Firefighters seek body armour; carmel-making nuns; front-page marriage proposal

YPSILANTI TOWNSHIP, Mich. (AP) — A group that's preserving a portion of a Detroit-area assembly plant where Rosie the Riveter once worked as a museum may have regained its "largest gathering of people dressed as Rosie the Riveter" record.

WDIV-TV reports that 2,097 "Rosies" were captured Saturday in an official photo at the Willow Run plant in Ypsilanti Township.

They dressed like the image used to recruit female industrial workers during World War II with blue coveralls as well as red bandannas with white polka dots.

Save the Willow Run Bomber Plant organized an event in March 2014 that set a Guinness World Records mark that recognized nearly 800 "Rosies." But an August gathering in Richmond, California, drew 1,084 participants and was most recently recognized by Guinness as the record.

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Online:

http://www.savethebomberplant.org

PIERRE, S.D. — A group appointed by the South Dakota Board of Regents is exploring a potential change in state law to allow beer and wine sales at events on the state's six public university campuses.

The changes would apply to sporting events, performing arts venues and special events, and the task force is expected to return its recommendations to the board in December, the Argus Leader reported. State law doesn't ban serving alcohol, but on-site sales are prohibited.

Board of Regents spokeswoman Janelle Toman said the idea is in its early stages. The task force includes representatives from the public universities.

The regents could move forward with a proposal to be presented to the state Legislature, which would need to approve it, or continue to research the subject.

The board said the reasoning is to generate revenue, improve the fan experience and manage risk.

Justin Sell, director of athletics at South Dakota State University, said the school devotes resources to enforcing tailgating rules and ensuring fans' safety at football games.

"We've all got bills to pay," Sell said. "What's always been interesting to me is we set up public safety and security to manage the issue, but we make no money to pay those people with sales. I'm a realist. I say let's sit down and look at this. Is it an option, and does it make sense?"

University President David Chicoine said there's a significant amount of work ahead to understand what other states are doing and consider what would be appropriate for South Dakota.

BISMARCK, N.D. — A nearly 100-year-old postcard of Bismarck High School found its way home thanks to a good-humored California antique store patron.

Bismarck Public Schools Superintendent Tamara Uselman plans to share the card with the school board at its Monday meeting, the Bismarck Tribune  reported. Eighty-seven-year-old Stockton, California, resident Lowell Joerg purchased the card at an antique shop for $6 and mailed it to Uselman.

Boniface Morris, a Bismarck resident, sent the card to a friend in Oregon in September 1920. Joerg has made a hobby of sending historic postcards of churches and schools to the buildings about once or twice a month.

Occasionally, Joerg said, he hears back.

"Some people toss it in the garbage, naturally," he said. "Other people pay attention to it."

Uselman said she hadn't seen an early picture of Bismarck High School without additions until she received the postcard. In a letter sent with the postcard, Joerg joked that he promised to take his wife to lunch if Uselman writes back with a few dollars for the card and for postage.

Joerg calls the postcards a "redistribution of happiness." Uselman said she has a response typed up and said she hopes to "redistribute" the happiness the letter brought her.

"When you have that chance to make a connection with a complete stranger, why not?" Uselman said. "I want to share the joy he gave me."

KENTWOOD, Mich. — Fire officials in western Michigan's Kentwood want to add flak vests — a type of body armor — to equipment worn by firefighters due to concerns about attacks on first responders.

The job has changed over the past five to 10 years, Deputy Fire Chief Gregg Ginebaugh told WOOD-TV for a story Saturday.

Ginebaugh said the fire department is seeking federal funds to pay for the vests. Each vest and associated gear cost about $1,300, according to WOOD-TV.

Kentwood is just southeast of Grand Rapids.

Dangers posed by rushing into burning houses and buildings to make rescues and collapsing walls, roofs and floors no longer are the only threats firefighters face.

On Friday, Grand Rapids police said three shots struck the city's main firehouse. Gunshots were reported in the area earlier in the week during a confrontation involving a group of men. Officials don't believe firefighters were targeted.

