By Kate Irelan On the Northeast corner of Main and 14th in Hutchinson, Absolutely Flowers started 20 years ago with two florists: Mitzy Alexander and Karen Maness, a building to renovate and a dream of bringing something new and different and beautiful to Hutchinson. They will
Graphic courtesy of NaCl Comic Cons A new Halloween tradition begins Sat. with the inaugural Boo! Comic Con. The first Boo! Comic Con kicks off at 11 a.m. on Sat. in the Cottonwood Court building on the Kansas State Fairgrounds. The Halloween-themed event is family-friendly, and activities are
CAPTION: Melissa Swaim teaching geometry to her students at Hutchinson High School in October, 2024. Swaim is the math department chair and a math teacher at Hutch High. CREDIT USD 308
By Emmie Boese
Hutchinson Public Schools announced their Kansas Teacher of the Year candidates this month. The district is allowed to nominate a secondary and elementary teacher candidate. This year’s candidates are Melissa Swaim and Tara Urban.
According to a press release from USD 308, The Kansas Teacher of the Year program’s purpose is to recognize exceptional teachers across the state. Candidates then participate in a thorough selection process. Swaim and Urban both said their passion for teaching comes from helping and seeing their students thrive.
“My favorite things are working with the kids,” Hutchinson High School math department chair and math teacher Melissa Swaim said. “That’s pretty much why I’ve been teaching for 23 years is there’s always the kids that you can touch and the kids that you can reach out to.”
Swaim has been teaching for 23 years. She has been the math department chair for seven years and has been a math teacher at Hutchinson High School for nine years. She started the first part of her teaching career in Derby.
“I feel that it is to be there to help them understand why the concept is important,” Swaim said. “I’m a math teacher and so a lot of the time kids don’t like math and so I try to make it fun when I can, which isn’t all the time.”
Swaim teaches geometry, honors geometry and college algebra. She said she gets asked often by students, “When am I going to use this?”
“That comes up a lot and sometimes it is hard to show them when but my favorite class to teach is geometry and I’ve really been teaching that class since I started teaching,” Swaim said. “So I really like showing them and giving them all the examples of when they are going to use it. Not just in careers but just everyday life. Home remodeling or anything that you are doing at home.”
Swaim said she sends her students out of the classroom sometimes as a strategy to apply math skills to real life.
“I send them out, out of my class and have them find specifics,” Swaim said. “Find out how tall the flag pole is outside that we might want to replace.”
Urban is a Communication and Social Skills Special Education teacher at Allen STEM Magnet School. She said teaching was not the original career path she chose to pursue.
“When my kiddos started school I started volunteering and I was pretty much at the school most of the week,” Urban said. “The principal at the time was like, ‘Hey would you be interested in starting our extended preschool program?’ And I thought, ‘Okay why not?’ I absolutely fell in love with teaching and went back and got my teaching license and then I took my first certified position over at Allen as a kindergarten teacher and taught kindergarten for four years. This will be my second year in the Communication and Social Skills room and I teach K-2.”
Urban said the main purpose of the class she teaches is to help young students improve communication with others. She said many of her students have an Autism diagnosis and are nonverbal or have limited oral communication.
“This year, some of the kids I have…five of them use augmented communication devices,” Urban said. “It has pictures on it and they can push a picture on it that says ‘I want chocolate milk’. So we’re teaching those kiddos to have a voice through using technology. We call it assistive technology.”
Urban also taught herself sign language so she could assist her students.
”Even some of my kiddos we use sign language with,” Urban said. “I am self-taught sign language so I’m not fluent but I can carry on a decent conversation or assist my kiddos that use sign language in my classroom.”
Urban and Swaim both said their favorite memories from teaching refer back to helping students accomplish a goal.
“I think my favorite memories are the special notes that you sometimes get,” Swaim said. “Sometimes students will make a card and they just want to share with you how you have helped them through tough times and when I get those again that doesn’t happen on a daily basis but when I do get those, that’s what keeps me going.”
Urban said her favorite memory is from the current school year.
“I’ve had one of my kiddos, this will be his second year with me, he is nonverbal and uses his AAC device for communication and he came up to me the other day and without prompting said, ‘Hi’ and that was the biggest thing,” Urban said. “He had me in tears because we work on those things and it just finally clicked with him and it just showed how much progress we have made. It was just one of those moments. I live for those moments because they make what I do, even the challenging days, worth it.”
Urban holds a master’s degree in Childhood Education Endorsement and English for Speakers of Other Languages and Endorsement. She also holds a bachelor’s degree in Sociology with a minor in psychology. She is also an assistant coach for Kid Wind for fourth-sixth graders at Allen is a part of the building leadership team and is a part of the Hutchinson Education Association.
Swaim holds a Bachelor’s degree in secondary education-mathematics and a Master’s degree in Curriculum and Instruction of Education.
More information about the Kansas Teacher of the Year program and the nomination process is available at ksde.org.
