The Post Podcast

Hays High students, alumni prepare for 2022 Homecoming celebrations

Hays High is once again getting ready for Homecoming. From Hays HIgh Stuco Rilee Schwarz and Hannah Eikenberry stop by to share the details on this episode of the Post Podcast.

Imagine Ellis County Committee continues strengthening area communities

The Imagine Ellis County Committee continues their work to strengthen area communities, from Grow Hays, Executive Director Doug Williams stops by to share with us the latest on this episode of the Post Podcast.
 
Transcript:
EDITORS NOTE: Transcripts are provided by an automated service and are not verified for accuracy.
 
James Bell 
The Imagine Ellis County Committee continues their work to strengthen area communities, from Grow Hays, Executive Director Doug Williams stops by to share with us the latest on this episode of the Post Podcast.
 
Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams 
You know, I look back, this group was started back in late 2019, if my memory is correct, and it's a group that was started out of a committee, from the strategic doing process that the Hansen foundation sponsors, and we started this group, not having a name at that point in time, but just trying to look at what we need to be doing as a community to make ourselves more attractive and what people want to have and that kind of thing. And so it started then. And it's grown to about 25 or 30 people on this committee. And we were we started and then that little pesky pandemic came along, and kind of stalled us. And if not, for the good work of Sarah Wah singer with the chamber, we probably wouldn't exist today. But she kept things go into the pandemic, and then post pandemic, we gained a lot of momentum, and have have made a lot of progress so far as I look back.
 
James Bell 
Yeah. And we've, as we've talked about this before, one of the biggest things on this, I think, is that communication piece, it's sharing the haze the story with others, and especially I think in with his that first go around, it was kind of geared towards the front range out in Colorado, correct? Well, it
 
Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams 
was, you know, we initially, one of the first things we did is we brought in virtually all of the business leaders in the community, the organization leaders, you know, the school district, the university, large, you know, business community, and we asked them to give five minute presentations on what their plans are and what their what they're hoping to do in the future, as well as what their challenges are. And then we had some townhall meetings and Hayes and Ellis and Victoria. And we have produced six videos, one minute videos, promoting our quality of life here and talking to people from Ellis people from Victoria, people from Hays, different demographics, a retired person, a young person, family that bought a business and moved here a family that chooses to live here with the type of jobs they have, they could live anywhere. So we're trying to cover the gambit. And then yes, we've we've engaged Eagle creative services to help us get this message out because you can have the best message in the world. But if nobody hears it, it doesn't do you any good. And so they are doing some marketing for us on the eastern slope of Colorado, we feel like that's fertile ground, to attract people to our community. And, and we've got a lot of good things going on in that area.
 
James Bell 
Yeah, is are those efforts out in that particular area is still ongoing.
 
Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams 
They are okay, they're ongoing. And we'll be through I think next February or March, we were very fortunate to receive a sizable grant from the Schmidt Foundation, and then a partial match from the Hanson Foundation. And then the Heartland Community Foundation gave us some dollars. And so we were able to engage some of these marketing campaigns do some website development, we have a website, imagine Ellis county.com. and produce these videos that this is this has allowed us to try to get this word out and tell people about what we have to offer here.
 
James Bell 
Very cool. I wonder if you want to talk about what's next. Like what's the organization planning? What do you guys got coming
 
Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams 
up? Well, currently, and many people I hope have received this in the mail, the docking Institute is doing a community survey for us. And they've asked a lot of questions, kind of the things I talked about earlier, you know, what, what about the community? Have you thinks positive? What do you think we have problems with, and we're hoping to get those results back sometime in October. And that will guide us in terms of some of the things we're going to continue to do. But I do imagine Ellis County at this point as a as a recruiting tool for Ellis County, you know, we we have a unique opportunity. And you and I have talked about this before with remote workers and lots and lots of Americans on the move, have the ability to move to other places live where they want to live because of remote work. And we think that we can get our fair share of those if they know about us and if we let them know what kind of community we have. And so we are very actively trying to recruit people. And we plan those, you know, the efforts and eastern slope of Colorado is one area we may focus on some others in the future. But we're gonna let some of this data that we've gotten be our guide and Thus far, we've had some interesting input, most of which we already know, in terms of the challenges, we know that housing is a problem, we know that childcare is a problem. But when you start talking about some of the wants and desires of retail and other activities, it's, it's good to have some validation from the community as to what they'd like to see.
 
James Bell 
I don't know why you have to do a survey, Doug, you just get on Facebook, and they'll tell you, we need an olive garden, we need to target and what's the other one that I hear Dick's will get those things, they're always gonna be happy.
 
Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams 
I think that we solve all our problems. And then, you know, I obviously, retail is always everybody's view of economic development. You know, traditionally, economic development is recruiting the smokestacks, you know, big businesses employ lots of people, that that world has changed. And we're into the world of recruiting people. And we have to go after those remote workers, we have to look at retirees. They're a huge demographic that we believe we have, we check all the boxes. And then I've, I've talked, you and I have also talked about this maintenance, we need to leverage the resources our community has much in the way that southwest Kansas has leveraged their resources, they have water, they've turned that into cattle, grain production, beef, packing, dairy, cheese, the Hilmar cheese going into Dodge City, I mean, all those things come, primarily because they have a natural resource, which is water. We don't have that luxury here. But we have other resources. We've got an interstate highway that 15,000 cars a day go up and down. How do we leverage that we've got a unit amazing university. And you know that how do we leverage that? We've got a tremendous health care facility here. How do we leverage that those are the things we need to be leveraging? Those are the things we're looking at as to how we recruit using those resources in this community.
 
James Bell 
You know, I'm curious, like, how do those imagine Ellis County committee meetings? Go? Are you guys are you talking about those things? Like how do we specifically dialed in? Are you talking more specifics like to make this happen, we need to do this
 
Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams 
little bit of both. Certainly, there's a fair amount of, you know, tactical things that we're talking about, hey, we need to get our website up to date, we need to do this with our website, we need to do this with our ads. But then also, I think we talk about the greater vision and what we're trying to accomplish. And so a little bit of both happened, we meet monthly. And, you know, we've we've had the it's been a while since we've had an actual event, the last town hall meeting we had, I believe, was in Ellis, back in the spring. And we have tabulated those results. And we've got, we've created the bubble charts, where the things it's mentioned, most is bigger, you've got all these words on a chart, and the things it's mentioned most is, is the bigger so you see the emphasis. And, you know, obviously housing, retail, those kinds of things are are on there. But we've compiled those from each meeting, as well as a county compilation. And then we're obviously going forward with this survey. And we're eager to see the results of that. And that'll give us some guidance. And, you know, I think now we're just in the in the mode where we're trying to execute on some of the ideas we've had and some of the projects we're working on.
 
James Bell 
Yeah, you know, you mentioned that that was meeting and I was lucky enough I get to go to that meeting, and also the one in Victoria and the one inherence. And the last one in Hays. I've already seen so especially in Victoria, they have taken really taken some of those ideas that came out of that meeting and they're running with it, they're ready to go. And they've actually already accomplished one of my things
 
Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams 
they have, they are very active over there. They've got a couple of local committees looking at the obviously the old rest home is a project over there. And they're they're trying to work on some retail recruitment over there. And the the nature path through town, they've talked about and things. So that's what it takes. It takes a collaboration of a lot of people getting together for a common cause.
 
James Bell 
Yeah, and really, and really, they came out of that meeting. One of the things they talked about was a farmers market. And Betty Johnson from the hazard Foundation was there kind of facilitate that meeting, say, you can do that, guys, don't wait, just get it done. And I believe that they're making that happen. And I just I love that because it was that idea that collaboration that meeting. And it may be never would have been thought of or never really planned out and discussed how to do it without imagining Ellis County in that that particular event.
 
Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams 
You have to start the fire. And it's my co presenter today. Sandy Jacobs, her favorite word is collaboration. But you see a lot of really positive things come from that. And so Ellis is aware of Victoria is a great example of a group of people getting together and just saying we're going to do this and it's amazing what can happen.
 
James Bell 
You know, I'm curious if you want to talk a little bit about for all this work. I was listening to thinking like, Oh, I'm maybe I've got some ideas, and maybe I could help out. Are there ways at this point for them to have their voice heard? And I was or imagine I was kind of committee?
 
Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams 
Absolutely, we would welcome input from anybody. If somebody wants to be in the committee and be an active member of it, they give us a call, send us an email, text us whatever. We would, we would love to have more input and more feedback from people. We feel we've got a good diverse group that cover most of the bases in the community, but there's always room for additional energy and additional ideas. So if anybody wants to be involved and engaged, definitely let us know.
 
James Bell 
Yeah, I like the idea of those diverse ideas, just because everybody's got such a different life experience. You know, we talk pretty frequently see each other at least once a week, but our life experiences are so different from what I do and what you do every day and your your background in history. We're not going to come up with the same things, I'm
 
Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams 
sure No, that's what it takes. It takes, you know, a lot of different ideas. And some of them might be crazy. I mean, we at grow Hayes, we get people who come in with, with ideas that seem pretty crazy sometimes, but then, you know, you think it through and maybe this makes sense. Maybe this is possible, what would it take? So those are the things we need to be? We need that from people.
 
James Bell  
Cool. So let's talk before we run out of time, the specifics on this luncheon later today. Is that to open to everyone, or was that is that reservation already past.
 
Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams 
Its past, I'm sure it's an RSVP event. And so this one is not going to be available, just anyone. But it's today that the Chamber has a membership luncheon each month, and they choose a topic, and they have somebody come in and make a presentation each month. And today, Sandy and I it's our turn into barrel to, to go out and give a presentation on this Imagine Ellis County because I think people are are wondering, I haven't done the best job in terms of keeping it in the public eye. You know, we have a website, we have these videos, we have a Facebook page, we've done all this. But as you know better than anybody, you have to be consistent with your message, and you have to get it out there repeatedly. And so we recognize that and we're trying to get more of Top of Mind awareness of what we're doing.
 
