, they may 
be able to have their refund applied to the card by providing the 
account and routing numbers to the IRS. The IRS processes most e-filed 
returns and issues direct deposit refunds in less than three weeks.

Here's a tip to help with e-filing a 2021 tax return for those still waiting on their 2020 tax return to be processed: To <a href="https://www.irs.gov/individuals/electronic-filing-pin-request">validate and successfully submit an electronically filed tax return to the IRS</a>,
 taxpayers need their Adjusted Gross Income, or AGI, from their most 
recent tax return. Those waiting on their 2020 tax return can still file
 their 2021 return by entering $0 for their 2020 AGI on their 2021 tax 
return. Remember, if using the same tax preparation software as last 
year, this field will auto-populate.

Taxpayers who haven't filed a 2021 tax return yet – including 
extension filers – can file electronically any time before the October 
deadline and avoid the last-minute rush to file.

People may be waiting to file because they need help or more 
information, have a more complicated tax situation, or owe taxes. The 
IRS has resources to help taxpayers get the answers they need so they 
can file an accurate return. Take the time to file an accurate tax 
return, but don't wait until the last minute and risk missing the 
October deadline.

Tools on the IRS website are easy to use and available 24 hours a 
day. Millions of people use them to find information about their 
accounts, get answers to tax questions or file and pay taxes. The online
 tools include important, special steps related to <a href="https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/recovery-rebate-credit">Economic Impact Payments</a> and <a href="https://www.irs.gov/credits-deductions/advance-child-tax-credit-payments-in-2021">advance Child Tax Credit payments</a>.

IRS.gov has many <a href="https://www.irs.gov/help/telephone-assistance">online tools and resources</a> ranging from tax preparation and refund tracking tools, to tax law research tools like the <a href="https://www.irs.gov/help/ita">Interactive Tax Assistant</a> and answers for <a href="https://www.irs.gov/faqs">Frequently Asked Questions</a> on dozens of subjects.

Submitting a tax return and paying any amount owed as soon as possible can help taxpayers avoid further interest and penalties.

Taxpayers who owe taxes can review all <a href="https://www.irs.gov/payments">payment options online</a>. These include paying taxes through an <a href="https://www.irs.gov/payments/your-online-account">Online Account</a> with <a href="https://www.irs.gov/payments/direct-pay">IRS Direct Pay</a> or paying by <a href="https://www.irs.gov/payments/pay-your-taxes-by-debit-or-credit-card">debit card, credit card or digital wallet</a>. The IRS has <a href="https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/what-if-i-cant-pay-my-taxes">options for people who can't pay their taxes</a>, including <a href="https://www.irs.gov/payments/online-payment-agreement-application">applying for a payment plan</a> on IRS.gov.

Eligible individuals – including those who requested an extension to file – can use the <a href="https://www.irs.gov/filing/free-file-do-your-federal-taxes-for-free">IRS Free File program</a>
 to prepare and file their federal tax return for free. The program 
offers 70% of all taxpayers the choice of several brand-name tax 
preparation software packages to use at no cost. Those who earned less 
than $73,000 in 2021 can choose which package is best for them. Some 
even offer free state tax return preparation. Those that earned more 
have the option to use <a href="https://www.irs.gov/e-file-providers/free-file-fillable-forms">IRS Free File Fillable Forms</a>.

<a href="https://www.militaryonesource.mil/miltax-software/">MilTax online software</a>
 is also available for members of the military and certain veterans, 
regardless of income. This software is offered through the Department of
 Defense. Eligible taxpayers can use MilTax to prepare and 
electronically file their federal tax returns and up to three state 
returns, for free.

The IRS's <a href="https://www.irs.gov/individuals/free-tax-return-preparation-for-qualifying-taxpayers">Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA)</a>
 program still offers face-to-face help preparing taxes in some 
locations in communities across the country. It offers free basic tax 
return preparation to people who generally make $58,000 or less and 
people with disabilities or limited English-speaking taxpayers.

The <a href="https://www.irs.gov/individuals/free-tax-return-preparation-for-qualifying-taxpayers">VITA/TCE Site Locator</a>
 can help eligible taxpayers find the nearest community-based site 
staffed by IRS-trained and certified volunteers. Taxpayers can use the 
locator tool to see if there's an available site still open near them.

Many people use a trusted tax professional to help guide them through the process of doing their taxes and avoiding errors.

There are various types of tax return preparers, including certified 
public accountants, enrolled agents, attorneys and many others who don't
 have a professional credential.

Because tax professionals have access to an individual's personal and financial information, it's important to <a href="https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/tips-to-help-people-choose-a-reputable-tax-preparer">choose a tax preparer</a> wisely.

For taxpayers who want help with their taxes, this <a href="https://irs.treasury.gov/rpo/rpo.jsf">online directory</a> can help them find a tax professional in their area.

