District Court Judge Clinton B. Peterson swears in Damon Simmons as the new District Magistrate Judge 26th District.

Wayne DeCamp is celebrating one hundred and one years of life on this planet this year. Wayne was born January 17, 1920 in Stevens County. If you would like to send a card sharing your birthday wishes for Wayne, you can do so by sending to: Wayne DeCamp, P.O. Box 206, Hugoton, Ks 67951. Happy Birthday Wayne – you are very much loved!!

If you are a motorist wanting to pass a KDOT truck plowing snow or putting down salt or brine to fight ice, you might not realize why it is moving so slowly. It comes down to physics and performance. Fact, the physics: A KDOT plow truck weighs around 26,300 pounds – and that’s unloaded – while the average vehicle weighs about 4,000 pounds. The KDOT operator is trying to keep all that weight under control in slippery conditions while pushing snow with a plow in front and maybe a wing plow on the side. That’s a lot of force exerting from different directions to keep under control. So the operating speed for the plow truck in those conditions is well under normal highway speeds — and may be as low as 10 mph when a blizzard cuts visibility. Just because the truck is so heavy doesn’t mean it won’t lose control on ice or packed snow.

Stevens County’s Economic Development Director Jan Leonard was honored to receive K-State’s Huck Boyd National Institute for the 2020 Rural Development award as Huck Boyd Leader of the Year in the category of Tourism. Every year they ask the students in the entrepreneurship classes at K-State to review those featured on Kansas Profile in various categories during the previous year and select the most outstanding to be honored as their Huck Boyd Leaders of the Year. This year Jan Leonard was selected for Tourism.

To all of our good friends and customers here, thank you for making our year so special. We wish you all the best at Christmastime and throughout the New Year.

Pictured in back left to right are Loretta Woodworth,  Beverly Gerrond, Krissann Roland and Phoebe Brummett. In front are Toni Hamlin,  Ruthie Winget, RoGlenda Coulter and Kay McDaniels. 

LaLane McClure is the new USD 210 Board of Education member.

Hugoton students auditioned for the SWKMEA honor choir and were selected with top scores in the southwest district.  This is the largest number of middle school students ever selected for both honor choirs.  Pictured left to right front row are Olivia Salmons, Mckenzie Esarey, Faith Beesley, Ella Beesley, Lelanie Gerber, Director Renee Beesley, Mylee Miller, Elizabeth Kiley, Mia Singer, Chloe Trayler, Morgan Anderson, Chaney Poulsen, Lupe Hernandez and Bridgett Knopp. In the back row are Marco Amador, Tobias Grubbs, Corbin Nix, Edwin Gonzales, Grant Niehues, Justin Quevedo, Josephe Hernandez, Fernando Quesada and Wyatt Johnson.  Photo courtesy of Renee Beesley.

Kristin Farnum worked her Thanksgiving magic again this year and organized a successful distribution of a Thanksgiving feast for around 450 community members. The meals were delivered to community members in Hugoton, Moscow and Rolla. With the help of some hard working volunteers from several organizations, the cooking, packaging and delivery of meals went very smooth for such a huge volume of traditional meals. A huge thank you to all that were on hand to assist with this generous occasion. Our community is very fortunate to be blessed with such caring and giving individuals. We all are thankful to be living in such a great community!

We, here at the Hermes, would like to wish everyone a very happy Thanksgiving.

Operation Christmas Child national collection week is here – November 16-23. This is when you will drop your OCC shoeboxes off at First Christian Church at 600 S Van Buren St. in Hugoton. If you still need shoeboxes, First Christian Church has pre-printed boxes available at no cost.
The schedule for when the church will be open and volunteers will be available to receive your shoeboxes follows:
• Thursday, November 19 – 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 noon and 5:00 to 7:00 p.m.
• Friday, November 20 – 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 noon and 5:00 to 7:00 p.m.
• Saturday, November 21- 2:00 to 4:00 p.m.
• Sunday, November 22 – 2:00 to 4:00 p.m.
• Monday, November 23 – 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 noon.
If you have any questions, please contact Robynn Rome, OCC Coordinator at 620-544-9577.