James Bell 
Sure, you know, and but there's so many things to be concerned about. You turn on the news. And there's always it seems like there's always new bad news, always something, something that's going to come up and wreck our lives. And you got to be concerned about that. But this one that this, this is a local effort that really could have an impact on lives. You know, it's easy, I think, to fall into that trap of watching the national news watching hurricane coverage right now. And the political news is always out there. But to getting involved an organization like this, or following an organization like this can really change things here in Ellis County.
 
Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams 
We can't do a lot about hurricanes. We can't do a thought about national politics, but we can make a difference locally. And so I agree with you completely. That's that's something we all need to focus on and recognize that let's let's focus our time and energy on something that we can have an impact on, and we can all have an impact on this community.
 
James Bell 
Absolutely. Well, before we run out of time, anything else going on down to grow Hayes we want to hit on
 
Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams 
before we just we just had week three of our think like an entrepreneur class this week. And that's going well. And gosh, we the housing, the housing project Tallgrass second out there off of 22nd. I saw the Earthmovers out there yesterday for the next phase supposed to be done by year end. So we're excited about that. That's a team or lots the first phase of 36 lots are all gone. And so some things going on out there some additional housing will be sometime in the spring or summer
 
James Bell 
starting to look like a real housing development. Before it was in the houses looked great, right but it was like a house here house. They're kind of on that hill and now it's starting to really fill in
 
Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams 
Yes, in spite of all the challenges that contractors have right now with material issues, windows, getting basements done and that kind of thing. They're they're progressing nicely

Forward Ever: District 111 Representative Barbara Wasinger

On this episode of Forward Ever: Leading in Challenging Times host Gary Shorman speaks with District 111 Representative Barbara Wasinger. 

KS-111th District election debate set for Oct.12

On this episode of the Post Podcast Hays Chamber president and CEO Sarah Wasinger and Fort Hays State University Tiger Media Network director Nick Schwein discuss the upcoming KS-111th District election debate between Republican incumbent Barbara Wasinger and Democrat challenger Ed Hammond. 

USD 489 Board of Education meeting recap: Sept. 27, 2022

On this episode of the Post Podcast Hays Post reporter Cristian Janney recaps this week's Hays Board of Education meeting with superintendent Ron Wilson. 

Facility improvements underway at Ellis County Health Department

On this episode of the Post Podcast Ellis County Health Department director and public health officer Kim Reel stops by to share details of ongoing renovations.

Hays Arts Council prepares next exhibitions

On this episode of the Post Podcast Hays Arts Council executive director Brenda Meder stops by to share the latest from the council.

FHSU Media Tour shares university story across region

On this episode of the Post Podcast, Fort Hays State University president Tisa Mason and chief communications officer Scott Cason share details of the upcoming FHSU Media Tour.
 
Transcript:
EDITORS NOTE: Transcripts are provided by an automated service and are not verified for accuracy.
 
James Bell 
Fort Hays State University will kick off their media tour next week from the university president Tisa Mason stops by along with chief communications officer Scott Cason to talk about that and more on this episode of the Post Podcast.
 
Tisa Mason 
Last year, when we went out and we talked to people, we realized so much more value was developing working relationships with member of the media, even at the Kansas Board of Regents. Now I see some of the people I talked to last year, I have those relationships. So that is really great. And of course, always sharing information on Fort Hays impact in Kansas and beyond, is one of the great joys. And, you know, it's something we have to work hard on, quite honestly, we have to draw attention to us. And that's not part of our culture, we tend to be more modest. But we've got a lot to be proud of. And it's it's really a privilege to be able to tell that story. And we always we learned a lot last year going out and seeing how media consolidation and how that is impacting communities. And, and the the, it just was incredible to hear stories of what's going on, especially in the smaller rural communities. But even in the urban institutions, the consolidation and what that means and trying to find somebody open to even have a conversation with or going into newspaper and seeing that they're printing the newspapers for a large area because everything's consolidated. So we're always excited about identifying opportunities for also our experts, our faculty that are doing extraordinary work, to assist in news reporting. So when we get to have those relationships, then we connect everyone together. And that makes us better.
 
James Bell 
Yeah, truly. Now, let's talk about some specifics. I think you're kicking this thing off pretty locally right here. Oh, goodness. Oh, less than a week, isn't it?
 
Tisa Mason 
Yes. Yes. And always we start right here in this studio.
 
James Bell 
Oh, is this the first one? This is the first one. Let's call this a warm up. Because as everybody knows, I'm not shy to say that I'm not a professional broadcaster. I just kind of hear doing the radio thing. The case kickoff. Exactly. But we're gonna be in Great Bend, McPherson, Pratt, and then kicking down into Oklahoma. The business Oh, next week.
 
Tisa Mason 
Yeah, that's just Monday. Well, that's just
 
James Bell 
Monday. Yes. Oh, my goodness. You're gonna be dreads a lot of road time. Are you gonna be flying those spots?
 
Tisa Mason 
No, we are driving driving it. Oh, yeah. The real American experience. We're getting in that car and we're driving from community to community.
 
James Bell 
Very cool. Very cool. Man. You're I mean, you're hitting everywhere. You're getting down to the Wichita, Kansas City. You mentioned you're popping up to Nebraska, McCook, Nebraska looks like and then of course, dodge sitting gods in the Garden City. Those are always really fun, aren't they?
 
Tisa Mason 
Yes, we love that. And we love that in Garden City. We have our Higher Education Learning Center there as well, which we've had for decades to help tell the higher education story first and the Fort Hays story second, and really trying to drive people to understand the value of why a higher education post K 12 is really important today.
 
Scott Cason 
And two of those stops, the one in pride and the one in Garden City will highlight our partnerships with the local community colleges there.
 
James Bell 
Go Pratt, I don't know if you guys know this. I was actually I'm a I'm a proud alum. I went to community college there. And before I came to four days, and really they are the ones that steered me this way. I had never been to Hayes before. Well, before enrolling, to be honest.
 
Tisa Mason 
No, for decades, we were among the first to do the articulation agreement. And we have always valued our Community College and our tech partnerships. We've done some really unique things with them. And we think that's really important. So yeah, go Pratt, and shout out to all the rest of the community and tech colleges in Kansas. Love it.
 
James Bell 
So let's talk some specifics about what you're going to be talking about on these media, media tours. You know, I think it's no secret. There's since the pandemic, there's been a lot of changes, we've seen what's going on in Emporia and you know, kind of trying to rebalance these things. And, you know, I wonder if you want to talk about how that's going to be part of those conversations and how this strategic plan is going to be brought up as you guys are out and about.
 
Tisa Mason 
So of course we're aligned with the Kansas Board of Regents strategic plan on building a future and theirs is built on family you know, and affordability which is something that we are the star at and continue to drive forward. Because access is the first thing that you need to go to coloriages is the ability to open that door and we have flown it open for decades, you know businesses and how we create jobs and provide a talent pipeline, particularly since the pandemic hiring employees is an every call conversation in every community. And so how we continue to fuel that and provide an educated talent pipeline is really important. And then economic prosperity. How are we driving? How are we making an economic impact in communities? How are we bringing value with all kinds of outreach centers that we do in communities. And so that's really important, that's tied to our strategic plan as well. Then, of course, we at Fort Hays talk a lot about academic excellence, because that's really important. Our value is not just about our low price point, but it's also about the high quality. And so we're constantly investing and professional opportunity for our faculty, encourage their dialogue with business industry, so that we're keeping all that connected. And then resources and infrastructure, look anywhere across the state of Kansas, and you will find the best buildings and experiences at Fort Hays State University.
 
James Bell 
Absolutely. And you know, what I like about kind of the strategic plan is, is your guys's vision of growth and how to actually accomplish that. And one of the things we've talked about previously in the segment is the the I don't remember the name of the plan, but basically the in state tuition that's offered across seven or eight states. Yeah, the 1313 states Oh, I was under pending. Yep.
 
Tisa Mason 
We call it our 13 state regional tuition, program. And we're really excited. Of course, we don't have final numbers yet, because we're still waiting till the end of the month to get those. But early indicators with our first year out, is sending us really strong success in Colorado and Oklahoma, as first place winners for increasing those students. I've had I've had fun talking to are in states or out of state students from those 13 states last night at a dinner in my house with our VIP students. And we had a couple of students from Texas, like, how did you like that discount on your tuition this year? And they're like, We loved it. We're so excited. Thank you. So that was really fun.
 
James Bell 
That's very cool. And you know, it really I think that helps probably in the community and global engagement piece as well, because you're getting people and folks, students from a larger geographic region, which then I think is going to just feed into the I don't know the stature, maybe a Fort Hays crossed the Midwest.
 
Tisa Mason 
Yeah. And more importantly, we know when since that program is only for on campus students, we know when students come to Fort Hays, and then they do internships and practicums in the community, they're most likely to stay in Kansas. And that feeds the talent pipeline. So it's Win win, it's win for the students. It's win for the university and for our community in our state.
 
James Bell 
Yeah. And there's lots of different ways I think you're going to be talking about on this tour, right about specifically some areas where the impact is very noticeable, like, for example, K through 12. Education, I think we're a huge driver of teachers out and across Kansas and beyond, right?
 
Tisa Mason 
Yes. And really important. I think, over we've had about 200 students in teacher ed, every year, over 85% of them end up teaching in Kansas, and around half of those are in western Kansas, and often in rural areas. And that's something we work hard. And I know our nursing program. Also, if you're going to go to Fort Hays, you're going to do some practicums and some experiences in rural hospitals, because we want you to know that and understand that we really want to incentivize and encourage people to stay in rural Kansas. Yeah,
 
James Bell 
yeah. I love that. And you mentioned at the top of the program here, the difficulty in hiring, and I think that is especially true in these rural school districts where, you know, you've got to pull in people that maybe aren't native to the area and are kind of questioning like, why would I live in this little town over anywhere else that I can live? And I think that's gonna help but to social workers, also a big important part of this, right?
 