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2020/9/1599869632873.png" alt="" />
 <figcaption></figcaption>
 </figure>IRSWASHINGTON — The Internal Revenue Service is encouraging taxpayers 
who have yet to file their 2021 tax return – including those who 
requested an extension of time – to file a complete and accurate return 
electronically as early as possible once they have all their information
 together. There's no need to wait until the October deadline.Taxpayers who requested an extension have until October 17 this year 
to file their tax return. However, if a taxpayer has all the necessary 
information to file an accurate return, filing before summer vacation 
can be a win-win."IRS employees continue working hard to process tax returns and 
address our inventory issues," said IRS Commissioner Chuck Rettig. "We 
continue to urge people to file electronically and do it as soon as 
possible. Even if people have an extension to file until October, 
sending the tax return as soon as possible can either help get them a 
refund quicker or it can save them money if they owe by avoiding 
additional interest and penalties."Filing electronically as soon as possible can also help taxpayers who
 did not file an extension and missed the April deadline to avoid 
further penalties and interest if they owe taxes.<h2>File electronically and choose direct deposit</h2>Generally, people who choose not to file a tax return because they 
didn't earn enough money to be required to file won't receive a penalty 
if they are owed a refund. But they may miss out on receiving a refund 
if they don't file. The IRS advises individuals who still need to file a
 2021 tax return to <a href="https://www.irs.gov/filing/e-file-options">file electronically</a> and, if due a refund, to choose <a href="https://www.irs.gov/refunds/get-your-refund-faster-tell-irs-to-direct-deposit-your-refund-to-one-two-or-three-accounts">direct deposit</a>.Filing electronically is fast, accurate and secure, and when an 
individual chooses direct deposit, their refund goes directly from the 
IRS into their bank or financial account getting them their refund in 
the fastest time possible. If they have a prepaid debit card, they may 
be able to have their refund applied to the card by providing the 
account and routing numbers to the IRS. The IRS processes most e-filed 
returns and issues direct deposit refunds in less than three weeks.Here's a tip to help with e-filing a 2021 tax return for those still waiting on their 2020 tax return to be processed: To <a href="https://www.irs.gov/individuals/electronic-filing-pin-request">validate and successfully submit an electronically filed tax return to the IRS</a>,
 taxpayers need their Adjusted Gross Income, or AGI, from their most 
recent tax return. Those waiting on their 2020 tax return can still file
 their 2021 return by entering $0 for their 2020 AGI on their 2021 tax 
return. Remember, if using the same tax preparation software as last 
year, this field will auto-populate.Taxpayers who haven't filed a 2021 tax return yet – including 
extension filers – can file electronically any time before the October 
deadline and avoid the last-minute rush to file.<h2>Find help on IRS.gov</h2>People may be waiting to file because they need help or more 
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 tools include important, special steps related to <a href="https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/recovery-rebate-credit">Economic Impact Payments</a> and <a href="https://www.irs.gov/credits-deductions/advance-child-tax-credit-payments-in-2021">advance Child Tax Credit payments</a>.IRS.gov has many <a href="https://www.irs.gov/help/telephone-assistance">online tools and resources</a> ranging from tax preparation and refund tracking tools, to tax law research tools like the <a href="https://www.irs.gov/help/ita">Interactive Tax Assistant</a> and answers for <a href="https://www.irs.gov/faqs">Frequently Asked Questions</a> on dozens of subjects.<h2>Payment options</h2>Submitting a tax return and paying any amount owed as soon as possible can help taxpayers avoid further interest and penalties.Taxpayers who owe taxes can review all <a href="https://www.irs.gov/payments">payment options online</a>. These include paying taxes through an <a href="https://www.irs.gov/payments/your-online-account">Online Account</a> with <a href="https://www.irs.gov/payments/direct-pay">IRS Direct Pay</a> or paying by <a href="https://www.irs.gov/payments/pay-your-taxes-by-debit-or-credit-card">debit card, credit card or digital wallet</a>. The IRS has <a href="https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/what-if-i-cant-pay-my-taxes">options for people who can't pay their taxes</a>, including <a href="https://www.irs.gov/payments/online-payment-agreement-application">applying for a payment plan</a> on IRS.gov.<h2>IRS Free File</h2>Eligible individuals – including those who requested an extension to file – can use the <a href="https://www.irs.gov/filing/free-file-do-your-federal-taxes-for-free">IRS Free File program</a>
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Haven't filed your taxes yet? Don't wait, warns IRS

By ERIKA BOLSTAD <a href="https://dailymontanan.com/2022/05/31/when-it-comes-to-monuments-many-communities-considering-how-the-west-was-won/">Daily Montanan</a>

PORTLAND, Ore. — In June 2020, 
protesters at the University of Oregon in Eugene toppled a statue called
 “The Pioneer,” which depicted a White man with a gun slung over his 
shoulder and a whip in his hand, and a second sculpture titled “The 
Pioneer Mother.”

Both monuments had drawn criticism from Indigenous student groups and historians for commemorating settler violence in the West.

Even as Southern states face a reckoning over Confederate monuments, 
communities in the Western United States are beginning to reconsider 
monuments that, in many locations, celebrate what dominant American 
culture has portrayed as the conquering of the region by Europeans.

Among them are hundreds of pioneer monuments, many of which celebrate
 White dominance over Indigenous people as the nation expanded west. 
Some were toppled or damaged during the racial justice protests 
following the murder of George Floyd.

In Portland, protesters&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://www.kgw.com/article/news/local/portland-toppled-statues/283-322173ca-87c9-4951-9db3-6842172d1895">pulled down or damaged five statues</a> in the summer and fall of 2020, including “The Promised Land,” a celebration of White westward expansion erected on the 150th&nbsp;anniversary
 of the Oregon Trail. Portland protesters also toppled monuments to 
Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln, citing their policies and 
actions against Native Americans. And in Albuquerque, New Mexico, city 
officials removed a statue of the Spanish conquistador Juan de Oñate 
after a shooting during a protest at the site.

Many Western cities, including Albuquerque, Denver and Portland, have
 been slow to replace statues or monuments toppled by the protests, or 
artwork that was removed from public display before they could be 
damaged. Some of the monuments likely will never return.

Instead, Western communities are beginning to consider what comes 
next for monuments, as well as what future public art projects should 
look like. Artists are leading many of those conversations, including in
 Portland, where dozens of people submitted monument concepts to a&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://www.converge45.org/pmmp">prototype exhibit</a>&nbsp;sponsored by the arts group&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://www.converge45.org/pmmp">Converge45</a>&nbsp;last fall.

“Why monuments, period?” asked&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://www.apano.org/about/staff/roshani-thakore/">Roshani Thakore</a>, an artist-in-residence with the Asian Pacific American Network of Oregon. Thakore,&nbsp;along with the urban planning scholar and artist&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://www.pdx.edu/profile/lisa-bates">Lisa Bates</a>,
 proposed a monument that would deploy skywriting and loudspeakers and 
even moving trains to pose questions derived from the issues they’ve 
experienced in the Asian and Black communities where they work.

“Can there be another language? Is this time to think about another 
language?” Thakore said.&nbsp; “If we’re reckoning, we need to really go all 
the way … instead of putting these Band-Aids on.

Pioneer monuments may appear to some observers as wholesome 
representations of the hard-working forebears of many White Westerners, 
said&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://und.edu/directory/cynthia.prescott">Cynthia Prescott</a>, a professor of history at the University of North Dakota and the author of “Pioneer Mother Monuments.” When she first began&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://pioneermonuments.net/">documenting</a>&nbsp;the effects of 200 or so pioneer mother monuments across the West, she thought of the genre as “grandma in a sun bonnet.”

But the monuments’ intent was far from benign.

She cites research from 2019 by University of Oregon scholar&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://history.uoregon.edu/profile/marcc/">Marc Carpenter</a>,
 who as a doctoral candidate looked at the speeches by donors and the 
intent of the sculptor when the Pioneer sculpture was installed at his 
university. (The same artist,&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="http://www.aphimisterproctorfoundation.com/">Alexander Phimister Proctor</a>,
 crafted the Roosevelt monument in Portland and a statue of Robert E. 
Lee in Dallas that was removed from public view in 2017 and now resides 
at a&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/removed-robert-lee-statue-now-display-texas-resort-8063304">Texas golf resort</a>.)

