Allison Williams recently opened The Donut Shop at 110 South Chautauqua Street in Sedan.

Her hours are Tuesday through Saturday - 6 a.m. to 11 a.m.

The Donut Shop offers the usual fare of biscuits and gravy, sausage pockets, sausage rolls, many sweet roll choices and a variety of hot and cold beverages. Allison’s plans for the shop include gradually adding new menu items.

Allison’s assistant is her mom, Vicki Miller. The bakery team would like to fill larger orders for any business, club or family gathering.

BENEFIT CONCERT FOR LITTLE SCHOLAR’S PRESCHOOL
The stage of the Warrender Auditorium at Sedan High School will come alive with the Sounds of Music as music students present a concert to benefit the Little Scholar Preschool of Sedan. The concert will begin at 3 p.m. on Sunday, Feb. 20, and admission is by donation.

“The concert will be like a ‘greatest hits’ show with choir students singing their favorite songs from past Variety Shows,” says Mrs. Rosie Sweaney, vocal music director of the high school. “We are always doing fundraisers to benefit our own program and thought this would be a great way for the kids to do what they love – sing - and raise some funds to assist another great program, the Little Scholar Preschool.” Read more

Walk Kansas, 2011, is scheduled March 13-May 7, and local registration will begin Feb. 21. The popular Kansas State University Research and Extension fitness challenge will mark its 10th anniversary this year, but participants need not have prior experience with Walk Kansas to participate.

Everyone is welcome to participate. Walk Kansas encourages friends, family, neighbors and co-workers to form teams of six to walk the 423-mile distance from Kansas’ east to west borders. The goal is to encourage heart-healthy, aerobic activity and a healthy lifestyle.

While a team can accomplish what team members might never be able to accomplish alone, the personal challenge is to add 30 minutes of physical activity five or more days a week for a total of 150 minutes a week. Read more

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Julie and Patrick Perkins of Howard have finished the remodeling of their third building in downtown Howard, all joined by openings in the parting walls, and all jointly managed by Julie and Patrick and their employees. On the corner is the Family Market which is holding a grand re-opening for the next two weeks, Feb. 2-15. In the middle building is Batson’s Drug where Julie is the registered pharmacist, and they also carry a full line of drug store and other health-care supplies. In the newly finished third building is the gift shop which is an expansion of the one previously located behind the pharmacy. Everyone at Batsons’ Drug and Family Market invite you to come and see this retail creation which has everyone in the area talking — and shopping in the three shops.

SEDAN — An area native with more than 20 years of experience as a teacher and principal will serve as superintendent of USD 286 beginning in July.

The USD 286 Board of Education last Friday hired Caney native David Jackson to serve as school superintendent, replacing outgoing school chief Scott Hills. Jackson was the top choice for the board out of a field of four finalists for USD 286’s chief administrative position.

Each of those four finalists visited Sedan last week and visited with school teachers, community members and administrators before being interviewed by the school board.

Jackson currently is principal at Baxter Spring Middle School, where he has been employed for four years. In 2010, Jackson garnered a top honor among his school administrator peers by being named the Kansas Association of Secondary School Principals, Area 2, Principal of the Year. Area 2 includes 15 counties of southeast Kansas. Read more

A complete listing of city and school board positions that will be on the spring election ballots was printed on the front page of this week’s Prairie Star.

Candidates have until Tuesday, Jan. 25, at noon to file for any of the offices listed in Elk and Chautauqua counties.

A conflict among officials of the Little Caney Township has caused the current trustee, John Mooney, to recommend closing the township altogether.

The subject was broached at last week’s Chautauqua County Commisison meeting when township trustee John Mooney said he could not get the township secretary, Betty Smith, to do as he asked — referring to distributing funds the township receives through a county levy.

On Tuesday of this week, a small group of Niotaze area residents attended the commission meeting to air their feelings, mostly in support of Smith and the continued funding of a community center in Niotaze through the use of township funds. Read more

Darla Loyd of Sedan was recently presented a Length of Service Award for 25 years of service from the National Weather Service.

Over the past quarter century, Loyd has served the Sedan area by collecting and keeping weather data and reporting it to the National Climatic Date Center (NCDC) and to the Weather Date Library at Kansas State University.

In addition, she has faithfully sent weekly data to the Prairie Star where her weather column is printed on Page 2 each week.

The information she collects includes precipitation and temperature readings for the Sedan area. She is part of a National Network of Observers consisting of more than 11,000 observers.