CAPTION: Melissa Swaim teaching geometry to her students at Hutchinson High School in October, 2024. Swaim is the math department chair and a math teacher at Hutch High. CREDIT USD 308 By Emmie Boese Hutchinson Public Schools announced their Kansas Teacher of the Year candidates this month. The
CAPTION: The Buhler High School girls golf team placed fifth at the Kansas Class 4A state tournament, which place Monday and Tuesday at the Hesston Golf Course. CAPTION BUHLER GOLF By John Mesh Buhler High School’s Anika Paulsrud earned the ninth-place medal at the Kansas Class 4A
CAPTION: CREDIT USD 313 By Kate Irelan The new daycare in the basement of Buhler Grade School passed multiple fire safety licenses and Kansas Department of Health and Environment inspections during the planning and construction phases of the daycare until an annual school inspection resulted in a
CAPTION: Republican Candidate for Reno County Commission District 4 Richard Winger, right, answers a question next to Democratic opponent Lindsey Hatfield. CREDIT CASEY SWARTS By Michael Glenn Reno County Commission candidates discussed how they would prioritize budgets Tuesday evening at the Hutchinson/Reno County Chamber of Commerce’s Legislative
The Reno County Commission will meet on Wed., Oct. 23, 2024, at 9 a.m. in the Veterans Room in the Reno County Courthouse.
The main items are the renewal of a tower lease agreement with Ideatek and Reno County Water District No. 8, allocations of American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds, formalizing a policy on using the consent agenda for conducting meetings and approving updates to the Title VI non-discrimination policy.
After the meeting, the commission will enter into a study session regarding the landfill methane project.
The commissioners will discuss a potential real estate acquisition in an executive session.
The meeting agenda and supporting documents are published on the Reno County Commission’s website.
The Reno County Commission meets on the second and fourth Wednesdays of each month and the fifth Wednesday if one falls in the month.
From left: Reno County Commissioners John Whitesel, Ron Hirst, Randy Parks, Don Bogner and Daniel Friesen CREDIT SANDRA MILBURN/RENO COUNTY The Reno County Commission will meet on Wed., Oct. 23, 2024, at 9 a.m. in the Veterans Room in the Reno County Courthouse. The main items are
The Hutchinson Community College women’s basketball team, the defending NJCAA champions, are the No. 1 team in the NJCAA Division I women’s poll released on Monday. The Blue Dragons, 37-0 under coach John Ontjes last year, were the unanimous No. 1 pick. The Blue Dragons received
CAPTION: From left: Reno County Commission District 3 Candidate Garth Strand, Candidate Ron Vincent, District 4 Candidate Lindsey Hatfield, Candidate Richard Winger. CREDIT CASEY SWARTS
By Michael Glenn
Reno County Commission candidates discussed the importance of the Reno County Health Department Tuesday evening at the Hutchinson/Reno County Chamber of Commerce’s Legislative Forum.
Candidates for Reno County Commission District 3 Garth Strand and Ron Vincent and candidates for District 4 Lindsey Hatfield and Richard Winger were also in attendance. The county commission candidates debated for the first part of the forum with legislative candidates following after the county.
Candidates for Senate District 34, Democrat Shanna Henry and Republican Rep. Michael Murphy, House District 102 candidates Democrat Rep. Jason Probst and Republican Kyler Sweely and House District 104 candidates Republican Rep. Paul Waggoner and Democrat Lynnette Krieger-Zook all attended the forum.
Debra Teufel moderated the forum and said the commission serves as the county board of public health. In a community health assessment conducted, mental health, access to care, child care and substance misuse were all outlined as concerns in the county.
“We need to invest heavily in our Reno County Health Department,” Strand said. “If you remember not too long ago, it seemed like a kind of a political stunt to me as far as changing the medical director. And I’m not sure, but it does seem like there’s some desire on the part of our current commission to If not get rid of, at least start dismantling our public health department.”
Strand said the county should invest in a healthy community, and having a health department is beneficial to residents, especially in a time of emergency.
Vincent currently serves on the county health board advisory committee and agreed with Strand on the county’s replacement of the county health advisor.
“Public health is somewhat needed,” Vincent said. “It’s going to take the burden off the hospital. I mean, a lot of these people use that for their hospital, their clinic. As far as it goes, it needs some looking into on what can be done in the private sector and what we need our health department to furnish.”
Hatfield said supporting the health department was the first reason she decided to run for the commission seat.
“The health department is the only place in the county where you can access WIC, which is really important,” Hatfield said. “The health department was the first reason I decided to run for county commission because the incumbent Mr. Winger defeated in the primary wanted to essentially dismantle the health department and I thought that that was crazy.”
Hatfield said the health department is a tool to use in helping combat mental health and substance misuse disorders.
Winger said the health department was also the reason he decided to enter the race.
“I’ve been a patient or used their facility since 1973,” Winger said. “I’ve got to take advantage of it being here. It does need to be fully funded. It’s a mandated department, so most people don’t know that, but we don’t need to starve it or hang it on the vine. It does do a lot of great in this city and in this county.”
CAPTION: From left: Reno County Commission District 3 Candidate Garth Strand, Candidate Ron Vincent, District 4 Candidate Lindsey Hatfield, Candidate Richard Winger. CREDIT CASEY SWARTS By Michael Glenn Reno County Commission candidates discussed the importance of the Reno County Health Department Tuesday evening at the Hutchinson/Reno County
CAPTION: A rendering of the Reno County Evergy natural gas plant which will be built on Scott Boulevard in South Hutchinson. CREDIT COURTESY OF EVERGY By Michael Glenn Evergy announced the construction of two new power plants Monday morning at a Hutchinson/Reno County Chamber of Commerce press
