Garden City Telegram (Newspaper) - March 28, 2012, Garden City, Kansas 6 72472 00050 7 What’s Inside Annie’s Advice B8 Classified B6 Comics B5 Police Blotter A2 Obituaries A2 Opinion A4 State A3 TV Listings . B4 Weather A8 Weather Forecast Today, partly sunny and warm, high 79, low 48. Thursday, partly sunny and warm, high 84, low 47. Details on page A8. Market Prices Wheat........... 6.35 Corn.............. 6.46 Milo.............. 5.98 Soybeans.... 12.85 Grain prices at the Garden City Co- op Schwieterman Inc. reported Chicago Live Cattle Futures: April June Aug. High........... 126.10...... 122.67..... 124.79 Low............ 124.27...... 120.77..... 122.92 Stand......... 125.87...... 122.17..... 124.35 nai l- bi ters: Lady Busters, Saints split twinbill. PAGE B1 Go to www. GCTelegram. com for a slideshow from Tuesday’s GCCC- Seward County softball action. WEDNESDAY, March 28, 2012 75 cents Volume 83, No. 72 2 sections 16 pages EXAMS: Students to face tighter security when taking SAT, ACT. Pag e A6 Laurie Sisk/ Telegram Friends of Lee Richardson Zoo board member Emily Vsetecka takes her nephew, Eli Vsetecka, 4, for a test drive in one of two new surreys FOLRZ purchased for the zoo. The two surreys, one a two- seater and one a four- seater, will soon be available for rental by zoo patrons. Experts: ‘ Pink slime’ concerns unfounded TOPEKA ( AP) — Kansas House members gave first- round approval Tuesday to a proposed amendment to the state constitution aimed at blocking lawsuits over education funding. The measure advanced on a 91- 31 roll- call vote to final action, which is expected today. It must get two- thirds approval in both the House and Senate before it goes before voters. Supporters want the question on the November general election ballot. The amendment would declare that courts or the executive branch couldn’t direct the Legislature to appropriate money. The proposal is backed by Republican Gov. Sam Brownback and GOP leaders in both chambers. The Kansas Constitution currently says the state cannot spend any money unless the Legislature makes a specific appropriation. But in decisions in a school finance lawsuit in 2005 and 2006, the state Supreme Court told lawmakers they had to increase aid to public schools. The court also set specific figures. “ The court brought this on. We shouldn’t have to do this but we must,” said House Speaker Mike O’Neal, a Hutchinson Republican. “ We must protect our taxpayers and, yes, our families from a court that would have us do something that our constituents would not have us do.” Rep. Lance Kinzer, an Olathe Republican and carrier of the proposal on the House floor, said the amendment is not an attempt to limit the ability of Kansas House moves forward with plan targeting school lawsuit WASHINGTON ( AP) — The fate of President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul was cast into deeper jeopardy Tuesday as the Supreme Court’s conservative justices sharply and repeatedly questioned its core requirement that virtually every American carry insurance. The court will now take up whether any remnant of the historic law can survive if that linchpin fails. The justices’ questions in Tuesday’s hearing carried deeply serious implications but were sometimes flavored with fanciful suggestions. If the government can force people to buy health insurance, justices wanted to know, can it require people to buy burial insurance? Cell phones? Broccoli? The law, pushed to passage by Obama and congressional Democrats two years ago, would affect nearly all Americans and extend insurance coverage to 30 million people who now lack it. Republicans are strongly opposed, including the presidential contenders now campaigning for the chance to challenge Obama in November. The court focused on whether the mandate for Americans to have insurance “ is a step beyond what our cases allow,” in the words of Justice Anthony Kennedy. But Kennedy, who is often the swing vote on cases that divide the justices along ideological lines, also said he recognized the magnitude of the nation’s health care problems and seemed to suggest they would require a comprehensive solution. Justices signal deep trouble for health care overhaul By JOSEPH JACKMOVICH jjackmovich@ gctelegram. com In the wake of a national controversy that has caused a local beef processing plant to suspend operations amid scrutiny of its beef product, known by the pejorative nickname “ pink slime,” some experts and industry figures are saying the concern is unfounded. The nation may now have heard about lean, finely textured ground beef created by South Dakota- based Beef Products, Inc., known in recent media articles as “ pink slime,” but fewer may be aware of what the process to create the product entails. The company announced Monday that because of the negative sentiments surrounding its product it was suspending and potentially permanently shutting down operations at three plants. The Holcomb, Amarillo, Texas, and Waterloo, Iowa, plants will continue to pay the approximately 650 affected employees full salaries and benefits for the next 60 days. A fourth plant at South Sioux City, Neb., has not yet been affected. The company announced that 236 of those jobs were at the Holcomb plant. BPI Quality Assurance Supervisor Eugene Martinez has overseen the food safety processes at the Holcomb plan for almost 11 years. He detailed the 30- minute process for turning the raw material into final product while remaining general enough to not release any trade secrets. The first step in the process is the intake of raw product, which can come from suppliers such as the adjacent Tyson Fresh Meats plant. The raw material is beef trimmings with lean and fat, with a tendency to be more fatty. The trimmings come from the leftover meat that is usable after traditional cuts of beef but is in too small an amount to be used without processing. Martinez said that BPI does not receive product from slaughterhouses but from processing plants. He said this was significant because processing plants remove inedible materials from the meat, leaving BPI with only edible portions. “ It’s beef, and there is nothing else,” Martinez said. “ Nothing inedible comes into our facility.” Laurie Sisk/ Telegram Ellen Lynn, board treasurer for the Miles of Smiles Therapeutic Riding Program, left, accepts the High Plains Grant Makers NonProfit Leader Award for Finney County from Western Kansas Community Foundation Executive Director Shea Sinclair on Tuesday night at the Miles of Smiles arena. By SHAJIA AHMAD sahmad@ gctelegram. com For Ellen Lynn, one of the founders of the Miles and Smiles Therapeutic Riding Program, the past decade and a half has been all about the riders and volunteers she works hand- in- hand with. It was in the middle of one of those regular riding lessons at the Miles of Smiles barn that the board treasurer of the local nonprofit was surprised to learn she was receiving an honor that “ there was no way ( she) thought she’d ever get.” “ Truly without everybody, we couldn’t do this,” Lynn told the small crowd gathered Tuesday evening after being presented with this year’s High Plains Grant Makers NonProfit Leader Award for Finney County. “ Thank you so much. You don’t know what this means.” Lynn, chosen from a pool of six nominees representing area nonprofit organizations, is the second recipient of the honor made possible by a handful of area foundations and organizations. The award comes with a $ 2,500 grant that is to be used by the honoree toward professional development, according to the grant givers. “ What we find a lot of the time is that nonprofits these days are so focused on paying the bills and getting by, that’s one of the first things that gets cut — continuing education,” Shea Sinclair, executive director of the Western Kansas Community Foundation and one of the members of the award’s selection committee, said. “ Ellen really exemplified what the High Plains Grantmakers set out to show with this award, someone who shows character, relationship abilities, and leadership abilities on behalf of their nonprofit organization.” Miles of Smiles is an organization that offers both children and adults with physical, mental and emotional disabilities, the Miles of Smiles treasurer awarded $ 2,500 for work at nonprofit agency Test drive solid grounds : Coffee shop celebrates first- year anniversary. PAGE A3 See Lynn, Page A5 See Plan, Page A5 See Controversy, Page A5
