Homes for a buck; raising hellbenders; don't call 911 when drunk

By GAYLE WORLAND

Wisconsin State Journal

MCFARLAND, Wis. (AP) — On Feb. 14, Brianna McManamy opened the first of her mother's cards. It was a simple Valentine, decorated with red hearts. The only words inside were those written by her mom.

They wished the 4-year-old a happy Valentine's Day. They reminded Brianna her mother loved her.

They were penned by Heather McManamy, of McFarland, just weeks before she died of cancer at the age of 36. The Valentine was one of some 70 cards that Heather addressed to her husband, to friends, but most of all to her vivacious, curly-haired, preschool daughter, the Wisconsin State Journal (http://bit.ly/22qwVAo ) reported.

Those sealed cards, stowed carefully in a safe by Brianna's father, Jeff, are meant for Brianna at each milestone of her life: First day of school. Passing her driver's test. Her wedding day.

"Whether you broke a bone or had your wisdom teeth pulled or have the flu," reads a get-well card Heather wrote to her daughter, "there is no place I'd rather be right now than eating chicken noodle soup and snuggling with you."

"One of Heather's biggest fears was that, after years and years, (Brianna) wouldn't remember her," Jeff said of his late wife.

But after Heather shared her idea about writing the cards last July with family and friends on Facebook, her words went viral. The story ricocheted from the Internet to TV news and national magazines. Emails came in from around the world.

CNN called her for a phone interview, her husband said, while Heather was receiving chemotherapy.

There was so much interest — worldwide interest — that she was invited to write a book. The process began in late October 2015, and a final draft was sent to the publisher on Dec. 14.

Heather died early the next morning.

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"Cards for Brianna: A Mom's Messages of Living, Laughing, and Loving as Time Is Running Out" is available for pre-order and will arrive in stores April 12. A portion of the proceeds from April print book sales will benefit METAvivor, a nonprofit that helps fund research for metastatic cancer.

"It will be very surreal to see it in a bookstore," said Jeff McManamy, who with his daughter Brianna, Heather's co-author William Croyle, and the book's editor, Anna Michels of Sourcebooks Inc., will be at A Room of One's Own bookstore at 2 p.m. April 10 to launch the book.

Both funny and tragic, "Cards for Brianna" is a shotgun seat on the emotional roller-coaster next to someone who is terminally ill. A constant theme, however, is the importance of living each day to the fullest.

"The thing that really struck me about Heather's voice was the optimism and the joy that came through her writing, even as she was facing the end of her life," said book editor Michels. "Even though, in the end, this story doesn't end up with Heather beating her disease and moving on from it, I think it is ultimately a story of triumph and how she was able to live the very best life that she could in the time she was allowed."

After her Stage 2 breast cancer found in April 2013 had progressed to Stage 4 a year later, Heather began making videos and audio tapes for Brianna to remember her by. Croyle, a former newspaper reporter who now co-authors inspirational biographies, heard about her plans to write cards for Brianna. Croyle emailed Jeff and proposed co-writing a book. That project, Heather would later write in its pages, became a "beautiful and meaningful experience."

The self-described "compulsively organized control freak" would also compose her own obituary. She left behind a "dying spreadsheet" with instructions for Jeff to follow when she died. And she wrote her final Facebook post for Jeff to put online when she'd said her last goodbye.

".Don't say I lost to cancer. Because cancer may have taken almost everything from me, but it never took my love or my hope or my joy," she wrote in that posthumous post.

"It wasn't a 'battle' — it was just life, which is often brutally random and unfair, and that's simply how it goes sometimes. I didn't lose, dammit. The way I lived for years with cancer is something I consider a pretty big victory. Please remember that."

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"Cards for Brianna" follows the journey of Heather's illness with that same trademark spunk. She describes how she threw herself a hair-cutting party at a salon before losing her hair to chemotherapy. She talks matter-of-factly about the selection of a place for her ashes.

"My final resting spot is a bit unorthodox. It's a clear glass box built into a wall inside a mausoleum," she wrote. "The box is kind of like a trophy case (insert your own 'trophy wife' joke here before Jeff does). My ashes will be placed in an urn, which will be displayed in the box.. I made sure to get a spot close to Bri's current height so she can see it."

There is room in the box for someone else's ashes, she wrote, although she assumed Bri would want to be next to her future partner "and Jeff knows I don't want him in there — I want him to find happiness with someone else when I'm gone.

"So I'm thinking a nice shiny Chicago Bears helmet would look nice."

Along with the West Allis native's sense of humor (and odd partiality to the Bears), Heather was blunt about how — in a nation festooned with pink ribbons each year during Breast Cancer Awareness Month — people with terminal cancer are mostly left out of the conversation.

That was a key point she wanted her book to address, Croyle said.

"She was so enthusiastic about this," said Croyle, who wrote "Cards for Brianna" with Heather via email and phone calls. Often, he would show up at his computer in the morning to find pages upon pages of new text that Heather had written until 3 a.m. Her witty, upbeat voice always came through.

"I would say what you read in the book — the majority of it is her words. And that's unusual," Croyle said. "Usually I'm there because people need help writing or organizing things. She could write. She was very good at it."

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One of the most moving accounts in the book centers on the actual cards Heather wrote for her daughter. It was not easy.

"My experience writing messages to her in the cards was like most everything else in life that's difficult to do: the anticipation of doing it was far worse than actually doing it," she wrote.

"I didn't buy the cards, come home and joyfully fill them out. I bought them, came home, stared at them for a long time wondering why I had bought them and how in the world I thought I was going to emotionally get through them, and then I put them away for weeks. .Part of it was the finality of each one. How do I wish my daughter a happy birthday when I know I won't be here for it? .What do I say in a wedding card when I have no idea who she will be two or three or however many decades from now, or if I will even matter to her?"

Today, photos of Heather fill the McManamys' McFarland home. Brianna talks freely about her mom, something her dad consciously encourages. The 4-year-old names all of her dolls "Sweetie," the same name that Heather always called her.

Jeff, who would have celebrated his 10th wedding anniversary with Heather in May, took over much of Brianna's care during his wife's long illness.

As for life since she's been gone, "We're still figuring it out," said Jeff, who is assistant vice president for learning and organizational development at Summit Credit Union. "We have school and work. I'm not much of a cook, so we eat out a lot."

Brianna attends preschool and 4-year-old kindergarten. She loves her best friend and her dance class, she explained as she performed a ballet leap across the kitchen floor.

"Brianna definitely has a zest for life, and I think that's Heather showing through," Jeff said.

For him, the most poignant part of "Cards for Brianna" was Heather's description of their first meeting and five-year courtship.

"Thinking about those days, when our life together was just starting, and not a care in the world — it makes me miss that," he said. "We were planning Bri's second birthday when we first found out Heather had cancer. And really, from that point on, there really was never a point where she didn't have treatment, and surgeries, and hospital stays."

"There are days when I am frustrated or angry that this (illness) happened, but I look back — and Heather and I got 15 years together," he said. "That's a lot better than nothing. And I get to wake up every day and play with Bri."