At the University of Oregon, it was obvious even to those who 
attended the installation of the statue that they were honoring not just
 White settlement, Carpenter suggests, but also remembering White 
dominance of Indigenous people. In a paper urging the University of 
Oregon to remove the Pioneer statue, Carpenter wrote that unlike the 
Confederate statues of the South, “in the West, our problematic 
monuments are to America’s other great sin, the violent seizure of 
Native lands and murder of Native peoples.”

“You don’t have to dig very far to find out that there’s a racial 
subtext intended here,” Prescott said of pioneer memorials. “That was 
what donors and the people involved in their dedication are thinking 
about.”

In the months following the June 2020 shooting at the Oñate statue, 
the city of Albuquerque convened a Race, History and Healing Project to 
consider how to proceed with its monuments. The project concluded that 
year, but the city council has yet to take any action on a final report.&nbsp;A
 survey of 1,290 residents in Albuquerque found that 53% did not want 
the statue returned to its original location. Another 36% did, and 11% 
had another idea or didn’t state an opinion.

In Portland, as the city grapples with replacing or recontextualizing
 its toppled monuments, city leaders say they want to memorialize 
stories that were underrepresented in previous public art collections.

“After the protests and after 2020…voices were rising up,” said City Commissioner <a target="_blank" href="https://www.portland.gov/rubio">Carmen Rubio</a>,
 who oversees parks and recreation and arts and culture, and was the 
first Latina on the city council. “It made us really reflective.”

Rubio’s goal is public art that better tells the story of the city by
 capturing the “important, complex, beautiful, sometimes hard, maybe 
stark moments of truth.”

Some, though, saw the toppled statuary as a sign of strife and unrest fueled by radical protesters.&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://www.ci.sandy.or.us/directory-listing/stan-pulliam">Stan Pulliam</a>, the mayor of Sandy, Oregon,&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://pamplinmedia.com/pt/9-news/517186-413237-sandy-mayor-wants-toppled-portland-statues">told a television station</a>&nbsp;last
 year that the toppled presidential statues represented “American 
treasures” that he and others would welcome in his Portland suburb.

“It’s time for communities like Sandy to step up and say, ‘Not 
everyone feels this way!'” said Pulliam, who recently ran and lost in 
the Republican primary for Oregon governor. “They’re heroes that we 
should recognize and really teach our future generations about both the 
positive and negative attributes.”

Monuments often have failed to tell a complete story of the history of the United States, said&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://monumentlab.com/team">Paul Farber</a>, the director of&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://monumentlab.com/">Monument Lab</a>, a nonprofit public art and history studio based in Philadelphia. The lab, in partnership with the&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://mellon.org/initiatives/monuments/">Andrew W. Mellon Foundation</a>, in late 2021 released a&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://monumentlab.com/audit">national audit</a>&nbsp;looking
 at who and what gets memorialized in bronze and marble. Monuments shape
 our shared historical narratives and national memory, the audit notes, 
but also perpetuate existing injustices and inequality.

Monument Lab’s audit found that the nation’s monuments mostly reflect
 war and conquest; the monuments themselves mostly depict White and male
 figures. Joan of Arc, Harriet Tubman and Sacagawea are the only women 
in the top 50 list, although “feminized bodies” often appear as 
“fictional, mythological, and allegorical figures,” the audit notes.

The audit also points out that monuments always have been in flux. 
The first recorded monument removal in the United States was the 
toppling of a statue of King George III in New York, following a public 
reading of the Declaration of Independence on July 9, 1776.

Creative reuse already is a part of Portland’s art landscape. 
Protesters in 2020 also tore down a statue of Harvey W. Scott, a 
newspaper editor during Oregon’s early days who opposed women’s suffrage
 and universal high school education. The Scott statue was replaced for a
 time with a bust made of temporary materials of the enslaved man York, 
who accompanied the Lewis &amp; Clark expedition. The bust was installed
 overnight by an anonymous artist later revealed to be the sculptor Todd
 McGrain. Then, a few months later, conservative protesters tore it 
down.

The pedestals will see reuse by&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://portlandartmuseum.org/exhibitions/jeffrey-gibson-they-come-from-fire/">Jeffrey Gibson</a>,
 an Indigenous artist with an exhibit this fall at the Portland Art 
Museum. Gibson, who is a member of the Mississippi Band of Choctaw 
Indians and of Cherokee descent, will use the bases as platforms for 
portraits he’ll display in the show.

The Mellon Foundation has committed $250 million toward supporting 
public monument projects that “more completely and accurately represent 
the multiplicity and complexity of American stories.” One of the first 
projects is&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://monumentlab.com/projects/regeneration">Re:Generation</a>, which helps pay for 10 new monuments.

Among them is the&nbsp;Rapid City Indian Boarding School Lands 
Project in South Dakota. The project is developing an interpretive site 
and memorial to the children who died at the Rapid City Indian Boarding 
School, a federal school that operated from 1898 to 1933.

The project got its start in 2013 while people in the community were writing a history of the 75th&nbsp;anniversary
 of an Indian Health Service hospital on the site, said the monument’s 
executive director, Amy Sazue, who is Sicangu and Oglala Lakota. A 
volunteer began investigating after elders in the community mentioned 
there were unmarked graves. Record keeping was spotty at best, Sazue 
said, but volunteers eventually determined that 50 children may be 
buried there. They were able to secure the return of some land to the 
Oglala Sioux Tribe, the Rosebud Sioux Tribe and the Cheyenne River Sioux
 Tribe.

The South Dakota project will be among the first significant 
monuments to children who died at such schools, which forced Indigenous 
children to assimilate by removing them from their homes and culture. A 
preliminary&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://www.doi.gov/pressreleases/department-interior-releases-investigative-report-outlines-next-steps-federal-indian">report</a>&nbsp;issued
 in May by the federal Interior Department found that at least 500 
children and perhaps many more died at 53 sites around the country.

The monument, which is scheduled to open in October 2023, will be a 
contemplative place with a sculptural element. The names of the 50 
children who died will be carved on boulders placed on the grounds. 
Because not all graves are known, the monument will strive not to 
penetrate the earth–all artistic elements will be floating. It will sit 
in quiet contrast to the massive, mountainside busts of former U.S. 
presidents just 25 miles away.

“The landscape where we live in the shadow of Mount Rushmore is 
really this larger symbol of White supremacy, it’s a symbol of 
indoctrination. It’s a symbol of attempted assimilation,” Sazue 
said.“And so what we’re doing is telling our story, in our way. For 
Indigenous people, the land itself is a monument. We don’t need to build
 on top of it or do things to it to make it look any different than what
 it is.”