Tisa Mason 
Yeah. And they have been one of our strategic enrollment planning fancy word to say, how are we going to grow? And that's where we've put some of our dollars because we know the community needs social workers in many areas. And it's been a huge winner for us. Since its inception in 2015. We have expanded from 100 undergraduates to over 300. The Masters of Social Work, which is brand new to us had inaugural class of 52 students and grew to 85 students in just one year. And now a has a waiting list. Wow. We're really excited about the placements. Just last year and 21. The department placed over 90 students in clinics and other social service areas in 24 Kansas communities with 90% of that, or about 90% of those placements in rural areas. Again, really focusing on serving rural Kansas. We have about a hunt There needs students enrolled in practicum field experiences right now. And we're just really excited with our success and with the growth.
 
James Bell 
Yeah, that's, that's awesome. This is another thing that I keep hearing about that I think is a really probably impacting a lot of people in ways that they don't understand or they don't know maybe don't understand, but don't necessarily see in their day to day lives. And that's the criminal justice program here. And the Regional de escalation Center, which you guys have been a huge part of getting set up. And I believe that's, that's up and running now. Right?
 
Tisa Mason 
It is. And another shout out to Senator Moran, who helped us with some of the funding, we received $2.75 million in federal funding to fuel the center. We're doing all kinds of training both online and in person. We have delivered 20 programs to agencies in Kansas, Nebraska, and Colorado. And right now, law enforcement agencies in Kansas, Nebraska and Florida, are scheduled to start completing online training created by Fort Hays and our fantastic teaching Innovation and Learning Technologies Group that can take learning to a new level online.
 
James Bell 
Yeah, I love that. And then there's one other one we want to talk about. And this is this one is something I love. I think it's so cool. And it's been you know, I think it's becoming more and more prevalent. We saw the story even last year here in Hays, cybersecurity, you got some big achievements out of the Institute and technology department there, right? Yeah, infirm.
 
Tisa Mason 
Informatics is the academic department. And we were so blessed by the legislature with half a million dollars and dedicated funding to create what we're calling the cyber Institute and technology incubator. So we're just ramping up right now. The first thing you're going to see here is the development of some really cool micro internships. So our students can go in sometimes I'm like, virtually, and sometimes in reality, physical body, and they can go into small businesses, small and medium sized businesses can lose their whole business with a cyber attack. So our students can go in and do web security evaluation, security vulnerability reports, clean up data for businesses, these smaller businesses don't have the resources that the large industries do. And so that's really important for us to make sure that we are supporting the grocers and other businesses, and the small area. So software testing and compliance of reports, this is going to be a great opportunity for our students to get hands on learning and training. And work on those soft skills as well. As well as support the small and medium sized businesses will be also then kicking off in years two and three incubators specifically to grow more businesses that can help small businesses and medium sized businesses with these issues in partnership with our outstanding Small Business Development Center throughout the state. So it's going to have I think, deep ramifications. And I'm so grateful for our faculty and informatics, who are leading this charge.
 
James Bell 
Yeah, love that. All of these things, I think, you know, they're going to be really continuing to impact the folks out here in western Kansas and beyond. And I'm, I bet it really is just so exciting to go out and share more of these details with those, especially those young folks, as they're considering, like, what am I doing with my future? Where can I go and cybersecurity I think is in particular one of those areas that there's just unlimited potential out there in the field.
 
Tisa Mason 
Yeah, we're actually having some exploratory conversations on we do a lot of Gen Ed, concurrent credit in high school so that they can take college bearing credit courses while they're in high school and informatics. We'd like to get a little bit into working with some of the high schools and partnerships so that the students can start getting college bearing credit in this in this information computer science area.
 
James Bell 
Very cool. Get head start in the future. Yeah, love it. When the other last thoughts before we go,
 
Tisa Mason 
I just want to say it's such a joy to be in this community. Our freshmen and our students have returned on campus today are high energy, they're loving haze, they're loving the campus. And I want to thank everybody who's coming out to our volleyball games, our basketball basketball is started but soccer and football and thank you everyone for being part of our community as we are a part of yours.

Go Truck Go set for Thursday

On this episode of the Post Podcast USD 489's Early Childhood Connections child development specialist Michelle Dannels shares information about the Go Truck Go event.

Planning underway for annual Chamber award banquet

Planning is underway for the Hays Chamber's next awards banquet vice president of membership. Rhonda Meyerhoff and Vice President of Marketing and Communications Mariah Legleiter stop by to share all the details on this episode of the Post Podcast.
Transcript:
EDITORS NOTE: Transcripts are provided by an automated service and are not verified for accuracy.
 
James Bell 
Planning is underway for the Hays Chamber's next awards banquet vice president of membership. Rhonda Meyerhoff and Vice President of Marketing and Communications, Mariah Legleiter stopp by to share all the details on this episode of the Post Podcast.
 
Rhonda Meyerhoff, vice president of membership 
we decided we would really give one to give more time to our our businesses that do the engraving on the award. So they didn't have last minute, we wanted to be able to give enough time to the committee that that picks from all the nominations to place them. And so we decided it was just be better to, to put that out in October instead of November. So it Yeah, yeah. It'll be in the in the October newsletter, if somebody wants that sooner. Absolutely.
 
James Bell 
Okay. Well, let's talk some details like any Well, first off, I know we've gone to all the awards that we've done, and you've got this really cool list, right handed it to me as we got started, I don't know who I'm showing this to I'm showing it to the world out the window, I guess. But it's all the previous award winners, going back to the original award winners that looks like on some of these way back into the 80s, which is so cool. But anything new or different in that regard. Coming up on this one?
 
Rhonda Meyerhoff, vice president of membership 
Well, the awards are the same as they were last year that we did start a couple of new awards last year. And that would have been the Grow Hayes proper e Schmidt Entrepreneur of the Year award. So Doug Williams at grow Hayes and Gary Sherman, with the Robert E. And Pat Schmidt Foundation, decided to come up with this one. So, you know, we've got a lot of really amazing entrepreneurs in our community, truly, you know, and in sometimes seminars, I suppose I did was start a new business will have a digital, is that a franchise? Did you form it after somebody else know that what that's an entrepreneur, and we have a lot of those in town just really good. And so they decided that they wanted to recognize someone who was an entrepreneur. And so yeah, somebody who's demonstrated, you know, that ability to create and, and grow their business over the last year. And, you know, and then there's always efforts that go in to make it a better value for our community. And we have some amazing things that happen in our community. And it's so fun to be able to recognize those. And then Mariah, we added another one typically,
 
Mariah Legleiter 
we added the worst Wealth Management member investor of the Year award. We really wanted to well worth wells wanted to partner with us and come up with an award that really showcased one of our member investors that that adds a lot to the community. And that gives back to our chamber. I think I think it was a great idea. It went over really, really well. We were happy to have Hays med win that last year. I'm looking forward to the nominees for this year.
 
Rhonda Meyerhoff, vice president of membership 
Absolutely. Absolutely. You know, and it's not all about financial giving. James, you know, we have a board of directors that's volunteer ambassadors are volunteers, and they're pulled out of their workplace all throughout the day. I mean, we try not to have more than three events that they're pulled out.
 
James Bell 
Just imagine they're trying to work and your call would like no time to go. See him so much out in the community. Yeah, great. Yeah. And yeah, and it does, it takes more than just their effort, it's their employers to that allows them to do that.
 
Rhonda Meyerhoff, vice president of membership 
Well, and their co workers sure picking up the slack while they're gone. You know, and we try to be really respectful of that. But you know, without those volunteers, and our H yp is a great group. They have some things during the day, usually at noon, or after hours. But you know, all of those things are really helping the chamber in immense ways. And then obviously financial, we appreciate that as well. But there's a lot that goes into that member of the Year award.
 
James Bell 
Yeah, like that. Let's start getting some more of these. Are you a winner? No, maybe we will just go through it before we talk about the submission process and how that all
 
Rhonda Meyerhoff, vice president of membership 
works. Oh, okay. Yeah,
 
Mariah Legleiter 
so we have the city of Hays Small Business Achievement Award. The I smile Vision Plus dental Helping Hands award, the golden belt bank Hall of Fame Award. The grow Hayes, Robert E. Schmidt, Entrepreneur of the Year Award, the next Tech Citizen of the Year Award, the next Tech wireless Business Woman of the Year Award, five broadband Rising Star Award and of course, the worst well worth Wealth Management member investor of the Year award.
 
James Bell 
So really kind of covers the gamut Yes. To me, yes. In the business world. Yeah.
 
Rhonda Meyerhoff, vice president of membership 
Yeah, those new rising individuals that are showing a lot of promise for the future of our community. You know, gosh, those small businesses,
 
Mariah Legleiter 
the seasoned people that have been giving to the community for years, we have the Hall of Fame Award like, yeah, there's a little bit for everybody. I mean, anybody that that gives back, I mean, there's a way to give back to them.
 
Rhonda Meyerhoff, vice president of membership 
And I'll tell you, the really fun part is now being on this side when you know, yes, who's the winner? And
 
Mariah Legleiter 
conspiring to get them there?
 
Rhonda Meyerhoff, vice president of membership 
Yeah, because we don't want them to know. Sure. Oh, yeah. There's some fibs that are told in order to get somebody there. We just think it's all one off, off, okay. Because it's, it's for the award winner to get them there. But, and then we had their family hide in a room in the back. So they don't see their family there. Because that would give something away.
 
Mariah Legleiter 
It's a it's an elaborate setup.
 
James Bell 
The real reason why you had to push it back, you guys didn't do more time to get get
 
Mariah Legleiter 
that actually, yeah, that actually was a discussion we had was to figure out how to get them there. We need just a little bit more time to figure that out. So
 
Rhonda Meyerhoff, vice president of membership 
although we know the more people that know what's going on, then, you know, yeah, the cat can be led out of the bag. Our families are always so excited to I, I remember last year GT Park, her husband was back in the waiting room and, and waiting for it to be her turn. And she was so amazed when she went up to win her award. She just couldn't believe first of all, that she was worthy of winning the award, which is so humbling to me. And then she sees she goes, Oh my gosh, and my husband's here, too. It's just it's so off the cuff. It's so fun. And it's Yeah. And the people are so honored by it. So yeah. Love it.
 
James Bell 
Well, let's talk about how to get to get these people honored. How do you get as people signed up? Or do you sign up yourself? Well, you could because I could make I could sign myself up right now. put my name down here.
 