Each Saturday after swim class, he and Brianna go to the mausoleum — "to visit mommy," Brianna explained.

Sometimes Brianna puts a drawing she made for her mom in the glass case next to the urn.

A card for Heather.

"The only place that Mommy wanted to be," she explained, "was with me."

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Information from: Wisconsin State Journal, http://www.madison.com/wsj

This is an AP Member Exchange shared by the Wisconsin State Journal

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Drawn to the idea of buying a house for just a buck, Dorian Blydenburgh paced through the century-old digs in south Kansas City and didn't mind tree limbs on the living room floor, holes in the ceiling and a funky mold smell.

"This is one everyone is gonna want, and there's gonna be a fight for this," said Blydenburgh , 56, a contractor looking at the three-bedroom, 1,500-square-foot house at 4124 Chestnut Ave. as a makeover prospect for a friend, who later applied to buy it. "Some of these places you need a bulldozer to fix, but this is doable. For a dollar, it looks like a go."

That's what Kansas City, Missouri, officials were hoping to hear. The city and the Land Bank of Kansas City have offered 130 derelict, generally unlivable structures for sale for $1 each to those willing to make them livable again within a year. The buyer's reward is an eventual $8,500 rebate — the amount it would have cost the city to flatten the houses.

Since launching the program in February, the Land Bank has taken in about 60 applications and fielded roughly 4,000 inquiries. Applications are due April 1, and a Land Bank panel will decide who gets the houses.

"We thought that of the houses we had, we thought probably half could not be saved. I think that's gonna be the case, said Ted Anderson, executive director of the local Land Bank, which works with the city and helps market vacant, abandoned properties. But hopefully, "at the end of the rehab we'll have a well-built home from the 1910s or 1920s in a neighborhood with some character."

It's part of a larger Kansas City effort to deal with dangerous, abandoned houses that have attracted squatters and crime. The city plans to spend $10 million over two years to tear down up to 800 houses, but the $1 home program could save some of those targeted.

But it's buyer beware. Applicants must undergo a background check — applicants who are registered sex offenders or have drug-dealing or prostitution convictions are disqualified — and prove through bank statements or unused credit card limits they have at least $8,500 to devote to the rehab.

Ultimately, the program's backers warn, rehabbing the properties might cost tens of thousands of dollars, perhaps involving installing or repairing roofs, electrical systems, plumbing, heating and air conditioning or foundations. And that's beyond the cost of tackling troubling unknowns such as lead or asbestos.

"Most of those buildings on the dangerous list are going to have to come down. We know that," Mayor Sly James said. "But there are other homes on that low level that could be salvaged, and we want people to know they are out there."

Other cities have tried similar approaches. In Detroit, with the help of tens of millions of dollars from taxpayers, the city has torn down about 7,100 of an estimated 30,000 to 40,000 vacant houses since May 2014, with the mayor planning to have an additional 15,000 homes gone by 2018. More than 1,300 other homes have been auctioned, Detroit Land Bank Authority spokesman Craig Fahle said. Buyers of those properties, many fetching just the opening bid of $1,000, are required to bring the house up to code and have it occupied within six months — nine months if it's in a historic district.

Chicago and Milwaukee have unloaded vacant lots. Chicago has sold more than 400 vacant parcels since 2014. In Milwaukee, homeowners next to a vacant lot can buy it for $1.

David Reiss, a Brooklyn Law School professor who focuses on real estate issues and community development, urges would-be buyers to understand the expenses beyond the price tag, including property taxes, upkeep and liability insurance.

"A house for a dollar may be an albatross around your neck," he said. "I would look at it case by case. If it sounds too good, it probably is."

CHICAGO (AP) — A Chicago seventh-grader featured in an anti-violence campaign has been shot in the back by a stray bullet outside his home.

The Chicago Sun-Times (bit.ly/1RE6uMm ) reports that 13-year-old Zarriel Trotter was listed in critical condition at Mount Sinai Hospital after the Friday night shooting.

A public service announcement filmed at his school on the city's west side features the teen describing the effect of everyday violence in a neighborhood where "people keep on getting shot, people keep on getting killed."

Police say the shooting occurred while two groups were fighting down the street from Zarriel's home. No arrests have been made.

The newspaper reports that 70 other people have been shot in the city's Austin neighborhood this year.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — A Davenport man is protesting a state law that requires him to financially support a child that's not his.

Joe Vandusen received a letter this month from the Iowa Department of Human Services notifying him that he would have to pay child support for his estranged wife's child, even though he is not the father, according to The Des Moines Register.

Vandusen, 45, said he and his wife split up without filing an official divorce and have hardly talked in the last 15 years. The child Vandusen is expected to help support is about 1 year old, he said.

Vandusen contacted the Department of Human Services' Child Support Recovery Unit to say he's not the biological father of his wife's child, and he offered to take a paternity test to prove it. He said he was told it didn't matter according to state law.

"They said since I'm still legally married, I'm going to be responsible for the child support," Vandusen said.

The Register could not reach state officials for comment, but WQAD-TV in Davenport reported that a Human Services spokesperson said in a case like Vandusen's, the husband is considered the legal father of his wife's child.

Other states have similar laws, which are aimed at making sure all children receive sufficient financial support.

Vandusen said he was recently laid off from his job and doesn't have the money to pay child support. He said he also can't afford to pay an attorney to file for divorce and fight in court against the child support requirement.

Vandusen already owes child support on his own child, who was born to another woman before his marriage. He said "in that case, I didn't deny it."

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — A federal appeals court has upheld a ruling that found a Jimmy John's franchisee violated the rights of six workers who were fired after they displayed posters in protest of the company's sick leave policy.

The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued its ruling Friday, affirming a 2014 finding by the National Labor Relations Board that said the franchisee engaged in unfair labor practices. That NLRB ruling supported one from 2012 that said the workers should get their jobs back and back pay.

MikLin Enterprises, which owns 10 Jimmy John's franchises, did not immediately return a message left at its office Sunday by The Associated Press. The company had asked the appeals court to review the NLRB's order, while the NRLB asked the court to enforce it.

Workers were happy with the outcome but said the ruling took too long.

"We were fired more than five years ago, illegally, for warning the public that our lack of paid sick days meant that they could end up eating sandwiches tainted by germs," Max Specktor, one of the employees, said in a statement to the Star Tribune (http://strib.mn/1LS2cEY ). "Justice delayed is justice denied."

The workers are aligned with the Industrial Workers of the World, which tried to organize MikLin's restaurants in 2010. Employees rejected the union, but some pro-union workers continued to highlight their lack of paid sick leave. In 2011, they displayed posters that showed two Jimmy John's sandwiches — one was described as being made by a healthy worker and the other by a sick worker.

The poster read: "Can't tell the difference? That's too bad, because Jimmy John's workers don't get paid sick days."

MikLin fired six workers and warned three others. The company argued the posters were "disloyal" and not protected speech.

On Friday, the court majority wrote: "There was substantial evidence in the record tying the effort to obtain paid sick leave with the effect that the lack of paid sick leave could have on MikLin's product."