In Detroit, a man was charged Thursday with attempted murder in the box cutter-stabbing of two emergency medical technicians who were helping his injured girlfriend. And two firefighters in San Diego were stabbed in June by a bystander as they helped a drunken man on a trolley platform.

The Detroit paramedics and San Diego firefighters survived the attacks.

"Now we have to change our mindset to look for any weapons that may be on the person, or somebody that is standing by," Ginebaugh said. "We want to feel safe ... versus constantly looking around to see if there's a threat to our safety."

FAIRBURY, Neb. — Nebraska officials have determined there will be no mountain lion hunting season next year.

The news came Friday at a Nebraska Game and Parks Commission meeting in Fairbury, the Omaha World-Herald reported.

The results of a research project on cougars in the state will determine whether biologists recommend a future hunting season for the big cat, said Sam Wilson, the commission's carnivore program manager.

Nebraska's first and only mountain lion-hunting season occurred in 2014, when hunters killed five cougars.

The commission decided not to permit hunting this year because of the high number of females killed in 2014. In addition to the five cougars killed by hunters, 11 others died from illegal hunting, traps and being hit by vehicles. Ten of the 16 killed were females.

Mountain lions are native to Nebraska, but were nearly wiped out from poisoning and hunting by early settlers. The cats have been making a comeback in the northwest corner of the state and have wandered as far east as Omaha.

The animals have also found a protector in the Nebraska Legislature. Sen. Ernie Chambers, of Omaha, unsuccessfully sought last year to repeal the commission's authority to establish mountain lion hunting seasons. Chambers has vowed to fight any attempts to resume legal hunts of the big cats.

The research project has officials capturing cougars in baited cages. The cats are sedated and fitted with GPS collars or ear tags for kittens.

Biologists hope to track as many as 15 mountain lions in the Pine Ridge, Wildcat Hills and Niobrara River Valley during the four-year research project.

The most recent commission study indicated a population ranging from 16 to 37 mountain lions in the Pine Ridge area.

MILWAUKEE — The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is recommending an end to the use of ultralight aircraft to lead endangered whooping cranes from Wisconsin on their first fall migrations to Florida, and the phase-out could happen as early as next fall.

Nearly 250 whooping cranes have been released since 2001 in a Wisconsin-based program that the service estimated has cost more than $20 million in public and private funds. The agency oversees the annual distribution of captive-produced eggs whose chicks are then distributed to groups like Operation Migration to supplement the wild whooping crane population. Some 181 cranes have been involved in ultralight-led training.

But the agency said in a report this month that the birds in Wisconsin and other eastern states could go extinct within 75 years without better management. So it wants to end or scale back on strategies that rely heavily on captivity and other artificial means, saying they don't appear to yield better results than other methods.

Operation Migration, which runs the ultralight flights and trains juvenile cranes to follow them, is taking sharp exception to efforts to end its work, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported Saturday. Joe Duff, the group's CEO, suggested that cranes under its management have fared better than other birds released into the wild. The group hopes to convince a consortium that manages the birds in the eastern U.S. that the flights should continue.

The USFWS report said that "current captive rearing techniques may not instill whooping cranes with the characteristics that allow them to successfully reproduce in the wild," as well as to avoid predators, cope with insects and hone their parenting skills.

Still, the agency lauded Operation Migration for its "pioneering" methods and the role it's played creating a migration route and raising awareness.

"They've really been an important player," said Wade Harrell, whooping crane coordinator for the Fish and Wildlife Service.

The recommendations will next go to the Whooping Crane Eastern Partnership, a consortium of government and private organizations that manages the birds with a goal of creating self-sustaining populations. An influential member is the Baraboo-based International Crane Foundation, which has developed a method of releasing new chicks into the wild in the company of older cranes. The young birds then follow the other cranes south.

"We want to work together for what is best for the bird," Crane Foundation spokeswoman Anne Sayers said.

COLUMBUS, Ohio — Columbus police say a speeding motorist struck and killed a bicyclist and then crashed his car and died.

Authorities aren't yet identifying the victims of the early Saturday morning accident.

Police say the 20-year-old bicyclist was riding his bike north when a speeding car hit him around 1:30 a.m.