Rhonda Meyerhoff, vice president of membership 
You can you could James
 
James Bell 
actually wrote my name down like, like,
 
Rhonda Meyerhoff, vice president of membership 
yeah, there's more than just writing the name on a piece of paper. Sorry, you're gonna have to get another one. Okay. Yeah, we actually have the forms that Mariah has created for us. Live, as I mentioned earlier, there'll be in the October newsletter.
 
James Bell 
So old school, handwritten form?
 
Mariah Legleiter 
Yes. Okay. It'll be on our website starting October 1. And it will also like she said, it'll be in our October newsletter, which is also available on our website. And which is Hayes chamber.com. For those that don't know. And it has just a short description of each award. And then at the bottom, you fill out name, address, like contact information for the person you're nominating what award you're nominating them for. And then you just write a short paragraph on why you think they deserved the award. And then that all goes to our nomination committee, and then they take it from there.
 
James Bell 
Very cool. Easy peasy. Yeah,
 
Rhonda Meyerhoff, vice president of membership 
you don't change that might be part of what you've never won, because it's a short paragraph. And people would write pages about you.
 
James Bell 
I'm sure they would. And this guy got let me tell you about this guy. All day long.
 
Rhonda Meyerhoff, vice president of membership 
So if individuals can't find it, for some reason, please call our chamber 705 or 78562. Ad 201. I almost gave her my personal number. Anyway, or you could call me there too. And I would still get the for sure. You betcha. So um, yeah, they can call us and we'll give them the the form that way as well.
 
James Bell 
Very cool. And what's the deadline? Again, if they want to get him signed up? November 30.
 
Mariah Legleiter 
October,
 
Rhonda Meyerhoff, vice president of membership 
October 30. Yeah. October 31. November 30. was last year. Yep.
 
Mariah Legleiter 
So October 31. is the deadline for nominations.
 
James Bell 
Okay, so get about six weeks. Yep. Don't wait, but get it in. Yep. Put together a little time
 
Rhonda Meyerhoff, vice president of membership 
habit. But for now, you can be thinking of those Absolutely. Like, yeah, our past award winners on the website, right. Yeah,
 
Mariah Legleiter 
no, but I think we discussed that at one point. So that might be something we can talk about.
 
Rhonda Meyerhoff, vice president of membership 
Yeah. We're in the middle of trying to do some different updates to the website. So very cool. In between events and Facebook Lives. Benson. Yeah.
 
James Bell 
I understand. It's hard to get to those projects. You want to do it. It's always like, Oh, I'll do it tomorrow. I'll do it tomorrow. And then it just never gets.
 
Mariah Legleiter 
tomorrow never comes. Yeah, exactly. Exactly.
 
Rhonda Meyerhoff, vice president of membership 
I don't think there's anything more fun than to have a member come into the office, or the opportunity for us to go out and celebrate and showcase a member. Yeah, that's that's the The ultimate joy that we have.
 
James Bell 
Absolutely. And I imagine like yeah, if you have to choose between going to the celebration or setting and working on a website, I know what I would pick website all day long. No.
 
Rhonda Meyerhoff, vice president of membership  
They don't want me on the website.
 
James Bell 
Strictly Mariah.
 
Rhonda Meyerhoff, vice president of membership 
Yeah, yeah, that's good. Very cool.
 
James Bell 
Well, before we run out of time, guys, we better talk about I know you've got some weekly events coming. Yeah,
 
Mariah Legleiter 
we do as always, super busy week ahead of us. Today at noon at the venue at thirsties brew pub and grill at 2704 Vine Street we have the H yp connection lunch. Also today at 330 at the Welcome Center, we will have our monthly chamber board meeting. Um, let's see we also have a groundbreaking at the Ark Park for the leadership Hays class of 2020. One's storytime project that they're working on. And that's at 11am at the Ark Park. And then on the 22nd we have a ribbon cutting for the western Kansas Therapy Associates. They are wanting to they have updated their business name and want to celebrate that so that'll be at 11am 208 East Eighth Street Suite D in the James building. September 22. There's also an H yp lunch with leaders with Lavon geese of DSN Wk M that will be at noon at Paisley pear at 1100 Main Street and then we will wrap up our week with our chamber chat. Oh, we don't have a chamber chat. Do we
 
James Bell 
know no chamber channels faded.
 
Rhonda Meyerhoff, vice president of membership 
Yes. That just happened. Yes.
 
James Bell 
News. No chamber chat this week. It has been or stay smooth. Stay tuned.
 
Mariah Legleiter 
For more information.
 
Rhonda Meyerhoff, vice president of membership 
Yeah, because I think we were trying to build that with one we are in so watch your email from it.
 
Mariah Legleiter 
Yep. And social media will hop it out there.

NW Kan. Sheriff’s explain constitutional amendment that would ensure the continued election of Sheriff’s

On this episode of the Post Podcast, Ellis County Sheriff Scott Braun and Graham County Sheriff Cole Presley explain the proposed Kansas constitutional amendment that would ensure the continued election of sheriffs across the state.

Mix 103.3’s Friday Night Finds: Sept. 16, 2022

The latest Friday Night Finds from Mix 103.3 FM.
Play the song at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-UnzRM24IM

Thomas More Prep-Marian readies for Homecoming festivities

On this episode of the Post Podcast Thomas More Prep-Marian Alumni Director Wanda Billinger shares details of this year's Homecoming festivities.
 
Transcript:
EDITORS NOTE: Transcripts are provided by an automated service and are not verified for accuracy.
 
James Bell 
Thomas More Prep-Marian has another homecoming celebration on the way. Alumni Director Wanda Billinger stops by to share the details on this episode of the Post Podcast.
 
Wanda Billinger 
Homecoming is my Christmas. I love just seeing all the people coming back graduates and their families that just the camaraderie, but everybody's doing what's going on. It's just fun. No, absolutely.
 
James Bell 
You guys have I'm just a I'm sure a regular slew of events for this weekend right
 
Wanda Billinger 
we do we do. To start off our our bonfire is Thursday night at eight. They'll introduce the homecoming candidates and all of that kind of stuff. The SticO pick the theme of SOR s o ar and that stands for strength, ownership, acceptance and respect. For homecoming candidates are landing Rosina and Julian Juliana bio Ballman. Landon is the son of Travis and Jill worth class of 96, Rosina and Juliana is the daughter of Justin and Michelle Baldwin. Michael Hale and Jenna Schleyer. Michael is the son of Steven and the late Amy Hale and Jana is the daughter of Mike and Michelle 97. hurtle Slayer. Cade Harrison's Sophia Alan Kay is the son of j and Chris Harris. Sophie is the daughter of math class of 2001 and Lindsay is in the class of 2003 Steinert Ellen Jensen, brule and Janessa Peiffer Jensen is the son of Jeff class of 94 and Julie classic 96 Mater Brule. And Janessa is the daughter of Jay in the late Bobby Peiffer Garrett photo and the Aaron Shelby Garrett is the son of Brian class of 90 and Amy and Aaron is the daughter of Eric. Okay. Garrett is the son of Brian class of 90 and Amy photo. And Aaron is the daughter of Eric class of 92 and Kelly class of 1992. Photoshop Adobe. Those two are first cousins. And then this year we have picked Jean and Teresa flax are our grand marshals. Everybody knows them both. Jean was our football coach and idea TMP and he's now think He's the assistant principal at Holy Family.
 
James Bell 
And then he was he was on with us. And then
 
Wanda Billinger 
Theresa F Flex is a former teacher at Holy Family. So two very, very, very good people. They help us out with so many things. So I told you about the bonfire and then Friday we have open house at school and we'll do school tours. We'll be selling our TMP apparel also. So if anybody needs any clothing for the night, they can come out to school and buy it. Four o'clock is the parade lineup. 530 is the parade begins seven o'clock is the football game versus Scott city. And we're thrilled to know as of right now, yay. Sounds weird saying that. was played really hard. And then nine o'clock we have our individual class reunions. I won't go through all the world class reunions are big, takes too long. But if they want to call out to TMP at the Alumni Office, we'll be able to give those to that's also on our website. And I don't know what TMP website.
 
James Bell 
I tell people nowadays, if you just Google's tip. Yeah,
 
Wanda Billinger 
all you have to do. It's very easy. I can even do that part. We have those all listed. And this Your Honor classes 50, your class of 72, the 40 year class of 82. And the 25 year class of 97. My babies in that class. Oh yeah. It's 25 years. She's in her 25 year class for you and my son just turned 50 this year. So I'm feeling pretty old right now. We're doing we will we will announce our point of light awards this week, which I can't tell you that right now. But our other awards that we're going to be doing at halftime are the Distinguished Alumni Award. And this year's winner is dawn and Deb Klaus Dawn is the class of 69. And we're going to do the 21 year cause Gerald 78 and Rosie hemorrhage event. They got the distinguished alumni award last year they were unable to attend they had planned to do something in Colorado and they were doing our jack shrimp Spirit Award. And those awards are Keith words Shelton rents and Terry roath. They built my trailer that I pull my clothing around football games and stuff. And Randy 74 and Nadine 74 Gottschalk so that's what I got for homecoming. Very cool. So we have a lot of, you know, come out to school, we'll, we'll take him around and show him you know, the new all the new things going on. We're going to be they're starting gonna start a renovation of the third floor for the sixth graders that are be coming over here in this next school year. So a lot of things happening at school, all positive things so we're just working away hoping everybody comes back this weekend. Seems we have a lot of entries in the prayer pray it's gonna be long allow countries
 
James Bell 
I You know, I like laundry.
 
Wanda Billinger 
I do. It's crazy.
 
James Bell 
I was I was talking to somebody just the other day, when I lived down in Oklahoma. I interviewed in a small town outside of the metro. And he'd grown up in the metro. And he he said something to me. He's like, when I moved here as a young man, it was very exciting to me to learn that parades are a real thing. Like when you grow up in a big city, and then probably even some smaller communities, too, but, you know, I think it's very special. We have the ability to do this parades, and they're so in haze, they're so well attended. And everybody gets so excited.
 
