News From Lowell Township

All I can say about the weather is that I am so thankful for the l.30 we received early last Wednesday, and I was glad we only got a few snow flurries Sunday morning. Warmer temperatures can return anytime; it is not fun hauling water to the cattle in the cold.

K-State's last two games, TCU and Houston, were won easily, so I hope they will be prepared to play seriously against Texas this Saturday. The KU game was more exciting, especially at the very end. I thought for sure they had lost it.

We stopped for a short visit on Sunday at Riley at my sister's, Norma Sharp, and also got to see her great-granddaughter, Hailey Sharp, home over the weekend from Cloud County Community College. Her brother, Cody Sharp, of Riley High School, competed at the State Cross Country on Saturday and took 7th in Class 2A. We continued to Manhattan for the respect visitation for Ray Kurtz. Ray and his wife, Mary Jo, were both born and raised in the Alton community, attended Alton High School, and married at the Mt. Ayr Friends Church in 1955. Mary Jo's mother, Winifred Melton Peterson, was a sister to Steven's grandfather, Verne Melton, making her Steve's second cousin. Ray attended Fort Hays College and earned a BS with a major in mathematics. His first teaching position was at Osborne High School. He served in the Army and then earned his master's degree from Fort Hays and taught at Gorham High School and Plainville High School. Ray earned a Doctor of Education degree at Lincoln, Nebraska, in 1966 and returned to a teaching position at Fort Hays. In 1970, he was hired at Kansas State University as an assistant professor in the College of Education. Funeral services were to be held Monday, October 30, at the First Methodist Church in Manhattan, and burial on Tuesday, October 31, at Sumner Cemetery, rural Alton. As we were entering the funeral home, we were surprised to have the door opened by Senator Jerry Moran. He explained he knew Ray from when he taught at Plainville, and we told him we were from Stockton. The line of visitors was quite long, and the couple in front of us, Roger and Doris Brannon, learned we lived at Stockton and told us he had once lived in Stockton. His father, Fenton Brannon, was the Rooks County Ag Agent in the 1940's. Roger said his babysitter was Vesta Colburn, and the family left when he was in kindergarten. When we left Manhattan, we traveled to Salina, and Steve moved a truck for Jones Oil to Hays. I marveled at the nice-looking wheat fields with deer grazing along I-70. This area has received moisture. My niece east of Dallas has had over ten inches lately with flooding issues.

I recently read the famous Call Hall Dairy Bar, part of the dairy processing plant on the K-State Campus in Call Hall, is celebrating 100 years of dairy processing at K-State. Call Hall was my first place of employment after graduating from Brown-Mackie. Call Hall ice cream is really to die for and has almost 34 favorite flavors, butter brickle being a favorite. All aspects from start to finish of the milk processing happen within a twomile radius of Call Hall, including herd genetics and breeding programs, nutrition and feeding, and the production and processing of raw milk. The old dairy facility on the west side of campus was turned into an arboretum, and new facilities were built north of the campus. The dairy processing was in Waters Hall, and in 1964, the Department of Dairy Science moved into a new building, Call Hall, with Dr. Charles Norton serving as department head from 1958 until 1977. Dr. Norton was my boss when I worked at Call Hall. The university dairy provides milk for the KSU dining halls and fraternity and sorority accounts. Besides milk and ice cream, cheese is also produced. The plant picks up, on average, 50,000 pounds of fluid milk a month from K-State's herd of dairy cows.

Food For Thought: If plastic water bottles are okay, but plastic bags are banned—you might live in a nation founded by geniuses but run by idiots. If you can get arrested for hunting or fishing without a license, but not for entering and remaining in the country illegally – you might live in a nation founded by geniuses but run by idiots.

He/She was so dumb he told me to meet him at the corner of 'WALK' and 'DON'T WALK.'

He/She was so dumb she had a shirt that said 'TGIF,' which she thought stood for 'THIS GOES IN FRONT.'

He/She was so dumb she thought she could not use her AM radio in the evening.