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Information from: Star Tribune, http://www.startribune.com

By ROBERT ALLEN

Detroit Free Press

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (AP) — It lives in underground caves for at least a year, absorbing the essence of used bourbon barrels before it's released to the public.

It's helped make Michigan a world-class force for quality craft beer, and it's one of the most coveted beverages during its annual release at winter's end, the Detroit Free Press (http://on.freep.com/1peaKeT ) reported.

"If there was a dollar for every time someone asked about KBS throughout the year, I don't even know if we'd need to be open for an entire month," said Scotty Kearns, manager of 8 Degrees Plato beer store in Detroit. "There's that much draw to it."

With two kinds of Belgian chocolate, two types of locally-roasted coffee, lots of oats, roasted grains and barley, and about 11.2 percent alcohol by volume, Kentucky Breakfast Stout (KBS) is a heavy-hitting signature concoction from Founders Brewing, one of the beer makers that's helped Michigan (and Grand Rapids, specifically) earn a top-flight reputation among beer connoisseurs.

Like with Bell's Brewery's Oberon wheat ale, the annual release of KBS is something of a celebration. Unlike Oberon, Founders' KBS is quite limited and disappears quickly. People have been known to camp out in the cold for it, and 8 Degrees Plato uses a raffle-ticket system for customers eager to buy the bottles.

KBS releases in Michigan on Monday, and everywhere else April 1. The bottles and kegs are spread across Founders distribution footprint that includes states on both the Pacific and Atlantic coasts.

Founders brewmaster Jeremy Kosmicki said KBS started as an experiment with a few bourbon barrels in the early 2000s, but people didn't know they wanted it.

"Those four-packs sat in there, and nobody cared," Kosmicki said.

As the craft beer boom developed and websites tracked ratings, a wave of discerning drinkers awarded high marks to KBS: It's now ranked 16th in the world on RateBeer and 19th on Beer Advocate.

"Beers like KBS started to generate some buzz, and that really kind of set that off as far as the hype train," Kosmicki said. "At that point, it became like people were actively pursuing trying to get this beer. And we're never able to make enough."

Barrel-aged beer has grown increasingly popular in recent years, adding a level of complexity to brews that can't be matched in stainless-steel tanks. KBS was one of the first to gain widespread appreciation, and distribution has spread across the country, recently adding California. Barrel-aged brews had a strong presence at the 2016 Michigan Brewers Guild Winter Beer Festival in Grand Rapids last month.

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We recently took a trip with its makers about 3 miles from the brewery to Michigan Natural Storage to get a taste of the KBS aging process. To reach the caves, you take an elevator ride 85 feet below Grand Rapids. The former gypsum mines spread for about 6 miles of mostly narrow passages where the temperature and humidity are tightly controlled.

"This is an old sea bed, this used to be an ocean a bazillion years ago," said Jason Heystek, Founders vice president of planning, packaging and inventory. "But you can see the sedimentation, the different layers of rock. So the gypsum's the really soft stuff."

It's hard not to grin at the deep, woody bourbon-chocolate aroma of thousands of 53-gallon oak barrels lining the gray, rocky cave walls. Many of the barrels previously aged Jim Beam, Heaven Hill, Buffalo Trace or Maker's Mark.

"My hard and fast rule is: If I don't like the whisky, I don't want the barrel," Heystek said.

He said Founders is not the only one using the caves, and other clients range from beer companies to government entities. The location dates to the 1890s, when the Alabastine Mining Company started mining gypsum. Operations continued until 1943, when the company went bankrupt, according to the storage company's website. The storage site was started in 1957.

Among the 7,000 barrels on racks are future KBS and Backwoods Bastard, a Scotch ale. Heystek sprayed sanitizer on four of the barrels and popped out the bungs, removing samples with a turkey baster to give us tastes comparing Backwoods and KBS brews aging since as far back as 2011. The alcohol bite was more noticeable in the fresher samples, while the older ones had more velvety, dessert-wine flavors.

"The longer everything sits, the more oxidation you get," Heystek said, motioning to a several-years-old barrel. "So this really has a lot of sherry — like, port things, going on with it. It's interesting."

He said the barrels that held whisky longer tend to have deeper flavors, but that some blending is necessary to hit the flavor notes they're going for.

"We want the bourbon character to not be completely outrageous and the wood to still be there," he said. "You get all the vanilla and tannic stuff out of the barrels, too."

A consistent temperature is essential to aging beer, and the caves where the beer is stored are held at about 38-40 degrees Fahrenheit. The caves are naturally cool, but the KBS barrels are kept in sealed air-conditioned areas to maintain temperature and humidity. Kosmicki said that other than those two crucial factors, the caves themselves don't have much effect on the beer-aging process.

The barrels are removed via freight elevator, 16 at a time, and each weighs about 550 pounds when full with 53 gallons of liquid. The beer is trucked from Michigan Natural Storage, where it is pumped from the barrels into tanks, run through centrifuges, settled in bright tanks and carbonated before it's packaged.

Kosmicki and Heystek personally taste samples from about 90 percent of the barrels, ensuring the right flavors are there and watching for signs of infection.

The brewery announced in January that it's expanding — not only to fill the city block of its current operations, but also to an additional, barrel-aged-beer focused location in Grand Rapids. It's expected to bring the brewery from 400,000 to about 1 million barrels produced in a year.

In 2014, Founders was the 17th-largest craft brewery in the U.S. It's the largest in "Beer City" Grand Rapids, and it leads the state in output next to Kalamazoo-based Bell's Brewery.

Lately, beer enthusiasts have watched other large craft breweries sell out to macro-brew companies such as Anheuser-Busch InBev and Constellation Brands (Corona Light, Pacifico, Svedka, etc.). Founders in December 2014 announced it was selling 30 percent ownership to Mahou San Miguel, a Spanish brewery.

"I'm ecstatic we went that route," Kosmicki said. "They have no interest in telling us what we do."

He said it's also opening opportunities in international markets. Meanwhile, craft-beer drinkers across Michigan and the U.S. in the next few weeks will be watching for that brown and tan-colored KBS label. Some locations, such as HopCat Detroit, throw release parties.

"There's something to the mystique of something special to find out in the stores, but it's a lot to live up to," Kosmicki said. "Any time you get that much hype for something, it's like, 'Well, I hope people like it. I hope this isn't a disappointing year or something.'"

Kearns said it's one of the top five if not the most desired annual release.

"The beer itself is unlike any other barrel-aged beers out there: The roundness of it. Drinkability, and just the allure of getting something that is hard to find," he said. "People always want what they can't have. It's one of those you gotta have once — and once you get it, again and again."

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Information from: Detroit Free Press, http://www.freep.com

This is an AP Member Exchange shared by the Detroit Free Press

PERRYSBURG, Ohio (AP) — High school students at a northwest Ohio vocational school are raising hellbenders — North America's largest salamander.

The salamanders have seen an 80 percent decline over the past 36 years, John Navarro, of the Ohio Division of Wildlife, told The Blade in Toledo (http://bit.ly/1VNmOQW ) .

