BREAKING NEWS
UPDATED AFTER PRINT DEADLINE
A 16-year-old Hillsboro boy who disappeared from friends three hours earlier while driving a red-and-white all-terrain vehicle was found dead at 11:25 p.m. Saturday a quarter mile east of the south end of Marion County Lake’s dam.
The parents of Seth Michael Mader had reported their son missing only two minutes earlier. They found him lying face down in a pool of blood, tangled in a pile of rocks in a ravine, according to monitored transmissions.
Three people are dead and one other hospitalized after a two-vehicle accident at 1:28 p.m. Friday at the US-56 and K-256 junction northwest of Marion.
Wanda L. Richmond, 85, Marion, died when a westbound 2016 Ford Taurus in which she a passenger broadsided a 2003 Dodge Grand Caravan that had pulled in front of the Taurus on US-56 from a stop sign on K-256.
Does (D) after a politician’s name stand for Democrat? Or could it mean Disney?
The Disney Party, if there were one, might lay claim to garnering as many votes as Democrats in county balloting earlier this month.
Criminal charges of endangering a child and aggravated endangering a child filed against separate defendants were plea-bargained away this month by Marion County Attorney Joel Ensey.
In one case, an aggravated endangerment charge was reduced to simple endangerment, which reduced the charge from a felony to a misdemeanor.
County commissioners spent two hours Monday listening to a sales pitch from a municipal consultant who helps find administrators.
Ironically, the consultant told them that having shorter meetings was a key reason in having an administrator.
Centre canceled school Monday and Tuesday with hope that sick students and staff would return in good health after Thanksgiving break.
Those who aren’t sick likely are thankful for another two days off school. People who are sick probably aren’t feeling so thankful right now.
A lot of experiments occur in Tom Perry’s classroom at Peabody-Burns Middle and High School.
One of his classes is an experiment itself.
At their monthly meeting Sunday, Marion city council member Ruth Herbel implored members of Patriots for Liberty of Marion County to vote Dec. 20 against a charter ordinance that would allow sale of general bonds without citizens’ approval.
A charter ordinance the council passed in July would allow the city to issue general obligation bonds without a sign-off from residents or a financial limit. A petition circulated in Marion has forced a vote about the ordinance.
The owner of a Hillsboro building that last housed Quick Flick Video and Radio Shack will have to repair its roof or the city will take action.
The roof of the two-story building at 101 S. Main St. has leaked so badly and so long that water has damaged the ground level of the building. Since September, building inspector Ben Steketee has made reports to city council members about the building.
Families and Communities Together Inc. and It Takes a Village Early Childhood Collaborative will offer “conscious discipline” classes for parents of children from birth to 5 years.
Pre-registration for “Growing Family Connections” is required by Dec. 4.
Centre superintendent Larry Geist sought board members’ input last week on how to use $200,000 remaining in a federal COVID grant. The money has to be spent by December 2024 on items approved by the state and federal government.
Geist said $20,000 already had been spent to employ an elementary school aide.
At some point, the county attorney’s office will move into a courthouse annex building that formerly housed Marion County Extension, but when that will happen is uncertain.
Work to improve office security will be done first.
Services for Dwayne Claassen, 79, who died Nov. 16 at Wesley Medical Center in Wichita, were Monday at Hillsboro Mennonite Brethren Church. Burial was in Ebenfeld Cemetery, rural Hillsboro.
He was born Aug. 22, 1943, and adopted by Herbert and Anna Claassen in Hillsboro. He graduated from Ebenfeld School. He later graduated from Hillsboro High School, and Tabor College.
Services for Dorothy J. Fredrickson, 78, who died Thursday at St. Luke Hospital in Marion, were Monday at Marion County Lake Hall.
Born April 27, 1944, in Herington to Albert and Lydia (Strauss) Will, she married John Fredrickson on Dec. 31, 1964, in Herington.
IN MEMORIAM:
Lee Kaiser
Marion’s downtown will mark the start of the Christmas season Saturday with its fourth annual Holly Jolly Christmas.
A downtown Elf on the Shelf hunt will be sponsored by CB Baked Goods. The hunt will begin at the bakery. Kids will have until Dec. 2 to return their lists of where they found elves and win prizes.
Hillsboro’s annual Down Home Christmas is planned for 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Dec. 3, and Peabody’s annual Come Home for Christmas will be 4 to 7 p.m. the same day.
Hillsboro’s event will feature food and drinks from downtown merchants, including a chili lunch, plus music, vendors, museum events, carriage rides, Mrs. Claus reading stories, a visit from the Grinch, and crafts at the library.
Marion City Library’s Christmas home tour is just around the decked-out corner.
Tickets for the tour, 1 to 5 p.m. Dec. 4, are $5 and are for sale only at the library, including the day of the event.
Psssst. Pass it on: If a Goessel fourth-grader named Lydia invites you over on Thanksgiving, don’t eat the turkey.
Lydia penned a pretty interesting entry in our call for how to cook a turkey, which she rellabeled how not to cook a turkey.
It might take a bit of dreaming, begat of turkey-borne tryptophan, to come up with things to be thankful for this Thanksgiving. We might even find ourselves being thankful more for what hasn’t happened than for what has.
A nauseating array of coughing and sneezing canceled classes this week at Centre. There’s no thankfulness there except among those who got extra vacation. Still, concern about our permanently present pandemic seems to be petering. And that, at least, is one thing to be thankful for.
ANOTHER DAY IN THE COUNTRY:
Lessons from Aunt Bea
LETTER TO EDITOR:
Prairie View
A waste not, want not mindset fueled the founding — and success — of Hillsboro Et Cetera Shop.
Kaethe Warkentin grew up with famine and political unrest in present-day Ukraine. In 1943, she fled her homeland for Paraguay, where she met her husband, John, in a Mennonite colony. He was from Hillsboro. They moved here in 1949.
Dan Peterson of Burdick has sold his Heartland Travel bus tour business to fellow Burdick resident Lynley Remy and her son, Tye Remy.
“I’m so happy they can carry on the business Linda and I started 20 years ago,” he said. “They will do a great job.” Peterson’s wife, Linda, died in September 2020.
MEMORIES:
15,
30,
45,
60,
75,
105,
135 years ago