Excerpted stories in Crawford County newspaper archives

100 years ago

May 28, 1926

Plans for handling a record breaking enrollment at the summer session of the Teachers College this year are under way, according to President W. A. Brandenburg, who said that at least 3,000 students are expected, with a probability that a hundred or so more will be enroll-ed before the list is checked up and complete. The largest summer school in the history of the institution was held last year, when the total enrollment reached 2,870.

Girard, May 28. - Burglars made a haul of merchandise valued at $3,000 from the John Noor dry store here last night. The loot consisted of 50 street and party dresses and a dozen house dresses, six men's suits and about twenty bolts of georgette, crepe de chine and flat crepe silks. The dresses and the silks stolen constituted some of the highest grade merchandise in the store. The thieves demonstrated a knowledge of quality in women's dresses and silks, as they took only the best in the store.

Before a throng of 3,500 persons commencement exercises were held last night for 172 members of the graduating class of the senior high school in the Shrine Mosque, the largest class ever to be graduated from the institution. The commencement was held in the Mosque to provide seating accommodations for the large number who attended the services. President W. A. Brandenburg of the Teachers College delivered the commencement address, basing his discussion upon the need for higher education to equip the pupil to fit into the complex environment of the present scientific age.

50 years ago

May 28, 1976

The Pittsburg Education Association and the Unified School District 250 Board of Education signed a ratification agreement for terms and conditions of employment for local schoolteachers Thursday afternoon in a special board meeting. The 1976-77 agreement, effective Aug. 23, calls for a $500 increase in the base pay scale over last year's, and contains few other changes. Bill King, 303 W. Lindborg, chief negotiator for the PEA, said the Association was asking for a $8,700 entering negotiations. He said the Board was asking for $8,300 entering negotiations and that the $8,500 mark was reached during the normal process of negotiations.

Plans to increase the number of Crawford County Mental Health Center family and group sessions was discussed by the Center's governing board at their May meeting recently. By increasing the number of family and group sessions, the Center could serve more people at a lower cost per client, while at the same time including "significant others" in the problem-solving process, according to Dr. Ralph Laskey, medical director of the Center. "Emotional stress often stems from problems in interpersonal relationships and therefore, small groups offer an opportunity not only for us to learn about ourselves, but also from others who may be struggling with the same concerns," Laskey said.

Bob Harder, director of the Pittsburg High School bands for the last four years, resigned Thursday to take another teaching position. The Pittsburg school board, meeting in a special board meeting Thursday afternoon, accepted Harder's resignation. The board also approved of a 1976-77 teacher's agreement, approved the employment of a district summer school staff and closed out the Career Education fiscal year. Harder resigned to take a position at Salina South High School as band director.

25 years ago

May 28, 2001

An international student at Pittsburg State University has been identified as the man who died Saturday as the result of a drowning at a local lake. Hesbon Kibitok Tanui, 22, of Pittsburg, was pronounced dead at 7:32 p.m. Saturday, May 26, 2001, in the emergency room of Hospital District No. 1 of Crawford County, Girard, following a drowning accident at Lake Crawford State Park near Farlington. The lake is located nine miles north of Girard. Tanui, was a PSU international student from Nairobi, Kenya.

FORT SCOTT – For 55 years, Professor Ernest J. Hawkins devoted his life to empowering African American students, urging them to live up to his motto, "Look sharp, be sharp, be somebody." To students like Robert Nelson, that motto meant "probably everything." "It meant do the best that you can, be the best that you can be," he explained. Nelson, a retired school teacher who grew up in Fort Scott and attended the segregated schools where Hawkins taught and served as an administrator, will travel to Dodge City when Hawkins is inducted into the Kansas Teachers Hall of Fame June 2.

ТОРЕКА (AP) - For the troopers of Kansas Highway Patrol Troop K, roads are how they get to work - not where they work. They enforce laws in Topeka, but largely on foot and by bicycle. That's because most people know Troop K as the Kansas Capitol Police, celebrating its 25th anniversary this year as an arm of the highway patrol. The Capitol Police has a staff of 74. Its primary responsibility is the protection of state employees, Lt. Brad Trimble, said, and its secondary mission is guarding state property.