Police say the 38-year-old driver lost control and hit a retaining wall, utility pole and tree.

Police say both men were pronounced dead at the scene.

LANSING, Mich. — Michigan lawmakers are under pressure to let retired teachers return to the classroom because of a shortage of substitutes and not enough full-time teachers in special education, pre-kindergarten and certain subjects.

A 2012 law allowing teachers who retired after mid-2010 to teach again without losing their pension expired more than 15 months ago. That left provisions of a 2010 teacher retirement incentive law on the books.

Pension and health care benefits must be suspended once retirees directly employed by a school district are paid more than one-third of their average final compensation in a year. Retirement benefits are off limits entirely for retirees hired by an independent contractor to perform a school's "core services."

Reasons for the substitute teaching shortage are varied, including an improved unemployment rate that has meant job seekers who might have taken a part-time job substitute teaching landed full-time positions in education or another field. But school administrators and the companies they contract with for substitutes say legislators also are at fault.

"The Legislature disallowed retirees to come back who were deemed our best substitutes," said Clark Galloway, president of EDUStaff, which finds substitutes for more than 300 of the state's 541 districts. The firm, which recruits, screens, hires, trains, places and pays substitutes, is doing everything "within reason" to search for candidates, he said.

That includes job fairs, highway billboard advertising, yard signs and placements with newspapers, radio stations and on music streaming service Pandora.

One in 10 Michigan classrooms has a substitute teacher on average, more on Mondays and Fridays. A 95 percent fill rate was considered good up until a few years ago. The current fill rate is 85 percent, Galloway said, which means "we now have 1,500 classrooms on a daily basis that are not getting a substitute teacher or districts are scrambling."

Rep. Holly Hughes, R-Montague, who sponsored the 2012 legislation allowing for exemptions, is spearheading a bill to re-enact the expired provisions. She said retired teachers were snared in lawmakers' crackdown on superintendents making six figures who "double dipped" by retiring, collecting a pension and being rehired by an outside agency to do the same job.

Under her legislation, a retiree returning as a substitute could make no more than a third of his or her previous salary. A retiree going back full time into a "critical shortage discipline" could do so for three years. Such areas currently include early childhood, special ed, foreign languages and occupations like construction trades, hospitality, cosmetology, auto technicians and welding.

The bill, a similar version of which died in 2014, won House approval 108-2 in March. It is pending on the floor of the Senate after a committee recently amended it so teachers could return while still getting a pension until mid-2018.

"We need it right now. It just helps kids," Hughes said, adding that superintendents want it desperately. "They've been calling, 'When's this bill going to go through?'"

Coni Sullivan, assistant superintendent of human resources and legal services at the Kent Intermediate School District, said substitute fill rates were at low as 75 to 80 percent in some of the county's districts late last school year. As a result, she said, teachers are denied professional development opportunities or, if they are out sick, "we have to double up teachers in classrooms, which means in some cases we'll have 60 students to one teacher. Allowing our retirees to come back not only puts an individual in the classroom, but puts a qualified individual in the classroom."

Senate Education Committee Chairman Phil Pavlov, R-St. Clair, said he is sponsoring legislation that would offer another pathway to addressing teacher shortages, especially in career and technical education. The bill, also pending on the Senate floor, would let districts hire noncertified, unendorsed teachers for more subjects, including writing and those on the state's critical shortage list.

"Maybe we're looking in the wrong places for this talent," Pavlov said. "If there is a critical shortage, we're graduating 8,000 teachers a year in this state and we're hiring 2,000. Let's try to find out why that gap isn't being met. If the propensity is in the CTE side of the equation, then we have what could potentially be a fix."

COUNCIL BLUFFS, Iowa — A Council Bluffs man has been arrested after police say he threw a large, plastic playhouse at an officer.

The Daily Nonpareil reports that 34-year-old Joseph Stoddard was arrest early Friday on suspicion of twice violating a no-contact order, second-degree burglary, disorderly contact, interference with official acts and three counts of assaulting an officer.

Police say Stoddard was destroying property Thursday night at the house of a 32-year-old woman he had been charged with burglarizing on Sept. 21.