Navarro said there were so few salamanders that biologists who were looking for them couldn't find any. When they did find them, he said there were never any juveniles.

"Their numbers were scary low," he said.

Students at Penta Career Center in Perrysburg are now raising the large, lizard-like amphibians, which can grow to longer than two feet. The school is located about 10 miles south of Toledo.

Marie Kuron, 18, a Penta senior who hopes to work in wildlife care and rehabilitation, said working with the endangered species gives her a head start in her field.

"When we enter the lab and scrub in to protect these animals from any outside germs, I realize how serious this is," Kuron said. "We need to try our best to keep this species alive."

The school converted a storage room into a laboratory. Students will raise about 170 juvenile hellbenders there over the next couple years. The salamanders will then be released into southern Ohio streams.

The animals arrived at the school more than a month ago.

Ron Matter, superintendent at Penta, said the program opens many doors for its students and that students have a real opportunity to conduct research that could help the threatened species.

Penta joined the Ohio Hellbender Partnership, a group that hopes to save the salamanders using a captive rearing and release program. About 250 hellbenders have been raised to 3 years old and released since the project began.

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Information from: The Blade, http://www.toledoblade.com/

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Topeka resident Joe Jones was walking early one August morning in 1985 when he was stopped by a police officer because he fit the description of someone who assaulted a woman the day before. Jones was arrested that day and convicted the next year. He spent more than six years in prison before being exonerated through DNA evidence.

"At that trial I was convicted mainly on eyewitness identification," said Jones, 54.

Eyewitness misidentification has accounted for 71 percent of the 337 convictions overturned by DNA evidence since 1989, said Michelle Feldman, the state policy advocate of the Innocence Project, a national organization that works to free inmates wrongly imprisoned. What's more, the actual perpetrators of the crimes went on to commit and be convicted of 100 additional violent crimes, she said.

Kansas legislators are considering a bill that seeks to limit wrongful convictions by requiring law enforcement agencies to create written policies for dealing with eyewitnesses. It has support from law enforcement groups, and it has been approved by the full Senate and the House Judiciary Committee. Republican Sen. Jeff King, of Independence, said House and Senate members might include the measure in a larger package of judiciary legislation.

The bill, sponsored by Democratic Sen. David Haley, of Kansas City, would require law enforcement agencies to take steps recommended by the National Academy of Science.

First, suspect lineups would have to be conducted by an officer who doesn't know the suspect's identity. Officers using photographs instead of a physical lineup could put pictures in folders and shuffle them to make sure they don't know whose photo the witness is viewing.

"Just like any other scientific experiment, it takes any suggestiveness or unintended cues out of the process," Feldman said.

Another procedure would require a written statement from the witness about their level of certainty that the person identified from the lineup was the perpetrator. All of the people selected for the lineup would have to look similar to the perpetrator that the witness described so one person doesn't stand out. And witnesses would be told that they're not required to identify someone from the lineup.

Fourteen states have similar eyewitness identification policies, Feldman said.

Some law enforcement groups are on board, saying they appreciate the flexibility it allows agencies to add to the policy as needed.

Ed Klumpp, a lobbyist for the Kansas Association of Chiefs of Police, said most law enforcement agencies already use best practices in lineups, although there are no uniform procedures.

Haley has introduced similar bills in previous sessions but they didn't pass. He's pushing again this year because he thinks it's important to ensure accuracy.

"I don't think that anyone really wants the wrong person to serve time," Haley said

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Wisconsin is gradually taking steps to regulate cellphone use while driving, but an all-out ban is still a year or more away in the state Legislature.

This month, legislators approved a bill imposing a $20 to $40 fine for drivers talking on handheld cellphones in construction zones, with the fine rising to $50 to $100 for subsequent offenses within a year. Gov. Scott Walker's office said he plans to sign the legislation.

But the Republican-controlled Legislature ignored a Democratic proposal for a broader ban, leaving it to die as the session wrapped up this month.

Marshfield Republican Rep. John Spiros, a lead sponsor on the construction zone bill, believes the state will eventually move toward an outright ban.

"When it comes down to it, safety really is the key to this whole thing," Spiros said.

Every day in the U.S., crashes involving distracted drivers kill about eight people and injure more than 1,100, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Wisconsin and 45 other states currently prohibit texting while driving, but calling-while-driving bans have been slower to catch on, with only 14 states requiring that drivers talk on hands-free phones.

"Really, basically, it's just trying to use technology to improve driver safety," said Assembly Minority Leader Peter Barca, D-Kenosha, who introduced a bill for fining drivers who use hand-held cellphones regardless of being in construction zones.

A few Republicans have told Barca they could see merit to his broader bill, but the transportation committee didn't even hold a hearing on it.

"It sends a strong signal that they're just not willing to entertain this," Barca said.

Transportation committee chair Rep. Keith Ripp, R-Lodi, didn't return a call for comment on why the bill never got a public hearing.

Some legislators favor fewer restrictions and want to leave it up to individual rights, said Spiros, the vice-chairman of the transportation committee. For him, it's about safety. He already passed a city-level ban in 2008 during his time on the Marshfield City Council. Waupaca County, Wisconsin Rapids, Wausau and Rhinelander also have local ordinances regulating cellphone use while driving.

Spiros said he would like to hear from more constituents about the before moving forward on the state level.

Eventually, Barca said, he thinks cellphone bans will be commonplace, like texting-while-driving bans, but it may take a while.

"Old habits die hard, unfortunately," Barca said.

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Follow Bryna Godar on Twitter at https://twitter.com/bgodar

CINCINNATI (AP) — A suburban Cincinnati man has been arrested after police said he kept calling 911 every time he got drunk.

Hamilton County court records show that 27-year-old Richard Hughes was charged March 24 with making false alarms. Police say he had been warned verbally three times and was given a written warning one day before he was arrested after calling 911 again and requesting a life squad.

Police say the behavior has been going on for months, and that he is abusing emergency services. Police says the Colerain Township man has been evaluated repeatedly and told each time there is no medical issue.

Hughes has pleaded not guilty and remained jailed Sunday with $30,000 bond. A message was left for his attorney. His next court date is April 6.

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) — A payment from an unknown person on money owed to Minnehaha County has cleared the way for a man to move his family into a home.

Peter Paul plans to move his family from a two-bedroom apartment into a two-story home. The Argus Leader (http://argusne.ws/25npJ72 ) reported the father of four had obstacles in poor relief services and a bill for court-appointed attorney services from a drunken driving arrest.

Paul took his federal tax refund and began paying his debt and putting some in a place his family could call home. But the bank financing his home said he couldn't move forward until the bill for attorney fees was taken care of. He said he didn't know about the lien until the bank tried to get the title for the home.

"I didn't know how I was going to pay for it," Paul said. "I was going to go max out my credit card to pay for the amount."

Some county commissioners felt the $1,300 owed by Paul wasn't worth him being put into a hole. Some wanted to forgive his debt.