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2022/5/1654013731471.png" alt="Two women visit a bust of York, the enslaved man who accompanied the Lewis &amp; Clark expedition, in Portland, Ore. The unauthorized monument was installed after protesters in 2020 tore down a statue of Harvey W. Scott, a newspaper editor during Oregon’s early days who opposed women’s suffrage and universal high school education. The York monument, by sculptor Todd McGrain, was torn down several months later by conservative protesters. (Photo courtesy of Pew Charitable Trusts)" />
 <figcaption>Two women visit a bust of York, the enslaved man who accompanied the Lewis &amp; Clark expedition, in Portland, Ore. The unauthorized monument was installed after protesters in 2020 tore down a statue of Harvey W. Scott, a newspaper editor during Oregon’s early days who opposed women’s suffrage and universal high school education. The York monument, by sculptor Todd McGrain, was torn down several months later by conservative protesters. (Photo courtesy of Pew Charitable Trusts)</figcaption>
 </figure>By ERIKA BOLSTAD <a href="https://dailymontanan.com/2022/05/31/when-it-comes-to-monuments-many-communities-considering-how-the-west-was-won/">Daily Montanan</a>PORTLAND, Ore. — In June 2020, 
protesters at the University of Oregon in Eugene toppled a statue called
 “The Pioneer,” which depicted a White man with a gun slung over his 
shoulder and a whip in his hand, and a second sculpture titled “The 
Pioneer Mother.”Both monuments had drawn criticism from Indigenous student groups and historians for commemorating settler violence in the West.Even as Southern states face a reckoning over Confederate monuments, 
communities in the Western United States are beginning to reconsider 
monuments that, in many locations, celebrate what dominant American 
culture has portrayed as the conquering of the region by Europeans.Among them are hundreds of pioneer monuments, many of which celebrate
 White dominance over Indigenous people as the nation expanded west. 
Some were toppled or damaged during the racial justice protests 
following the murder of George Floyd.In Portland, protesters&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://www.kgw.com/article/news/local/portland-toppled-statues/283-322173ca-87c9-4951-9db3-6842172d1895">pulled down or damaged five statues</a> in the summer and fall of 2020, including “The Promised Land,” a celebration of White westward expansion erected on the 150th&nbsp;anniversary
 of the Oregon Trail. Portland protesters also toppled monuments to 
Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln, citing their policies and 
actions against Native Americans. And in Albuquerque, New Mexico, city 
officials removed a statue of the Spanish conquistador Juan de Oñate 
after a shooting during a protest at the site.Many Western cities, including Albuquerque, Denver and Portland, have
 been slow to replace statues or monuments toppled by the protests, or 
artwork that was removed from public display before they could be 
damaged. Some of the monuments likely will never return.Instead, Western communities are beginning to consider what comes 
next for monuments, as well as what future public art projects should 
look like. Artists are leading many of those conversations, including in
 Portland, where dozens of people submitted monument concepts to a&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://www.converge45.org/pmmp">prototype exhibit</a>&nbsp;sponsored by the arts group&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://www.converge45.org/pmmp">Converge45</a>&nbsp;last fall.“Why monuments, period?” asked&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://www.apano.org/about/staff/roshani-thakore/">Roshani Thakore</a>, an artist-in-residence with the Asian Pacific American Network of Oregon. Thakore,&nbsp;along with the urban planning scholar and artist&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://www.pdx.edu/profile/lisa-bates">Lisa Bates</a>,
 proposed a monument that would deploy skywriting and loudspeakers and 
even moving trains to pose questions derived from the issues they’ve 
experienced in the Asian and Black communities where they work.“Can there be another language? Is this time to think about another 
language?” Thakore said.&nbsp; “If we’re reckoning, we need to really go all 
the way … instead of putting these Band-Aids on.<h2>Pioneer Monuments

	</h2>Pioneer monuments may appear to some observers as wholesome 
representations of the hard-working forebears of many White Westerners, 
said&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://und.edu/directory/cynthia.prescott">Cynthia Prescott</a>, a professor of history at the University of North Dakota and the author of “Pioneer Mother Monuments.” When she first began&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://pioneermonuments.net/">documenting</a>&nbsp;the effects of 200 or so pioneer mother monuments across the West, she thought of the genre as “grandma in a sun bonnet.”But the monuments’ intent was far from benign.She cites research from 2019 by University of Oregon scholar&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://history.uoregon.edu/profile/marcc/">Marc Carpenter</a>,
 who as a doctoral candidate looked at the speeches by donors and the 
intent of the sculptor when the Pioneer sculpture was installed at his 
university. (The same artist,&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="http://www.aphimisterproctorfoundation.com/">Alexander Phimister Proctor</a>,
 crafted the Roosevelt monument in Portland and a statue of Robert E. 
Lee in Dallas that was removed from public view in 2017 and now resides 
at a&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/removed-robert-lee-statue-now-display-texas-resort-8063304">Texas golf resort</a>.)At the University of Oregon, it was obvious even to those who 
attended the installation of the statue that they were honoring not just
 White settlement, Carpenter suggests, but also remembering White 
dominance of Indigenous people. In a paper urging the University of 
Oregon to remove the Pioneer statue, Carpenter wrote that unlike the 
Confederate statues of the South, “in the West, our problematic 
monuments are to America’s other great sin, the violent seizure of 
Native lands and murder of Native peoples.”“You don’t have to dig very far to find out that there’s a racial 
subtext intended here,” Prescott said of pioneer memorials. “That was 
what donors and the people involved in their dedication are thinking 
about.”<h2>How to Heal

