TEG
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 2016
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PULITZER PRIZE-WINNING
FAMILY OWNED SINCE 1895
Good Evening
VVV
Thanks for the
lessons, Mr. Bastin.
WWW.EMPORIAGAZETTE.COM
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BASTIN REMEMBERED AS TEACHER,
ADMINISTRATOR, LEADER
By Bobbi Mlynar
Special to The Gazette
Educators, former students and
friends gathered with family on
Wednesday at the funeral service
for one of Emporia’s most-beloved
principals.
J. Wayne Bastin, 82, long-time
principal of Lowther Middle
School, died Friday in Wichita.
He also had worked more than 18
years at Bluestem Farm & Ranch
Supply after retiring from education.
Bastin had come to Lowther as
a social science teacher in 1960,
and became football coach in 1962.
He had excelled both on the football field and the sidelines.
He played three years on undefeated teams at Elmdale High
School and had gone on to earn a
letter as a freshman member of the
College of Emporia’s undefeated
team. He transferred to Kansas
State Teachers College in Emporia, where he earned a bachelor’s
degree in education in 1955 and a
master’s degree in 1964.
As coach of the Lowther Junior
High School football team, Bastin
was The Gazette’s Man of the Week
on Nov. 2, 1963, after the team finPlease see Bastin, Page 5
PHOTO COURTESY OF BRIAN PROTHEROE
Wayne Bastin is pictured here in the 1987-88 yearbook, at Lowther
Middle School.
PHOTO COURTESY OF BRIAN PROTHEROE
Wayne Bastin is pictured here in the1986-87 yearbook at Lowther
Middle School.
COURTESY PHOTO
J. Wayne and Norma Jean Bastin.
CHASE COUNTY SCHOOL
BOARD FACILITY UPDATE
By Jesse Murphy
[email protected]
The Chase County Board of
Education received an official
facilities update from engineers
Mike Schmidt and Warren Ediger,
Wednesday.
They have been working to find
the most crucial problems with
Chase County’s buildings before
proposing solutions after voters
turned down a bond in August
2015 for a new single facility.
To date, Schmidt, Ediger and
engineer Scott McKinley have
gone through all of the district’s
facilities and presented their findings to the board’s committee on
Tuesday. Schmidt and Ediger were
also at the regular board meeting
on Wednesday.
“There were a lot of suggestions
provided,” Schmidt said. “We need
to go back to the drawing board, so
VOL. 124, NO. 191
to speak.”
The report from the engineers
was thorough and included a look
at the mechanical, electrical and
structural aspects of the buildings.
“The process is that you take
in something, get reactions and
make changes to it and keep going
back until you reach a consensus,”
Ediger said. “The only way to effectively do that is to show the
findings and go back to re-working
ideas.”
In the elementary school in
Strong City, the group said that
there is some wall movement that
can be easily fixed in the old part
of the building. There are no structural issues in the addition.
“I couldn’t find anything of any
concern (structurally) in the buildings,” Schmidt said. “There was
nothing falling down or nothing
that I’d limit access to other than
the balconies at the old gym at the
high school, which they’ve already
restricted access to.”
Mechanically, at both the junior/senior high school and the
elementary school, there are problems with heating and air conditioning units.
Fixing noisy furnaces, air circulation and lighting changes could
not only benefit the students and
faculty in the buildings, but save
the district money in utilities,
Schmidt said.
At the high school, floors were
brought up as something that
should be looked at in the future.
Schmidt said that he pointed this
out six years ago when he was doing similar work for the district.
“They’re just not the kind of
thing you want to keep for another
Please see USD 284, Page 5
Bruce Boettcher
of BG Consultants
Inc. presents the
Becker Addition
Stormwater
Channel study to
commissioners
on Wednesday.
The project will
range in cost from
about $2 million
to $4 million,
depending on
the improvement
option selected.
CATHRYNE SCHARTON/GAZETTE
COMMISSION REVIEWS
FIREWORK FEES
By Cathryne Scharton
[email protected]
In Wednesday’s city commission meeting commissioners reviewed the fees charged by the
city when issuing firework stand
permits.
The commission reviewed
previous actions taken by the
county commission regarding
fees outside the city limits. The
county authorized the use of the
Emporia Fire Department for
inspection and enforcement of
safety regulations and the city
clerk will issue all stand permits
and coordinate any land use restrictions with city and county
staffs before a license is issued.
The funds collected will be collected by the city and placed in
a special restricted fireworks
account. The fireworks account
would be used to pay for the fireworks show, insurance and other
Please see City, Page 5