The NCDC publishes these records monthly, making them available to the public. Kansas State University also collects the data and it can be requested by the public. The data provided by the observers is used for a wide array of uses ranging from climatological students and also it is provided to busiensses and the media which includes television states throughout this region.

Richard H. Elder, Meteorologist in Charge, and Leon F. Washinger, Observing Program Team Leader for the National Weather Service, expressed their sincere appreciation to Darla for her 25 years of dedicated service.

Duckwalls in Sedan will officially close its doors at the end of this week as the Abilene-based company ceases operations for 44 stores.

Duckwalls-Alco offiicials announced in November that the company would totally redo its corporate priorities and place its capital into the larger ALCO stores.

Declining revenues were given as the chief reason for the closing of the smaller Duckwalls stores which are located in the following Kansas towns: Atwood, Clearwater, Coldwater, Council Grove, Herington, Hoisington, Horton, Johnson, Kinsley, LaCrosse, Lincoln, Marion, Ness City, Osage City, Plainville, Pleasanton, Sedan, Stafford, Syracuse and Washington.

Duckwalls opened in downtown Sedan in the late 1990s in a building remodeled by local investors.

Republican Party precinct committee members chose their new state representative for the 12th District House of Representative district on Saturday.  He’s Jim Kelly, a lifelong Independence resident who was chosen to replace Jeff King in the state house post this week.  Kelly earned the nod over four other Republican candidates for the state house seat, including Rex Crowell of Longton and Tim Holloway, Ben Seel and Tony Fowler, all of Independence.  King resigned his state house seat in December by virtue of his appointment as the new state senator due to the resignation of Derek Schmidt.

The Howard Chamber of Commerce has announced that Benji Crupper has been named Citizen of the Year for 2010. Crupper, who has served two years as chamber president, is leaving the board this year.

The award, presented by chamber treasurer Joanna Hunter during the December chamber meeting, recognizes Crupper’s enthusiastic and tireless involvement in numerous chamber and community events, including the Elk River Festival and Christmas in Howard open house. In addition to a plaque, Crupper received a congratulatory floral arrangement from Dr. and Mrs. Robert Black of Howard.

Crupper serves as administrator at Howard Twilight Manor. He and his wife, Shilo, are the parents of two children and make their home in Howard.

Students and staff at Elk Valley schools are busy preparing for winter homecoming, which will take place this Friday, Jan. 7.  The theme for this year is “Super Heroes” and coronation will be held at halftime of the boys “A” game, which should be at approximately 8:30 p.m.

Students have been encouraged to show their spirit this week with homecoming activities including PJ Day on Tuesday, Gangster Day on Wednesday, Imitation Day on Thursday, and Friday will be “Show Your Spirit Day” by wearing black and orange.

Candidates for this year’s homecoming are Courtney Pinkosky, Monique Wade, Shelby Monjure, Gradey Atkinson, Roger Daniels, and Jason Ledford.  Kindergarten escorts are Ethan O’Leary and Jenni Bunyard.

Ty Riggs, son of Glenn and Judy Riggs from Sedan, won a $1,000 Intervet/Schering-Plough Ralgro “Wheels for Bucks”/Kansas Livestock Foundation (KLF) scholarship. The scholarship was awarded at the Kansas Livestock Association (KLA) annual convention, Dec. 3 in Wichita. Riggs is a senior at Kansas State University majoring in animal science. He was very active in FFA and 4-H, holding officer positions in both, including serving as president of the Chautauqua County 4-H Council. He currently manages his own registered and commercial Angus cowherd.

This week’s Prairie Star carries a story about a Sedan High School graduate who has been cast for a lead role in a soon-to-be-released movie, “Almighty Thor.”

Cody Deal, son of former Sedan resident Diane Boulanger, and grandson of Dean Boulanger who lives at Ochelata, Okla., has gained experience while living in Las Vegas over the past two years, working in modeling and making good contacts in the movie industry.

His grandmother, Frances Carpenter, still works at the Sedan City Library, and his aunt, Joyce Carpenter, resides in Sedan, along with his cousins, Jacque and Josh Carpenter.

His agent told Prairie Star on Monday that the movie is set for a February release in theaters, and also has been picked up by the SciFi Channel for television. The movie is set for DVD premier on April 26.

At Sedan High School, Cody graduated in 2004 as his class valedictorian, and served as senior class president. He also was first-team shooting forward in basketball averaging 20.4 points per game for the Blue Devils. Read more