Police say when officers arrived, Stoddard would not allow them inside, then threw the playhouse at an officer as he tried to escape. The officer was not injured.

Stoddard was eventually stunned with a Taser. He remains in the Pottawattamie County Jail on $15,000 bond.

BELLEVILLE, Ill. — A state regulator in the Illinois suburbs of St. Louis has removed a potent painkiller from all ambulances in the area during an investigation into "unauthorized tampering" of the drug.

The Belleville News-Democrat reports that Dr. Savoy Brummer ordered emergency medical services in the region earlier this year to turn over supplies of fentanyl. The Memorial Hospital physician also decreed that each instance where fentanyl was administered from May 25, 2013 to May 25, 2015 be documented.

Brummer and Memorial serve as regional state regulators of ambulances for the Illinois Department of Public Health.

"It was discovered that an unauthorized tampering of fentanyl occurred," Memorial spokeswoman Anne Thomure said in a statement. She said the hospital is cooperating with police but would not say which law enforcement agencies are involved or elaborate on the probe.

Fentanyl is a synthetic opiate used as a painkiller and is effective in patients who have built up a tolerance to similar drugs such as morphine. It's also up to 100 times more potent than morphine.

On the street, fentanyl can be mixed with heroin to increase purity. Madison County Coroner Steve Nonn said the federal Drug Enforcement Administration has warned local officials to watch for the mixture.

"It's an extremely dangerous combination" and potentially lethal to a first-time user, Nonn said. "There's no Angie's List to call to ask, 'Is my local drug dealer selling drugs that are killing people?'"

Thomure's statement said the hospital "has agreed to replace medical supplies and exchange equipment, as needed," but she would not say what changes would be made or whether the ambulances would be restocked with the drug.

Mark Corley, general manager of Abbot EMS, said the drug was pulled in June. He expected to be able to use it again once the manufacturer produces "a more easily controlled dose." He said single-use syringes would be a better alternative to vials containing larger quantities of the drug.

TOPEKA, Kan. — A Topeka man says his family is unhappy that a "ghost tour" charged admission to a site where his grandfather was shot to death while working as a police officer in 1955.

Ghost Tours if Kansas hosted an event Oct. 9 at Topeka's Moose Lodge, where Officer Clarence Shields was shot to death on April 11, 1955, when he surprised two burglars on the roof.

"My family has no problem with ghost 'hunters' going to the Moose Lodge for entertainment but what we do have a problem with is when companies like this charge admission to participants," Shields' grandson, Joey Little wrote in an email to The Wichita Eagle. "This is tasteless and horrible. We view charging money to 'hunt' our father and grandfather - a fallen Topeka Police Officer - absolutely wrong."

Cathy Ramirez, owner of Ghost Tours of Kansas, said she charges admission for all of the 11 tours she hosts in nine Kansas cities. She charged $20 a person for 22 people to go through the Moose Lodge on Oct. 9. Three quarters of the proceeds went to a maintenance fund for the lodge, with the rest going to her and her team. She said she always gets permission from the current property owner.

"I don't believe in antagonizing a spirit to get action or activity," Ramirez said. "I am not antagonizing ghosts when I go ghost hunting."

Little went to the Moose Lodge to protest on the night of ghost tour, telling people that the family found the hunt was distasteful especially since money was being charged.

Ramirez said mentions Shields during the tour because a plaque and a ballroom at the Moose Lodge are dedicated to him.

"During my tours, I would like to think that if Clarence 'Boots' Shields is there, he is a man of integrity, honor and respect. I would think he is in his career mode, protecting and still serving this community. As to his family, with all their hate emails, threats, I wonder what he would think about their behavior. It is not his proudest moment, I am sure."

Bill Miskell, chairman of the Kansas Law Enforcement Officer Memorial Committee, said he didn't know how the event at the Moose Lodge was marketed but he didn't want people to forget that Shields still has surviving family members for whom his death is still a "very real event."

"From the perspective of the state law enforcement group, we owe everyone who has served this state and paid with the ultimate sacrifice our fullest respect throughout the year," Miskell said.

CANTON, Ohio — An Ohio woman has said yes to a marriage proposal from her boyfriend pitched via a front page newspaper advertisement.

