BY ANDY TAYLOR

COFFEYVILLE — City commissioners Monday sparred over an emergency measure — which was approved on a 4-1 vote — that would decrease the commission’s quorum number from four to three.

Mayor Alec Hendryx made the suggested change in the commission’s quorum after a situation on Dec. 14 in which two of the five city commissioners did not attend a regularly scheduled meeting. Hendryx could not attend the Dec. 14 meeting because of a previous work commitment, and commissioner Jim Taylor, Sr., said he would skip any commission meeting whereby any other commission member was not attendance.

By having two of the five members of the commission not in attendance at the Dec. 14 meeting, the commission was unable to reach a quorum, and the meeting had to be postponed until Monday night when all five commission members could be present.

By decreasing the quorum from four to three, the commission will be able to still conduct business if two commissioners could not be in attendance, the mayor said.

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COFFEYVILLE — The tombstone of outlaws Bill Dalton, Gratton Dalton and Bill Power was reported stolen after a tourist noticed its absence from Elmwood Cemetery in Coffeyville earlier in the week.

Coffeyville Police Department said an investigation into the theft of the tombstone continues. A Montgomery County Chronicle staffer visited the gravesite on Thursday and noticed the tombstone was taken from atop its granite stone. There were no visible signs of damage to the granite stone except for a deep gash on one side of the stone.

The tombstone was placed on the gravesite in 1931 at the request of Emmett Dalton, who was the lone survivor of the Daltons gang’s failed bank robbery of two Coffeyville banks on Oct. 5, 1892. Three of the four bank robbers were buried in Elmwood Cemetery while fellow outlaw Dick Broadwell was buried elsewhere.

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WICHITA — Coffeyville Resources Refining and Marketing, LLC, has settled a federal lawsuit filed by seven Coffeyville-area property owners who claimed their properties were contaminated with crude oil from the Coffeyville-based refinery complex during the July 2007 flood.

Settlement papers were signed Friday, Aug. 27, in federal district court in Wichita by attorneys representing the property owners and Coffeyville Resources.
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BY ANDY TAYLOR
chronicle@taylornews.org

CHERRYVALE — More than 100 volunteers — many from Kansas, others from as far away as California — have converged on the muddy banks of the Verdigris River northwest of Cherryvale this week to literally roll back centuries of history.

The Kansas State Historical Society and the Kansas Anthropological Association are co-sponsoring an archeology training program on property owned by Phil Eastep of rural Cherryvale. The event marks the first-ever on-site archeology training project in southeast Kansas, and it also is the first professional archeological dig to take place on southeast Kansas soil in more than 30 years.

“What we collect and gather from this archeology training program field school will really shed a large amount of light on the history of this region,” said John Tomasic, an archeologist with the Kansas State Historical Society.

The volunteers, which range from nurses to custodians to college students, to electrical engineers to even teenage kids, are joining forces with professional archeologists to discover civilizations that roamed the Verdigris River valley in the region’s pre-historic era.
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BY ANDY TAYLOR
chronicle@taylornews.org

COFFEYVILLE — It was just a handshake . . . but one that will be felt for a lifetime for a Coffeyville Community College football player and a Coffeyville firefighter.

On Wednesday afternoon, CCC sophomore linebacker Gary Henderson, Jr. of St. Louis, Mo., was at the Coffeyville Fire Station to offer his personal thanks to local firefighter Derek Messner after Messner assisted lifeguards at the Coffeyville Aquatic Center for saving Henderson’s life one week earlier.

“I’m just glad you were there,” said Henderson after shaking hands with Messner.

It was the first time the two men had formally met, even though a set of circumstances forced their paths to cross on the afternoon of June 2.

Here’s the story . . .

Messner and his son, Ty, were enjoying the sun and warmth of the Coffeyville Aquatic Center that afternoon as were Henderson and a group of friends from CCC.

Messner, who was off duty that afternoon, and his son were in the shallow end of the aquatic center pool while Henderson and friends were jumping off the diving boards in the deeper end.
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BY ANDY TAYLOR
chronicle@taylornews.org

When the Congressional Gold Medal was bestowed to surviving World War II female pilots last week, a Coffeyville native who earned her wings in Montgomery County almost 60 years ago was not present.
However, female pilot Mildred Darlene “Micky” Axton was there in spirit.
Axton, who was born, raised and educated in Coffeyville, died in February — one month shy of the national first formal recognition of the Women’s Airforce Service Pilots (WASPs) by the U.S. Congress.

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The Christmas Story is recorded on audio and you can access the podcast on this website under the Multimedia button or by clicking here: Christmas Story

Merry Christmas, everyone!

COFFEYVILLE — Residential neighborhood streets will be the focus of improvements following Tuesday’s passage of a one-half percent sales tax by Coffeyville voters.

Approval of the one-half percent sales tax question was narrow with the yes votes receiving 391 ballots (or 52 percent) and the no votes receiving 359 ballots (or 48 percent).

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