Wanda Billinger 
You come down seventh, you turn the corner on 17th Street, and you look down and you're going, Oh, my God. I mean, it's just from there to the pool, to the swimming pool at the other end. I mean, it's crazy. But you know, these communities around here, like your basketball games in your football games for like, Ellis Victoria here. Everybody goes, there's nobody in town. You know, everybody's at the football games or the basketball games. I mean, it's entertainment, but you support everybody and it's just fun. Absolutely. It's fun when you play somebody that's close, like wrestler, you know, all those places, because we're so well attended on both sides. And it looks, it's great. The atmosphere was fun. Absolutely. Then our second thing I want to talk to you about is our military appreciation. This Following that is the following Friday night after homecoming.
 
James Bell 
Okay, so this is the The weekend looks like September 29 and 30th.
 
Wanda Billinger 
Right, right. We will have a dinner in the dining hall at 630. Anybody who was in the military, who attended TMP or anybody that has gone are the cadets rather SGMA cadets, and anybody who is a TMP grad who's in the military, you're welcome to come, we will have a supper. And they will hand out the the vets hand out the jerseys to the football players. It's really it's just, it kind of gets to the heartstrings. I'm emotional about stuff like that. So I really love that part of it. And then Fridays, the game and then we bring everybody in the military in their divisions, like if it was Navy, Army, Marines, all those we lined them up together and they marched out onto the field. And then we do a little program type thing. And it's just honoring them. Who wouldn't be for our military, we wouldn't be here. Absolutely. Pretty much. Pretty simple and whatever. But we really appreciate all that they do. And being rsj ma cadets being our school for so long as a military school just brings a little special that escapes us, I think.
 
James Bell 
Absolutely. Yeah. And I love that you can honor the history of that. The Military Academy, you know, alongside the current kind of mission. We
 
Wanda Billinger 
had a crack platoon back in the day who marched in Denver. I think also in Kansas City. They won national awards. Oh, wow. It was really special. That very cool.
 
James Bell 
Well wonder anything else that we want to hit on before we go?
 
Wanda Billinger 
Well, ice will be coming around the corner. I'll be starting to bug you. A couple of months I'll be out begging again. So the thing I seek to do best. Other than that, just thank everybody for their support. Come out. Have a good time. Haven't join us on our everyone's

Cottonwood Extension District welcomes newest agent

On this episode of the Post Podcast Cottonwood Extension District agent Monique Koerner stops by to share updates from the district.
Transcript:
EDITORS NOTE: Transcripts are provided by an automated service and are not verified for accuracy.
 
James Bell 
The Cottonwood Extension district has a new family and community wellness agent Monique Koerner stops by to tell us a little bit about herself and share some updates from the district on this episode of the Post Podcast.
 
Monique Koerner 
I'm actually from Hays. I grew up here in Hays and I graduated from his high in Fort Hays State University. And I also have a Master's in Public Health Administration from so yeah, I'm a hometown girl.
 
James Bell 
 I like to hear that. You know, it Hayes is one of those special places. I think that folks that grow up here, like to eat a lot of leave, and then come back. Yeah, but stick around. And then also people like myself that discover Hayes, you know, college years, kind of stick around as well. It's just a special place.
 
Monique Koerner 
I did leave for a little while I lived in Wyoming for about 10 or 11 years, and then moved back here in 2010, and have been here ever since. Before I worked for extension, I was with early childhood connections, I was the early headstart home visitor. And then I'm also a little late to league leader. I've been doing that for over 20 years. And I'm also an international board certified lactation consultant. And I sat for the exam in 2011. And I've been doing that ever since as well. Very cool.
 
James Bell 
So you're probably already pretty well known in the community.
 
Monique Koerner 
I hope so. A little bit anyway.
 
James Bell 
That's awesome. And I'm sure that's gonna fit in well, with the family community wellness position here at the cottonwood district. Um, you know, and we want to maybe also talk about this because I think it's a good opportunity to talk about what this position is, and kind of like what your role is going to be as you're moving in and kind of you've been there now, what, a little over a month.
 
Monique Koerner 
Yeah, I started at the end of July. So yeah, I'm still kind of learning as well. So I'm just trying to get out in the community and talk to people and kind of see what the needs are in those areas. As far as health and wellness, I am still trying to figure out some of my programming, but we'll definitely hit walk Kansas hard come spring, I'm excited for that I always participated on the other side of it. So now I get to, to kind of help spearhead that in our community. So I'm excited about that. I'm also doing a lot of training right now, as a new agent, I have a new agent class that I have to do. And then I'll get trained in some other programming as well. One of those things that we want to do is stay strong, stay healthy, which is just an extra exercise class for older adults just to help them stay strong and keep their balance and just, you know, if we stay strong and healthy and keep moving as we get older, that will just help prevent some of those things, falls and things like that, as we age. So pretty cool.
 
James Bell 
You know, I'm curious, Monique, how much of this programming, do you get to determine or is it kind of just programmatic and you who you follow and to help spread the word?
 
Monique Koerner 
Yeah, some of it, our signature programs that that K State provides. But really, it's it's up to me and then serving the community. So, you know, there's certain interests that I have that I can bring to this position. And I can tie those into some of those signature programs that que state has, but really my job is to bring to the community what our community needs. So and that can look very different, you know, with Hayes versus even Russell or lacrosse. The cottonwood district is Hayes and are Ellis County and Barton County. And so sometimes that can even look different between the counties and the districts. So
 
James Bell 
I'm sure Yeah, I mean, he's, it's not exactly a metropolitan area, but it's a little bit more. I don't know what little less rural, I think you might say, then Barton County, I'm from down around that area. And the a lot of farm ground, a lot of really small towns down that way. Of course, great bends pretty good size, but still not nearly as big as Hayes.
 
Monique Koerner 
Yeah, I think Hays Hayes has some unique qualities about it. And so we're definitely going to try to gear the programming to what the community needs. Very cool.
 
James Bell 
Very cool. And one of the things I think that kind of is coming up here pretty quickly that we want to talk about is the family pizza night. What is this?
 
Monique Koerner 
Yes, so family pizza night just kind of promotes the, the eating together as a family. Research has shown that that's really important for kids, just to have them have a sense of belonging and helps prevent some risky behaviors. So that's part of my job as family and community wellness agent is to help families be as strong as they can. And so there's actually a lot of benefits for kids to get in the kitchen and help help prepare meals. They can learn math skills, they can learn how to to follow directions they can, you know, just those social skills of being with their parents, sometimes you can get them to have a little more buy in with what they're eating if they take part in preparing it. So sometimes that can help with picky eaters. So lots of important benefits. So yeah, we're Papa Murphy's has donated some pizza crust, we got donations from the Kiwanis Club. And so parents can come down and learn about the benefits of eating together as a family, we'll have a handwashing activity. And then in the back room, parents can put together whatever kind of pizza they want. And then they can take it home and bake it and eat it with their kids.
 
James Bell 
Very cool. Very cool. How do people get to sign up for that? Or is it all just come and go?
 
Monique Koerner 
Now we need you to RSVP just so we have enough pizzas for everybody. So just call the office and Teresa will take your RSVP and then if you could stop by and pay for the pizzas, they are $3 each so pretty economical meal and just pay for that. Hopefully sometime this this week would be great. If we get all those in we've we've got a few more pizzas left, we've got a lot of people signed up.
 
James Bell 
Very cool. Like to hear that. It's gonna be I'm sure a good time. When is that again?
 
Monique Koerner 
It's Monday, September 26. From 415 to 6:15pm. Okay,
 
James Bell 
very cool. Very cool. And we also want to talk about this coming up, go truck go, this is coming back. This is a really neat event I was telling you before we got on air, my little ones especially love this event.
 
Monique Koerner 
Oh yeah, my kids always love the event, especially the little boys just getting on the big equipment and seeing the fire tracks and the ambulances and all that it's a great learning experience. And yeah, I'll have a table out there and be offering some information of things, some some things that you can do with your little ones, and also some nutrition information. And then we'll also have a story walk up. I picked that up yesterday. And so we'll have the story walk out there for the little excavator. Very cool.
 
James Bell 
You know, I know we've talked about this in the past with some of the folks down there at the district, but maybe want to remind everybody what the story walks look like.
 
Monique Koerner 
Yeah, so I've done a couple of story walks so far, in the short time I've been with the district, but it really just promotes literacy with the little ones. So we just take a book and we break it up and put it on like little signs like, like the for sale signs out in front of your house. And we just line them up and parents can walk along and read this story with their kids.
 
James Bell 
Love that. My kid that's another thing my kid loves. And you know, I like it because he's he's very energetic. He's little my little guys a boy. And he loves to run around very much a physical kind of learner. But he can get he will, you know, get so excited. And we'll hop between one set of the pages and then he'll skip the next set. And that sort of brings in and incorporates that physical activity, but then also gets that benefit of reading which he could be about.
 
Monique Koerner 
Sometimes it's a challenge to get the little ones to sit and listen. And so sometimes we think we, you know, we have to sit and we have to read a book from beginning to end. And it really doesn't have to be that way. Like you said we all learn in different ways. And so this incorporates that physical activity. Sometimes people need to move to help them learn. And so that's can be a great way to get kids interested in in books and reading

School year well underway at Hays High

Students at Hays High have hit the ground running for the academic year principal Shawn Henderson stops by to give us an update on this episode of the Post Podcast.
Transcript:
EDITORS NOTE: Transcripts are provided by an automated service and are not verified for accuracy.
 
James Bell 
Students at Hays High have hit the ground running for the academic year principal Shawn Henderson stops by to give us an update on this episode of the Post Podcast.
 
Shawn Henderson 
we have several new teachers that have joined us this year. And it's always exciting to see the energy that they bring in. Also to watch our people that are already part of our team, welcome them in and make them feel like they are part of this great thing that is Hayes Hi.
 
James Bell 
Love that, you know, it's it's gonna bring in a new energy and new kind of feeling when you have instructors in the beginning of the year and like new ideas and the collaboration and all that probably just to me seems like it would be I don't know, like a fun way to kind of kick off the year and move on into 2020 to 23. academic school year.
 