Robbie Paxton of Canton says it felt like the longest seven minutes of his life while he waited for girlfriend Tina Troyer to notice the ad Friday in The Repository.

The 50-year-old Paxton says he was in the kitchen making breakfast and wondering why Troyer wasn't saying anything after he set out the paper and her morning coffee.

Paxton was just about to ask if she'd read the paper when she responded with a resounding "yes."

The 49-year-old Troyer says she was thrown off guard especially because she always reads the paper's front page ads first before looking at the rest of the paper.

COLUMBUS, Ohio  — About 40 food pantries have closed or merged since June 2014 around Ohio, a state that a recent U.S. Department of Agriculture report ranked as among the worst in the nation for food insecurity.

The Ohio Association of Foodbanks believes the closures are the result of a higher demand after a work requirement caused many people to be taken off food stamps in 2013, The Columbus Dispatch reported.

Under the requirement, able-bodied adults ages 18 to 50 who don't have dependents must spend at least 20 hours a week working, attending class, volunteering or training for a job to get food assistance.

The number of Ohio residents receiving food stamps through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program has decreased by more than 115,000 since January 2014. Around the same time individuals started losing benefits for not meeting requirements.

"If it becomes harder to qualify for SNAP, obviously that generates greater demand," said Brad Draper, corporate director of a food-pantry service in Columbus.

There's no evidence that work requirements cause large numbers of people to be taken off food stamps, according to the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services officials.

"The requirements do not deny anyone food assistance. All they do is— in addition to food assistance —the individual also receives job training or something similar," said department spokesman Ben Johnson.

There isn't enough money in the system to offset nearly a half a billion dollars in food-stamp cuts, said Lisa Hamler-Fugitt, executive director of the Ohio Association of Foodbanks.

The network of pantries is challenged by a need from many Ohio residents and is operating with mostly faith-based volunteers, she said.

DUBUQUE, Iowa — The steady chugging and churning of the candy-making machine at Our Lady of the Mississippi Abbey wasn't loud enough to hurt your ears, but it did make it challenging to hear the person next to you.

Fortunately, none of the seven women on "The Machine Crew" were talking. Trappist nuns prefer contemplation to conversation. And no machine can drown out prayers.

"We're not all introverts — look at me!" exclaimed Sister Kathleen O'Neill, OCSO, candy production manager at the Abbey, located about nine miles south of Dubuque. "But the ideal is to pray as we work."

Not all of the women who make the candy are Trappists. Some are outside volunteers. But they respect the ideal.

The two main challenges they face as the Abbey celebrates its 50th anniversary of producing the famous Trappistine Creamy Caramels revolve around age.

"When we were founded in 1964, the community was largely very young people, so naturally with the aging process, we now have older people," O'Neill told The Telegraph Herald.

Only 15 sisters live at the Abbey, 13 of whom help make candy. Their median age is 61.

"This work is physically challenging," she added. "Some of it requires heavy lifting and quite a lot of it is repetitious movements over and over, which impacts the joints and the back."

The caramel maker, a critical part of the operation, is getting a bit out of joint, as well.

"It is 70 or 80 years old," O'Neill said. "They don't make them anymore."

Most modern candy-making machines are too large or costly. Other smaller ones are too slow.

"But we were able to purchase some old machines that people had in their garages or attics," that are good enough to last a generation, with some fixing up, O'Neill said.

The Trappistines annually sell about 60,000 pounds of caramel products and 1,000-2,000 pounds each of their other candies. This time of year — known at the Abbey as "Candy Season" — is by far the busiest. About 20 outside volunteers, all who work part time, help out.

Retiree Karen Sisler, of Dubuque, is an eight-year volunteer who is working three-hour morning shifts Mondays and Wednesdays this season.

"I put the 'squiggles' on the caramels," said Sisler, who also has packed boxes and stacked them on crates. Her favorite to eat is the plain caramel, "But how could you not like them all?"

Sheryl Mosby, 50, is starting her fourth year as an employee. The office manager, she works year-round, though not as many hours in the summers.