Minnehaha County Commissioner Dick Kelly said Paul had paid off debt in other counties and wanted him to pay half the money he owed, or $650. Commissioner Jeff Barth argued that the debt Paul owed elsewhere was smaller compared to Minnehaha County and they were for poor relief debt.

County commissioners settled on Paul having to pay $250. Barth said a few commission members considered teaming up to pay Paul's lien themselves.

An unknown person at the meeting paid the bill. The county auditor's office confirmed the bill was paid, but said the person who paid it wants to stay anonymous.

Paul's path to homeownership has cleared, with the move planned Friday. He said he's trying to track down the man who paid his bill.

"It was by the grace of God that he was there," Paul said. "I want to bless him for the good heart that he has."

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Information from: Argus Leader, http://www.argusleader.com

CHICAGO (AP) — Inmates in Illinois and their supporters are getting creative in their bids to draw attention to their cases.

A wooden sign along the Stevenson Expressway reads "Free Matt Sopron," while backers of another inmate in prison for a 1991 killing and armed robbery in Bloomington have passed out "Free Jamie Snow" wristbands to draw attention to efforts to get DNA testing to help show he's innocent. Supporters of John Horton of Rockford use social media to tell about efforts to undo his conviction.

Defense attorney Allan Ackerman, who has represented Sopron since 1998, believes the public appeals make a difference.

"The effort provides the public with a visual approach to an often broken system in Cook County and elsewhere," he told the Chicago Tribune (http://trib.in/1pAQbcO ).

Sopron, now 42, was one of six men convicted in the 1995 killing of two 13-year-old girls on Chicago's southwest side. Prosecutors said gang members targeting rivals mistakenly shot the girls, and Sopron was accused of ordering the shooting.

Documents filed in his appeals contend many witnesses recanted testimony, but the Illinois Appellate Court has rejected his appeals, saying the recantations weren't credible. The state's attorney's office's Conviction Integrity Unit told Ackerman almost four years ago that the case was being reviewed, but its status is unclear.

Sopron's mother organized efforts to draw attention to his case with the lack of news from prosecutors. The family has set up a website and an online petition, and Sopron thought of the expressway sign. A cousin, Lou Plucinski, put it up.

"We hope people will see it and say, 'Hey, I might be able to help,'" Plucinski said.

Snow's supporters have rallied in front of the McLean County Courthouse, and for the past five years have gathered in a park to write postcards to reporters. His case remains active with a motion seeking DNA testing of evidence in a county court and a conviction appeal in federal court.

"It's important for people who are innocent to be able to tell the public what's going on in their case," said Tara Thompson, a lawyer who represents Snow. "It's important for their supporters who want to make sure the cases aren't forgotten to know that effort helps."

Horton was convicted in 1995 of a killing and robbery at a Rockford McDonald's. His fiancee posts on social media and has built a website, and hopes his claims of innocence will bring results in court.

"It's difficult to get a mass following for these things," said Horton's lawyer, Joshua Tepfer of the Exoneration Project. "But these are people who are trying to advocate for people they love."

By JEROD CLAPP

News and Tribune

NEW ALBANY, Ind. (AP) — Drew Gukeisen pulled something out of the Ohio River no one else has ever seen, except his discovery isn't a fish tale.

Instead, his catch could go on to help a field of research find new ways to combat bacterial infections.

The biology student at Indiana University Southeast worked alongside his professor, Pamela Connerly, to search for and learn more about bacteriophages — very specific viruses that only attack very specific bacteria.

"With antibiotics and resistance becoming a problem. normal bacteria are becoming resistant to our treatments," Gukeisen said. "(But) these phages can be used to just infect those specific bacteria while leaving the remaining of the microflora in the body intact."

Gukeisen said he chose the Ohio River because moving water presents so many opportunities to find microorganisms. He took the water sample through a series of processes to cultivate the bacteria Connerly was working with, Caulobacter crescentus. When they sent their samples off for transmission electron microscopy — a method of imaging such small life — at IU's Electron Microscopy Center, they got an image back of the new phage, OHR.

"Getting the imaging was a big part for me because I'm sort of a visual type of learner," Gukeisen said. "Seeing the image of it made me realize there are millions of these in the sample that I had."

There it was, about 300 times smaller than the width of a human hair, but it still comes in larger than some of the bigger known phages, Gukeisen said. It wasn't shaped like the viruses seen in high school biology textbooks, with a rod-like central piece connecting a diamond-shaped head and a series of legs. Instead, it had an oblong head propelled by a tail.

He said its size and shape stood out, and that's one way he knew they had something different.

"When I first started, I was expecting it to look like a typical T4 virus, the head-tail configuration. But then I saw it kind of had an elongated spheroid head and a tail structure, and it was kind of unique, so I started looking in that direction," Gukeisen said.

They named it OHR, after the Ohio River. It only attacks Caulobacter crescentus, and neither the phage nor the bacterium infects humans. But Connerly said there are lots of other bacteriophages that could help with human infections.

Because of that, she said the virus Gukeisen discovered isn't anything anyone else has to worry about catching.

"These viruses have to attach to the bacteria to get in, in order to take over the bacterium and cause it to die," Connerly said. "The surface of a bacterial cell is very different from the surface of a eukaryotic cell, like our cells. There's no other cell type it could change to infect and it can only infect a limited set of bacteria."

Because of that, she said there's potential for using these viruses in something called phage therapy. If phages attack bacteria that are detrimental to humans, they can develop new therapies to kill off infection without affecting the beneficial bacteria.

Gukeisen said the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has tried to develop topical creams with phages to help prevent burn victims from getting infected on their burns.

The biggest hurdle is convincing people that these aren't viruses in the sense they're used to hearing about.

"One of the big things people have a stigma with is having viruses on oneself," Gukeisen said. "That's an area where we need to have better communication from the scientific community and the public."

The discovery of OHR is just the first step. Connerly said next, they're going to see if there's anything in OHR's DNA that can compare to known phages.

"Looking at the bigger goal, we're kind of in progress right now," Connerly said. "We've got the virus isolated, we started to characterize what it looks like and what Drew's trying to do today is to isolate the genome so we can sequence it and compare it to other genomes."

She said IU Bloomington's researchers would be interested to see if OHR has any similarities to anything they've discovered.

"One of the labs we collaborate with at IU Bloomington is really interested in some of the surface structures on that bacteria and how they're made," Connerly said. "They're using some of our phage isolates to help them understand those surface structures better, which could have similarities to bacterial surface structures we would want to target with a phage product."

Gukeisen, though he lives in Jeffersonville, is a native of Lexington, Kentucky. He said he chose to attend IU Southeast partially because of the smaller class sizes.

His interest in science began when he thought he wanted to cover the field though journalism. But he said he wasn't so great at taking pictures or writing news stories, so he decided to do the hard part and actually get into the science instead.

While getting into his undergraduate work, he got a little experience in laboratories by volunteering at the James Graham Brown Cancer Center in Louisville. He said that was pretty basic, cleaning out materials and such, but it wasn't enough when he started looking for practical experience outside of class.

He said he applied to larger companies and even the CDC for internships, but they all rejected him because of his lack of lab experience. He started asking about how to get into a lab for more detailed work and was directed to Connerly.