Shawn Henderson 
Absolutely. And here's the thing. I mean, as an educator, there's nothing more exciting than the beginning of the year, right? I mean, get your new backpack, pick out a first day outfit, and come in and all those connections that are made, you know, our theme this year was engaged. And it was fun to watch that happen to watch our people engage with the students. And vice versa. We even had Open House on Monday evening and to get to have all of our clubs and sponsors out and to have parents come in and see our school. It's It's really neat.
 
James Bell 
Yeah. And some exciting stuff going on in the district just in general. But we talked a little bit or we want to talk a little bit about this enrollment up as well. And you've got that new school coming here in the next few years is probably going to be like, Oh, my gosh, I want in there now. Right?
 
Shawn Henderson 
Yeah, I think patience is going to be is going to be a real thing. But I'll tell you what, we have a great design team construction team, the district we continue to meet and talk about what this vision for the future looks like. So it's kind of fun, because we already we have feet on both, you know, on both ground here we are in the current school with the current people and we are doing all that we can. But we're also getting to plan for this new exciting thing that is on the horizon. And just knowing what impact that will make on not only our school, but the whole community is is really exciting.
 
James Bell 
Yeah, with this increase in enrollment, is it? Are you guys like add capacity, or you still got a little room for them to get around? Okay,
 
Shawn Henderson 
we definitely can feel the students, the the the extra people that we had last year, you know, we're up over 950 now. And we ended the year at about 888 last year. So we definitely have more students. And we have some teachers sharing some spaces as well. And obviously, but at the same time, it creates some new collaboration. You mentioned it earlier, and some of our new people are in those collaborative spots. And so it's been, it's been fun watching that happen. And actually, as we plan for the new high school, that collaboration and teacher spaces and how people work together to impact student learning. That's really where we're headed. So we're just we're getting there already. So
 
James Bell 
love that. So what kind of stuff you guys you know, and I know, you gotta get into the academics of it all, but what kind of stuff goes on in the first part of the year to kind of ease into the rest of it.
 
Shawn Henderson 
There's not much easing at the high school. That's okay, though. That's the energy that we like. And you know, it's so fun to walk down the halls and see the students dressed up. You know, today we have, you know, soccer and we've got tennis that's in town, we have the volleyball team that's on the road, we have cross country that's on the road this morning. So we've already got hundreds of kids that are out, you know, doing their thing just today, and that's a random day in the fall. Doesn't feel like fall, by the way, one day, we might get some fall weather, right. Yeah, I mean, that's, you know, and then Friday Night Lights tomorrow, highlighting, you know, it's never just about football, it's all of the things, it's the community. It's the brand new band uniforms, which we debuted last week, which was really cool. And the cheerleaders and the dancers and I mean, it's, it's everyone, and there's just nothing like it. Actually, we love that Friday Night Lights. So yeah, we just have a lot of activities up and running. And we've had a lot of success with our groups. And it's, it's fun to watch them thrive. And so that's really exciting.
 
James Bell 
Very cool. Very cool. Anything on the academic side this year, that's kind of harder than usual, or is it just businesses? Businesses normal there?
 
Shawn Henderson 
Yeah, it's businesses is normal. But you know, one of the things that we're really proud of right now is our CTE and pathways. pathways in the state of Kansas is a conversation about how do you get students out and into internships and turning their, their, their academics from school into future opportunities are both at the post secondary and, you know, training level and, and so we have a lot of those partnerships and we're, you know, growing those partnerships all the time. But you know, like right now we have 97 students that that are leaving our building that are in an internship. So when you see someone walking, a high school student like this morning, said, Good morning to one that was wearing scrubs walking in, because there's going to come a point in the day to day that they're headed over to the hospital. That's really, really neat for our students, and it's something that we want to build upon all the time. I'm,
 
James Bell 
yeah, I like that, you know, and one of the things not not at all to get political here, but one of the things that came out of the student loan proposal out of President Biden's office is the well, how did we get in this mess, and we need to fix that. And you know, over the last few years, what I've seen, especially locally here is there has been an effort to not to dismiss or discount college education, but to right track those students and get them in the career fields that they want to be in and not necessarily skip college, if that's the way they want to go. But get them into a program or an internship or some sort of post secondary or post high school training that gets them where they need to be, without incurring a whole lot of debt and wasting a lot of time and things like that.
 
Shawn Henderson 
Right. And I think, but the impetus for that has to start with what's best for this kid, what's their story? Where are they headed? And how do we get them where we're going for some of those students, it's absolutely college. And they should do that. For some of our students, they have a lot of skills and a skill set that communities need. And it could be in all kinds of things. And that's why, you know, within CK tech and Fort Hays and our other other partners, we are looking at the student and their story, and how we can support them in that. And then, as the community realizes, you know, we have these partnerships, we hope to expand that so that our students have those opportunities to say, this is what I think I want to do. But when they go out and have those experiences, they're like, yes, it's really what I want, or no, it's not. And then they can be very intentional with their parents as to what training they need. And I feel like even in the new high school, and we're looking at the plans and talking, those CTE programs, those are those are going to be prevalent, they are going to be seen, and kids are going to watch what other students are doing. And CTE is for everyone. And that's really that's, that's something that that we're proud of, and that we just continue to bolster in our school.
 
James Bell 
Yeah, love that. And I would imagine, too, it probably helps in the effort to keep some of the students out here in western Kansas, whether it be haze or whatever, it down, you're listening to us. And there's that brain drain that we hear about all the time and those folks going elsewhere. And I think if we can train them to do the jobs that we need hear, we're more likely to retain them.
 
Shawn Henderson 
Yeah. And some of it is just letting them know what the jobs are. Now, we often hear well, we're training kids for jobs that are not that don't exist yet. That's 100% True. But I think some of that is being a responsive community to say, we do have young people that have all of these skills and this opportunity, how do we create it to where they feel welcome to insert themselves into what we have. And I think that's, again, a partnership between the school the community, the institutions that support us, and, and we're having those conversations, and it's fun. I mean, especially if you start to talk about it in terms of the scope of a new building, and how the new building can assist that. Then it's, you know, and I'm a creative person. So, to me, those are fun conversations.
 
James Bell 
Absolutely. Well, we've got just about a minute or so left, and we got to talk about this homecoming right around the corner, right?
 
Shawn Henderson 
Yep. It is coming up soon. It'll be October 3 through the seventh, you know, we have two new StuCo sponsors, Luke Lundmark. And Alan Neill. And they've just done a great job. I mean, I think we have literally I think we have 193 students on on the docket force StuCo. That's how many students are involved. And so I feel like that student engagement and that level of school pride is really up in the morale is up. And so I just imagined this homecoming to be really great.

FHSU Neuromuscular center helps keep community moving

The Fort Hays State University Neuromuscular Wellness Center has a new person in charge. Luke Kriley stops by to tell us about himself and a little bit about the Center on this episode of the Post Podcast.
Transcript:
EDITORS NOTE: Transcripts are provided by an automated service and are not verified for accuracy.
 
James Bell 
at the Fort Hays State University neuro muscular Wellness Center has a new person in charge Luke Kriley stops by to tell us about himself and a little bit about the Center on this episode of the Post Podcast.
 
 
my new assistant professor Fort Hays State University within the HHB with his health and human performance. I'm a physical therapist by trade, I switched over to academia just this year. But I wanted to talk about some of the service based programs we have on campus, what we're in charge of is the neuromuscular Wellness Center. So essentially, what that is, is just think of it like a gym or miniature PT clinic, it's there to provide an accessible resource for community members who have neuromuscular diseases, if they want to work on physical fitness, functional mobility, quality of life, or just to stay active will serve those populations. A lot of the times when you have a specific disease that's kind of chronic in nature, and does not improve over time, just based on how the disease progresses, pathology wise, you know, you can only do so much physical therapy for someone's gonna have to pay for it, not just insurance. So if you get to a point where you meet your cap, you need to look for a place we're a good place to do that. What's nice is we're staffed by two full time faculty myself and then Macy Klaus, we both bring clinical experience, she's is experienced in cardiac rehabilitation and pulmonary rehab, I come a physical therapy background. And then we also have a lot of students, I get involved with the program as well.
 
James Bell 
Love that, you know, I had the opportunity over the years to do some stories with physical therapists. And it's such an interesting kind of field. It's, it's, I think most people think of it as just an extension of like a massage or a yoga class class. But really, it's it's more in depth than that, right?
 
 
Yes, yes, absolutely. So, you know, within the world of physical therapy, most people come to physical therapy for pain. But one of the things pain does is it causes dysfunction, whether it's emotionally, physically, however you want. So those are the things we try to address. You know, if you come to us and say, Hey, I can't get swing my tennis racquet anymore, because my elbow hurts. What do I need to do we find a plan, we give you some interventions, some exercise stretches to help you figure that out. But there is massage involved. But there's a lot of other things as well. People just like to massage the best.
 
James Bell 
Imagine that. So you said this is this is open to the community how to get involved? Or how do they take advantage of those services?
 
 
Yeah, so they can just get a hold of us anywhere at Fort Hays State University and they get a hold of me, I can give you my email or I don't have a phone number on me from my office. I don't know that quite yet. It just started. So
 
James Bell 
fair enough. You know, and I've been here three years, I can't tell you my office line either sorry. But you're listening. Yeah, I just use my cell phone.
 
 
So it is $45 a month, you pay as a membership. And then you can come Monday through Friday, every single day, if you'd like to, we can give you different hours, we try to leave it open up for general hours in the morning. Because it's no longer staffed by full time position. That's faculty running it. The hours have changed a little bit, but we tried to be as flexible as possible.
 
James Bell 
Okay, so is there you mentioned insurances? Is this covered at all by insurance? Are you guys strictly Okay, cash kind of service provider,
 
 
this is strictly cash service provider, we do not bill insurance. Now the neat thing is now, you know, say you do want someone to provide you with a little bit more guidance, supervision, because you're a big fall risk, you have these certain things going on, and you want someone maybe more than a personal trainer or a fitness expert, when you being a physical therapist, I can guide you through that stuff, give you the exercises you need, maybe do some hands on strategies. And the nice part is we don't have to bill insurance, so we're not restricted or limited by anything.
 