"The Sisters are wonderful to work for," said Mosby, who handles all orders and gets them ready to ship.

The orders Mosby takes are from all over the U.S. and Canada.

"We even had one lady call from Greece," she said.

The popular caramels come in four flavors — vanilla, chocolate, vanilla coated with light chocolate and vanilla coated with dark chocolate.

Sister Mary Therese, OCSO, 28, has been at the Abbey for three years. She does a variety of jobs, but perhaps her favorite is the boxing stage.

"It's where you put the candy into bags and then boxes and the coated caramels into boxes," she said. "It's just kind of fast-paced and exciting."

Is it difficult not grabbing a piece to eat?

"That temptation does occur," she said with a loud laugh. "It's almost like that 'I Love Lucy' moment."

Not only is there a "reject" box, but also a "good reject" box. The rejects have obvious problems, usually with poor wrapping. They'll get melted back down and thrown back into the mix. The good rejects are used as samples or given to volunteers.

At 9:50 each morning, they take a break. At the end of the break, the Abbey sisters retire for a short prayer service, usually joined by employees and volunteers.

About 15 years ago, Ron Koos started going to Mass at the Abbey on his way home to St. Donatus, Iowa, from work in Dubuque.

"It was so peaceful," he said.

One night after Mass, he was asked if he would cut the grass on the grounds. It's not something they casually do.

O'Neill said the norm in their order is to not have people outside the monastery work with them, but she emphasized that they can't manage without their many great volunteers and part-time workers.

Koos was eventually asked to help in the candy making. But he occasionally had trouble with the contemplation vs. conversation aspect.

"Once they had to tell me to shut up," in so many words, Koos said good-naturedly.

Koos now works about 35 hours per week, doing just about anything that is needed, including acting as lead candy cook.

He joined part-time employee Leah Barker, the pastor at Dubuque Church of the Nazarene, one recent afternoon in the cooking room.

Two huge brass kettles were set up under machines that churned and cooked the caramel at 200-plus degrees. Barker made sure the sugar, evaporated milk and rejects were poured in as the churning continued and left a sugary aroma in the air.

The kettles looked safe enough to venture in for a peek at the 80 pounds of contents. But every so often, they spit out small scalding amounts of the liquid.

"Some days, they spit farther than others," said Barker, who earlier had been burned on the arm by one spit.

Koos' job was two-fold: He prepared the kettles for the churners with corn syrup, heavy cream, butter, flakes and other minor ingredients. Then, when the temperature reached 243 degrees in a kettle, he moved it with a fork-lift to a room where he poured out the liquid candy onto a large metal pan.

The pans were subdivided into smaller segments, and the liquid would harden overnight for use the next day. Koos said they do about seven to eight batches per day.

One trip to the Abbey gives you an idea of why Koos found it so peaceful. It sits on 630 acres of land, about a mile west of the Mississippi River. There are 350 acres of managed woodlands and a 200-acre organic farm.

O'Neill said the farm has sometimes made a very modest contribution to their income and there was a time in the mid-1990s when they were trying to have it earn more. That was stopped after a few years for a variety of reasons.

So, despite the aging challenges of labor and equipment, the candy continues to be the king crop.

"We basically support ourselves with this business," O'Neill said. "We just built three enormous freezers, which is exciting for us. We can store candy year-round."

Besides caramels, a non-chocolate Irish Mint was introduced in 1980, a chocolate Swiss Mint in 1987 and a hazelnut meltaway in 2002. But each of those need only one person to process.

"One of the things that is stable about our business is, we've built up a clientele over the years," O'Neill said. "We've built up a market. And that doesn't happen overnight."

So caramel-lovers can relax — there will be no shortage of the coveted Abbey candy this holiday season.

Information from: Telegraph Herald, http://www.thonline.com

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — Gov. Bruce Rauner has signed a law aimed at ending a proliferation of specialty license plates that raise awareness for causes.

The Republican's action Friday creates a universal specialty license plate — they'll look the same but a unique sticker representing the cause will be attached to it.

Democratic Rep. John D'Amico (duh-MEE'-koh) of Chicago sponsored it. He says specialty license plates — promoting everything from nonviolence to the Chicago Blackhawks — confuse police because they look different.