Connerly said she has students look for phages because there's so much diversity in them.

"Basically, any phage we find is going to be a new phage," Connerly said. "The diversity and sheer number of bacteria that are out there and the diversity of phages that are out there (make this great for undergraduate researchers)."

Gukeisen said when he was considering biology as a major, he got interested in microbiology because he'd heard 70 percent of the discoveries to be made in biology were in microbiology. Before he's finished his undergraduate degree — which he expects to receive in May — he's made one of those discoveries.

After that, he said he plans to either attend medical school or graduate school.

Connery said that practical experience he's gotten so far in the lab will help him achieve that.

"As a biology department, we have a lot of students who go on to graduate school and medical school," Connerly said. "Part of it is being able to do hands-on research and interact with faculty."

She said whether a student majors in the sciences or takes a course for their prerequisites, learning the process helps develop a deeper understanding of the field, aside from the headlines.

"I think there's a big difference between doing science and just reading about it," Connerly said. "To a lot of students, science appears to them as a bunch of facts that are in a book that are already known.

"The more we can have everyone learn about the process of science and how careful you have to be to have a good experiment. and understand what goes into that, the better you understand the process of science and get interested in it."

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Source: News and Tribune, http://bit.ly/1ZtVp6z

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Information from: News and Tribune, Jeffersonville, Ind., http://www.newsandtribune.com

This is an AP-Indiana Exchange story offered by the News and Tribune.

By ANDREA JOHNSON

Minot Daily News

MINOT, N.D. (AP) — Three area college art instructors contributed artwork for the book "Revealed: A Storybook Bible for Grown-Ups."

Micah Bloom, an assistant art professor at Minot State University, MSU art instructor Ryan Stander, and Williston State College art instructor Justin Sorensen all provided illustrations for different passages from the Bible, the Minot State Daily News (http://bit.ly/1XPEoCt ) reported.

"Ryan and I were approached by the editor, Ned Bustard, to create an illustration for a book on prints with the tagline: 'Bible Stories for Grown Ups,'" said Bloom. "I was intrigued that project would be centered around the more grisly and intense stories in the Bible... the ones we overlook when we create pictorial versions for children. I think that such stories are important because they confirm that the Bible tells stories about real people in sometimes ugly situations. These stories are the shameful foibles of the Book's heroes, recognized as spiritual archetypes and venerated patriarchs. These leaders were recognized for their great and holy deeds, and in 'Revealed,' their struggles with temptation and self-destruction. I don't usually do illustration work, but I joined the project because I wanted to get back to the lithography I was doing in graduate school some years back. Getting back to drawing was delightful, and to spend hours on the stone was wonderfully therapeutic.

"My print in the book is titled: 'Ananias and Sapphira,' and it illustrates the story in Acts 5:1-11. The image was drawn on a large piece of limestone and was printed in an old technique called lithography. This process requires multiple etches of gum Arabic and nitric acid and rolling up the stone with ink. Finally the paper is laid on the stone, and the stone is run through a press.

"In short, the story tells of how Ananias and Sapphira lied to the church elders by withholding the proceeds of some property that was sold. They claimed it was all of the money, but they held some back for selfish purposes. Depicted in the print is Peter, extending his hand to receive the money, Ananias already dead at the doorway, and Sapphira, struck dead in the middle of her dishonesty. Death pulls her to the floor."

According to a press release from Williston State College, Sorensen's piece was of the Jewish prophet Elijah in the passage found in the book of 1 Kings where God tells Elijah to stand at the mouth of a cave so he can pass in front of him. After a strong wind, a hurricane, and a fire pass by. God reveals himself in a whisper, which causes Elijah to cover his face.

"I was interested in trying to depict that unexpected manifestation of God, and how you give visual form to something that has been revealed audibly," Sorensen said. "I am very proud of what was added to this book."

The art instructors were approached by the book publisher to contribute prints after they attended a conference in Grand Rapids, Michigan, according to Williston State.

"My graduate work focused heavily on how theology can inform contemporary artistic discourse," Sorensen said in the release. "For me, this was a great opportunity to continue research that I've been heavily involved in for the past five years."

This is an AP Member Exchange shared by the Minot Daily News

By LUKE HAGEN

The Daily Republic

HOWARD, S.D. (AP) — Brad Baumgartner's intuition kicked in when the airplane's wings tilted hard in the wind.

"They've got one," said Baumgartner, a wildlife damage specialist, a.k.a. "state trapper" for the South Dakota Game, Fish & Parks Department. "When he turns hard like that, you know they saw one."

Soon, from the CB radio inside Baumgartner's truck, the pilot relayed that a coyote was located on a quarter of land southeast of Howard. It was the same quarter of land where a calf was killed by coyotes recently, which instigated the recent joint aerial-ground hunt, The Daily Republic (http://bit.ly/1q4Bgb9 ) reported.

The yellow, two-seat plane swooped in low to sort through a thick mess of cattails in search of the four-legged perpetrator.

"This is a belly crawling little-bugger," said the pilot, Tony DeCino, an employee of the U.S. Department of Agriculture-Wildlife Services, over the radio.

Tactical measures then scared the coyote from its hiding ground, and Baumgartner coached DeCino to its whereabouts.

Behind DeCino in the plane was Blake Bappe, another of GF&P's 27 statewide full-time wildlife damage specialists. Bappe, of Mitchell, is a certified aerial gunner who, with a few shots from a 12-gauge shotgun, killed the sprinting coyote.

"We won," Baumgartner said.

For all three involved, it was a job well done to help alleviate the state's growing coyote problem. And, it justifies GF&P's estimated $165,000 decision to fund a full-time pilot and plane dedicated to aerial predator hunting in eastern South Dakota for the first time in more than a decade.

The plane is owned by U.S. Department of Agriculture-Wildlife Services and is stationed in Huron, but it is fully funded through Game, Fish & Parks.

A response from a survey of landowners and producers who utilized Animal Damage Control program services helped the approval of the plane's funding last fall.

"We got all this feedback, 80 percent were happy, but a lot of people wrote in comments," said Keith Fisk, Game, Fish and Parks Wildlife Damage Program administrator, "and one of the most commented factors was they'd like to see more aerial predator control service and staffing levels.

"That's one of the main reasons we were able to get this plane, was our agency was able to make that funding commitment and allow our staff to work the time needed on these problems across the state."

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About four weeks ago, David Callies, who lives southeast of Howard, found a dead calf on a quarter of his land.

Enter the wildlife damage specialists.

They work with landowners and producers statewide to reduce wildlife damage, such as, in this case, livestock losses.

In fiscal year 2015 — which runs from July 1, 2014, to June 30, 2015 — GF&P spent more than $2.35 million to operate the wildlife damage management programs in South Dakota and responded to more than 2,600 requests, which impacted nearly 2,000 landowners and producers.

Last year was a 15-year high for total coyotes removed by wildlife damage specialists at 7,623 with 1,346 requests for assistance. It was the second-most spent on coyote control in the past 15 years at $730,690.

