WICHITA — The Kansas Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services plans to close nine service centers across Kansas in a cost-cutting move.

Among the nine services centers targeted for closure is the Coffeyville office.
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BY ANDY TAYLOR
chronicle@taylornews.org

USD 445 faculty and support staff will receive bigger paychecks soon, due to salary hikes granted by the USD 445 Board of Education on Monday.

Monday’s meeting was the final one for the fiscal 2010-11 budget year, which ends on June 30. The board held the meeting to approve final expenditures and transfers to close out the budget year.
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BY ANDY TAYLOR
chronicle@taylornews.org

Jim Blaes, Cherryvale High School head men’s basketball and head track coach, was rehired to those positions on a pair of 5-2 votes by the USD 447 Board of Education Tuesday night.

At a special school board meeting Tuesday, school board members conferred in executive session, which is closed to the press and public, for two and a half hours before returning to open session and voting to rehire Blaes to those two coaching positions for the 2011-12 school year.
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An FFA judging team from Caney Valley High School represented Kansas at the American Junior Paint Horse Association contest in Fort Worth, Texas, last week and won sixth place out of 21 teams.
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INDEPENDENCE — An investigation into a violent domestic disturbance situation near Independence on Sunday led law enforcement authorities into the discovery of illegal drugs.

Sheriff Robert Dierks said Michael D. Keck of rural Independence was arrested on Sunday, June 26 on charges of criminal damage to property, aggravated burglary, domestic battery, aggravated kidnapping, aggravated assault, possession of methamphetamine, possession of drug paraphernalia and attempted manufactured of a controlled substance.
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Two Havana residents and two people from Tyro were arrested last Friday following an investigation into a theft ring operating all over the western half of Montgomery County.
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BY ANDY TAYLOR
chronicle@taylornews.org

CHERRYVALE — School and community spirit got a healthy boost Tuesday afternoon — in the form of a 170-ton diesel locomotive.

The Cherryvale-basd South Kansas and Oklahoma Railroad unveiled its Cherryvale Chargers diesel locomotive — which is painted in the blue and white school colors and emblazoned with a Charger logo on the nose. “Cherryvale Chargers” is painted prominently on each side.
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BY ANDY TAYLOR
chronicle@taylornews.org

Several area post offices, including two in Montgomery County, are on a U.S. Postal Service list of 20 post offices in Kansas that are being studied for closure or consolidation.

Brian Sperry, a regional spokesperson with the U.S. Postal Service in Denver, Colo., confirmed that the Havana and Sycamore post offices are being studied for closure or consolidation along with Niotaze in Chautauqua County and Bartlett in Labette County.
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Several area communities will celebrate America’s 235th birthday with Independence Day activities.
Here are some of the details of those community events as told to the Montgomery County Chronicle.
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