Money raised from plate fees go to the nonprofit cause or, in the case of sports teams, to public education.

There are 109 different specialty plates.

People may still display those plates and get new ones.

Most of the law takes effect next year.

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The bill is HB1081

Online: http://www.ilga.gov

ST. JOSEPH, Mo. — What do fifth-graders at Hosea Elementary School, the St. Joseph Performing Arts Association and an orchestra in New Zealand have in common?

Quite a lot, thanks to an educational opportunity that will put some of the students in front of an audience at the Missouri Theater.

The students at Hosea Elementary in St. Joseph are learning something more unique than the typical recorder, the St. Joseph News-Press reports.

Thirty ukuleles were sent to Joshua Lock's music class at Hosea from the Wellington International Ukulele Orchestra based in Wellington, New Zealand.

The orchestra reached out to the St. Joseph Performing Arts Association with the idea to send the instruments to kids in the community so they could practice and then play with the orchestra when they perform at the Missouri Theater this winter.

Beth Sharp, director of the Performing Arts Association, said the group loved the idea.

"Then we started to look around for a local teacher," she said. "We asked the school district if they had any music teachers that know the ukulele, and right off they said Joshua Lock at Hosea Elementary and we said ... that's where we're going, then."

Friday was only the students' second day learning the instrument, but already they were learning notes, time signatures and which fingers to use on the fret boards.

"They're really responsive," Lock said. "They're really open to just playing. They're not hesitant. They want to make sound (and) they want to make music, so I enjoy watching them trying to figure it out and then helping each other."

Lock will grade his students on three parameters: attendance, attitude and aptitude. He then will choose the class with the highest rank in December to play with the orchestra.

The students are excited to pick up the ukuleles and learn something new, and so are the people who made it happen.

"It was so exciting to see them playing, to see them interested in the instrument," Sharp said. "It just made me feel like this was the right thing to do."

Lock said the instrument provides a fun learning opportunity for students.

"Just to foster that love of music now so it continues to grow later ... any instrument can do that, but I really think ukulele is such a fun niche instrument that it can help keep them more focused on one musical aspect at a time," Lock said.

The students will join Wellington International Ukulele Orchestra on the stage at Missouri Theater on Feb. 20. Tickets are on sale now.

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Information from: St. Joseph News-Press/St. Joe, Missouri, http://www.newspressnow.com

An AP Member Exchange shared by the St. Joseph News-Press

WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — It's as if the horses from the Joyland merry-go-round, in storage in a warehouse at Botanica, are feeling their age.

The horses — forever frozen in their stride — now are lined up side by side in rows, their carnival colors dulled, the wood on some cracked down to the hindquarters.

The Wichita Eagle reports (http://bit.ly/1OKTBDY ) a carousel horse whisperer — Wichitan Marlene Irvin, who rode the horses as a child — is bringing them, one by one, back to a new life: shiny, earth-toned, decorated with the tendrils of leaves and flowers, to take new generations of children on rides in the gardens of Botanica.

In an un-air-conditioned backyard workshop whose doors are open to the sound of birds, Irvin removes as many as 15 layers of old paint from the horses, gingerly removing nails holding them together, taking the surface down to the original wood, much of which is soft and fragile. She chips and files and sands, virtually all by hand, to restore the now-rare merry-go-round that was made in 1949 in New York.

In the process, which can take 75 to 500 hours for each horse, depending on its condition, Irvin senses how she should paint the horses.

"They all have their own personalities," Irvin says. "And I know this sounds really weird, but when you take a horse that's in the condition they're in, there's a lot of time you spend just getting ready to paint, and during those hundreds of hours and that hands-on, I develop a sense of the horse — 'I'm a male horse; you need to paint me more masculine,' or 'I'm a female horse.' I get these vibes. They tell me what they want to be."

Irvin has finished eight of the 36 horses so far, and five of them are on display in Botanica's lobby. One of them will rotate out each time Irvin finishes a set of four.