Baumgartner, 48, of Sioux Falls, has worked with landowners and producers in the state for more than 20 years. His job, and especially chasing coyotes, "is intense," he said.

"You love what you do, but there's a lot of pressure that goes with it," Baumgartner said. "If shooting coyotes was easy, everyone would do it and we wouldn't exist."

Between Baumgartner's ground pursuit and the plane's aerial eyes, GF&P on Thursday removed four coyotes in Miner County.

The first, that "belly-crawling, little-bugger," as DeCino called it, may have been associated with the death of Callies' calf. Callies said this is the second straight year a calf had been killed by coyotes on his property.

"We'd be lost without them," Callies said of the wildlife damage specialists.

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In 2014, GF&P acquired a second plane to help with its aerial hunting program. Prior to that, Spearfish stationed the only plane used across the state, aside from any privately contracted work that was hired by the GF&P for predator control. That meant landowners and producers sometimes were forced to wait until the plane was available to fly across the state, from Spearfish to East River, to help with a hunt.

But when the new plane was given to the state in 2014, GF&P was able to provide 100 to 200 hours of aerial hunting services in eastern South Dakota through privately contracted pilots.

"We really struggled with that over the years to get someone over the years to work for us at the right time," Fisk said. "The big challenge is the people we were trying to contract have full-time jobs, so there were time constraints for those pilots. So trying to get effective aerial predator control across the state is almost impossible."

So when the survey sent out to landowners and producers showed more efforts were needed to address coyote problems, Fisk discussed solutions with the then-newly appointed GF&P Secretary Kelly Hepler. Eventually, it was approved and its services are shared among all wildlife damage specialists in eastern South Dakota via request. The plane should get 500 to 600 hours of hunting time this year, almost tripling the previous availability.

While the plane and pilot are owned and employed by USDA-Wildlife Services, GF&P funds everything involved at an approximate cost of $165,000 annually. Fisk said that decision was made because DeCino's training is provided by USDA-Wildlife Services.

DeCino arrived in South Dakota at the end of January to assume his aerial hunting duties. He held the same job in Oregon and is in his ninth year as an aerial hunting pilot. He's been a flying pilot for 27 years.

He estimated he spends about 30 hours per week actually flying the plane, and he makes trips throughout eastern South Dakota. Earlier this month, he was near Webster on a hunt.

On Thursday, a windy day made his job a little more difficult.

"It challenges your skillset more," he said.

But that's part of being an aerial hunting pilot, a job he describes as "bringing to bear all your skills as a hunter and a pilot."

"You've got to be able to successfully manage many tasks at the same time, whether it's avoiding obstacles and getting the coyotes in a position to get your gunner a shot, it's all those things," he said.

Added Fisk: "There are a lot of great pilots out there who have never predator hunted, and they may be able to fly an F-16 jet, but finding someone who has the hunting savvy, knowing where to look for coyotes and knowing how they behave, it takes a talented individual to do that effectively."

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Bappe was hired by GF&P in 2009 and is the first wildlife damage specialist based in Mitchell, where he moved in 2013.

Bagging four coyotes Thursday in Miner County was a success, he said, but he doesn't consider himself a master as an aerial gunner just yet.

"I've only been up in the air in South Dakota about eight times," he said. "They say by the time you get to 2,000 coyotes, you know what you're doing."

Last March, Bappe decided to get certified as an aerial gunner, which required traveling to Cedar City, Utah, for a week of training. Half the course was safety education, while the other was actually learning to shoot from the plane.

GF&P has seven certified gunners, three of whom work in eastern South Dakota. There's also a full-time federal gunner who works with the plane in Spearfish.

"A lot of people cannot handle the maneuvering because they get sick," Bappe said. "You need a good stomach for being in the plane."

Both Bappe and Baumgartner said in the spring, it's more about going after a specific pair of coyotes, rather than worrying about tallying large numbers of kills. At this time of year, coyotes are known to pair up and claim a territory, so breaking up the pair can do wonders.

Bappe said in the winter, it's not uncommon to shoot 30 or 40 on a good day.

Thursday was less-than-ideal conditions for spring-time aerial hunting with wind gusts reaching 30 mph, but Baumgartner was ready to go at the break of sunrise to be ground support searching for coyotes.

About 30 minutes after the plane arrived from its post in Huron, the first coyote was killed. Baumgartner was relieved.

"These coyotes, they're not just a little educated," Baumgartner said. "They've got a master's degree on survival."

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Information from: The Daily Republic, http://www.mitchellrepublic.com

This is an AP Member Exchange shared by The Daily Republic

By CINDY HOEDEL

The Kansas City Star

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — For 40 years, David Polivka not only survived but thrived building furniture by hand in the age of Ikea. His client list read like a Who's Who of Kansas City — Hall, Ward, Tivol, Kemper.

In 1995, he crafted the interior of power couple Charles and Patty Garney's Briarcliff mansion. Patty, a civic leader, threw big fundraising parties that gave countless locals a glimpse of Polivka's art: gleaming curved paneling, carved newel posts, stately bookcases and secret doors. (The home was destroyed by fire, possibly electrical, two years ago.)

Polivka LLC, inside the former Wells Fargo stagecoach station on Third Street under the Broadway Bridge, had 10 full-time, full-benefits employees when the economy collapsed in 2008. Over the next four years, Polivka had to lay them all off, one by one.

"I was cooked, man," says Polivka, who graduated from Shawnee Mission North in 1971 and talks like a character out of "Easy Rider." ''I kept hoping I could land one last job that would allow me to retire."

The Kansas City Star (http://bit.ly/1RVVnyX ) reports that instead of a deep-pockets client, Matt Castilleja walked through the door in 2012. Castilleja (cas-tee-YAY-ha) was 25 at the time, with a bachelor's in studio art from University of Missouri-Kansas City and a small business making stuff out of reclaimed wood in his grandmother's garage.

His unfinished, weathered pieces were easy to make and sold well, but he was frustrated. He wanted to execute higher-quality designs.

"There's only so much you can learn from YouTube or woodworking magazines, so one day I walked into David's shop and asked for an internship and he said, 'No.' "

Castilleja kept coming anyhow, working without pay.

Three years later, the student has earned the trust — and business — of the master.

Polivka had a soft spot for the kid, who seemed to have a stronger work ethic than some graduate student interns he had paid in better times.

Born into a Kentucky coal mining family, Polivka, whose grandfather was killed in a mine and whose father died at 42 of cancer, saw in Castilleja the same passion that had driven him to learn an ancient craft. Polivka worked alongside master cabinet makers at Stultz Manufacturing Co., a high-end woodworking shop in Kansas City, Kansas, in the 1970s and '80s.

"Man, I was just a kid, and these old guys were making everything with hand saws and hand planers and doing veneers and stuff. It was bad-ass! I didn't know it was dying and that I was the last guy interested in that stuff. Nobody's left now except the hobby guys," Polivka says.

Castilleja knows woodworking is a dinosaur trade and doesn't care. He wants to devote himself to keeping the endangered traditions alive.

