The Labette Community College Chamber Singers will be holding a two-part audition for the Spring 2011 Semester on Wednesday, Jan. 19 and Friday, Jan. 21, 2011 in  the LCC Fine Arts Building. The LCC Chamber Singers are the college’s premiere choral ensemble and is comprised of highly talented music and non-music majors. This choir has a very active performance season and will include a concert tour. Rehearsal times are Monday/Wednesday/Friday from 12:05–1 p.m. Read more

The Labette County Commission room was crowded with hopeful citizens last Wednesday when Kansas Secretary of Corrections Roger Werholtz came to meet with county officials.
But the meeting lasted less than five minutes and Werholtz apologized for not having anything new to announce about the former Labette Conservation Correctional Camps that closed earlier this year. Read more

Leaders give camp’s final graduation a positive touch

The largest graduation class of the Labette Correctional Conservation Camp was held last Friday, June 26. And it was also the last.

Two sqyads of 31 male inmates were released following a ceremony in their honor on Friday. They have been at the camp for five months and one week.

Look in this week’s Labette Avenue for the complete story.

Administrators of the Labette Correctional Conservation Camp at Oswego are performing final tasks as they look at a closing date of June 30.
Administrator Tom Bringle and LCCC program director Terry Edwards gave a report at Monday’s regular meeting of the Labette County Commission saying no more work crews are being sent out. These work crews have always been a helpful resource for local communities and civic organizations for performing manual labor tasks.
Read more

Gloomy faces prevailed on Monday as Labette County Commissioners heard a final report on the Labette Correctional Conservation Camp.

Final — because the Kansas Department of Corrections has issued a closure order for the men’s camp, closing it only six months after officially shuttering the women’s camp facility in Oswego.

The last graduation at the camp will be held June 9. Read more

Several Labette County leaders met with the area legislative delegation in Topeka last Wednesday.
Those making the trip on behalf of Labette County were: Tom Bringle, administrator of the Labette Correctional Camp and Oswego mayor; Dr. George Knox, president of Labette Community College; Stacey Green, member of the Labette Correctional Conservation Camp board; Kenneth Miller, an attorney from Topeka; former State Representative Vernon Correll of Oswego; and all three county commissioners, Lonie Addis, Brian Kinzie and Jack Martin. Read more

Official notification was received Monday by the Labette County Commission that the men’s correctional camp in Oswego will close by the end of June.
This comes less than a week after the women’s camp at Oswego was closed following a similar notification in November. Together, the two camps employ around 62 workers. The women’s averaged 30 inmates with around 130 inmates incarcerated locally.
The camps were the only ones of their kind in Kansas. Kansas Department of Corrections officials said some inmates from the camp will be placed on intensive probation while others will go to state prisons. It will depend on their cases.
At Monday’s meeting of the Labette County Commission, the letter from the KDOC was read giving notice of hte men’s camp. It was the same letter that county counselor Fred Johnson received on Friday.
The letter from Roger Werholtz, secretary, said that funding for the camp operations will cease at the end of the fiscal year, June 30. The DOC will terminate these contracts effective July 1.
Check out the rest of the story in this week’s Labette Avenue.

The women’s side of the Labette Correctional Conservation Camp at Oswego will close at the end of this year, Labette County Commissioner Lonie Addis told Labette Avenue Tuesday afternoon.
“This came as a shock to me,” said Addis who has been a major supporter of the camp since its inception in January 2000..
“I was called by Sec. of Corrections Roger Warholtz from Topeka informing me of the impending closing.”
The women’s camp already had been slated for closing in 2010 but because of cutbacks in the state budget, several corrections facilities are being closed or severely cut in funding.
The men’s camp is set for closing sometime in 2010, however Warholtz made it clear that it, too, could face an early closing, although no specific date was given.
Warholtz blamed the national economy and its trickle-down impact upon the state of Kansas for the early closing, noting that other prisons facilities in the state also have been targeted.
Legislative leaders were in Topeka Wednesday wrestling with decisions about cutbacks in all state-funded programs.
The women’s camp in Oswego employs 16 people and houses 27 inmates.
The men’s camp employs another 46 people and houses another 150 inmates.
“This is not a good time to be a county commissioner in Kansas,” said Addis who has spent nearly two decades in office. “We knew the state was looking at closing the camp, but everyone thought we had another year, at least. This came as a total shock to me.”
The boot camps in Oswego are operated by Labette County under a contract with the Kansas Department of Corrections.
Camp administrator Tom Bringle was officially notified of the decision on Monday.
Addis said the KDOC must pay off the bonds that funded the expansion of the men’s camp and construction of the women’s facility eight years ago.
There remain many unanswered questions about where the women inmates will be transferred and what arrangements will be made about the employees and their futures.
The state hopes to save approximately $1 million annually by closing the women’s boot camp.
The KDOC plans to market the women’s facility for industrial purposes, but that process may wait until a definite decision is made about the future of the men’s camp facility.