James Bell 
Okay. And then I wonder if you want to talk a little bit about the role the students play in this? Because I mean, I it's obviously it's on campus, it's probably an academic kind of training exercise for them. But how does that all work together? Yeah, so
 
 
we use it a lot for professional development. And a lot of kids are going pre professional programs. So this gives them an experience to be hands on and actually see some people in the clinic with real disease real diagnosis, and then get to work with clinicians like Macy. And I,
 
James Bell 
you know, historically, do the students always kind of have that track where they were seeing those hands on or is that relatively new kind of part of the field? It has
 
 
been going on for quite a while, I think they've had this for five or six years, somewhere along those lines, I'm not 100% Sure. But with myself being in the clinic, now we have a more clinical approach, I believe, we can start doing some more stuff to get them a little bit more specific into different tracks professionally that you want to take.
 
James Bell 
Okay, you know, I'm just curious, what does a training track look like? Is that a standard four year program? Or is it kind of like a doctor program where they have the post secondary, and they have to do specialized training and all that to get certified or or
 
 
sure what I'm talking about physical therapy. So if you go pre professional PT at Fort Hays, you're gonna get your four year bachelor's degree, you'll have some specific prereqs you have to take and then after that, you'll go to a post professional or postgraduate school, which is going to be three years and you'll end up with a doctorate of physical therapy. So it's four years of bachelors, you apply to whatever program going to get into and then it's three years of additional graduate work.
 
James Bell 
Okay, so yeah, that's like a doctor, as long as the training and lots of education I love that because that's who you know. You think talk about these things. And it seems like Google Now, everything is accessible, you can look it up, you can learn, you know, learn those exercises, but having that specialized training and having that people direct to you, probably when you're talking about physio, specialty, physical health, is a much better way to go. And having to have that training probably is invaluable to the, in the in the field,
 
 
right? Absolutely. And the nice part is they learn to work with patients and console them. So, you know, in the medical field, No, you go to see the doctor, you're gonna see the doctor for four and a half, five minutes, when you come see a physical therapist or with a clinician, you're gonna see them for 45 minutes to an hour. So there's a lot of personal one on one relationships, they start to figure out how to talk to different generations, you know, there's many years difference between most people they're going to work with, so trying to learn how to communicate, relate to them, not be offensive, and kind of find things they're interested in is a really nice aspect. They, they learned to develop their soft skills very well.
 
James Bell 
Yeah. And you know, we're hearing more and more about that how important those are in almost every academic pursuit, but especially out in the workforce, having those abilities in those skills kind of translates to everything we do. Absolutely, you know, with this program as well, I wonder if you want to talk a little bit about some of the well, I don't know what what the right word would be. But some of the maybe the specifics, like what does the physical therapy look like? Or is it just so different for everybody that it doesn't take any sort of standard track?
 
 
Yeah. So you know, in general, we're going to be working on making sure people aren't high fall risk. So if you come in and say you have difficulty walking, we call that gait training. You know, if you're in a wheelchair, and you want to be able to get up and transfer move around a little bit, those are things we can work on. A lot of it is technique based, making sure you do it safely and appropriately and efficiently based on whatever you have going on. You know, the students like to work on the gait training, because it's interesting for them to see how different people walk to learn those different techniques. And the whole goal is to keep you more independent. So you're not having to go live in a nursing home or do something along those lines. We I mean, it's different for everyone, a lot of it's gonna involve the gait training, cardiovascular training, strength training, there's different balance technique techniques. We don't do a lot of hands on manual there. That's kind of not the point. But no, if that needs to be done, we can do a little bit of that too.
 
James Bell 
Okay. Well, we get just about we've gotten under a minute left. I wonder if you want to share any last thoughts or anything else before we go?
 
No, I just say if you're interested, please try to get a hold of us. You know, I did not bring my contact information. So I'll get that to you, James. But you know, anyone that's really thinking about, Hey, I just want to get active, get involved, but I've got certain things going on where I really want to be supervised. We'd be a great place a great fit for you

HPD Chief shares back-to-school safety tips

On this episode of the Post Podcast, Hays Cheif of Police Don Schiebler shares back-to-school safety tips.
 
Transcript:
EDITORS NOTE: Transcripts are provided by an automated service and are not verified for accuracy.
 
James Bell 
As students ease into the school year, it's time to be a little bit extra cautious. Hays Police Department Chief Don Scheibler stops by to share some tips to stay safe and out of trouble. On this episode of the Post Podcast.
 
 
you can definitely tell what's changed with the pulse of the community. For K State being back in session, Technical College, Academy Hair Design, all these students are back in town really makes the town enjoyable. That increase in traffic and school being session really gotta be very cautious with our driving, especially in those school zones, we have to remind people that a school is going to you got to slow down to 20 Going by the school districts, school areas, find that those fines are doubled. We just issued a $200 ticket yesterday for 17 miles over the school zone out 30 miles over the speed limit is just too fast, because kids out there on bicycles walking. So that's just a reminder on that day to slow down and make sure they buckle up and drive safe. But we were like having buddy back in town, it definitely creates more excitement for us.
 
James Bell 
Absolutely. You know, I always like about the college. There's always that learning period for those new kids. And the one ways and I was there 20 years ago, and I'm sure I made it the wrong way more than once. But I've seen a few. Those poor kids, they always look so shocked when you're like No, no, no, you're going the wrong way. But I'm glad to hear that there's been real no major incidents or accidents least yet right?
 
 
No, no major incident, like you said that first month for us is Roya educational period, we try and educate people, a lot of communities a lot of I came from a town of 500 people what side of the street you parked on right didn't matter in Bennington, Kansas. But when they come here, we have to make sure they're parking the right way, going the right way on a one way streets and driving the speed limit wearing the seat belts. But again, just a little things. And at first, that first month truly is an educational period of trying to get people in line. So we have seen a bit of an increase. We haven't seen this in the past. We used to see a lot of house parties. But in recent years, we haven't seen house parties. But we're starting to see house parties with 150 200 people and I think COVID has eventually over to pandemics eventually over people were out socializing again. But we're seeing a lot of underage drinking. So we want to remind everybody yet to be 21 Make sure that everybody's aware that in the city haze, there's the public possession ordinance, even if you're 21, you can't be on a public street or public sidewalk with an open container. And we really encourage those people having house parties. So a couple of different things that we can do. They can number one, they can register their party with the Hayes Police Department, through the Student Government Association for the State University. That gives us a contact person gives them a party pack on some things to not to do during the party and how to be successful. But most importantly for us, it gives us a contact number for somebody to reach out to. And if we get a phone call saying hey, the party is too loud, can you do something about that? Well, supervisor would do we'll call that person up tape, we got to complain about your party, we need you to quiet it down. Most of time that works. And the police department have to go to the party then. So that's worked out very well for us. But if they don't, we have to go there and a person can be issued a citation for a loud noise disturbance. We're also having some morning NAFTA issues. A lot of times we have this big party and the next day you have this huge mess in the front yard. Going by and knocking on the door telling people we have to get that cleaned up. And for the most part, they're cooperative for that too. They're, they're good kids, they're just having a good time. And we just have to remind them that they're their neighbors. Now you have to be a good neighbor. So it's a it's a learning experience, and we appreciate them being here.
 
James Bell 
Very cool. I like to hear that, you know, it will be so easy, I think for for any police department to take that adversarial role, but I like that you're kind of taking that we're a community partner, do the right things and we won't bother you just you know, stay safe and be careful and let us know what's going on.
 
 
And absolutely and those students are so important to our to our community. And we do see them as community partners we do see them as as part of our community. More importantly for us parents from across the state from across the country from around the world and send us their most protecting the most prized possession their children. And our goal is to keep them safe while they're going to school here and getting their education. And I start when we take that responsible very served seriously so we really have to make sure that we're being educational but holding them keeping them safe at the same time. So it works out pretty well for us. So
 
James Bell 
very good. Well any other last thoughts or anything else you want hit on before we
 
 
go? No, I really don't. And then the fact that this reminder again, there's a lot more increase in traffic. Make sure that you slow down through those school zones. Let's buckle up. Stop the stop sign is because be extra careful. Forex people say it's successful

Upcoming craft fair supports cancer non-profit

On this episode of the Post Podcast Your Voice Through Cancer event coordinator Amanda Long and Kate Armstrong, along with president and co-founder Judy Stegman discuss their upcoming craft fair.

Upcoming craft fair supports cancer non-profit

On this episode of the Post Podcast, Your Voice Through Cancer event coordinators Kate Armstrong and Amanda Long, along with co-founder and president Judy Stegman share details of the upcoming craft fair.

Hays Chamber continues work to serve area businesses

On this episode of the Post Podcast, Hays Chamber president and CEO Sarah Wasinger discusses how the Chamber works to serve area businesses.
Transcript:
EDITORS NOTE: Transcripts are provided by an automated service and are not verified for accuracy.
 
James Bell 
The Hays Chamber continues to be a champion for area businesses, President and CEO Sarah Wasinger stops by to share some of the details of benefits of membership on this episode of the Post Podcast.
 
Sarah Wasinger 
Very often we talk about the different activities or events that we have going on. There's always a ton of those, there's always a ton of those Exactly. But kind of getting back to the meat and potatoes of what we as a chamber do to support our businesses and nonprofit organizations. Because I know we talk a lot about, it's not just businesses that can benefit but our nonprofits to have a lot to gain from being a vested member in our chamber. So one of the big things, obviously, that we've been talking about this last year has been the chamber blue of Kansas Association health plan. And so our Chamber members that are at the connector level or higher, actually have the ability to access that plan. A little bit later, we'll talk about one of our newer chamber member levels for childcare providers, they actually can access that plan too. So that's kind of kind of be a new benefit that we're going to be able to give to our childcare providers that might be listening. Oh, very cool. Yes. One of the other things that we talked about so much her businesses is workforce, and that job attraction is just really challenging and competitive right now. And so a back end, the end of June this year, we actually added the ability for businesses that are Chamber members to post their weekend job positions on our chambers website. So they can actually log into their account, copy and paste, whatever job posting, they already have available. It's not really recreating the wheel, if they're advertising that job in other places, why not do it on the Chamber's website, too. And we know that there's a lot of folks when they're considering moving to Hayes and Ellis County, that their first stop is actually our chamber website. And so if we had those jobs available on the website, that might be a good place for people to have additional visibility.
 