	</h2>In the months following the June 2020 shooting at the Oñate statue, 
the city of Albuquerque convened a Race, History and Healing Project to 
consider how to proceed with its monuments. The project concluded that 
year, but the city council has yet to take any action on a final report.&nbsp;A
 survey of 1,290 residents in Albuquerque found that 53% did not want 
the statue returned to its original location. Another 36% did, and 11% 
had another idea or didn’t state an opinion.In Portland, as the city grapples with replacing or recontextualizing
 its toppled monuments, city leaders say they want to memorialize 
stories that were underrepresented in previous public art collections.“After the protests and after 2020…voices were rising up,” said City Commissioner <a target="_blank" href="https://www.portland.gov/rubio">Carmen Rubio</a>,
 who oversees parks and recreation and arts and culture, and was the 
first Latina on the city council. “It made us really reflective.”Rubio’s goal is public art that better tells the story of the city by
 capturing the “important, complex, beautiful, sometimes hard, maybe 
stark moments of truth.”Some, though, saw the toppled statuary as a sign of strife and unrest fueled by radical protesters.&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://www.ci.sandy.or.us/directory-listing/stan-pulliam">Stan Pulliam</a>, the mayor of Sandy, Oregon,&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://pamplinmedia.com/pt/9-news/517186-413237-sandy-mayor-wants-toppled-portland-statues">told a television station</a>&nbsp;last
 year that the toppled presidential statues represented “American 
treasures” that he and others would welcome in his Portland suburb.“It’s time for communities like Sandy to step up and say, ‘Not 
everyone feels this way!'” said Pulliam, who recently ran and lost in 
the Republican primary for Oregon governor. “They’re heroes that we 
should recognize and really teach our future generations about both the 
positive and negative attributes.”<h2>Incomplete Stories</h2>Monuments often have failed to tell a complete story of the history of the United States, said&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://monumentlab.com/team">Paul Farber</a>, the director of&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://monumentlab.com/">Monument Lab</a>, a nonprofit public art and history studio based in Philadelphia. The lab, in partnership with the&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://mellon.org/initiatives/monuments/">Andrew W. Mellon Foundation</a>, in late 2021 released a&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://monumentlab.com/audit">national audit</a>&nbsp;looking
 at who and what gets memorialized in bronze and marble. Monuments shape
 our shared historical narratives and national memory, the audit notes, 
but also perpetuate existing injustices and inequality.Monument Lab’s audit found that the nation’s monuments mostly reflect
 war and conquest; the monuments themselves mostly depict White and male
 figures. Joan of Arc, Harriet Tubman and Sacagawea are the only women 
in the top 50 list, although “feminized bodies” often appear as 
“fictional, mythological, and allegorical figures,” the audit notes.The audit also points out that monuments always have been in flux. 
The first recorded monument removal in the United States was the 
toppling of a statue of King George III in New York, following a public 
reading of the Declaration of Independence on July 9, 1776.Creative reuse already is a part of Portland’s art landscape. 
Protesters in 2020 also tore down a statue of Harvey W. Scott, a 
newspaper editor during Oregon’s early days who opposed women’s suffrage
 and universal high school education. The Scott statue was replaced for a
 time with a bust made of temporary materials of the enslaved man York, 
who accompanied the Lewis &amp; Clark expedition. The bust was installed
 overnight by an anonymous artist later revealed to be the sculptor Todd
 McGrain. Then, a few months later, conservative protesters tore it 
down.The pedestals will see reuse by&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://portlandartmuseum.org/exhibitions/jeffrey-gibson-they-come-from-fire/">Jeffrey Gibson</a>,
 an Indigenous artist with an exhibit this fall at the Portland Art 
Museum. Gibson, who is a member of the Mississippi Band of Choctaw 
Indians and of Cherokee descent, will use the bases as platforms for 
portraits he’ll display in the show.<h2>The New Monuments

	</h2>The Mellon Foundation has committed $250 million toward supporting 
public monument projects that “more completely and accurately represent 
the multiplicity and complexity of American stories.” One of the first 
projects is&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://monumentlab.com/projects/regeneration">Re:Generation</a>, which helps pay for 10 new monuments.Among them is the&nbsp;Rapid City Indian Boarding School Lands 
Project in South Dakota. The project is developing an interpretive site 
and memorial to the children who died at the Rapid City Indian Boarding 
School, a federal school that operated from 1898 to 1933.The project got its start in 2013 while people in the community were writing a history of the 75th&nbsp;anniversary
 of an Indian Health Service hospital on the site, said the monument’s 
executive director, Amy Sazue, who is Sicangu and Oglala Lakota. A 
volunteer began investigating after elders in the community mentioned 
there were unmarked graves. Record keeping was spotty at best, Sazue 
said, but volunteers eventually determined that 50 children may be 
buried there. They were able to secure the return of some land to the 
Oglala Sioux Tribe, the Rosebud Sioux Tribe and the Cheyenne River Sioux
 Tribe.The South Dakota project will be among the first significant 
monuments to children who died at such schools, which forced Indigenous 
children to assimilate by removing them from their homes and culture. A 
preliminary&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://www.doi.gov/pressreleases/department-interior-releases-investigative-report-outlines-next-steps-federal-indian">report</a>&nbsp;issued
 in May by the federal Interior Department found that at least 500 
children and perhaps many more died at 53 sites around the country.The monument, which is scheduled to open in October 2023, will be a 
contemplative place with a sculptural element. The names of the 50 
children who died will be carved on boulders placed on the grounds. 
Because not all graves are known, the monument will strive not to 
penetrate the earth–all artistic elements will be floating. It will sit 
in quiet contrast to the massive, mountainside busts of former U.S. 
presidents just 25 miles away.“The landscape where we live in the shadow of Mount Rushmore is 
really this larger symbol of White supremacy, it’s a symbol of 
indoctrination. It’s a symbol of attempted assimilation,” Sazue 
said.“And so what we’re doing is telling our story, in our way. For 
Indigenous people, the land itself is a monument. We don’t need to build
 on top of it or do things to it to make it look any different than what
 it is.”

Monuments: Many communities considering how the West was won

Carolyn Clara Finger Urban, 86, of Salina, passed 
away May 29th, 2022. She was born September 30, 1935, in Larned, to 
Francis and Clara Finger. Carolyn attended Larned schools and graduated 
from Marymount College of Nursing as an RN.&nbsp; Carolyn met the love of her
 life, Gilbert Urban, at a polka wedding dance. They were married 
shortly after on October 12, 1957, in Larned.

Carolyn was a devoted mother to her 5 children while continuing her 
career as a pediatric nurse at St. John Hospital and later at Salina 
Clinic. She enjoyed attending Saturday night dances with Gilbert and 
friends, gardening, sewing, and singing in the Sacred Heart Cathedral 
and St. Mary’s Church choirs.

Survivors include: her children Cathy Reynolds (Jim), Connie Holloway
 (Sam), Cheryl Mersman (Ron), Teresa Marshall (Eric), and Joe Urban 
(Renee); 19 grandchildren; 23 great-children; and sister, Mary Lou 
Wheeler. Carolyn was preceded in death by her husband, Gilbert, parents,
 granddaughter, Elise Holloway, 3 brothers and 3 sisters.

Visitation will be 5:30 – 7:00 p.m. Wednesday, June 1, with vigil 
service starting at 7:00 p.m. at Ryan Mortuary, Salina. Mass of 
Christian Burial will be at 10:30 a.m. Thursday, June 2, at St. Mary’s 
Catholic Church, with burial to follow at Mt. Calvary Cemetery. Special 
thanks to the staff at Presbyterian Manor, Dr. Gary Williams, and 
Kindred Hospice.

