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THURSDAY, DECEMBER 31, 2015
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TOP 10 STORIES OF 2015
By Brandy Nance
[email protected]
Editor’s note: The following
is the second of a two-part story
detailing the top 10 stories of 2015.
The first five ran in Wednesday’s
paper. These stories were generated through through the number
of views on The Gazette’s website.
Each story listed had an average
of over 10,000 views.
6
Yuri Hauswald
wins DK 200
Mud, rain, pain and beauty
were all a part of the 10th Dirty
Kanza race on May 30. Many riders described the ride as “brutal”
while others declared it an “epic
adventure.” For Yuri Hauswald of
Petaluma, California, it was a race
that took 13:01:17 and earned him
the title of overall winner.
Overall winners
When Hauswald crossed the
finish line it was an emotional moment for race organizers as well as
Hauswald. Jim Cummins, Dirty
Kanza organizer, embraced a mudcovered Hauswald as he finished.
“He is a really good friend of all
of us at Dirty Kanza Promotions,”
Cummins said. “He is a huge supporter of Dirty Kanza so we love
him as a sponsor, but we love him
as a person. We just couldn’t be
happier that he won the overall.”
Hauswald was followed closely
by second-place-finisher Michael
Sencenbaugh from Carrolla, Iowa,
with a time of 13:01:18. Coming in
third place was Jesse Stauffer from
Selinsgrove, Pennsylvania, with
a time of 13:10:36. Sencenbaugh
who was the first rider through the
the Cottonwood Falls checkpoint
was hoping for a win but was overtaken by Hauswald about three
miles from the finish line.
“I managed to get to about three
miles out when I got caught by the
guy that got first,” Sencenbaugh
said. “We sprinted it out there. It
was a little bit of a disappointment
at that point but he deserved it.
Maybe next year I’ll get it.”
Hauswald said the ride was
tough and that he had some luck
on his side. Many of the riders that
were initially ahead of him in the
race were taken out by the mud.
“It was gnarly, vicious — the
wheels wouldn’t roll,” Hauswald
said. “The mud was plugging everything up. We were running
in the bushes on the side of the
road. The bushes were wet so it
also helped clean your bike. It was
hard.”
The winner of the women’s DK
200 was Amanda Nauman of Laguna Hills, California, with a time
of 14:08:18. She had never ridden
in the DK before and was surprised
by her win. Rebecca Rusch, previous women’s winner, took first
place in the women 40 and over
category.
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7
8
7
Severe storm causes
widespread damage
near Neosho Rapids
No injuries were reported after a
tornado struck near Neosho Rapids
in mid-May, but the string of damage was a stretch of roughly five
miles. A hazmat crew was called to
the scene of a train derailment, to
assess the damage. Crews remained
on scene for weeks following to
clear the wreckage. The train was
stopped at the time it derailed near
Road W and Road 150. The conductor confirmed that some cars had
batteries on them, which was why
hazmat was called to the scene.
Damage was reported from
Road 90 north to 170.
A damage assessment team
VOL. 124, NO. 156
9
from the National Weather Service
in Topeka designated the storm
as an EF-1 tornado that touched
ground near Neosho Rapids. Officially, winds of up to 94 miles per
hour caused damage for just under
a quarter of a mile, but damage
could be seen through a much longer area.
day away from being ready for a
double lung transplant when he
died in early March in BarnesJewish Hospital in St. Louis.
Reed, who suffered from pulmonary fibrosis diagnosed in
2012, had been hospitalized in
mid-February and seemed to be
recovering from coronavirus and
the high fever that had caused
him to be removed from the
transplant list.
Reed had been majority owner of Mel’s Tire since he and
three co-workers — Joe Dreier,
Mize and Todd Preisner —
Remembering Mel Reed Al
opened the business on June 1,
Mel Reed of Olpe was only one 2002.
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10
He had begun work at Breck’s
Tire in 1977, six years after
S.L. “Breck” Breckenridge and
his wife Dina opened their new
store at 611 Prairie St. Breckenridge retired and sold the business in 1996 and, not long after
his death in 2001, Reed, Dreier,
Mize and Preisner left the company to start their own business.
In a short time, Mel’s Tire
was a resounding success. It
received Best of the Flint Hills
awards in 2005, 2013 and 2014,
and was listed in Entrepreneur
Magazine as one of the Top 100
fastest-growing new businesses
in America.
9
Eureka student teacher
and coach arrested on
sex charges
Kourtnie A. Sanchez, 25,
of Eureka was arrested on six
counts on March 30.
Sanchez was a student teacher
at Marshall Elementary School
in Eureka during the fall 2014
Please see 2015, Page 8