Growing up on the West Side, Castilleja used to ride his bicycle through the Crossroads and downtown as a young boy ("I wasn't supposed to, but I did.") They were ghost towns after 5 p.m., but in his late teenage years he witnessed the complete rebirth of both neighborhoods, and a renewed appreciation for solid old buildings. Maybe it would translate into a renaissance for well-built furniture, which fascinated Castilleja.

He remembers as a kindergartener visiting a cousin's house for a family dinner and standing all alone in the dining room admiring the reflection of a window in the dining room table.

"I was running my hand over the table and my grandma walked in. I asked her why this table was so much smoother and shinier than ours, and she said, I think it's the Pledge.' I knew it wasn't the Pledge, even though I didn't know why I was drawn to it," he recalls.

Michele Polivka, David's wife and business partner of 25 years, describes herself as naturally distrusting and says she was skeptical the first time she met the tall, well-dressed, soft-spoken Castilleja.

"I mean, in walks this beautiful hunk of a man with these elegant manners, and I'm thinking, 'There must be something wrong with him,' " she says.

Castilleja says he is a romantic by nature, but there was nothing romantic about his unpaid internship at Polivka. It was a calculated economic decision, driven by not wanting to come out of graduate school with a huge student loan debt and no job prospects.

The Polivkas were tough on Castilleja. "I had to unlearn what I thought I had learned on my own, and adapt to execute work at a much higher level," he says.

In the beginning, he frequently suggested shortcuts to David Polivka: "Why not do it this way? It seems like it would be quicker." Time and again Polivka would answer, "Quicker won't last, man!"

Michele Polivka remembers Castilleja pulling out a beautiful leather sketch pad, wanting to show her intricate drawings of his furniture designs.

"He had rainbows and unicorns in his eyes," she says, laughing. "I would tell him, 'Shut that book and get out on the shop floor and build that (stuff)! You've got to smell the wood, eat it and breathe it.' "

Castilleja was able to make ends meet by bartending at night. His family helped with shelter.

"They own several properties, all under some level of construction, and I didn't mind living in a house with the back wall cut off, or showering under a garden hose in the basement."

Alexis Castilleja, Matt's mom, admits to being uneasy at first about the unpaid apprenticeship.

"I was worried, of course," she says. "I couldn't figure out how he was going to support himself, and that kind of fell on us and that was worrisome. But as parents, you do your best to give your kids what they need."

Slowly she began to see that the education Matt was getting from a renowned woodworker was perhaps more valuable than graduate school. And it was a good fit with the hands-on artistic nature he had exhibited since childhood.

Over time, the Polivkas, who don't have children, came to view Matt as a son. They even let him build out a 12-by-7-foot loft space in the shop to live in it for a year.

They grilled him about his future plans: Was he thinking of moving to another city? Was he getting married soon? Was building furniture what he wanted to do with his life?

"They wanted to know if my mind and heart were truly in it," Castilleja says. He assured them he was committed to Kansas City and wanted to launch himself on a career in woodworking before starting a family.

After Castilleja showed skill at learning classic joinery and techniques, David Polivka started taking him to meetings to see how he would interact with designers and architects.

Interpersonal skills are critical for working on any building project, says bronze sculptor and former home builder Jeff Martinique, who hired Polivka for a lot of luxury residences.

"There are always conflicts between architects and interior designers, or engineers and woodworkers, or between the electricians and the heating and air guys. But David was one of the most amiable people in the puzzle," Martinique says. "He never blamed anyone. He would figure out a way to communicate with all the trades."

Castilleja proved adept in meetings. He also labored to understand bidding and billing.

He learned from Michele to say "no" to people who wanted the quality of hand-built furniture but not the price point.

"David and I were really proud of him," Michele Polivka says. "I could see him starting to connect the dots. It's plate-spinning, and he was finally getting it."

Meanwhile, David Polivka was becoming interested in hydroponic indoor gardening systems after seeing them in a River Market shop. He threw himself into researching applications in forestry, year-round food production and medical marijuana growing and began experimenting in his basement with different growing mediums for heirloom tomatoes.

Woodworking had worn his body out, and this new venture would be sales, not building.

Then last spring, when a client came in with a big residential interior job, Castilleja remembers Michele and David saying, "This is the last job for Polivka. Any new work that comes in the door is going to be Castilleja LLC. Are you ready?"

The Polivkas told Castilleja he could have the business and the shop equipment for free.

Castilleja remembers a "wave of sheer terror" washing over him, but he realized it was the opportunity of a lifetime.

One day in December, David Polivka walked over and, with a large grin, set a huge rectangular 1980s Rolodex on Castilleja's bench.

"He didn't need to say anything," Castilleja says. "I knew the gravity of the gesture."

The transfer of the business took effect in January. Since then, work has slowly flowed in.

Kansas City designer and longtime Polivka client George Terbovich welcomes the new lease on life for the respected wood shop.

"It's a natural transition from David to Matt," Terbovich says. "They are both incredibly detailed craftsman. It's a wonderful legacy David is leaving him with — the standard of excellence that always comes out of that shop. And Matt brings a fresh viewpoint to contemporary furniture."

These days David Polivka, now 62, happily tinkers with his tomato plants and grow lights in the basement of the shop. He already has hired two local employees and a full-time sales person in Michigan to represent his new company, Growpito.

When Castilleja, now 29, comes down the stairs and taps Polivka on the shoulder to ask him how to do something, it's a joy, not a burden for Polivka.

Sixty-one-year-old Michele continues to play a "mom" role for Castilleja, rejecting his first attempt at a sign for the building. It was not up to the standard he should want to project, she told him.

Even having Rufus, Polivka's shop dog, around provides Castilleja a welcome sense of continuity as the apprentice works to fill the large shoes of his mentor.

He recently got a "real" apartment downtown, a mile from the shop, and is balancing existing custom projects with his vision for the future of Castilleja LLC: lines of hand-crafted furniture that he will introduce at the high-end International Contemporary Furniture Fair in New York in the spring of 2017. He sees growing the business to at least its previous size, creating jobs for talented, committed craftsmen and women.

The furniture lines, which he hopes to sell across the country and in Kansas City, will be fully handcrafted and delivered assembled by blanket shippers, not flat-packed. Price will start at around $850 for a chair, $1,700 for a coffee table and $2,800 for queen-sized beds.

"To me, it's about continuing a stream of philosophy and techniques that have been passed down for thousands of years that are threatened by society's throwaway mentality," Castilleja says. "I see it as my duty to pass on the knowledge David has given me and to seek out and train gifted craftsmen and craftswomen to keep that tradition alive."

Castilleja says he is deeply grateful for everything the Polivkas have done for him, but he doesn't view the transition of the business as a gift.

"I look at it as: They set standards and gave me the opportunity to earn it or to fail. If I had failed they would have sold the business."

Reaching underneath his desk to pat Rufus on the head, Castilleja says, "I couldn't be happier about the future, or more afraid, or more humbled."

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Information from: The Kansas City Star, http://www.kcstar.com

An AP Member Exchange shared by The Kansas City Star