Memorial donations can be made to Catholic Charities.

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2022/5/1654006031713.jpeg" alt="" />
 <figcaption></figcaption>
 </figure>Carolyn Clara Finger Urban, 86, of Salina, passed 
away May 29th, 2022. She was born September 30, 1935, in Larned, to 
Francis and Clara Finger. Carolyn attended Larned schools and graduated 
from Marymount College of Nursing as an RN.&nbsp; Carolyn met the love of her
 life, Gilbert Urban, at a polka wedding dance. They were married 
shortly after on October 12, 1957, in Larned.Carolyn was a devoted mother to her 5 children while continuing her 
career as a pediatric nurse at St. John Hospital and later at Salina 
Clinic. She enjoyed attending Saturday night dances with Gilbert and 
friends, gardening, sewing, and singing in the Sacred Heart Cathedral 
and St. Mary’s Church choirs.Survivors include: her children Cathy Reynolds (Jim), Connie Holloway
 (Sam), Cheryl Mersman (Ron), Teresa Marshall (Eric), and Joe Urban 
(Renee); 19 grandchildren; 23 great-children; and sister, Mary Lou 
Wheeler. Carolyn was preceded in death by her husband, Gilbert, parents,
 granddaughter, Elise Holloway, 3 brothers and 3 sisters.Visitation will be 5:30 – 7:00 p.m. Wednesday, June 1, with vigil 
service starting at 7:00 p.m. at Ryan Mortuary, Salina. Mass of 
Christian Burial will be at 10:30 a.m. Thursday, June 2, at St. Mary’s 
Catholic Church, with burial to follow at Mt. Calvary Cemetery. Special 
thanks to the staff at Presbyterian Manor, Dr. Gary Williams, and 
Kindred Hospice.Memorial donations can be made to Catholic Charities.

Carolyn Clara Finger Urban

By JARED STRONG <a href="https://iowacapitaldispatch.com/2022/05/26/usda-relaxes-conservation-program-rules-to-boost-crop-production/">Iowa Capital Dispatch</a>

Agricultural landowners who are not renewing their agreements this 
year with the federal government to keep their land out of production 
have the ability to put that land back to work earlier, a potential 
boost to wheat and other crop production amid global shortages, the U.S.
 Department of Agriculture announced Thursday.

Those who have land enrolled in the Conservation Reserve Program now 
have the option to terminate their contract early if they are in the 
final year of the contract. Under normal circumstances, landowners would
 have to wait until October to put the CRP land back into production or 
would be required to repay the money they’ve received from the program.

“They can now voluntarily terminate without penalty for those acres 
that are coming out of that program,” U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom 
Vilsack told a U.S. Senate committee on Thursday, “so that they’d be in a
 position to do work now on that land, to either prepare it for a crop 
or to potentially think about other crops that can be grown during the 
course of the winter.”

He said the equivalent of about 1 million acres of agricultural land 
is leaving the program this year — the difference between the acres that
 are expiring and the newly enrolled acres this year. In March, about 
22.1 million acres were actively enrolled, according to USDA data.

President Joe Biden <a target="_blank" href="https://iowacapitaldispatch.com/2022/05/11/biden-pledges-more-support-for-farmers-the-backbone-of-freedom/">has warned</a>
 that people “are going to starve to death” if millions of tons of wheat
 and corn in Ukraine is unable to be exported because of the ongoing 
Russian invasion, which began more than three months ago.

Ukraine is a significant producer and exporter of those crops, much 
of which is sold to African nations. Ukrainian officials have accused 
Russian troops of destroying farms and stealing grain and equipment. 
It’s not yet clear how much the war will affect Ukraine’s crop 
production this year.

Agriculture groups such as the American Farm Bureau Federation have 
been pining for months for the USDA to release CRP farmland back into 
production without penalty to help boost the global food supply.

In letters to CRP landowners this week, the USDA offered early terminations to those who hadn’t renewed their enrollment.

Russian President Vladimir “Putin’s unjustified invasion of Ukraine 
has cut off a critical source of wheat, corn, barley, oilseeds and 
cooking oil, and we’ve heard from many producers who want to better 
understand their options to help respond to global food needs,” Zach 
Ducheneaux, administrator of USDA’s Farm Service Agency, said in a press
 release Thursday. “This announcement will help producers make informed 
decisions about land use and conservation options.”

CRP contracts typically last for 10 to 15 years. Landowners set aside
 the land to reduce soil erosion and improve water quality and wildlife 
habitat, and the government pays them per acre. Those rental payments 
vary widely, depending on where the land is located.

Payments for Iowa land have the highest average at about $234 per 
acre, according to a recent USDA report. Payments for Nevada land were 
the lowest at about $10 per acre.

Landowners can end those contracts whenever they chose, but they must
 repay the rental payments with interest and face a potential additional
 penalty. The USDA periodically offers early termination without 
repayment or penalty. In 2017, the department offered it to certain 
landowners to encourage land sales to new farmers and ranchers.

“I think it’s a great step in the right direction, but I believe that
 we can do more,” U.S. Sen. John Boozman, R-Arkansas, told Vilsack 
during a Senate agriculture committee meeting Thursday, which was 
convened to address the challenges facing farmers and rural communities.

Boozman said early terminations should be more broadly offered to CRP
 participants to “allow potentially millions of acres to return to food 
production.”

Vilsack said the USDA is seeking to balance short-term and long-term 
global food concerns — especially as they pertain to climate change — 
and that CRP’s emphasis is on less desirable agricultural land.

“We basically have been focusing on highly erodible areas,” Vilsack said, “areas that are not particularly productive.”

Senator calls for supplemental crop insurance&nbsp;

Sen. John Hoeven, R-North Dakota, said the USDA should offer to 
supplement potential crop insurance payments to farmers who are late to 
plant this year.

Corn planting in North Dakota has been severely delayed this year by 
wet weather. Just 20% of the state’s corn had been planted as of Sunday,
 compared to the five-year average of 66%, according to a recent USDA 
report.

Wednesday was the final planting day to get full crop insurance 
coverage for most of the state’s counties. Hoeven worries that some 
farmers might not plant because it’s too financially risky.

“In a time of food inflation, we want as many of them as possible planting a crop,” he said.

Vilsack said he would consider the proposal.