"They're just beautiful," says Botanica director Marty Miller, who went to school at West High with Irvin, though she's a couple of years younger, and who also rode the merry-go-round as a child. Miller received the gift of the merry-go-round from Joyland owner Margaret Nelson Spear last year. The amusement park closed in 2006.

Botanica so far has raised $500,000 for the carousel project, more than enough to restore the merry-go-round itself but not enough for the estimated $1 million for a building that will make it a year-round attraction behind the farm area of the Downing Children's Garden. The annual Ghoulish Gala on Friday is one way Botanica raises money for it.

"I don't know what it's going to look like yet," Miller said. Botanica will be having design charrettes to get ideas, and WDM Architects will begin an architectural schematic design of the building.

Irvin says restoring the horses and a couple of chariots will take her about three years total. Miller hopes the merry-go-round will open at the end of 2017 or the beginning of 2018.

By the way, Marlene, is it merry-go-round or carousel?

"Carousel is more of a European term, and merry-go-round is an American term," she says. "When I went to Joyland, it was a merry-go-round. But in my professional life, they're carousels."

Irvin started her career at Wichita's Chance manufacturer of amusement-park rides in 1978, moving from the fiberglass shop to the parts department to the art department. She left to start her own business, Custom Carving & Restoration, in 1992.

"I've had an artistic bent that's kind of a God-given talent," she says. "I didn't go to college."

Irvin is one of only a handful of people who restore carousels in the United States, she says, and she's restored several, including those for Oak Park Mall in Kansas City and Santa's Workshop in Colorado Springs, and the one that used to be at Towne West. She's also worked on hundreds of individual horses for collectors from across the country.

Depending on the condition of the horses, some can take half a year to a year to restore.

"When the horses are all wood, people, for a quick fix, will put another nail or screw in them, so by the time you strip the wood and remove all the metal screws and nails, the legs fall off, typically," she says. "A total take-apart, I might have that horse in a hundred pieces laying on the floor, and it's like a big jigsaw puzzle."

The Joyland horses are not that involved; the head, tail and legs are aluminum. They are from the type of merry-go-round that went around with traveling carnivals, even though this particular one did not. The horses are more compact; their legs are tucked up, and their bodies are lighter than those of permanent-sited carousels, Irvin says. This type of merry-go-round was more economical, she says. It's rare to find one today, because they just didn't survive the road.

In the shop behind Irvin's house in west Wichita, the horses' animated faces look strangely isolated, their bodies lying on tables or upright on poles set into car rims.

"Every horse is different," she says. "The wood condition is different. How the paint is sticking or not sticking to the animal is different. . Stuff like that keeps it from not being boring for me, because every horse is different, every horse has a unique set of challenges."

While most people want to talk to her about painting the horses, she actually likes the time-consuming, preliminary work, because she knows that without a good base, "the pretties" would be fleeting.

Using a file to restore a groove in a blanket's trim, Irvin is in the groove. "Ninety-nine percent of my work is all done with hand tools, it's not power tools," she said. "It takes a little bit longer, but you also want it to look authentic in the way it was done. .

"I'm interested in the project, in the client. This is a historical item from Wichita, so I don't want to do anything that would take away from that."

Adding to the challenge of the work is the weather; as Irvin labored this summer on her second set of four horses without any air-conditioning, she developed a case of heat rash in mid-July. High humidity also interferes with the work. But she rolls with the punches.

When it finally comes time to paint the horses, Irvin has been given free rein, as long as she gives it a "wow" factor and it fits into the botanical setting, she says. While many of the Joyland horses were black, white or brown, for Botanica their colors will be shades of gray, off-white and buckskin, some of it "palomino-ed and dappled." Irvin is adding elaborations such as shading, and one of the horses she just finished has a wood nymph painted on the saddle.

"I want it to reflect the memories of the people of Wichita," Irvin says of the merry-go-round. But the horses have been there all along, too.

"I've had an idea for how to paint a horse, and it says, 'No, no,' and I've thought it was a pretty good idea, so I've gone ahead with it anyway . I've had to go back and redo artwork because the horse was screaming, 'No, that's not me.' . I tell the horses to tell me what they want."

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Information from: The Wichita (Kan.) Eagle, http://www.kansas.com

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