A familiar face has taken over the position as Rooks County EMS Director. Megan Niblock has been employed by the City of Stockton since she acquired her EMT license in the spring of 2016 during her senior year of high school.

Conservation Awards Received.

Chuck Comeau with the Senior Services Board and Plainville Mayor Quintin Meyers were at the Rooks County Commission regular meeting on Tuesday, February 7th. A few weeks prior, Comeau had emailed the commissioners Redbud Village financial information for them to review. The two men were at the meeting to answer any questions the commissioners might have and to visit about utilizing ARPA funds for the facility. In December, there had been a request for a total of $125,000.00 to help with the 2023 operation of Redbud. At that time, the commissioners approved $50,000.00. Comeau and Meyers were at the meeting to request the remainder of the amount, which is $75,000.00.

The top four spellers from Stockton Grade School and the top four from Damar/ Palco Grade School, Sacred Heart (Plainville), and Plainville Grade School competed in the Rooks County Spelling Bee held at the historic Nova Theatre in Stockton on Wednesday, February 8th. After six rounds of spelling words, Corbin Keas (Plainville) was named the Rooks County Spelling Bee Champion after correctly spelling the word “benefitted.” Stockton’s Lyric Snyder placed second.

A young Stockton man was sentenced to more than three years in prison for a DUI crash that killed a 16-year-old Plainville girl in 2021. Zebulon Thomas Cole was sentenced January 18 in Rooks County District Court to a prison term of 41 months with the Kansas Department of Corrections.

A DELEGATION FROM THE CITY OF STOCKTON.

The Osborne, Rooks, and Graham County Conservation Districts will host a Local Working Group (LWG) meeting on February 14th at 2:00 p.m. at Stockton City Hall, 115 S Walnut, in Stockton, Kansas. The purpose of this meeting is to make recommendations to the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) State Conservationist related to addressing natural resource concerns at the local level.

The Heartland Community Foundation’s Twice as Nice is back—the annual Match Month campaign when donations to the foundation are matched by the Dane G. Hansen Foundation. All donations must be postmarked by Feb. 28 in order to be eligible for matching.

Living is easy in Rooks County with nearly all categories of court cases dropping from the year before. A reduction in Criminal cases, to 54, may be the best news as there were 90 in 2021.

Rooks County Fair Board Secretary Kelly Muir was at the county commission meeting held on Tuesday, January 24th, to present the commissioners with the estimates for replacing the HVAC unit at the 4-H building. The commissioners will review the bids and decide at the next meeting.