USDA data show that corn planting in at least 11 states is behind the
 five-year average, including most of the top-producing states. Iowa 
leads the country in corn production and, thanks to a stretch of 
favorable weather, <a target="_blank" href="https://iowacapitaldispatch.com/2022/05/23/farmers-planting-crops-are-close-to-caught-up/">was close to catching up</a> with the five-year average on Sunday. Still, there are concerns that early planting delays will affect yield potential.

Minnesota, a major corn producer, had planted 60% of its corn 
compared with the five-year average of 86% as of Sunday. Soybean 
planting was also significantly delayed in that state and in North 
Dakota.

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2022/5/1653658789976.png" alt="Certain landowners are paid by the government to remove their land from agricultural production (Photo courtesy of the Farm Service Agency)." />
 <figcaption>Certain landowners are paid by the government to remove their land from agricultural production (Photo courtesy of the Farm Service Agency).</figcaption>
 </figure>By JARED STRONG <a href="https://iowacapitaldispatch.com/2022/05/26/usda-relaxes-conservation-program-rules-to-boost-crop-production/">Iowa Capital Dispatch</a>Agricultural landowners who are not renewing their agreements this 
year with the federal government to keep their land out of production 
have the ability to put that land back to work earlier, a potential 
boost to wheat and other crop production amid global shortages, the U.S.
 Department of Agriculture announced Thursday.Those who have land enrolled in the Conservation Reserve Program now 
have the option to terminate their contract early if they are in the 
final year of the contract. Under normal circumstances, landowners would
 have to wait until October to put the CRP land back into production or 
would be required to repay the money they’ve received from the program.<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2022/5/1653658875639.jpeg" alt="U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack speaks to the U.S. Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry on May 26, 2022. (Screenshot from U.S. Senate livestream)" />
 <figcaption>U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack speaks to the U.S. Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry on May 26, 2022. (Screenshot from U.S. Senate livestream)</figcaption>
 </figure>“They can now voluntarily terminate without penalty for those acres 
that are coming out of that program,” U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom 
Vilsack told a U.S. Senate committee on Thursday, “so that they’d be in a
 position to do work now on that land, to either prepare it for a crop 
or to potentially think about other crops that can be grown during the 
course of the winter.”He said the equivalent of about 1 million acres of agricultural land 
is leaving the program this year — the difference between the acres that
 are expiring and the newly enrolled acres this year. In March, about 
22.1 million acres were actively enrolled, according to USDA data.President Joe Biden <a target="_blank" href="https://iowacapitaldispatch.com/2022/05/11/biden-pledges-more-support-for-farmers-the-backbone-of-freedom/">has warned</a>
 that people “are going to starve to death” if millions of tons of wheat
 and corn in Ukraine is unable to be exported because of the ongoing 
Russian invasion, which began more than three months ago.Ukraine is a significant producer and exporter of those crops, much 
of which is sold to African nations. Ukrainian officials have accused 
Russian troops of destroying farms and stealing grain and equipment. 
It’s not yet clear how much the war will affect Ukraine’s crop 
production this year.Agriculture groups such as the American Farm Bureau Federation have 
been pining for months for the USDA to release CRP farmland back into 
production without penalty to help boost the global food supply.In letters to CRP landowners this week, the USDA offered early terminations to those who hadn’t renewed their enrollment.Russian President Vladimir “Putin’s unjustified invasion of Ukraine 
has cut off a critical source of wheat, corn, barley, oilseeds and 
cooking oil, and we’ve heard from many producers who want to better 
understand their options to help respond to global food needs,” Zach 
Ducheneaux, administrator of USDA’s Farm Service Agency, said in a press
 release Thursday. “This announcement will help producers make informed 
decisions about land use and conservation options.”CRP contracts typically last for 10 to 15 years. Landowners set aside
 the land to reduce soil erosion and improve water quality and wildlife 
habitat, and the government pays them per acre. Those rental payments 
vary widely, depending on where the land is located.Payments for Iowa land have the highest average at about $234 per 
acre, according to a recent USDA report. Payments for Nevada land were 
the lowest at about $10 per acre.Landowners can end those contracts whenever they chose, but they must
 repay the rental payments with interest and face a potential additional
 penalty. The USDA periodically offers early termination without 
repayment or penalty. In 2017, the department offered it to certain 
landowners to encourage land sales to new farmers and ranchers.“I think it’s a great step in the right direction, but I believe that
 we can do more,” U.S. Sen. John Boozman, R-Arkansas, told Vilsack 
during a Senate agriculture committee meeting Thursday, which was 
convened to address the challenges facing farmers and rural communities.Boozman said early terminations should be more broadly offered to CRP
 participants to “allow potentially millions of acres to return to food 
production.”Vilsack said the USDA is seeking to balance short-term and long-term 
global food concerns — especially as they pertain to climate change — 
and that CRP’s emphasis is on less desirable agricultural land.“We basically have been focusing on highly erodible areas,” Vilsack said, “areas that are not particularly productive.”<h2>Senator calls for supplemental crop insurance&nbsp;</h2>Sen. John Hoeven, R-North Dakota, said the USDA should offer to 
supplement potential crop insurance payments to farmers who are late to 
plant this year.Corn planting in North Dakota has been severely delayed this year by 
wet weather. Just 20% of the state’s corn had been planted as of Sunday,
 compared to the five-year average of 66%, according to a recent USDA 
report.Wednesday was the final planting day to get full crop insurance 
coverage for most of the state’s counties. Hoeven worries that some 
farmers might not plant because it’s too financially risky.“In a time of food inflation, we want as many of them as possible planting a crop,” he said.Vilsack said he would consider the proposal.USDA data show that corn planting in at least 11 states is behind the
 five-year average, including most of the top-producing states. Iowa 
leads the country in corn production and, thanks to a stretch of 
favorable weather, <a target="_blank" href="https://iowacapitaldispatch.com/2022/05/23/farmers-planting-crops-are-close-to-caught-up/">was close to catching up</a> with the five-year average on Sunday. Still, there are concerns that early planting delays will affect yield potential.Minnesota, a major corn producer, had planted 60% of its corn 
compared with the five-year average of 86% as of Sunday. Soybean 
planting was also significantly delayed in that state and in North 
Dakota.