James Bell 
Yeah, and I would think anybody right now looking for help, probably any little bit of assistance they can get is much appreciated.
 
Sarah Wasinger 
Absolutely. And you can be as thorough with those job postings as you want to be or as minimal. You know, if you want to get your benefits package and things of that nature in there, you can also select a date range for when you want that job to be open. And then if for any reason, you get very lucky and you find that perfect person sooner than later, we can manually take down the job listing. So it's not being advertised past. It's needed a timeline. Very cool, very cool. One of the things that we also talk about on a regular basis is our hot deals. And so this is something the end of the year that we're always reminding our members, you know, make sure you use up those benefits that are a part of your membership package before you lose them by the end of the year. And so hot deals are a way for businesses to upload different savings or maybe tickets for an event that they're trying to sell. Or maybe just a new product or service that they're trying to get off the ground and running, all those different types of things. Maybe you're a nonprofit, and you're just looking to have board members, and you want that extra place to advertise that you're seeking board members, it doesn't necessarily have to be something that you're selling, it could just be another advertising tool, essentially, that you're already paying for within your membership. And if you look at his chamber.com, and then you look at the top right hand side of the page, there's going to be a hot deals logo. And so you literally just click on that, and you'll be able to access all of the hot deals that we currently have for our members.
 
James Bell 
Very cool. I like going in there and I was clicking while you were talking. I didn't get there fast enough to see what you have out there. Because I always like to go and see because there's always some really cool stuff going on there. And oh, yeah, I don't want to I don't want to spoil it. But I wish it's mentioned this the like, pays Public Library wine and cheese fundraiser. We were just talking about this a little bit earlier. Yes, that's on there.
 
Sarah Wasinger 
Absolutely. So it's like I said, it's a great way to just kind of talk about events, sell tickets, and things of that nature. Another thing that we'd love to do, and we talked a little bit about this a few weeks ago was our Community Guide. And so that is a piece that we utilize as a Chamber of Commerce to really market Hayes. We worked very closely with our Hayes Convention and Visitor's Bureau to put that piece together every year, we only feature Chamber members. That's a very big important thing for folks to remember. Because we'll actually have some people call and say, Hey, we want to be in the Cirrus Community Guide. Well, let's talk membership. First, we want to feature as many businesses as possible. But really at the end of the day, we are funded by our membership dues and non dues revenue. So that is why we solely focus on, you know, connecting our Chamber members to our community.
 
James Bell 
Yeah, absolutely. I'm sure you would do it for free, if you could, but that's just not realistic.
 
Sarah Wasinger 
It's not realistic. That's right. So we we in general love and want to support the entire business community. But at the end of the day, you have to take care of the hand that feeds you. And so that's kind of how we reserve that right for that.
 
James Bell 
Absolutely. And, you know, speaking of that, yeah, I think a lot of times those Chamber members, they can kind of help each other out but just because of the commute already kind of sense of it all.
 
Sarah Wasinger 
Yes, that's one thing that we actually talked about at the office that we've really been seeing a lot of lately, James is, you know, when we have members that are hosting a chamber chat or ribbon cutting, we are finding out that they're utilizing other Chamber members, when they're, you know, scheduling people to help, you know, have their food and beverages ready for their events and things like that. And we love that. It's really just a cross support of those who are, you know, there to invest their time with one another. So, speaking of events, that's obviously another huge benefit for our members, is our chamber will come in into whether it'd be a chamber chat, or ribbon cutting a groundbreaking for a new project, perhaps you are just needing to, you know, talk about an anniversary that you're celebrating and things of that nature, we want to come in and celebrate those big, special events with you as a chamber. Obviously, our group of ambassadors is a group of 50 men and women who it's their job to come to those events, and to learn about the products and services, or just in general more about what that business has to offer our community. And then they become the word of mouth advertising arm as well as our staff. And because they've gone to that event, they've learned about what your business can do. And they'll start being that referral system for you in the community. And there's nothing more powerful than that. And really, at the end of the day, some of our events and just getting more intimate with our members, by understanding everything that they have to offer, that's one of the largest benefits of membership is because we've now connected you to the rest of the business community that kind of is buying into and believing in the fact that we are stronger when we work together.
 
James Bell 
Absolutely. You know, we talk about all day tech, get social media and all that kind of stuff interjecting into our lives. But a lot of times that old school, just kind of classic networking, that the big shaken palms, and having the face to face time really is what matters to
 
Sarah Wasinger 
folks, really, it is so important. And, you know, I still think that we value the old way of doing things here in Ellis County. And like you said, just breaking bread with people, you know, spending intentional time with folks. There's nothing better than that. And quite frankly, it's probably the most rewarding part of our jobs is because we get to then celebrate the successes of our members and what's going on in our community.
 
James Bell 
Very cool. To me, like going on in the community, you guys are always I see out and about, or almost every meeting, there's somebody there, it's usually you. But yeah, like sitting meetings, county meetings, you guys are also dialed in to all of those kinds of happenings as well.
 
Sarah Wasinger 
Absolutely. So from an advocacy standpoint, you know, we talked about the things that happen in the background that maybe aren't quite as visible. And so us attending those meetings just really makes sure that we as an organization are plugged into the different projects and things going on. And so you know, for our members that do construction or things like that, you know, that gives us the option to say, Hey, have you seen the project that's going on here? Do you know that there's a bid going on over on this side of things. So again, just making sure that our government entities, they do a really good job, I believe, for the most part in choosing local contractors and things like that, to so long as they're available to do the work. I know that they were very cognizant about keeping our money local. So we very much appreciate and value that as well.
 
James Bell 
Very cool. You know, there are some, also some tangible, I think financial benefits to being a chamber member, especially when you talk about some of the events that you guys do down there.
 
Sarah Wasinger 
Yes, so we do offer discounts to several of our members for some of our kind of professional development programming. Um, so obviously, we partner very well with our Fort Hays State University Management Development Center. And so you can get a 15% discount by doing the programs through them. And there are a few throughout the year that that does not apply to you. But in general, you can get a discount, or bulk mail stamp for people who still want to do a traditional mail service for advertising or marketing. And sometimes that can be enough to pay for the membership itself. And if you're just even doing one mailing
 
James Bell 
mailing gets ridiculously expensive, if you're a business owner out there, and you've never had to bike mail, things like the bill just it just you just watch it rack up, it's ding ding, ding, ding, ding. Oh, my goodness, one, how much am I spending on shipping out things?
 
Sarah Wasinger 
Come see us. Dale Carnegie's another one of those great, you know, partnerships that we have our members receive a 15% discount for that. And then even Eagle meds flight service for if you need to be airlifted. You know, if the end for seeable should happen. You know, that's a good discount that you can access to so just a lot of different things that you can take advantage of. And we have discounts on the Community Guide, you know, that we were talking about, depending on the different level of membership that you have to
 
James Bell 
Yeah, very cool. Very cool. Well, we got just a few minutes left and I want to hear more about this thing we talked about we stopped if I can get it out. The thing we started this segment with Yes. I want to hear more. You wanna hear more? I want to hear more about the gosh, now I've drawn a blank on the name of it is hoping you'd have it The membership packet. Yes, yes, the membership.
 
Sarah Wasinger 
So the membership packet can currently be found on the Hayes chamber website. And you'll see it broken down into two different ways. We have a packet that describes and outlines our current levels for 2022. And then we also have a packet for 2023. So if you're maybe planning on membership for next year, but don't really know where to start, I would just encourage folks to go look at that membership packet there, the childcare level of membership is what you will see that's new. And then we have that community level that are new. And we really wanted to do a benefit that was good for our providers. And so we want to elevate how they're seen across the community, and really bring them into the business community as well. So that's kind of why our board has approved a special level for them. And that gives them unique benefits. And then our community level, should you not be a business per se, but you're just out there and you want to support what the chamber has going on. There's a level there for you too. And that gets you communication from the form of our weekly news blasts, as well as hard newsletter, and just in general, any text notifications or things that go out for events and stuff like that. So it's a great way to stay involved and still support the things we have going on.
 
James Bell 
Very cool. Very cool. And you mentioned the events, we got to talk about this. You've got a good number of them going on again this week, right? We do
 
Sarah Wasinger  
so our hy IPS will have an opportunity to learn about how to do grocery planning, reducing waste and saving money at their x y p event today. And that'll be at 4:30pm at the Hayes Public Library. And Natalie Clemmer on one of our committee chairs is going to be hosting that. And then we also have today, or excuse me Thursday, I think I had a typo there. We're going to be celebrating a another groundbreaking at the Ark Park with the Wonder Woman link. They have a new security project that they're going to be unveiling that day. So very excited. Please come out for that. It's a wonderful park. And this project is going to make sure that it's accessible for folks for years to come. Love that.
 
James Bell 
Yeah, well, if you haven't, if you just haven't been down there yet, go by and check it out. Even if you don't, you know, get out and get into the splashpad. It's really cool just to see the work they did down there.
 
Sarah Wasinger 
It's an amazing opportunity to enjoy our community that much more, that's for sure. And then Thursday as well. We have our H yp Third Thursday social that will be held at the Paisley pear, wine bar bistro and market that starts at 515. And then we finished the week off Friday with our chamber chat with DSN Wk is custom creations. And then at noon, we'll have our ambassador lunch at the Rose Garden banquet home catering on Friday. Very cool,
 
James Bell 
very cool. I love the DSW case custom creations. I've been in there a few times. And I'm always so excited to see the products but then I want to spend more money than I actually should. Well, I
 
Sarah Wasinger 
think the thing that's unique about them is every piece is original, it celebrates a good cause and it gives a different population the chance to hone in on some of their skills that they've got tapped away. So what's better? It's just lets us see something different every time