Retired Sedan High School coach Les Davis will be honored by his peers in the coaching community in February when he is inducted into the Kansas State High School Activities Association’s Hall of Fame.

Davis, who retired at the end of the 2004-05 season, is one of five individuals to receive induction into the KSHSAA Hall of Fame for 2009. Inductions are held during the second semester of the 2008-09 school year at a KSHSAA-sponsored activity in each inductee’s hometown. Davis has chosen to receive his induction at a halftime ceremony at the Sedan/Caney Valley basketball games in Sedan on Thursday, Feb. 26.

The Hall of Fame inductees were chosen from nominations sent to a selection committee. To be eligible for the Hall of Fame, an individual must have made an unusually outstanding contribution in interschool activities, either as a student with exceptional talent, or as an adult working with youth (such as an activity coach, director or sponsor, an administrator, an official or a contributor). Hall of Fame inductees are no longer active in the field for which they are nominated.

Also named to the KSHSAA Hall of Fame for 2009 will be Layton Kaiser of Hays, Tamra Strano of Baytown, Texas, Nicole Ohlde of Minneapolis, Minn., and formerly of Clay Center, Kan.; and Edward Kriwiel of Wichita (posthumously).

In 48 years of coaching, Davis established himself as among the winningest high school coaches in Kansas history. During his career, Davis won 1,496 of his 2,095 games (football, basketball, baseball) for an overall winning percentage of 71.4 percent. Davis retired from coaching in 2005 after spending 40 years in Sedan. During his time as a Blue Devil coach, he posted more than 300 football coaching victories (second most in Kansas high school football), more than 670 wins in basketball and 512 wins in baseball.

During Davis’ tenure, Sedan became the third winningest football program in Kansas and was the smallest school ranked among the top 25 schools. Davis finished his head coaching career with 316 victories in football (No. 2 all-time when he retired), 694 wins in basketball and 512 victories in baseball.

Davis coached Sedan to 68 consecutive regular-season wins in a row in basketball. The Blue Devils won a state championship in baseball in 1973 and reached the state finals in basketball in 1979.

During the 2008 high school football season, Davis came out of retirement to assist his son, Criss Davis, who is the head football coach at Caney Valley High School.

Davis, who was recently named to the Kansas Sports Hall of Fame in Wichita, Kan., will become the second Sedan person to be inducted into the KSHSAA Hall of Fame. The late Tim Prather was inducted into the hall in 1980.

The traditional Angel Tree project in Chautauqua County will again provide happy gift-giving for many local residents.

Linda Klein, president of the Exemplar Chapter, Beta Sigma Phi sorority, said the tree has been set up for several weeks in the main hallway of the basement in the Chautauqua County Courthouse.

“It looks like we will be helping 74 children this year,” she said. “Our packages are not actually under the tree since it’s in a public area of the courthouse, but the children’s parents came Monday afternoon to get the packages and take them home. The kids can then receive their gifts from their parents or Santa or whoever. We really don’t care — we just want to make sure all children have a Christmas.”

Klein works in the courthouse for the Chautauqua County Health Department and serves as the main contact for the Angel Tree project.

“We appreciate the extension office providing us with the space to do this project,” she said.
In addition to the gift packages, the Exemplar chapter will provide fruit boxes and turkeys which have been donated by Roger Floyd of Sedan. “We always try to pay Roger for the turkeys … you know him. He’s so generous to others in the community.”

In addition to the items donated, sorority members did some additional shopping at Duckwalls in Sedan to assure some balance when several children within one family are gift recipients.

“We’ve been doing this project for at least ten years,” said Klein. “It provides a way for parents to give Christmas gifts to their children at a time when they just might not be able to afford such gifts.”

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Ninety-three children from Elk County will find Christmas gifts under their trees at home this year — gifts that might not otherwise have been there.

The Angel Tree project in Elk County, sponsored by the Howard Rotary Club, has again been a big success with many individuals and businesses participating.

Angel trees were located at Batson’s Drug in Howard and at Kirk’s Mini-Mart in Longton. All the gifts were taken to the USD 282 Board of Education office in Howard where they were wrapped and prepared for delivery to area homes.

The Angel Tree project in Elk County was started several years by the Innovative Ladies organization, then was continued with the help of Rotarians from Howard.

Last Thursday and Friday, a large delegation of friends converged upon the board office to wrap presents and organize them into families. “Each child should get four to five gifts each,” said Mary Barr who spearheaded the effort on behalf of the Rotary. “We have lots of people who support us and they really take the Angel Tree project to heart.”

As in most Angel Tree projects, many people simply donate money so those working in the project go shopping to make sure the gift-giving is balanced within a family.

Barr said school district employees keep an eye out for families who might need some assistance during the Christmas-time, including those in USD 282 and 283, regardless of where they live. Gifts were delivered to Moline, Howard, Grenola, Longton, Elk Falls and Severy and to rural areas in between.

This week’s Prairie Star is our very favorite edition of the year, and this time it falls perfectly on the calendar.

Almost all our by-mail subscribers should receive your Prairie Star on Christmas Eve. The greeting ads, personal columns and stories in today’s Christmas edition will warm your hearts and, hopefully, set the pace for recognizing the true reason for this holy season. So, read slowly — and enjoy!

The Howard United Methodist Church Sunday School group and Youth Fellowship presented its annual Christmas program, complete with dramatic reenactment and several song solos.

Hannah Whetstone sang a beautiful rendition of “Away in A Manger” and Tim Whetstone played “We Three Kings” on the piano. JoJo Bennett, Rachel Bellar, and Katie Black performed “Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer”, and Pacey Wagner did a shortened version of the same song.

A dramatic reenactment of the first Christmas story followed, performed by the Sunday School Class/Youth Fellowship. Performing were JoJo Bennett, Rachel Bellar, Jordan Usry, John Heinen, Travis Hebb, Drake Champagne, Ethan Bellar, Wyatt Fechter, Pacey Wagner, Paula Lanning, Hope Lanning, Tyler Black, Hannah Whetstone, Loralei Wagner, Victoria Wagner, Katie Black, Wyatt Usry, Devin Hebb, Aaron Miller, and Katherine Tyrer.