Hill-Topics
Will she, or won't she?
With the exception of one of her sons, only she and her family knows for sure if Delores Dalke will run for another term as mayor of Hillsboro. And as for now, none of them are telling.
With the Jan. 23 deadline for filing less than a week away, as of Tuesday, no one had signed up to run for mayor of Hillsboro.
No one has signed up to run for the two slots on Hillsboro City Council, including incumbents Lynn Coryea and Matt Hiebert.
(See page 1 for a complete list of who has signed up for races across the county).
Mayor Dalke, who has been out of town this past week, and this week was scheduled to travel out of town again, had said she would consult her family before running for another term.
She has served as the first lady of Hillsboro for nearly a decade.
"I think last time I filed earlier than this. I think I did, I don't remember," Dalke said. "I'm not sure why I'm fooling around this time."
Asked if that means she's going to run for re-election, the mayor was vague, somewhat like the politicians she hobnobbed with last week in Washington, D.C., as a representative of the national board of Realtors.
"I do need to talk to one of my sons yet," she said. "Other than that, it's all taken care of."
We hope that means Dalke has decided to continue in her role as community leader, and will be filing soon for reelection.
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Good news!
The fifth-ranked Kansas beat Missouri, 80-77 Monday night. And if we were still living in Fort Scott, it would be even better news. The town we used to live in is six miles from the Kansas-Missouri border, so any day the Jayhawks beat the Tigers is a great, great day.
When we lived in Fort Scott, my wife, Claire, who ran track at KU, would don all of her crimson and blue booster apparel, including a pair of dangling Jayhawk earrings, and her letter jacket (yes, it still fits) and wear it to her job as a sixth grade teacher at the middle school.
What made this fun was that a teacher two doors down the hall, born in some back holler of the Ozarks, was a rabid MU fan. On those very rare occasions when MU lucked out and beat KU, she wore everything black and gold she owned, and, since it happened so infrequently, and because MU fans are uncouth by nature, would work doubly hard to rub it in.
On the morning after a big victory like this one, Claire would send a student courier down to the Tiger fan's classroom with a sealed packet of "confidential" information, for her eyes only. The packet would contain the game story clipped from the newspaper, with a yellow sticky note reading, "FYI, did you happen to read this?" Circled in red would be the paragraph reading, "The Tigers have not won in Allen Fieldhouse since Jan. 24, 1999."
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Speaking of hoops, the Trojan Classic Basketball Tournament is in full swing.
I was able to catch Monday night's first-round game between the Hillsboro girls and winless Wamego, which the top-seeded Trojans won by a about a gazillion points or so. The boys played Republic County Tuesday.
In the glossy event program, a welcome letter from Hillsboro High School principal Dale Honeck, reads, "Trojan Classic has certainly proven to be one of the premier high school sporting events in central Kansas
A class act himself, Honeck gives all the credit to the HHS Booster Club, local businesses, volunteers, and school personnel for helping make the event a success.
Honeck, who is filling in as girls' basketball coach this season, has to be proud of his hoop-happy town.
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Usually when you think of a workday lunch at school, you think of cold cuts, potato salad, and iced tea in a yellow Igloo.
At least, that's the way it was in Fort Scott, where the teachers were treated, well, not so good, and appreciated even less.
But at lunch on Monday during their teacher in-service, USD 410's 57 certified educators were treated to a noontime feast for helping students perform exceptionally well on their state assessment exams.
The event was co-sponsored by Ampride of Hillsboro and the board of education.
The elementary children who took the tests have been rewarded for their performance by trips to the movies, and the seniors were recognized with an additional day off on Tuesday.
The luncheon, catered by Panhandler Catering of Hillsboro, included tossed spinach salad, chicken with rosemary, or sirloin roast, stir-fried vegetables, twice-baked potatoes, rolls, iced tea, and coffee, topped off with Oreo cheesecake. Claire raved about it.
But board president Rod Koons thanks the teachers, but not for getting students prepared for standardized tests, which will be forgotten. Koons and superintendent Gordon Mohn thanked the teachers for preparing USD 410 students to be successful in life.
It's great to live in a community where teachers get their just desserts.
— GRANT OVERSTAKE