USDA relaxes conservation program rules to boost crop production

Larry “Flash” Samuel Kuhlmann passed away on Saturday, May 28, 2022, at 
Redbud Village in Plainville, KS at the age of 74. He was born on April 
8, 1948, to Clarence Samuel and Geraldine Dorthea (Prosser) Kuhlmann in 
Athol, KS. He married Patricia Garrison on October 30, 1967, in Hill 
City, KS. They were blessed with 4 children: Jack, Lori, Carol, and 
Christa. 
 Flash grew up in Athol and attended schools in Athol, Smith Center, 
and Kensington. After school he worked wherever he could as a tractor 
and auto mechanic; John Deer, Solar Farms, Mid-America International, 
Winchell, and Taylor Fuel Systems.
 Flash loved coon hunting, fishing, mowing his yard, Nascar races, 
working on cars, and “Gunsmoke”; but most of all he loved his family and
 spending time with his grandkids. Flash was a good-hearted man who 
worked hard, enjoyed life and cherished his family and friends. 
Although he will be greatly missed, his love and memories will be with 
us forever.
 Left to survive Flash are his children, Jack (Deidra) Kuhlmann of 
Stockton, KS, Lori Pasilas of Norton, KS, Carol (Randy) Axelson of 
Stockton, KS, and Christa (John) Cleaves of Belleville, IL; brother, Bob
 (June) Kuhlmann of Osborne, KS; sisters-in-law, Sherry Kuhlmann of 
Stockton, KS and Karen Kuhlmann of Osborne, KS; 9 grandchildren: Sydney
 Axelson, Hailey Pasilas, Raeni Pasilas, Liam Pasilas, Trey Kuhlmann, 
Samantha Cleaves, Alissa Cleaves, Chloe Kuhlmann, and Naraya Kuhlmann; 
and 3 great-grandchildren: Parker Pasilas (Grandpa’s best buddy), Kyleah
 and Carter Flash Miller.
 Flash is preceded in death by his parents, Clarence and Geraldine 
Kuhlmann; brothers, Jim, Dennis and infant Jackie Kuhlmann; 
sister-in-law Pam (Jerry) Hudson; niece, Tosha Garrison; and 
great-nephew, Adam Kuhlmann.
 A private family graveside service will be held at the Stockton 
Cemetery. Memorials are suggested to Hays Hospice or Solomon Valley Arc
 Larks and may be sent in care of Plumer-Overlease Funeral Home, 723 N 
1st, Stockton, KS 67669.&nbsp;&nbsp;

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2022/5/1653927975201.png" alt="" />
 <figcaption></figcaption>
 </figure>Larry “Flash” Samuel Kuhlmann passed away on Saturday, May 28, 2022, at 
Redbud Village in Plainville, KS at the age of 74. He was born on April 
8, 1948, to Clarence Samuel and Geraldine Dorthea (Prosser) Kuhlmann in 
Athol, KS. He married Patricia Garrison on October 30, 1967, in Hill 
City, KS. They were blessed with 4 children: Jack, Lori, Carol, and 
Christa. 
 Flash grew up in Athol and attended schools in Athol, Smith Center, 
and Kensington. After school he worked wherever he could as a tractor 
and auto mechanic; John Deer, Solar Farms, Mid-America International, 
Winchell, and Taylor Fuel Systems.
 Flash loved coon hunting, fishing, mowing his yard, Nascar races, 
working on cars, and “Gunsmoke”; but most of all he loved his family and
 spending time with his grandkids. Flash was a good-hearted man who 
worked hard, enjoyed life and cherished his family and friends. 
Although he will be greatly missed, his love and memories will be with 
us forever.
 Left to survive Flash are his children, Jack (Deidra) Kuhlmann of 
Stockton, KS, Lori Pasilas of Norton, KS, Carol (Randy) Axelson of 
Stockton, KS, and Christa (John) Cleaves of Belleville, IL; brother, Bob
 (June) Kuhlmann of Osborne, KS; sisters-in-law, Sherry Kuhlmann of 
Stockton, KS and Karen Kuhlmann of Osborne, KS; 9 grandchildren: Sydney
 Axelson, Hailey Pasilas, Raeni Pasilas, Liam Pasilas, Trey Kuhlmann, 
Samantha Cleaves, Alissa Cleaves, Chloe Kuhlmann, and Naraya Kuhlmann; 
and 3 great-grandchildren: Parker Pasilas (Grandpa’s best buddy), Kyleah
 and Carter Flash Miller.
 Flash is preceded in death by his parents, Clarence and Geraldine 
Kuhlmann; brothers, Jim, Dennis and infant Jackie Kuhlmann; 
sister-in-law Pam (Jerry) Hudson; niece, Tosha Garrison; and 
great-nephew, Adam Kuhlmann.
 A private family graveside service will be held at the Stockton 
Cemetery. Memorials are suggested to Hays Hospice or Solomon Valley Arc
 Larks and may be sent in care of Plumer-Overlease Funeral Home, 723 N 
1st, Stockton, KS 67669.&nbsp;&nbsp;

Larry 'Flash' Samuel Kuhlmann

By NOAH TABORDA <a href="https://kansasreflector.com/2022/05/27/immigrants-face-new-reality-and-old-fears-under-a-kansas-law-banning-sanctuary-cities/">Kansas Reflector</a>

TOPEKA — Alejandro Rangel-Lopez says fear is a given in a mixed-status household.

Growing up in Dodge City with an undocumented parent, Rangel-Lopez 
constantly feared his father coming home with news that immigration 
agents had detained his mother.

And he says fear of deportation kept his mother from reporting an 
abusive ex-husband who fled with their two oldest children to Mexico in 
2001.

“That’s what delayed her justice and cost her the right to see my two
 older siblings grow up,” Rangel-Lopez said. “She couldn’t see them 
until she got her green card this year, 21 years later.”

The fear of law enforcement or other government authorities that many
 immigrants experience is corrosive to a community, said Rangel-Lopez, 
the lead coordinator for New Frontiers Project, a southwest Kansas group
 working to civically empower people of color. And that’s why the 
21-year-old University of Kansas student supports city ordinances like 
the short-lived Safe and Welcoming Act in Wyandotte County that limit or
 prohibit how much city officials can cooperate with federal immigration
 enforcement.

The policy also provided immigrants a municipal identification card 
without fear of information going to U.S. Immigration and Customs 
Enforcement. But a <a target="_blank" href="https://kansasreflector.com/2022/03/30/kansas-senate-quickly-endorses-legislation-banning-sanctuary-cities/">new state law passed with haste</a> earlier this year in response to the Wyandotte County ordinance.

Immigrants are reeling from the law and the far reaching effects it 
could have on their communities, even beyond those with welcoming 
ordinances. With a growing immigrant population, advocates warn of 
economic and criminal fallout from the legislative action.

<a target="_blank" href="http://www.kslegislature.org/li/b2021_22/measures/HB2717/">The law</a>
 prohibits local governments from taking action to prevent law 
enforcement from working with federal immigration authorities. 
Municipality ID cards are invalid when used instead of state 
identification for purposes like voter ID.